How to run a set piece ?

[cowardlylion]

I am not a great gm mainly because I am pretty poor at changing gears and so their is one set piece I have tried to pull off with multiple groups with very little success and I was wondering how other gm's would do it. The scenario is pretty simple you have a demon which is the condensed despair, horror, blood-lust of a battle of the great war fused with a human spirit (ghost). The party being generally good guys want to rescue the trapped soul from its eternity of playing over the same horrors and so enter the demons pocket world. To rescue the spirit they have to get to the center of the demons nightmare world which means going through barbed wire whilst being shot at by machine guns, mortars etc. Now every time I have tried this scenario it has always lacked the horror I was aiming for and so fell flat. 

[Haru]

A lot of people have said, and I agree there, that Fate doesn't do horror very well. Fate assumes proactive, competent characters, while horror is often depending upon the feeling of total helplessness and being forced to react to things that are greater than yourself.

I know that some people in the Fate Core G+ group have tried to run horror and failed similarly. Most have come to the conclusion that they'd need a different system for a real horror feeling. A few might have managed to run a horror game, but like I said, Fate isn't inherently good for that.

That being said, do you have any examples of a scene that was supposed to induce horror but didn't? It's hard to diagnose a problem without any actual data. Maybe there's something we can do if you can tell us a bit more about what went wrong.

[cowardlylion]

Well the whole going over the top thing wasn't great I tried to build up the tension describing the sounds of the guns, the tremors through the ground etc before they ran a gauntlet of world war themed hazards on a battle field of blood and mud.  Maybe because they succeeded rather easily but the scene felt more heroic than horrific.   

[Taran]

Well the whole going over the top thing wasn't great I tried to build up the tension describing the sounds of the guns, the tremors through the ground etc before they ran a gauntlet of world war themed hazards on a battle field of blood and mud.  Maybe because they succeeded rather easily but the scene felt more heroic than horrific.   

Those descriptions should have an in-game effect...see below, otherwise they're fluff.  Here's some suggestions:

Make lots of horrific-type scene aspects and compel them.  Use them to separate the party, damage them and turn them around and get them lost. 

Also, nothing says horror like mental stress.  Instead of the bullets doing damage (or on top of bullets doing damage) have horrific images cause discipline checks.  Mental stress represents going insane.  Consequences like "paranoid", "afraid" etc... can be compelled.  Things will get really scary when your team-mates are running away or turning on you and shooting you in the back!

Use their own aspects.  If they have a background aspect revolving around their family, have images of awful things happening to the people they love.  Once again, attacks on their psyche work best to represent how that might affect the character...or just plain compels to have them do things that will challenge them.  If they're hunkering behind a border, have them run out into heavy gun-fire to save a "loved one" only to find out they're cradling a mangled corpse.

There needs to be a sense of danger too.  Challenge them.  Make them want to spend any FP's they get from the compels.

Horror is about isolation so, if you can, separate the party.  Compels can work for that. 

Also, there needs to be tension.  So having an all-out action scene is going to feel like an action movie having one player compelled to go on his own into an abandoned bunker because he thought he saw his long-lost sister will create a break from the action and a bit of tension...then you can do some of the mind tricks with some weird visions(mental attacks, possibly) and an ambush.

[Mr. Death]

Horror is also about the unknown. Getting shot at and mortared is scary, sure, but it's not horror per se. The best horror roleplay I've seen and done has been about the players and their characters feeling powerless because they didn't know what was going on.

A dozen guys shooting at you with a machine gun doesn't generate horror. A guy stalking you in a pitch black house with a knife is horror.

[Sammael]

For me horror is the unknown and being faced with something much tougher than you are. At the same time you canīt  find a easy escape.
For example a insane ghost that materialises behind your characters, grabbs them and separates them (with a block). Think like a movie monster or Batman. How do you split them up and tear them apart?

In my game a big troll-monster grappled a player and set up a wall of deadly wines between the rest of the party. left alone the troll could squeeze the life out of her bit by bit. And just as they came through the wines the monster dragged her away into the forest. The green tentacles rustling the leaves as it melted with the shadows. Naturally they pursued. They arenīt, or should I say werenīt, too bright. . .

Bonus points if they canīt really do anything against you, like physical immunity. And their only hope is banding together, backing away step after step as your nightmare-apparition of pure eyes and darkness creep toward them. The Fluff of World Of Darkness is great for ideas.

So in general itīs more about Tactics.

Then thereīs always mental combat and the consequences that can have on the characters. Who sayīs all murderers and maniacs got there by normal means?
I sometimes ask my players to roll against conviction if they see something traumatic, or a fate-point if they have a good reason.

[Taran]

I was thinking of an interesting way to separate the party.

If you have them running through a bit of open terrain while being shot at.  Their goal is a bunker 5-10 zones away.

Set up various zone barriers...some easy, like a muddy field (zone border 1) to a trench (zone border 4 or 5)  Over several exchanges, they group will get separated as they sprint.  The ones with speed powers will zoom ahead while others may lag behind.

Have one or two run into something horrific enough in their sprint that they have to make a discipline roll...nothing crazy...just enough to let them know that things are getting creepy.

Once they are kind of scattered, start pummelling them with mortar shells.  These wouldn't be attacks, they'd be zone-wide maneuvers like: gaping hole; and "Clouds of smoke 'n dust.  Target them on the players who've lagged behind.

Invoke those for effect.  Have a player fall into a hole, alone, trying to find his way out of an underground bunker.  Have another one get lost in the smoke and lose his way (run a set-piece where he's lost in the fog and something is stalking him...the gunfire etc... is all happening in the background.

Meanwhile, the ones who made it to the bunker will have other things to contend with...maybe one is compelled to run back out and find their allies...whatever.

In the end, they can all meet up and do the final scene together.