Scare Tactics: Pervasive - The Insinuator

^ On the one hand, there's the performance values that might be shared between dungeon mastering and being a fancy cannibal that the FBI needs to help them solve crimes. On the other hand, there's how these great actors responded to the challenge of playing a fancy cannibal that's been played by other great actors. 

In the video the Mads Mikkelsen Hannibal isn't very good. And I think that has to do with a kind of dread that is accessed through pervasiveness.

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Truth in Advertising

The Hannibal show was a show when Peak TV was supposedly a thing. Peak TV was a buzzword meant to describe both

1) a period when TV was as good as TV could be and 

2) a period when there was so much TV that there was about to be more of it than anyone could ever want no matter how good it was. 

The period when the TV was good mostly describes when shows could achieve finally a level of realism that was associated with movies. They were famously able to do that because of the relaxed censorship restrictions on cable networks (like HBO) and that the writers got better. The period when there's too much TV is the enduring one, coinciding with the boom of original content on streaming websites. 

What's unique about HANNIBAL is that it did not premiere on a cable network or streaming service, but on regular network TV -- NBC -- the same channel as SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE. NBC wanted a Smart Sexy Cable show so they did the Smart Sexy Cable show things: they let writers that had had writerly success push the envelope in terms of sex and violence. Which presented a creative challenge: you couldn't show nudity on NBC and as for murders there were perhaps a dozen police procedural network television shows then airing new mutilation innuendo each week. But the show was good -- and it was under appreciated -- for this same reason: that the movie-like quality it would finally achieve in order to meet this challenge had nothing to do with realism. 

There's a lot of reasons why a TV show doesn't have the presentation a movie like THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS has. A big one is that a TV show - particularly a network show ten years ago - expects to have its audience's attention regularly divided. In the compilation, Mads Mikkelsen seems clumsy because of how his scene has been re-edited. In the show the encounter plays out over multiple scenes. If it seems to end twice and start twice - it does. The performance was meant to be divided by an ad break. 

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Touch with Your Eyes

As it is, so there must be: A Horrible Thing Out There Some Place. In the case of THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, I know what that thing is and where it is. Hannibal the Cannibal, in a cell. Sooo: nothing to be afraid of?

Then why is my boss looking at me like that. 

And the warden like that. 

And this orderly like that. 

I know what the Horrible Thing is and Where it is and even what it is capable of -- it's right there in the name -- and yet... something, which -- considering how small of an adjustment it would be for it to not exist at all, fractions of an inch, between the pupil of an eye in a face facing forward that seems to be looking at a person in front of it, and the pupil of an eye in a face facing forward that seems to be looking at a camera that's in front of it -- something that is that small of a difference -- but which should make a reality-breaking difference -- is telling me BEWARE.

So many people have talked about these shots in the movie because crossing the line is easy to identify once you know to look for the line. However what's more important for making the sequence dreadful are probably the shots that walk right up to the line before crossing it.

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He Doesn't Blink

Matching eyelines is a technical term for making sure that if an actor is looking at a thing in a scene, on camera they actually look like they're looking in the direction of that thing. This often has to be faked. In the case of THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, it's clearly faked: actors looking in the direction of Clarice in fact will sometimes be looking directly into the camera: and it feels like they're looking at us watching the movie. Why would filmmakers want to be careful of that? Basically, to create a deliberate sense of place: like: the stuff in a room that's in a room is in the room even if we can't see it on screen, and the stuff in the room that's not in the room -- like a big-ass camera filming it all -- isn't -- even if an actor knows it is. 

