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> Add risk and non-supernatural horror to the game, Diseases and torture
SL James
post Feb 24 2006, 12:46 AM
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... Yet.
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ronin3338
post Feb 26 2006, 01:49 AM
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The hot thing at the Torturer's Ball this year? Vise grips and teeth. Simple, inexpensive, and teeth make a popping sound right before the screaming starts.

Yep, right up there with bamboo slivers and jumper cables. Sometimes old school is the best.
:evil:
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Fresno Bob
post Feb 26 2006, 02:20 AM
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Yeah, I read that spread in Torturer's Quarterly by Rolag the Merciless. Looks like jumper cables are shaping up to be the new rack.
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Wounded Ronin
post Mar 1 2006, 11:59 PM
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Man, this thread makes me think about how cool it would be if there were a Torturer's Ball held in some East Village club with a S&M theme and, like, creepy human rights violators from all over the world went there wearing their general suits.
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John Campbell
post Mar 3 2006, 03:42 AM
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QUOTE (Wounded Ronin)

A PC who has been hit with a large quantity of hot sand must resist 5M damage each combat turn.  No combat pool or armor applies to the damage resisance because the sand gets inside the clothes and armor.  Probably the only ways to stop taking damage are to cool the whole body off rapidly by diving into water, or to remove armor and most clothing.

I'd give half impact, I think. Sand will get inside armor, but less of it than would end up next to you if your skin were uncovered, and having a layer of padding and ballistic plates between you and the rest of the sand certainly won't hurt.

On the flip side, armor will also hold the sand that does get inside next to you, so perhaps damage should continue for (best armor rating) turns after the victim gets clear of the bulk of the dumped sand, or until they strip off their armor or jump in water, whichever comes first.
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fistandantilus4....
post Mar 3 2006, 06:09 AM
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QUOTE (Wounded Ronin)
Man, this thread makes me think about how cool it would be if there were a Torturer's Ball held in some East Village club with a S&M theme and, like, creepy human rights violators from all over the world went there wearing their general suits.

Now take that, and add an extraction
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PBTHHHHT
post Mar 3 2006, 07:01 AM
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QUOTE (fistandantilus3.0)
Now take that, and add an extraction

let's not and pretend that we did... ;)
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fistandantilus4....
post Mar 3 2006, 07:03 AM
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so now you're playing 'pretend' with an S&M theme?
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warrior_allanon
post Mar 3 2006, 07:33 AM
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one thing you also forgot from seige warfare was dumping boiling oil through the murder hole on the enemy, now john ringo came up with a variation in "March to the Stars" in which they dumped unheated fish oil into the causeway and then tossed a couple of WP grenades into the mix.

I've done something similar in which i took and used the mini-splash grenade rules and loaded them with liquid propane. Two of those in an inclosed hallway followed by a white phosforus grenade or even a HE grenade makes a very BIG explosion.
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fistandantilus4....
post Mar 3 2006, 07:39 AM
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just be glad you hadn't been hit with a fireball before you tossed those off!
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PBTHHHHT
post Mar 3 2006, 08:29 AM
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QUOTE (fistandantilus3.0)
so now you're playing 'pretend' with an S&M theme?

As long as you use safe words... :P

It would definitely be a different sort of game. Though, I don't think I want to GM such a thing, I don't want to know what my players would do... nor do I want to see their looks of disbelief that I'm running such a thing. :eek:
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Crusher Bob
post Mar 3 2006, 09:40 AM
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Getting biologic oil products to burn is pretty hard, they have flash points around 600-700F (315-370C). Making volatile fire weapons without refined petroleum products is quite difficult. This is why Greek Fire was such a big deal.
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Wounded Ronin
post Mar 19 2006, 09:40 PM
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OK, one of my entries for Tisoz's fiction contest actually links to this thread.
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Krashlocke
post Mar 25 2006, 08:57 PM
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I've found that throwing players into horrifying situations is incredibly rewarding for roleplaying and for showing characters that there aren't always black and white answers for every moral question. I believe darkest horror comes from within the metahumans themselves. You don't fear psychopaths in the movies, because they're obviously crazy - it's the ones in real life who appear perfectly normal, with families, friends, jobs, and houses that scare us all so completely.

