What notion I’ve come to is: the scariest of monsters are those that don’t miss.

Part of horror comes from a discrepancy between the protagonists’ competency and the Threat’s. Whether that Threat is Dracula, Azathoth, a Terminator, or other sight that causes nightmares in those whom encounter it, the core is that the Threat will win in a stand-up fight.

Oh, and yes, I so want to run a horror game that is about the first Terminator movie.

But many of our games don’t reflect that, at least not strictly speaking. Games often have the Threat roll to see if it hits, and there’s a good chance that it won’t. It’s reflected in our language: “the vampire attacks!”

Let’s fold, spindle and mutilate that. This means trying some experimental stuff with our games, namely (as the title says): Don’t Roll for the Horror. Start it off not with something as wishy-washy as “attacking,” but something more concrete:

The vampire jumps on you and rips your neck open with its fangs!

Now, the reason we tend to say “attack” is because we’re inviting the potential victim to respond, in no small part because the game system gives them that privilege. But by jumping right to what the Threat seeks to do with no softening, we’re doing two things:

• We’re changing the language used to respond. Horror as a theme is partly about rebelling against that which is more powerful than you. So instead of just saying “I defend” in response,” you’re saying “No! You don’t just rip my neck open!”
• We’re saying that if the Threat doesn’t succeed, it is entirely because of the protagonist’s action.

Those are both awesome things to me. So let’s look at how to rock that structure:

1. The Threat does something. Something big. It doesn’t ask. It doesn’t try. It just plain does.
2. A protagonist responds to push back, drawing the line in the sand and fighting the good fight.
3. The protagonist rolls for that action. And just the protagonist. Not an opposed roll setup. You know how strong or dangerous this specific moment is, so set the difficulty accordingly.

Depending on the result (and the numbers involved will vary from game to game), the following happens:

• Fail by bad enough: the Threat fully succeeds. Someone is probably dead.
• Fail by some amount: the Threat doesn’t get what it wants, but you’re hurt in the process.
• Succeed by a small amount: give-and-take. You’re hurt, but so is the Threat.
• Succeed by a large amount: a moment of reversal, when the Threat is the one hurt or driven off.

Each of these is important. If we’re saying that a Threat might just straight up kill someone, the roll has to reflect that chance. Otherwise, we’re just lying in our descriptions, and everyone at the table will see through it. Tension is dropped. And the middle two reflects the notion of partial failure & success — horror thrives not on absolute moments but on small victories and setbacks. Finally, you need to give hope in the moment, which is where the last result lives.

If we’re doing away with rolling, this means we throw out the idea that the Threat might act slower than protagonists — you know, initiative. Horrific competence means Threats push first. The only time when that might be different is if the protagonists are aware of the current situation and somehow make themselves able to get the jump on the Threat, and even then that’s about chance rather than certainty.

After all, that’s how it often works in horror fiction.

Finally, since I bought up “getting hurt”…my favorite system for damage in any horror game comes from Unknown Armies. It’s easy to die, and you never know how many hit points you or anyone else has left. The GM rolls & keeps track of stuff in secret. While normally I hate secret rolls, I like it for damage in horror. It has two things going for it: one, you don’t have absolute certainty of how far you can push your character; two, and frankly far more important, it causes the table to rely on the hurt described rather than numbers. That’s very powerful mojo, because it’s language that makes a horror game really pop.

Again, this is about an idea of a new game system, but it wouldn’t take much to try some of these ideas in an existing one, as long as the game can support horror beats.

***

A word of note: this setup doesn’t do action-horror — at least, if it’s the sort of “action-horror” that is more action than horror. Which most are; it’s a fun subversion of classic horror construction, where competency is more at parity even if vulnerability is still vastly not.

- Ryan

[1]To be fair, it’s not entirely hypothetical to me. I have notes about using this idea for a game system that uses my Emerging Threats Unit campaign frame, but it’s far from primetime.

What notion I’ve come to is: the scariest of monsters are those that don’t miss.

Part of horror comes from a discrepancy between the protagonists’ competency and the Threat’s. Whether that Threat is Dracula, Azathoth, a Terminator, or other sight that causes nightmares in those whom encounter it, the core is that the Threat will win in a stand-up fight.