Clarice meeting Hannibal is a great scene but especially because of how it is the culmination of an entire sequence of scenes. The sequence goes:

I. Clarice getting the mission debrief from Jack Crawford at Quantico.

II. Clarice at the asylum learning about Hannibal from the warden Frederic Chilton.

III. Clarice journeying into the dungeon-ass floor where Hannibal stays.

IV. Clarice meeting Hannibal and it's fucked. 

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I. Educator Helps Eager Student Achieve Success: Jack Crawford

 

1. shot that pans across a bunch of creepy stuff pinned to a wall

2. super close up shot of a girl from the side and at an angle where we can tell there's someone else watching her - but we don't know who they are - cuz they are out of focus - but they know the girls name and when they say it she turns to look - and the focus changes as she turns - which helps to camouflage that there was a change in focus at all - and after the focus changes we can make the guy out - and as the guy moves the shot pans around the back of the girls head tracking him

3. shot of the girl - close but not as super close as before

4. medium shot of the guy as he sits down - from the girl's shoulder 

5. medium shot of the girl as she sits down - from the guy's shoulder

6. close up shot of the guy - he's looking directly into the camera...

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II. The Doctor Will Check Your Vitals Now: Frederic Chilton

 

1. establishing shot of a dreary asylum - somebody is talking -

2. close up on the guy who's talking - he's glancing down - its just a regular close up - oh wait no what the heck - when he glanced back up he was looking directly into the camera...

3. wide shot of the girl that he's talking to.

4. close up of the guy still looking into the camera - he's trying to flirt...

5. close up of the girl curving him

6. wide shot of the guy - not looking into the camera anymore - he's behind a big desk 

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III. Totally Regular Guy No Agenda: An Orderly 

 

1. medium shot over the shoulder of a girl: a guy letting the girl into a room

2. close up of the girl looking at something in the room sideways

3. wide shot - a slooooooow pan of the room - which is dungeon-y and shows us other rooms - we don't know where they are - on security camera footage - but which makes the prison feel suddenly vast in spite of having only seen several nearly identical hallways and now this one room of it - and in this room there's prison bars and a prison orderly who is maybe looking into the camera for a moment it's hard to tell-  and another guy - a guard - who isn't looking at the camera - and then another guy - its the guy who let the girl in - except he's close - we pan into a close up of him - and he's definitely looking into the camera - and he says hey

4. medium shot over the shoulder of the guy: the girl introducing herself to the guy

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IV. Hannibal: The First Part

 

1. wide shot handheld that pushes in while panning - its a wide shot of a man in a cell

2. a wide shot over the shoulder of the guy - its a wide shot of the girl - but the shot is mostly the guy's blurry shoulder 

3. a wide shot over the shoulder of the girl - a wide shot of the guy - and it's also mostly her blurry shoulder

4, 5, 6: shot-reverse-shot as they talk

7. a wide shot of the girl - she takes out her badge - she holds it up. - then she holds it out - bringing it closer...

8. close up of the guy - telling her to bring it closer...

9. close up of the girl bringing it closer - a shadow passes over her face - helping to convey movement

10. close up of the guy as he moves closer into the most extremely-close close up yet - also passing under some messed up shadows that briefly make his eye looks like the dark hollow sockets of a skull - and now he's looking directly into the camera...

11. extremely close close up of the girl being like what the what.

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IV. Hannibal: The Money Shot

 

1.  close up of the guy - he's all the way off to one side of the frame - the right side - he's leaning against something all casual like

2. close up of the girl - note that she's also off to the side of the frame - the same side of the frame as the guy - the right

3. close up of the guy

4. close up of the girl - buuuut with a slight push in and a slight sideways movement so that the girl looks like she starts to leave the side of the frame and is getting moved towards the middle of the frame instead

5. close up of guy but there's a dramatic push in with an ever so slight pan - until the guy is in the extreme close up

6. close up of the girl - the shot pushing in and going sideways still - so that the composition keeps changing around the girl - and she goes from the center all the way now to the opposite side of the frame from where she started - all the way to the left side

7. super close up of the guy

8. close up of the girl - moved all the way to the left side of the frame 

9. medium shot of the guy putting the dossier he was reading into the chute thing - SLAM

10. close up of the girl  - a regular one - like she's in the middle of the frame not off to one side - jumping nervously as he slams the chute thing

11. a close up of the guy - he's looking into the camera - he's saying something terrible - and then - he makes a super weird tthththththth noise and jerks forward - like he was gonna tththththt all over us - we can just barely see the tip of his nose flattening for a second where it presses up against the glass wall of the camera  - errrr - the glass wall of his cell.  