I love watching players squirm when they find out that the nasty-looking ghoul who they were hired to kill is on the hit list because he stumbled on some video footage of some corp-exec's nice-looking kid lovingly skinning a dog alive just to hear it howl in pain.

It's also excellent when you can delve into the psyche of the players themselves and find out what disturbs them. Common fears such as enclosed spaces, clowns, needles, darkness, heights, blood, bugs, rape, cannibalism, suicide, mutilation, loneliness, or general anxiety are all easy to touch upon. This is a little bit of metagaming but you don't have to make it obvious.

On mutilation or torture: Think of places that are easy to hurt and cause immense pain or discomfort, such as feet, hands, mouths, eyes, &c. Describe what's going on in gory detail. Words like "entrail", "sinew", "tissue", and "seeping" are all good examples of descriptors I use to disturb my PCs. Water torture is boring and overdone - how about suspending the PC in the dark and having their feet sliced at with razorblades until they are oozing blood and then spread honey on them for the pet tiger and his sand-paper-like tongue to lick it off. I've no doubt that some of the distressed and raw flesh will fall of with it. Doesn't that sound more cool than just cutting off toes?

On rape: don't make it the boring cliche "Bubba"-style homosexual prison jump - introduce a psychologically damaging element to it. Use your imagination or even look at actual cases. For instance, it's almost always someone you know and trust. It's generally about power and domination - use that.

Other tricks I use to make things creepy: Make the threat one that is obviously supernatural only to find out that it's either not supernatural at all or that it's not the true motivation behind the threat. Consider the malicious creature rumored to be responsible for murders in a local neighborhood that is actually a Spirit of Man summoned by the husband of a woman who ghouled and lost all of her willpower.

Just a few ideas. I like running horror games and adding elements of horror to complicate things for my PCs.
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emo samurai
post Mar 26 2006, 03:29 AM
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Dude, aren't ghouls blind?
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Krashlocke
post Mar 26 2006, 04:36 AM
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So why does he have the friggin video? Conspiracy... I'll let you be the one to guess...
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hyzmarca
post Mar 26 2006, 05:38 AM
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Ghouls are only blind if they have their original eyes. It is fairly easy to get new eyes.
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fistandantilus4....
post Mar 26 2006, 07:27 AM
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.. hehe .. especially for ghouls

they're called 'left overs'
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PBTHHHHT
post Mar 26 2006, 07:57 PM
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QUOTE (fistandantilus3.0)
.. hehe .. especially for ghouls

they're called 'left overs'

cue rimshot. da-dum-dum-kssssss

:-)

As for horrifying situations. I'm sure many of us can pull up any number of things to really make our players squirm. But the question is, do we want to really go there?
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hyzmarca
post Mar 26 2006, 10:01 PM
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Yes. Yes we do.
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Wounded Ronin
post Mar 26 2006, 10:44 PM
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QUOTE (Krashlocke)
I've found that throwing players into horrifying situations is incredibly rewarding for roleplaying and for showing characters that there aren't always black and white answers for every moral question. I believe darkest horror comes from within the metahumans themselves. You don't fear psychopaths in the movies, because they're obviously crazy - it's the ones in real life who appear perfectly normal, with families, friends, jobs, and houses that scare us all so completely.

I love watching players squirm when they find out that the nasty-looking ghoul who they were hired to kill is on the hit list because he stumbled on some video footage of some corp-exec's nice-looking kid lovingly skinning a dog alive just to hear it howl in pain.

It's also excellent when you can delve into the psyche of the players themselves and find out what disturbs them. Common fears such as enclosed spaces, clowns, needles, darkness, heights, blood, bugs, rape, cannibalism, suicide, mutilation, loneliness, or general anxiety are all easy to touch upon. This is a little bit of metagaming but you don't have to make it obvious.

On mutilation or torture: Think of places that are easy to hurt and cause immense pain or discomfort, such as feet, hands, mouths, eyes, &c. Describe what's going on in gory detail. Words like "entrail", "sinew", "tissue", and "seeping" are all good examples of descriptors I use to disturb my PCs. Water torture is boring and overdone - how about suspending the PC in the dark and having their feet sliced at with razorblades until they are oozing blood and then spread honey on them for the pet tiger and his sand-paper-like tongue to lick it off. I've no doubt that some of the distressed and raw flesh will fall of with it. Doesn't that sound more cool than just cutting off toes?