Oh, and yes, I so want to run a horror game that is about the first Terminator movie.

But many of our games don’t reflect that, at least not strictly speaking. Games often have the Threat roll to see if it hits, and there’s a good chance that it won’t. It’s reflected in our language: “the vampire attacks!”

Let’s fold, spindle and mutilate that. This means trying some experimental stuff with our games, namely (as the title says): Don’t Roll for the Horror. Start it off not with something as wishy-washy as “attacking,” but something more concrete:

The vampire jumps on you and rips your neck open with its fangs!

Now, the reason we tend to say “attack” is because we’re inviting the potential victim to respond, in no small part because the game system gives them that privilege. But by jumping right to what the Threat seeks to do with no softening, we’re doing two things:

• We’re changing the language used to respond. Horror as a theme is partly about rebelling against that which is more powerful than you. So instead of just saying “I defend” in response,” you’re saying “No! You don’t just rip my neck open!”
• We’re saying that if the Threat doesn’t succeed, it is entirely because of the protagonist’s action.

Those are both awesome things to me. So let’s look at how to rock that structure:

1. The Threat does something. Something big. It doesn’t ask. It doesn’t try. It just plain does.
2. A protagonist responds to push back, drawing the line in the sand and fighting the good fight.
3. The protagonist rolls for that action. And just the protagonist. Not an opposed roll setup. You know how strong or dangerous this specific moment is, so set the difficulty accordingly.

Depending on the result (and the numbers involved will vary from game to game), the following happens:

• Fail by bad enough: the Threat fully succeeds. Someone is probably dead.
• Fail by some amount: the Threat doesn’t get what it wants, but you’re hurt in the process.
• Succeed by a small amount: give-and-take. You’re hurt, but so is the Threat.
• Succeed by a large amount: a moment of reversal, when the Threat is the one hurt or driven off.

Each of these is important. If we’re saying that a Threat might just straight up kill someone, the roll has to reflect that chance. Otherwise, we’re just lying in our descriptions, and everyone at the table will see through it. Tension is dropped. And the middle two reflects the notion of partial failure & success — horror thrives not on absolute moments but on small victories and setbacks. Finally, you need to give hope in the moment, which is where the last result lives.

If we’re doing away with rolling, this means we throw out the idea that the Threat might act slower than protagonists — you know, initiative. Horrific competence means Threats push first. The only time when that might be different is if the protagonists are aware of the current situation and somehow make themselves able to get the jump on the Threat, and even then that’s about chance rather than certainty.

After all, that’s how it often works in horror fiction.

Finally, since I bought up “getting hurt”…my favorite system for damage in any horror game comes from Unknown Armies. It’s easy to die, and you never know how many hit points you or anyone else has left. The GM rolls & keeps track of stuff in secret. While normally I hate secret rolls, I like it for damage in horror. It has two things going for it: one, you don’t have absolute certainty of how far you can push your character; two, and frankly far more important, it causes the table to rely on the hurt described rather than numbers. That’s very powerful mojo, because it’s language that makes a horror game really pop.

Again, this is about an idea of a new game system, but it wouldn’t take much to try some of these ideas in an existing one, as long as the game can support horror beats.

***

A word of note: this setup doesn’t do action-horror — at least, if it’s the sort of “action-horror” that is more action than horror. Which most are; it’s a fun subversion of classic horror construction, where competency is more at parity even if vulnerability is still vastly not.

- Ryan

[1]To be fair, it’s not entirely hypothetical to me. I have notes about using this idea for a game system that uses my Emerging Threats Unit campaign frame, but it’s far from primetime.

• What we see is and isn’t a sandbox game
• The sorts of sandbox games we’ve run before
• Sandbox games and IP games
• Degree of player-ownership in sandbox games
• Shoot, degree of GM-ownership in a sandbox game with heavy canon
• Helping players not used to this sort of game dive in
• Player types & expectations with such games.
• Setting up sandbox games
• Giving me shit for Dresden’s lateness. And me giving some back.
• etc.

Hope you enjoy it. Runs 48 minutes, 41 seconds.

