Fear

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Linden
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Fear

Post by Linden »

About to start running my third DC campaign. I've been giving some thought to the effects of fear on PCs, particularly when they encounter the more grotesque of the Dark Minions e.g. tentacular ETs, undisguised vampires and ravagers etc. The 1st edition rules contain some guidelines for these situations in the description of the Willpower skill but it seems to be pretty much left to GM's discretion. I remember Challange carried an article with a more comprehensive set of rules for fear tests. Has anyone ever used them? If so how well did they work?

Any thoughts on the issue of simulating fear in the game generally would also be much appreciated.
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Re: Fear

Post by Morthrai »

I have never tried those rules that were published in Challenge so I can't comment, but they look OK. Our very own Marcus Bone wrote up a fear mechanic which was originally published in issue 14 of Mike LaBossiere's Opifex magazine. I don't think they are available to download any more but I have the back catalogue so I can email you a copy :)
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Re: Fear

Post by ReHerakhte »

I remember that someone had done some Fear mechanics for an issue of GDW's Challenge and I think I used that as a basis for my own Fear rules.

The following is basically a cut & paste of some rules for Fear from my DC-London site
https://sites.google.com/site/darkconsp ... onventions
This page has some additional house rules under the coverall title of "Fear, Fatigue, Panic and Pain" in my attempt to make DC a little harsher.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fear
Dark Conspiracy is a game about fear, fear of what the government is doing (or not doing), fear of the corporations and their intentions, fear of the heavy hand of the law, fear of unemployment, fear of your neighbours, fear of criminals, fear of strangers and fear of the future. Into this mix has come another fear. Closely allied to the fear of the unknown, this is the fear of the strange creatures that have entered the world, creatures spoken of only in myth and horror stories.

In certain circumstances, it will be necessary for the PCs to roll for a Fear Check. This is tested against their Willpower Asset, (difficulty is determined by the Referee).
If the Character passes the Fear Check, they can act as normal during their turn.
If the Character fails the Fear Check, they have succumbed to the terror of the situation and they lose the ability to act in that particular turn.
Exact effect upon the PC is up to the Player however it must always be kept in mind that the Character is in a state of sheer terror; any normal person will typically either run in fear, freeze in place or curl up in a ball and tried to avoid acknowledging the world around them.

A terrified Character may attempt a Fear Check in their next turn in an attempt to ‘snap out of it’. This test is at one Difficulty Level lower than the original test and if passed, the PC has shaken themselves free of their fear and can get back into the action on their next turn (i.e. the second turn after they initially failed the Fear Check). If they score an Outstanding Success, they can take their action immediately instead of waiting until their next turn even if this places them out of their Initiative phase.

If they suffer a Catastrophic Failure, the PC is panic-stricken and is reduced to one thought – to flee. The only action available to the PC is to run away from the source of their fear. If flight is impossible, they drop to the floor and whimper & quiver (or any other appropriate action the Player believes their Character would do).
If the Character has suffered a Catastrophic Failure, they will remain useless until the source of the fear has gone. Only then can they attempt their Fear Check again (EASY: Willpower). Alternately, if a friend is able to assist the PC, they can try to motivate them even if the source of fear is still present (DIFF: Willpower) or the friend can wait until the source of fear is gone and try to motivate the Character (EASY: Willpower).

Note that this test is made in addition to any checks for Panic.
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Re: Fear

Post by Marcus Bone »

Morthrai wrote:I have never tried those rules that were published in Challenge so I can't comment, but they look OK. Our very own Marcus Bone wrote up a fear mechanic which was originally published in issue 14 of Mike LaBossiere's Opifex magazine. I don't think they are available to download any more but I have the back catalogue so I can email you a copy :)
Did I?

That must have been in the late 90s I'm guessing :P
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Re: Fear

Post by Morthrai »

Marcus Bone wrote:
Morthrai wrote:Our very own Marcus Bone wrote up a fear mechanic which was originally published in issue 14 of Mike LaBossiere's Opifex magazine. :)
Did I?

That must have been in the late 90s I'm guessing :P
Spot on Marcus :D The issue states it was "July & August 1998".
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Re: Fear

Post by Linden »

Thanks for your replies everyone. I think I'll go with the Challenge fear rules. They seem a good fit for the game system without adding much complexity or book keeping.
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Re: Fear

Post by Zvezda »

We have used the Challange Frear Rules for some time, than a house rule variation of the same rules. But I haven't used them often and later we dropped them altogether. Probably because in my opinion DC differs from all other RPGs. I must say, I don't like the CoC "psychology" rules at all. I personally think they are ridiculous. Especially losing sanity by reading a book. Most players like games were an art student can defeat a war hardened SAS veteran in close combat. I like games were this is not very likely to happen. Even if you put a lot of skill points on UMA in DC a civilian character still is unlikely to defeat somebody who's profession is violence. If willpower becomes an essential part of any combat (after the character creation) it is somewhat difficult to explain why the PC (let's say an Ex-SBS volunteer) has no willpower or just a little. For those of you who have been in a fight you certainly know that a very high Intelligence rating is not normally connected to the bravest or fiercest fighters. I liked the stand DC took on combat in an RPG. They made professionals in violence more capable in applying violence than academics. Without any attempts to give the later some advantages for the sake of game balance. It turned out that lifting Intelligence to the most important combat attribute did not work for us. We tried with twice the Initiative rating for a while but than we dropped that too. Keep in mind that the Challange Rules are for the d10 system were the difference between willpower and initiative was not that high because Intelligence was not added to the roll. We are all very seasoned players and gms now and we leave the reaction of fear up the the player and the character. It works way better. An other problem which occurred when we used fear rules was the connection of fear to the supernatural. You could theoretically still frontally charge an enemy machine gun nest without making a fear roll but arresting a hobbit thief would require one. We did than apply the fear rolls to all kind of combats and situations which could result in injury or death. Which was too much. As I said, we almost completely dropped it. We introduced an intimidation skill at some point and now use that to impose fear in a mundane way on other persons. For that purpose we still use the fear rules but in the reversed way. And the Outstanding Success does not lead to a free action. Just to a very witty reply.
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Re: Fear

