There's a lot of layers to this question, but it's a good one nonetheless.

Defining what you are looking for in terms of 'horror' (as Neil pointed out) is a good place to start. For example, I don't consider 'Hostel' horror in any real sense, just exploitative gore. Whereas 'Come And See' does provoke genuine horror at what is happening to the protagonist and what he is going through. Yet, 'Hostel' is considered a horror movie, while 'Come And See' is a war movie.

So, are you attempting to do a game that captures the feel of...

psychological horror, such as 'Session 9'
slasher horror, such as 'Halloween'
schlock horror, such as '2000 Maniacs'

and so on and so forth through different flavours and varieties of horror. So what falvour do you want?

Creating a feeling of genuine horror in a game is difficult and I would suggest, undesireable. You don't actually want people to experience horror. What you can use, though, is tension. Tension can work well round the game table, it provides the heightened sense of anticipation that you might find when watch a horror movie and is less 'harmful' in terms of provoking strong and sometimes unwanted emotions.

At this point, I'd suggest looking at how Dead of Night handles tension in a simple and open way. My experience in plat is that having a counter in front of you, with eveyone knowing the tension points that are there for the GM to use, really does contribute to tension and anticipation round the table.

So to my mind, what I think you might be looking for is a means to create and support tension round the table and utilise that within a horror framework.

Cheers
Malcolm

edit: Neils points appear to have disappeared. Maybe as a result of the topic being moved.

Contested Ground Studios

Contested Ground Studios

Have you seen Dread? It builds genuine tension by using Jenga as its mechanic. It sounds kinda quirky, but it does match the player and character emotions in an interesting way you may not have seen.

From a more general point of view, start with defining what you want from your horror and work backwards. Before you even think of mechanics.

-Matt

Realms Publishing

Sorry, I was rude and never saw Neil's comment before moving this.
Here, I found it hidden in my PC somewhere and C&Pd it:

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We are the music makers and we are the dreamers of dreams...

EDIT: Doh! Mat beat me, but here you are anyway.

Dread uses Jenga to simulate, well, dread. One tower for the whole table. Pull a block to do stuff, and if it falls then you perish in some way. Don't pull and you fail. Gets you nervous because your life is in your hands, and you know that you are only putting off the inevitable; the tower will fall eventually.

Its a great pacing mechanic, and there's more to it that I haven't mentioned, but I should say that I've never ran it to its full potential. This is still only a gimmick (but a good one) for raising tension, you still need an actual threatening and disturbing situation to make it work (and I suck at that).

And yeah, personally, I value being geniunely discomforted by human tragedy and suffering more than squicky monsters jumping out at you. Oh, and it has to be personal too, like, if you jump in with entrails everywhere, then there's no impact. Gotta care about 'em.

And for monsters, yeah, I mean, if you properly set up a whole session laying on how terrifying this thing is indirectly before you meet them, and then, you see your Jenga tower is real unsteady or you set your target numbers real high or whatever... then yeah, it'll be effective when they show up. Still not horror though, just a thriller.

- Richard Lacy

Okay, reading these comments, I like them.
I'm having to think.

What type of horror do i want to achieve?
I would like all to be possible.

Schlock and body horror are not too hard for me to conceptualize, they rely on the visual and the disgusting, as well as shock and tension.
I think this is a matter of narration for the core.

But what of psychological horror, and intense personal horror?

I know of Dread and I love the "tension cascade" it creates. One person will fail and die in a given period, most likely, and it becomes tense trying to see if you can avoid it. And it comes to a climax, it peaks and then it bottoms out straight away and starts again.

I think this clearly builds player tension and is pretty unique, leaving the GM to work on narrating the in game tension/horror and using the system to reinforce theplayer's own mindset.

What do i want to achieve? Tension is the right place I guess, as I don't think scaring my players is achievable long term. Sure I can pull tricks on them a couple times, but it either wears thin as they coe to expect it, or worse it offends them. And then we all get sad :(

So I want to build and maintain tension. Then I want to play with it. Make the unsafe. Make them safe. Make them unsafe again, then make them think they're safe but really they're still unsafe.
Build a sense of tension and danger and then manipulate it to assist the narrative.