- Ryan

[1] Lee’s note on the hosts’ about page proclaims him the “The God of Gaming.” People should not tell me that they’re gods. Ever.

I normally do this over on one social media site or another, but I’m taking it easy with social media for a few weeks at least right now, so I thought I’d try doing a Transparency Tuesday over here on my Deadly Fredly blog.

Concept is simple:

• Ask any question here in the comments
• I’ll give you a short (one to three sentence, ish) answer

The intent is for this to be about all things Evil Hat or related, but feel free to take this in whatever direction you care to.

If you’re allergic to videos, here’s what’s up:

The borderlands of the Verdigris Valley have never been peaceful, but now an invasion force gathers at the summit of the Pashuan Way, looking hungrily down on the rich homesteads and crippled fort below. The days to come will throw six men and women into a gauntlet of desperate pressures, crushing obligations, and entangling relationships. Some will fall; some will triumph; some will cave to the pressures; some will bask in the flames like a phoenix. These six stand on the precipice of The Vicious Crucible of Verdigris Valley. The only way out is through, and the only way through requires a painful transformation into something new.

The Vicious Crucible of Verdigris Valley is game for up to six players and a GM. It plays in three to five sessions, or a pulse-pouding single session of jump cuts and action sequences. Best of all, it’s free.

All Vicious Crucible games are released as a free download. I’m using a “ransom model” for funding the project, with a bit of a twist. The first game, Verdigris Valley, is already released for free (download below). If the ransom is met, I’ll publish the next game for everyone to enjoy. On top of that, when you back the project, you also get the Franchise: you get to vote on where the next Vicious Crucible will be.

So check out Verdigris Valley and decide if you’d like to see more. Then hit up the Kickstarter and pick a reward tier that looks fun.

As with Void Vultures, my role in the project is editor & co-developer, Unlike Void Vultures, this system is actually is only a few pages long. The rules are six pages in total (and Josh gets into the process of designing for that), with the supplemental material for the adventure 30 pages beyond that (including characters, locations, and a map). It has a witty back-and-forth beat mechanic that’s focused on character elements to generate the scene’s language[1]. Check it out; it’s free, and I think worth your time.

For that second game I mentioned (in case you didn’t finish the video above), Josh is doing the Kickstarter for the second Vicious Crucible game, which the backers will vote on if it succeeds. Consider backing the Kickstarter if you’re interested in that, or you just plain like what you see in Verdigris Valley and would like the see the creators get some coin for their work.

Thanks!

- Ryan

[1] Which has become one of my favorite mechanics. I love it in Cortex Plus, loved it in Dogs in the Vineyard before that.

That sound obvious, right? It’s harder than you think. Many indie peeps will write to the audience immediately around them, the folks I call alpha fans. They’re super easy to write to, because they already have a buy-in to what you think. You can engage in minimalism with them to a lazy degree. And if they’re the only people who you expect will ever buy your book or play your game — like you’re just making something for your friends — cool.

But a writer honest with him- or herself has to go farther than that, to imagine what other people outside of the alpha fan group will likely be checking this out. After all, how else are you going to grow that group? (I should point out that you’re doing this for two sets of folks: you, as a creator showing that you care about a broader group of people; and your alpha fans, who probably want more great people to play with.) So then you have to consider who, realistically, is going to check out your fan, should for some reason you break out of a small circle of folks who know about your thing and into a the notice of a larger population.

This isn’t just fantasy land. Look at Wil Wheaton pimping Fiasco. Something like that could happen to you, perhaps at that scale, perhaps smaller but still larger that your own sphere of influence.