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Not Just in Your Head

Working up to the cross is a careful game, but coming away from it is sudden. Whatever the watchers want from Clarice they are going to keep on wanting it from her, regardless of what they look like from her point-of-view. Clarice's head is then like an angle for seeing how even in a cell the Horror can get to her. 

Though crucially the SILENCE OF THE LAMBS doesn't go so far as to take place in someone's head (like the filmmakers who steal from it often do), it does dramatize how Clarice may be sentenced to a feeling of dread, one which we in the audience may also feel, albeit in a different parallel way, being directly addressed by characters in a movie who were, for all intents and purposes, inhabiting a very realistic, very grounded, the-stuff-in-the-room-is-in-the-room -type movie just one second and one millimeter ago. The sequence makes pervasiveness dreadful by dividing attention with extremely fine repetitive details.

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Here's a Monster That Does That

 

The Insinuator is a psychic abomination who tortures people with color. Once he was a man, now he is legion. 

R 1 

A 3

T 4

P 5

A 0

C 2

K 7

Special Abilities 

CURSE

Each time a player says the name of the Insinuator's favorite color they are effectively targeted by him -- and he gets an extra throw for an attack he might make against them now or later. As these cards accumulate, at any point the Insinuator may expend them for a Surprise Round versus the target's Max Calm. It does Standard Damage and the player has to throw on the Curse table. Each curse continues to affect the victim until the Insinuator voluntarily puts an end to it or is slain.

1 - 2: 

There's an awful taste in your mouth. Your spit is now the Insinuator's favorite color and you can't stop drooling and gagging on it and also your breath smells disgusting. Disadvantage on Appeal checks, probably.

3 - 4: 

You have a searing migraine. Your eyes are now the Insinuator's favorite color -- that's cool -- but if you look at anything that is that color you will have to make a Calm check against a 4 or else be rooted to the spot with fascination -- that's bad.

5 - 6: 

You go deaf in one ear. A song that references the Insinuator's favorite color is now playing in the other incessantly. Lose a point of calm each day and have disadvantage on most checks requiring thinking straight.

7 - 8: 

You have an insatiable thirst and hunger for things that are the Insinuator's favorite color - Calm Check versus a 3 to not immediately eat or drink whatever it is when you see one.

9 - 10: 

Anything held to your skin that isn't the Insinuator's favorite color will soon catch fire.  

EMERGE FROM THE DARKNESS 

If unwitnessed (which he often is, as he’s invisible to most creatures), the Insinuator may step into any shadow cast by something that is his favorite color and reappear through any other alike shadow within the same city. 

INVISIBILITY 

The Insinuator is unseen by all except those who observe him against a background of his favorite color.

INVULNERABILITY 

The Insinuator cannot be touched or directly harmed by anything that is his favorite color and only then by those able to see him. 

SIXTH SENSE 

The Insinuator is supersensitive to danger, hostile emotions, and signs of past trauma or the supernatural. 

Weaknesses 

The Insinuator is magically bound to honor people’s requests for space, and will move out of the way if politely asked to do so. Those who are already subject to his curses, unfortunately, lack the ability to make this request. 

The Insinuator has a vast appetite. He may be distracted fairly easily by copious amounts of quality, home-cooked food.

The players are doing their thing and they keep coming across stuff that's the same color. Say: red. Eventually someone says, another thing that's red? Pull a card -- don't turn it over. They'll be like what the... Someone else might eventually offer, well dooooo you think its because you noticed it's red? Pull a card for them, too. They'll probably get wise and stop saying the word red. Which should make figuring out and exploiting the Insinuator's weaknesses a fun challenge. Adding the Insinuator as a sub-boss to a bigger conspiracy should make any conspiracy a lot weirder too. If you have a Thoth deck, when someone asks wait what color is this thing you can throw and go off of whatever color the card is. 