On rape: don't make it the boring cliche "Bubba"-style homosexual prison jump - introduce a psychologically damaging element to it. Use your imagination or even look at actual cases. For instance, it's almost always someone you know and trust. It's generally about power and domination - use that.

Other tricks I use to make things creepy: Make the threat one that is obviously supernatural only to find out that it's either not supernatural at all or that it's not the true motivation behind the threat. Consider the malicious creature rumored to be responsible for murders in a local neighborhood that is actually a Spirit of Man summoned by the husband of a woman who ghouled and lost all of her willpower.

Just a few ideas. I like running horror games and adding elements of horror to complicate things for my PCs.

Yes, yes, yes! This man understands!

Let me tell you, I knew a man who GMed like this. He'd learn things about the pasts of his players, like accidents they had, things they were scared of, and so on. Then he'd run supernatural horror RPGs and confront the PCs with these fears and it really resonated with the players.

The best part of this was that the GM himself was a very depressed and tormented and interesting indvidual. He brought this stuff to life really effectively. He told me how he had one player running so scared during the game that the player was really jumpy. The player had her PC carrying around a shotgun at all times. At one point in the game the deceased spirit of someone was trying to help the PC and came back as a raven. The raven perched on a tree and looked at the PC very meaningfully. The PC and the player both were running so scared that the first thing the PC did was blow away the raven with the shotgun, getting a critical hit even. That jumpy.

Now, how could you ask for a better role playing experience than that?

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Glyph
post Mar 27 2006, 01:12 AM
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It depends on what you consider a "good" roleplaying experience. Some people might go for horror roleplaying, but others might not enjoy it at all, especially in a game like Shadowrun, where the premise is that you are playing a tough professional character. Not everyone wants to be fully immersed in the game, especially if it is dealing with unpleasant situations. Who wants that when they come to the table to have fun and unwind from the stresses of everyday life? I'm not saying horror roleplaying is bad for everyone, but you definitely want to know ahead of time if it is your group's preference.

Even then, you should be very careful bringing up real-life things in the game. For instance, if a woman in the group was raped by a teacher once, she probably won't appreciate it if her character in the game gets coerced into non-consensual sex with a Johnson who could send her parents to prison.


Now, on the subject of horror, with a willing group, I think things that are completely out of the player's control are only terrifying up to a point. Real terror comes when you are still actively participating in the game, trying to escape or survive. When you are frantically trying to convince the cult leader that you aren't a spy, you are involved. Once you fail and they take out the torture implements, it is out of your hands again.

Real terror isn't being chained up in a cell. It's when you desperately try to squirm out of your bonds, and with one sprained wrist and another bleeding one, crawl into the dark air duct that might lead to the only way out - or to another dead end. You hear a snarl ahead of you. A devil rat, or something even worse? Wounded, with one good cyberspur, you frantically attack the thing, then grunt and squeeze past the furry, bloody body of whatever it was. Now you see a faint light ahead of you. You struggle to pry the rusty grate open, as you hear some kind of drone whirring behind you - a cleaning bot, or an exterminator one, or one with tranq darts that they sent out when they saw the empty cell? Just in time, the grate pops off... and falls a long distance. The vent opens on the side of a steep cliff. But there is a narrow ledge below, that you might be able to barely get to. And so on...
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Wounded Ronin
post Mar 27 2006, 10:08 PM
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Indeed. That's why some of the things written up, like being dragged behind a vehicle, are probably escapable by a great many SR characters.
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Wounded Ronin
post Apr 19 2006, 02:30 AM
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So, I actually wrote a story for Tisoz's fiction contest that links to this thread. I think that makes me awesome.
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eralston
post Apr 19 2006, 02:39 AM
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I wouldn't have commented on this; however...

I have Giardia when I was <2 and it put me in a coma for days and I almost died... (for the record I was in the US at the time of infection)

That's about it.

Oh yeah, horror in RPing only works if your players are really attached to their characters. I know one time I ran a spike through a character (attempting much the same as described squirming) and the whole team just left them...it was sad...then the guy just went "yeah, I didn't like him anyway, I understand why you guys left him"
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