Post by Rick T.Nash on Sept 27, 2004 8:40:48 GMT -5
The following is my own opinion about the use of sex (as an horror tool) in a DG/CoC game. It was first posted on Yog-Sothoth.com as my answer to a thread there, but I thought it might be of interest to you and might raise interesting discussion...
[Start original post]
Sex (as an horror tool) can be quite hard to handle in game terms unless you know your players really well... Of course this doesn't apply _only_ to sex, but since sexual urges are a common denominator --and thus it might be easier to find a group's common limits on this subject-- finding those limits can be quite tricky.
If your descriptions of sexual crimes are too vague, the player will be able to identify with the criminal and won't be really frightnened/disgusted by the perpetrator... And you'll end up with what I'd call "The Vampire Paradox": a creature that should be scary/disgusting, becomes somehow appealing.
However, if you become too descriptive, the players will tend to take some distance from the situation as a protective reflex, and you've failed to obtain the fear/disgust you're looking for. I'd call that "The Irreversible Effect", after the French movie Irreversible, which starts with a close up of a guy being killed by repeated blows to the face with one of those big red fire extinguishers and later shows Monica Belluci being raped for over 15 minutes. Both scenes are so disgusting that they force the spectator to keep his distances with the action and somehow fail to achieve their goal... (unless their one and only goal is to shock)
Those 2 limits are actually quite close to one another. It can be hard to stay within them, but if you succeed it can be really rewarding
Of course, it is possible to go past these limits, but you have to know what you wish to achieve by doing so (specially if going past the "Irreversible" one)... Just like the director of a movie can use these to play with the feelings of his audience, the Keeper may wish to use these for a specific effect:
[end of original post]
Now, I'd like to know how "sexed" are your own campaign... And have your opinion/critics on the ideas expressed above...
Of course the above opinion doesn't even consider the possibility to roleplay sex acts (such as the sexual lives of the PCs) but I'd be interested in knowing whether you ever done so or not...
[Start original post]
Sex (as an horror tool) can be quite hard to handle in game terms unless you know your players really well... Of course this doesn't apply _only_ to sex, but since sexual urges are a common denominator --and thus it might be easier to find a group's common limits on this subject-- finding those limits can be quite tricky.
If your descriptions of sexual crimes are too vague, the player will be able to identify with the criminal and won't be really frightnened/disgusted by the perpetrator... And you'll end up with what I'd call "The Vampire Paradox": a creature that should be scary/disgusting, becomes somehow appealing.
However, if you become too descriptive, the players will tend to take some distance from the situation as a protective reflex, and you've failed to obtain the fear/disgust you're looking for. I'd call that "The Irreversible Effect", after the French movie Irreversible, which starts with a close up of a guy being killed by repeated blows to the face with one of those big red fire extinguishers and later shows Monica Belluci being raped for over 15 minutes. Both scenes are so disgusting that they force the spectator to keep his distances with the action and somehow fail to achieve their goal... (unless their one and only goal is to shock)
Those 2 limits are actually quite close to one another. It can be hard to stay within them, but if you succeed it can be really rewarding
Of course, it is possible to go past these limits, but you have to know what you wish to achieve by doing so (specially if going past the "Irreversible" one)... Just like the director of a movie can use these to play with the feelings of his audience, the Keeper may wish to use these for a specific effect:
- Keeping the player's ability to identify with the Killer may have its interests... I'll take an example: in the movie Psycho, Hitchcock often shows little voyeuristic bits, allowing the audience to identify with Norman Bates (after all looking at women while they undress through a hole in the wall is quite harmless in regards to the crimes that are being perpetrated throughout the film) which makes the audience somehow wish Norman succeeds when he tries to hide the proof against his mother, and makes the shock of the final plot twist even harder for the audience! This kind of trick can evidently be used in a game...
- Making the sexual crimes descriptions very graphic will eventually result in the players taking a distance from their feelings, yet it doesn't make those feeling weaker! It'll probably result in your players taking a "cold stance" yet starting to really "hate" the perpetrator... It might be used to the game's benefit too since it may push the players into taking extreme decisions. If the character responsible of the murders is somewhat "innocent" (such as the teenager in the DG scenario "A Victim of the Art") it may make the ultimate decision harder to take for your players (ie. should they kill the teenager and make sure this'll never happen again or deal only with the Mythos critter)...
[end of original post]
Now, I'd like to know how "sexed" are your own campaign... And have your opinion/critics on the ideas expressed above...
Of course the above opinion doesn't even consider the possibility to roleplay sex acts (such as the sexual lives of the PCs) but I'd be interested in knowing whether you ever done so or not...