Without going into too much detail, I have a functional system where your stats are a depleting resource.
The player controls the game early on, but over time a "failure cascade" builds as you have a finite number of tests you can fail before you out of traits, and the Gm controls moments of respite when you can try to get them back.
Does this help support that tension?
I think I may need something MORE. Something that adds character and reinforces or at least misleads to the impending doom that awaits the player...

I also want to explore areas that are uncomfortable for the character, as that makes a good dramatic narrative. My design incorporates the character's fears, regrets and secrets and deliberately plays on them like would be done in a movie or book to the protagonist.
But how do I make the player connect to this?
Not all RPers are immersive. Do I tie mechanics to these factors and use them to make it harder on the player? Is it possible this can make for a parallel where the character is battling their inner demons whilst the player is just depserately trying to overcome his own char gen choices?

I think I can work mechanics into this, so that these plot seeds the player gives me will affect how he plays the game.

I can then also reward him for overcoming them.

So, I am coming towards the reinforced realization that I need a strong narrative that is reinforced with a simple but effective mechanic.
Prefferably one that adds flavour.

Is this a good assumption to start on?

Thanks for your responses so far.
Talking through this helps.
It just doesn't take away the nightmares ;)

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We are the music makers and we are the dreamers of dreams...

Just as potentially useful ingredients for the pot rather than any definitive answers, I'm casting my mind back to a lecture I had at art school about the horror genre. Its well loved of intellectuals and arty types - Muriel Gray, Mark Kermode etc etc all love it, and its been well studied and deconstructed. Which is good news!

In essence, "horror" is about matter out of place. Be that as simple as the idea that soil in the house is dirt, or as drastic as body parts which should be inside being outside the body. You have stuff like the dead being alive, little girls or toys being murderers and so on. All "matter out of place". It is the consistent theme which drives horror.

Which of course is all to do with jarring the brain's nicely ordered pidgeon hole system which it builds to have to actually think as little as possible.

We were also given extensive notes on the form of the horror story, be it in literature or films, and it is incredibly formulaic - not in a negative sense - more something like the consistency of the Hero's Journey in other kinds of stories. I can't remember the durned sequence right now, but you have a number of stages, which could easily translate into gaming scenes, or stages of in-game development. It could be really cool to provoke play with shifting mechanics at different stages of a typical horror tale.

Right, enough artschool blah, I'm off to rack my brains/google for those stages.

Jon Hodgson
www.jonhodgson.com

Nice presentation of the genre.
I like the input and will keep it in mind when writing up how to run a horror game as it states some of the basics in a simple to understand way.

The way I interpret what you're saying though, it reinforces the idea that a mechanic that helps escelate the tension/peril/discomfort is a useful thing to have.

Continuing to thin and evolve the idea....

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We are the music makers and we are the dreamers of dreams...

Nothing to substantial to add but I will echo Malc's comment about taking a look at my game, Dead of Night (and not for any shameless self-promotion reasons) - it specifically mechanises Tension, with the various mechanics feeding into the Tension mechanic. Take a look and see if it does the same thing you're after.

I'll ponder the rest of your post when I get home, later, and explain my own approach to the subject.

To me obtaining horror (or fear) in an RPG is about character identification. You ask "can we be afraid if we are only playing our character's fear" and I think the answer is yes, totally, if we care deeply enough about our character then a threat to them becomes a threat to us, and that works, with the sliver of character / player distinction that remains making that enjoyable rather than horrible.

Yes, this is immersion I am talking about :) My greatest horror RPG experiences have been with either (a) LARP characters or (b) characters I have played a long time, because in both cases I am more immersed. For example I've had genuine nightmares about things happening to my LARP characters, because what I stand to lose as a player is greater, and the line between myself and the character is thinner. Similarly I have had players who experience threats (physical or emotional) to characters who they have played for years become genuinely scared in turn.

Is this a good thing? Maybe not. Is this something that system can encourage without the same investment of time that I saw ... maybe?

http://www.solipsist-rpg.com/ - http://cubicle-7.com/starblazer/