Scare Tactics: Empty - The Ditto

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Nothing Going On

We were talking about movies in the demon city discord and someone asked this good question.

The quote is Andrei Tarkovsky, who among other things made a movie in the 70s that had a long train-riding sequence of passing landscape, the backs of people's heads, and nothing going on, in sepia - and it was good. 

 

In film school there’s an idea that a marked difference in movie-making occurred when people starting making movies like this. Someone inclined to say about them, it’s just nothing going on, might’ve preferred the theoretically previous kind of movie: which star movement. Granted that there is something going on, what it is, in the Tarkovsky case, would be more like the kind of thing a movie is made from than the kind of things movies can depict. These other movies might be said to have made time-keeping the star. 

Like if someone were to think to themselves, the train to the Zone was five whole minutes longggg, they would be using the sequence to tell time, like it was a clock. If they thought it was zoom crash bam look out aiiiiiiieeee and Buster Keaton almost died on it, it would be like it had moved. And these two modes correspond to different periods of film history, goes the theory. 

"Clock-watching" is, like the question suggests, inherent to movie-watching. Kind of like how watching paint dry is inherent to seeing a painting (typically all-the-way dried).  Jackson Pollock's paintings, like clock-watching shots, take something obvious and inherent to their existence as things, like that a painting is stuff that starts wet then gets dry, and with other details, like say, the exclusion of any recognizable figures, make this material fact one of its stars. So: Tarkovsky’s train ride has a mysterious destination. The movie starts in sepia and arrives there in technicolor (exactly when it arrives there is an interesting question - made interesting by the shot's length). 

Horror movies may have long clock-watching-esque shots of nothing going on. But the shots will often instead star - with dreadful anticipation - movement. There's a Thing and it's out There, waiting some Place. It may be that to get such dread involves a wandering mind like with Tarkovsky's shot. But in a Horror movie our boredom doesn't have to get farther than the image on the poster to reach the Zone. To understand the long empty Horror shot we would be better off considering the techniques in movies that star movement. 

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It's Out There

The opening sequence of It Follows very clearly spells out for us that There's A Horrible Thing Out There Some Place. 

It goes:

1. Shot that is long and wide and moving and that will give us a clear view of the whole street from both angles, a view which includes one house with something bad in it that a girl comes running away from - a shot that in effect contains within it a couple of other shots - such as a shot of the girl in the street reacting to something - which, because it is a reaction, suggest to us another shot (like in our heads) of the thing being reacted to. So that's four shots in one. Time is money and mounting a camera onto a crane is expensive.  

 

2. Shot of desperately speeding away 

 

3. Shot that is from far away: of the girl and her abandoned car in the middle of nowhere. 

 

4. Shot that is of the girl but closer. Note the light over the water far away behind her. 

 

5. Shot of what the girl is looking towards: her car, far away. 

 

6, Shot of the girl dead by morning.

That the Thing is horrible and Out There is understood; the question is, how's it going to get to her? From the road, like she thinks, defensively illuminated by her car's interior lights? From the water like I'm convinced of, trying to outmaneuver the inevitably scary failure of the road-approach defense? Shot 4 is especially dreadful. I imagine someone striding out of the dark, up the hidden side of the beach dune, from where the girl thinks she safe from having to watch. The sequence makes emptiness dreadful with excessive information about distances. 

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Finally: A Toy

Movies have lots of tricks for deploying scare tactics, but there's one big thing that they rarely ever have, which RPGs do: nobody - but you - the host - knows what horrible thing is on the movie poster.

Here's a Horror:

Dittos are aliens that can assume the appearance of any inanimate object nearby. They can do it nigh undetectably, in the blink of an eye. Because of this, they often hunt in plain sight of their human prey, hiding as a duplicate across open terrain, office spaces, gas stations, waiting for the target to turn to get closer. Dittos in their true liquid form are incredibly fast and capable of squeezing through slivers of space. 

R -

A 9 (liquid) 0 (solid)

T 6

P 2

A -

C -

K 6

 

Special Abilities 

Dispersed Form

The Ditto can only be hurt by weapons or tactics that move large parts of its body away from the main mass or by area effects. Firearms are useless, though explosives can work. 

Asphyxiation

The Ditto can swallow a creature, depriving it of air, causing Standard Damage each round until the victim is freed.

Regenerating Metabolism

Any time the Ditto throws the Sun it gains a point of Toughness.

Acidic 

Touching a Ditto causes Standard Damage at 8 Intensity  

Mimic  

Dittos can assume the form of any inanimate thing - but they dont change their mass so: their copies are nearly always lighter or heavier than the original thing. One Ditto weighs about 250 pounds. It is rumored in UFO conspiracy circles that certain buildings are in fact an enormous mass of mimicking Dittos, waiting for something…

Weaknesses

Use of weak bases (alkaline compounds) like ammonia can neutralize or drown acidic Dittos, causing Standard Damage each round. Defeating Dittos can be an opportunity for clever uses of real-world chemistry by PCs.  

 

Once PC notice there's two of something that there was one of a second ago - they'll probably try to light it up. They get a flat 50 chance to guess right. Otherwise the Ditto will evade and liquify and slip between the cracks of something. PCs may try to identify Dittos by making note of how close suspicious objects are to them in the room. As Host, you can make any empty space suddenly seem suspicious by noting in your description what inanimate objects are closest to the PC and how many of that kind of thing there are. Or tell them that there's one less chair at the table than a minute ago. 

"HORROR WANTS PSYCOED"

In The Book of Horror: The Anatomy of Fear in Film, it says there's seven scare tactics in horror movies -- 

1. dead space

2. the subliminal

3. the unexpected

4. the grotesque

5. dread

6. the uncanny

7. the unstoppable

I keep forgetting what they are so I came up with a mnemonic:

PSYCOED

as in

HORROR WANTS

P        ervasive       (the subliminal)

S        hocking        (the unexpected)

Y        ucky            (the grotesque)

C        orporeal         (the unstoppable)

O        dd                  (the uncanny)

E        mpty             (dead space)

D        read      

I think when it comes to scares in movies, the name of the game is Dread and there’s six ways to having it. 

As for why Corporeal for Unstoppable: I think the unstoppable-ness of the Horror is usually most dreadful in scenes where the Horror can wreck people in spite of a capacity to be targeted. I figure what The Book of Horror calls The Unstoppable must be the Horror's terrible transcendent impossibility when its impossibility seems most scraped out -- when we have to deal with the fact that it is indeed there and it really did all that, and so we may fail to stop it purely because it is just that good. 

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