So, who is that group? That’s something we had a discussion about with Fate Core, which ended with to following notions of audience:

• There are a lot of alpha fans of Fate. They get the ideas, which is to our benefit. So we shouldn’t write solely to them. We’re still writing for them, but we should be writing to their friends, folks they want to introduce to Fate.
• There’s a non-insignificant who want to get away with reading as little as possible, until they’re sure they’ll like something. These folks are more focused on kinesthetic learning (whether due to preference of brain makeup, whatever). So let’s make it so they only need to read the short Basics chapter, as long as someone (ideally the GM) reads the rest of the thing. And we’ll declare that to be the case upfront.
• The Fate veterans will need to have spelled out some of the terminology & rules cleanup we’re doing for Core. Since there are a bunch of different implementations of Fate right now, we don’t know which ones someone will have in mind when they’re reading Core for the first time, so we’ll have to make sure we don’t confuse them while writing to their friends.
• We will not be writing to an audience not aware of roleplaying games. Evil Hat doesn’t have the sort of advertising budget to reach out to totally new people. Like with almost every other RPG producer, we rely primarily on word of mouth & exposure to get new people to try out games. Very few people are actually exposed to our hobby directly from a book these days; they are from friends who have already been exposed. So we’re not going to waste time trying to explain our hobby to someone completely new.
• And because a game can live and die by the loudness of its alpha fans, we’re definitely still writing for them. Just not solely to them.

This conversation about audience came after some of Fate Core was written, and Lenny & I had a sit-down to talk about how we need to reflect to our audience. This solidified which of the two approaches for Core we were looking at:

• The first was a purely toolkit model. After the Basics & Aspects chapter, every single thing in Fate is entirely modular. We were going to focus solely on how to built your own Fate game from that modularity.
• The second was to take a slim setting example and build around that, so we had some finalized Core rules that embodied Fate Core, the sort of thing we could use to start with, and then drift from that central point in future discussions of toolkitting.

Because we realized the primary text focus should be to folks new to Fate, not new to roleplaying, and likely have a friend around who knows this but not necessarily, we went with the second approach. Once we understood this model, we were able to put the toolkit element — which is critical to Fate Core — in context.

What that means for the text, well, we’ll show you when we can. But for now, I just wanted to write a bit about thinking on your audience.

- Ryan

P.S. This is the core of my problems with I used to talk about Apocalypse World’s text. Which I stopped doing because rather than actually engage in conversation, the fans I talked with just said “Well, I don’t see that” and shut conversation down. Of course you don’t, you’re in the alpha group. But that’s a possibly future post, about how that phrase is toxic slime in various geek cultures.

• Something they can do by spending a plot point
• Something they can do when presented with an opportunity[1]
• Something they can do by spending a plot point in response to an opportunity.
• Some sort of special ability.

• Lucky: Can spend a plot point to reroll all of his dice (GM benefits from opportunities in both rolls)
• Opportunist: Can take an opportunity[2] to gain a plot point
• Fortune's Smile: Can spend a plot point in response to an opportunity to reroll any number of his dice. (GM benefits from opportunities in both rolls)
• Teamwork: When the Squire gives initiative to an ally, they may add a bonus d6 to their pool. If that ally is a Squire or Knight, that bonus is increased to d8.

• Bombs: The chemist may spent a plot point to create a d8 "bomb" asset, which may be of a type Fire, Ice or Lightning, and may be used as part of an attack.
• Opportunist: May take an opportunity to gain a plot point.
• Throw Potion: The chemist may use any potion in his inventory on any other party member without impacting intiative or taking a penalty[3].
• Potion Master: All potions used by the Chemist are stepped up one level. 
• Brew Potions: Given an hour and a lab (or several hours and a traveling kit), the Chemist may brew a single potion of d8 potency.  He may brew an additional potion for each PP spent.[4]

I’ve found that one or more copies of your book were sold outside of countries where the 70% Royalty Option is currently applicable. The 70% Royalty Option is only applicable for sales to customers in these sales territories:

Andorra
Austria
Belgium
Canada
France
Germany
Italy
Liechtenstein
Luxembourg
Monaco
San Marino
Switzerland
Spain
United Kingdom (including Guernsey, Jersey and Isle of Man)
United States
Vatican City

Sales to customers in other locations will receive a 35% royalty. These sales are recorded separately in your royalty reports at the 35% rate.

At this time, the reports don’t show the specific location where your titles were sold. I’ve shared your request for this feature with our business team for consideration as we make future improvements.

Thanks for using Amazon KDP.

I’m not clear on the exact why’s of the 35% thing (I’m pretty sure one of those sales was to a customer in Japan), but that’s certainly curious, isn’t it?