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How to Use The Horror's Deck To Help Estimate Game Time

The Unit Length of A Good Time 

Body Counts

Last sesh, my players left the enormous snuff-film production soundstage that is glamoured in the wild hills above Diamond City, concluding their investigation ravaged and cursed, blinded or burned, and with an explosive gunfight car chase down a winding two-lane road. It took like 7 weeks. 

dog that is a panther - castrated

rooster that is a falcon - speared

"cowhead" - tabletopped then curbstomped

"timothy" - clubbed with a kindergartener's desk

well-armed pink-haired gentlemen - shot, run over

the dogwalker's camry - blown up

the journalist's corolla - half blown up

How many sessions is that? 4 if you count the one where we were all late and there was a show after we had to get to -- 5 if you count the one where I should've called it earlier because I had no clue what above Diamond City was hidden in the hills. Call the soundstage 3 proper game sessions long, then.

Calendar Alerts

It's been a year, and in the 5e game I play in, our party is still in Hell, still trying to take down The Big Bad Guy. When I pitched playing an RPG to my friends  -- most of whom had never played one before -- they were all curious how much of a time commitment it was going to be. Some were wary of the other pitches DnD enthusiasts had made them: how rich and amazing the character development will be, the responses of the fantasy world to their actions, after three long years sitting at the same table...

I told my friends, basically, its a new game, everyone playing it is new playing anything like it, I'm new running it or anything like it -- don't worry -- we are all prepared to swiftly abandon this project if it sucks.  

I wanted to run Demon City because I don't like fantasy and it seemed impossible that I could ever coordinate my work schedule and my friends' work schedules with the kind of consistency I thought something like a Game-of-Thrones-length series needed. But a horror movie? One bad night -- oh, that could be arranged.

Hostage Negotiations

My players

talk

a 

lot.

Except when they're freaked out :) 

But overall, the sound of our game is a three hour long argument about everything. 

This is particularly true for Action Rounds. We've had enough of them now that they understand the odds are against them -- they gotta scrap for every advantage -- and one tactical error could put them down. So when it comes to make a choice, every time its like 

"Okay but I have this [skill that doesn't apply to the present situation] so it should be better for me...!"

"Well but like lets imagine how that would go in real life..."

or 

"Okay but for them you said [previous judgement call about advantages that doesn't apply to the present situation]...!"

"Yeah but lets consider how this situation is unique..."

Which is good because it 

- affirms the reality of the fiction,

- and that the players are invested in it 

- and that the problem before them is a challenge

- a challenge in the way real life abstract problems involving the cooperation of a lot of different personalities might be a challenge

- that is, by requiring we insist from each other careful thinking about how things go in real life and how situations are unique 

 

Brain Pain

Does the mental picture of an RPG session as something like a sustained argument among friends suggest anything useful for writing them? Putting one together, wondering how many sessions I'm looking at, I'm might ask, how long might the back-and-forth be for these different player-characters to enjoyably describe a solution to these problems? 

In an epic fantasy world of warring states, it might make sense that, to resolve it, if the problem was imagined to be as challenging as it might be in real life, would probably take three years of conversations every couple weeks. Sooner maybe, if the people at the table were the trustworthy and competent representatives of the citizens of the states and not, say, violent attention-deficit plunderers (though, to be sure, what DnD player couldn't imagine a committed team of lucky violent and attention-deficit plunderers bringing some kind of positive resolution to bear upon a warring-states campaign-long type problem?). 

How long does it take to solve a problem like a snuff-film-directing illusionist necromancer?

If you are one of my players

stop

scrolling

now

thank

you

(cuz of spoilers)

How to Use The Horror's Deck To Help Estimate Game Time

Simple or Complex Discussions

The card spread above is the horror deck I'm throwing. 