Post by Linden »

Zvezda wrote:If willpower becomes an essential part of any combat (after the character creation) it is somewhat difficult to explain why the PC (let's say an Ex-SBS volunteer) has no willpower or just a little. For those of you who have been in a fight you certainly know that a very high Intelligence rating is not normally connected to the bravest or fiercest fighters.
Good points Zvezda. The somewhat suspect linkages between some DC attributes and skills has been discussed at length elsewhere and I don't want to go over it all again. Suffice to say I make Willpower a function of CON i.e. sheer brute determination. I agree Intelligence has nothing to do with it. I did consider that as Initiative represents to an extent someone's willingness to fight giving starting PCs starting Willpower equal to their Initiative. But then you could argue the initiative system deals with the people freezing, or not, adquately enough already. I suppose it comes down to whether you think supernatural threats are of a different order to violent ones and require separate consideration. Have to admit I'm not sure now...
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Re: Fear

Post by ReHerakhte »

I don't agree that Willpower should be linked to another attribute, I think Willpower represents "mental toughness" and so definitely falls under a mental attribute like Intelligence.
I do agree that Intelligence is not the best place for Willpower because of exactly the reasons stated above however I would argue that for military and police in the modern world, being of low intelligence usually prevents you from being accepted into the service anyway.

As something of a solution, this is a variant that I used with the D10 rules for Twilight: 2000 and DC before I switched them both to the D20 rules.
Combine the Willpower level (without the Intelligence score**) with the Initiative level for making any Willpower tests.

** just to reinforce the idea that you should use just the bare Willpower score!
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Re: Fear

Post by Morthrai »

Back in Demonground days I put together a personalised character sheet for my own games. I put Willpower as a separate attribute on there because I never thought it should be directly linked to another. Combining it with something else for certain task rolls is fine, but I treat it as its own thing :)
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Re: Fear

Post by Zvezda »

I think linking Willpower with CON is a very good idea. If I remember correctly DC3 explicitly states that you can link skills and attributes according to the situation. Linking it with Initiative is also very clever. It does however lead to a very high failure rate which, depending on how heroic your campaign is, might even be a good thing. The police and the military filled with people of average to high intelligence on the other had is a total contradiction to the way we run DC. There is no prerequisite for the lower echelons of these jobs. With the DC world no longer being about following your dreams but making a lot of money just to stay alive people with INT of five or higher would not stay in jobs which don't pay off according to their intelligence. So either they go for an officers career or they find a better job. That's only my opinion. Not that INT: 4 is really bad.
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Re: Fear

Post by Phulish »

Zvezda wrote:We have used the Challange Frear Rules for some time, than a house rule variation of the same rules. But I haven't used them often and later we dropped them altogether. Probably because in my opinion DC differs from all other RPGs. I must say, I don't like the CoC "psychology" rules at all. I personally think they are ridiculous. Especially losing sanity by reading a book. Most players like games were an art student can defeat a war hardened SAS veteran in close combat. I like games were this is not very likely to happen. Even if you put a lot of skill points on UMA in DC a civilian character still is unlikely to defeat somebody who's profession is violence. If willpower becomes an essential part of any combat (after the character creation) it is somewhat difficult to explain why the PC (let's say an Ex-SBS volunteer) has no willpower or just a little. For those of you who have been in a fight you certainly know that a very high Intelligence rating is not normally connected to the bravest or fiercest fighters. I liked the stand DC took on combat in an RPG. They made professionals in violence more capable in applying violence than academics. Without any attempts to give the later some advantages for the sake of game balance. It turned out that lifting Intelligence to the most important combat attribute did not work for us. We tried with twice the Initiative rating for a while but than we dropped that too. Keep in mind that the Challange Rules are for the d10 system were the difference between willpower and initiative was not that high because Intelligence was not added to the roll. We are all very seasoned players and gms now and we leave the reaction of fear up the the player and the character. It works way better. An other problem which occurred when we used fear rules was the connection of fear to the supernatural. You could theoretically still frontally charge an enemy machine gun nest without making a fear roll but arresting a hobbit thief would require one. We did than apply the fear rolls to all kind of combats and situations which could result in injury or death. Which was too much. As I said, we almost completely dropped it. We introduced an intimidation skill at some point and now use that to impose fear in a mundane way on other persons. For that purpose we still use the fear rules but in the reversed way. And the Outstanding Success does not lead to a free action. Just to a very witty reply.
I also disliked the CoC rules, it's one of the major reasons I gave DC a try.
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Re: Fear

Post by Linden »

I talked it over with my players and we decided not to use a Fear rule in the end. I gave them a list of DC type movies as an indicator of what the game was like, and with that in mind Fear checks just didn't seem appropriate e.g. Split Second protagonist Harley Stone's reaction to the news he might be up against Satan himself: "Well Satan's in deep s***!"

I think this campaign might have a bit of a B-movie feel. We've already had someone quoting Roddy Piper's all out of of bubble gum line from They Live.
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Re: Fear

Post by Zvezda »

Linden wrote:We've already had someone quoting Roddy Piper's all out of of bubble gum line from They Live.
It can hardly get any better, well can it now?
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