Luring in Players

[Laraqua]

The trouble is that a lot of players aren't horror gamers. They come to roleplay looking for empowerment and excitement, sometimes even for a chance to switch off their brains after a busy day at work, rather than a chance to challenge themselves with clue trails, explore their fears, and play around with the nihilistic perspective that bad things happen to good people and that sometimes no matter how good you are ... you will get hurt and die.

I've had some success with my players with darker tastes in luring them into liking survival horror games. One player figured out how to enjoy it on an intuitive level and another one understands the pleasure of it after I explained a few things to him.

In a survival horror, the players have a lot of freedom because it's easy (and often best) to contort the plot around where they go so you can't really screw up if you go to the wrong place. Oh, you chose to go to the hospital? That's okay. That's where the next plot point is. Oh, you rested? I'll throw a monster at you but you have no penalties. Oh, you didn't rest? Now your fatigued but you're closer to the end game. All options are equally right and equally wrong. In that, it can be quite freeing. If the Storyteller plays it with a deft hand, you skirt death many times but generally you'll make it through. The game is stacked in your favour -- but it will never look like it is. Just like in the videogames that defined the genre, you'll be on your last bullet when you get to your next clip, but you'll get that next clip just when you need it. Chew through your ammunition and you'll still fail as survival horrors punish incautious players, but if you're clever you may well make it through.

Since that player's issues were based around a belief that he *should* know where to do or where to go and that he was somehow getting it all wrong, learning that the survival horror games flexed around him and that it was an experience to be enjoyed rather than a list of objectives to be won, he can relax into it a lot more and simply enjoy it. He's still no horror player, but it no longer frustrates him.

How do you deal with non-horror players? Or worse, players that don't like the dark and gritty at all? It's one thing to suggest going out and getting new players but its my experience that horror players are few and far between. What do you do to encourage them to enjoy it? How can you re-frame it?

[mosswood17]

I would say this another iteration of picking a game for your players that they will enjoy. While it is possible to get people to try new things, usually people have an idea of what they want and will not stray very far from that. I think the best you could hope for is to have them give it a try to see if they like it. If they don't like it you can't really force them to play. I have two groups going with CoC games and it took me a LONG time to recruit one of them. I think you are correct that many folks play roleplaying games to be empowered (hence the boom in high fantasy RPGs at the moment). I think a lot of the other genres, horror roleplaying included, take a bit more of a refined player who wants to try something new.

It seems you may have answered your own question. Players who don't like horror are probably not going to enjoy horror roleplaying. CoC, in my admittedly brief experience, attracts a much smaller demographic of gamer than a lot of other games.

[lordofstella]

CoC, in my admittedly brief experience, attracts a much smaller demographic of gamer than a lot of other games.

I have to respectfully disagree with this statement. This thread is something I've been waiting to discuss, because I feel strongly about it and it's a lot of the reason I love CoC.

I began running CoC in a college dorm. Previous to this, my friends and I would play DnD in the lobby area. Dozens of students would walk by the room, stop in, question what we're doing, roll their eyes and leave. Alas, only a small group of us were into role playing. This all changed though when CoC began...

When I began running CoC, students continued to stop in. This time, they started watching in silence for about a half an hour before leaving. A strange curiosity grew in them as more and more people came to watch, and for longer periods of time. Within the same week, two kids who I would never guess would be interested, approached me and asked if they could play next session. The next night, they played. When the session concluded, the first words out of their mouths were, "Damn that was fun, when are we playing again?"

From there on, dozens of people (no exaggeration) were requesting to play. I had to turn down players on a regular basis because we were exceeding 5 spots (I don't like going over 5). So, what is my point?

The point is, Call of Cthulhu does NOT carry the same bad stigma that the name Dungeons and Dragons does. The sad truth is, even mentioning DnD is enough to turn most people off to role-playing. This is a game that was attracting people of all kinds, even those guys from highschool who considered themselves, "cool."

This is what enchanted me about CoC. So many people enjoy it and are willing to try it, because they've probably never heard of it. While this is all a sort of tangent, to answer the original question: Non horror players can be drawn in. Use more mystery, and when you have a new player in the group, make all the bad stuff happen to them. It will excite them.

[kintaki]

I think the best way to deal with a non-horror player is through immersion and good storytelling. I've only been a keeper for 6 months or so, and the first game we played, The Edge of Darkness, I created so many realistic looking props, that some of my players were enchanted by the authenticity and actually kept playing to uncover more props. It's one thing when you say, "You find a scruffy sheaf of paper, after half an hour you learn xyz..." and it's another thing to say, "You find this," while handing them a scruffy sheaf of papers that the players have to decipher.

Another thing I like to use is ambient music and sound effects. In The Haunting, when the players walk into the Corbitt house and the record player turns on upstairs, I actually had speakers hidden under the table. I could see the blood draining from some of my players faces. Also in the scenario, The Temple of Bendal Dolum, when the players break open that face wall I had http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oU4Rk0NATNs playing in the background. After ten minutes one of my players started pleading with me to turn it off.

For my next scenario, The Condemned, which I'm making pages and pages of props for, (I'll post copies when I'm done), I plan on using the Blair Witch Project credits theme for when my players start to investigate the underground tunnel.