The campaign element each card represents is as follows:

On the left are cards pertaining to a below-the-line snuff-film production crew (The Heirophant) who, upon realizing they are never going to receive the necromantic power (Ace of Wands) that was promised them, went on strike (2 of Wands, Dominion). It is their more brazen torture-murder-movie-making (9 of Swords, Cruelty) of Silvia Moreno (3 of Swords, Sorrow) that puts Investigator PCs onto the case. PCs begin the campaign in their clutches, about to be snuff-filmed in a rank basement lair (7 of Cups, Debauch). The lead agitator, Silvia's boyfriend Wolfgang, is squatting in his Uncle's foreclosed coffee shop, Cafe Mr. Nice Guy (8 of Cups, Indolence).

On the right is the transcendental horror herself, Duchess Emmelina Plurolle (Art) and her associated cards. She hunts Wolfgang for stealing from her production offices a magical focus --  her camera (Ace of Wands). It had been used for the movies she makes catering to a rich and perverted clientele, one of whom is a police detective colleague of the PCs (4 of Cups, Luxury). Emmelina has some terrifying ideas about nature and art which are evidenced in recycling the meat of her human victims for disgusting sculptures of animals that she then glamours to appear as simple taxidermy -- to be sold to tourists at her store, Scales & Tails (9 of Disks, Gain). 

Wolfgang has lots of terrifying ideas about how Emmelina is a necromantic poser.  An omnipresent theme in the campaign is of appearances (6 of Cups, Pleasure). Paranormal-skilled characters will be able to see through the necromantic set-dressing of the renegade snuff-film crew. Emmelina, whose necromancy is real, will test them with all kinds of illusions and doubles. 

The point is:

Adventure Themes 

- describe the kinds of problems PCs will face.  

- help rate complexity

- are, in the case of this spread:

- stuff pretending to be other stuff (6 of Cups, Pleasure)

- psychopathic torture (9 of Swords, Cruelty)

- obscure entities in conflict (2 of Wands, Dominion)

Major Horror NPCs 

 - are always complex: these are the best thing to try to kill the PCs with after all. 

 - from them emerge campaign themes

Minor Horror NPCs & Locations

- can be simple or complex: it depends.

- campaign themes give a hint: if a lot are in play, it's probably complex. If one or none: probably simple. 

Stuff Not in the Spread

- inevitably, an unexpected Minor NPC or Location became significant

- as above, the number of campaign themes at play may hint at if it should be counted as a complex or simple problem. 

Talking through a complex game problem can take a couple hours. Nearly a whole session. Sessions usually start with a simpler problem that spirals into the complex problem, or they end with the simpler one, possibly to hint at spiraling yet to come (like Downtime or a Hook). Simple problems may then take at most like an hour. 

Accounting for Bullshitting

If I had it my way, everything would be richly complex, all themes firing for every campaign element all the time even unexpected ones, we would start the game exactly on time and I would remember all the rules. So the adventure would be 8 hearty-and-perfect-sessions-long. Accounting for previous half-starts and fuck-ups, it will probably be closer to 6. 

The fun of the themes are about dried up. The clues are all in the party's hands, whether they know or not. All that's left is for them to talk out the picture (Complex) and get murdered by Emmelina (Complex). 

RPGs aren't diplomatic episodes. But the picture of them as fun and challenging discussions among friends may bring into relief even other table-side necessities like colorful description and making jokes and taking wild chances, or in a word, the bullshitting. 

   

Problem Character Changelings or What to do when its your first time as Host and a Player wants to be a type of Problem Character that’s not in the game book

Say no

— unless they are cool and use she/fae pronouns and own a cool knife that looks like this:

— in which case you should come up with a Changeling-type Problem Character for them.

Charles Voss, Sandman #18

In the folklore Changelings are fairies masquerading as human babies. What happens to the baby that's replaced is nothing good -- something to build a Horror around.

So there's a crime... 

But How Can Fairies Be Horrifying?

I don't have the book in front of me but in A Red & Pleasant Land, there's a note about flavors of absurdity Alice in Wonderland figures can have for adventure role-playing. The gist I recall is

• purple cat talking nonsense: zany
• purple cat talking nonsense who you suspect has ulterior motives: creepy. 

In Pan's Labyrinth (2006), fairies are creepy. Because mundane human-engineered abominations are equally at the table, and the movie encourages the suspicion that one fictional moral universe contains both worlds, however real they are, however plausible that is. So we may be as nervous about Pan as we might be about any adult-sized stranger in a lawless place taking pains to be alone with a vulnerable child. 

A child entertaining obscure cloven benevolence isn't scary. A child in a war zone and unsure what's real is tense to observe but not Horror. Both true, both child the same child, they may start to color each other.

So -- fairies worked out from the Crime angle could be horrifying. If things are getting too High-Fantastical, I may try losing the plot in some mundane human-engineered abomination.

If obscure cloven benevolence seems cozy, I may want to focus on its cool detachment from the world the PCs act in -- a lack of discrimination. Like R&PL says for Alice in Wonderland roleplay, make the punishment never suits the offense. 

The difference though, between creepy unfair Humpty Dumpty judgement and creepy unfair fairy judgement may be that fairy judgement is old and we are separated from it by time as like a memory. There are laws. But the codices are lost to us and the courts are long out of session. 

The Rules

To start 

• PCs starting as a Changeling are in the process of realizing they are one.
  
  Calm is 0 and the PC is as if randomly Garbled
  
  (50-50 when they speak to a new NPC that they can be well understood -- the PC should know this is a possibility but the throw itself should be secret)
  
  until they steal an object that is precious to someone that if lost would cause that person to despair
  
  (an engagement ring, a child's pet, candy from a baby, etc.)
  
  Will lose 1 Toughness a day until they steal that kind of thing
  
  Cannot activate any supernatural abilities until they steal that kind of thing

Supernatural Abilities

• Regain Toughness only by stealing precious things.
• Precognitive Dreams - visions, gets to see associated cards from the Horror's deck
• Weakness to Iron - iron will harm the Fae as easily as it would a human
• Invulnerability - cannot be reduced below 0 Toughness by ordinary means
• Sense Despair
• Hoard - stolen precious things must be kept in a Hoard. Items removed from the Hoard will damage the PC, treat each removed item as one normal attack.

Fae Form

• size of a child, fur or feathers, enormous cat's-eyes, huge mouth, can speak without moving lips, weird pointed baby teeth, (cute or cartoon aspects are disturbing in the right light) throw calm checks around it
• selective invisibility: as a spell can become invisible to all but the wicked or the pure of heart
• any other acquired supernatural abilities (see downtime)

Downtime

• 1-40 Toughness +1. This benefit can be gained twice, Max 6. After that, no ability is gained on this Throw.
• 41-61 Perception +1. This benefit can be gained 3 times, Max 6. After that, no ability is gained on this Throw.
• 72-82 Appeal +1. This benefit can be gained twice, Max 6. After that, no ability is gained on this Throw.
• 83-94 Agility +1. This benefit can be gained 5 times, Max 7. After that, no ability is gained on this Throw.
• 95 Gain the ability to Lie as the necromantic spell, at an Intensity equal to Appeal. When used, the changeling must check Calm vs an Intensity of 6 or lose a point of Calm. If this is thrown a second time, no ability is gained.
• 96-00 Results in no ability being gained unless all other abilities on the table have been gained up to the maximum benefit. If they are, then:
• 96, 97 Gain the ability to Curse (as a spell, PC can throw on the Curses table in the back of the book). When used the changeling must check Calm vs an Intensity of 6 or lose a point of Calm. The changeling's maximum number of Cursed individuals is equal to their Calm. If this is thrown a second time, no ability is gained.
• 98 Animal Enslavement ability. The changeling must check Calm vs the creature’s Appeal to use this ability or lose a point of Calm.
• 99 Shadow Movement. The changeling must check Calm vs an Intensity of 6 or lose a point of Calm when using this ability. If this is thrown a second time, no ability is gained.
• 100 Transformation. The changeling must check Calm vs an Intensity of 6 or lose a point of Calm when using this ability. If this is thrown a second time, no ability is gained.

Mike Mignola, The Chained Coffin