We hang around here together because we have something in common. Our interest in RPG Making in general brings us together and allows us to percieve the world from a common viewpoint. So when we communicate with each other, we start off with RPGs, Scripts, and the Art of Storytelling as a reference point. I started this post completely off topic to point out that when we have something in common, we use that to bring us together, but when we have differences, those differences tend to also drive us apart.
When we're telling stories, we need a way to relate to each of the characters in that story. If we dont have those things, the story suffers as a result. If you've seen the move "The Cabin In The Woods", you'll quickly understand the references Im about to make. If you havent seen it, I recommend that you do even if you arent a fan of the Horror Movie genre. The movie quickly explains that in a Horror Story, the Slut MUST be the First to Die. Why? Because that has become the Template of the Horror Movie genre. Far too many horror movies stay true to this template. However, you can see evidence that this Horror Template is used in other types of movies and stories as well.
Lets start off with the Horror Movie Template, as referenced by "The Cabin in the Woods". There are betwen five and seven main characters. The Whore (Slut). The Athlete, a.k.a. the Jock. The Intellectual. The Fool, usually the Stoner. And the Virgin. Some stories may have additional characters. You might have two Jocks, or Athletes, or three Fools. In typical Horror Movie fashion, once the Slut dies, the rest of the characters continue to die off until you are left only with The Virgin. The death of the Virgin is Optional, but must happen last. What is important is that the Virgin suffers through the progression of the story.
Keep this Template in mind the next time you watch a Horror Movie. Horror Games seem to break free of the constraints of the Template, but only to a certain degree. In a Horror Game as opposed to a Movie, efforts are made to wrap the Character Sterotypes into one character. You may have one main character, or several main characters. It depends on the Sub Genre of the game. Survival Horror vs Action Horror vs RPG Horror, etc. What is important is that the characters that the Player is in charge of will suffer. The Sub Genres here also determine how they will suffer. Either Physical or Psychological. Either way, the Characters are expected to suffer in some way shape or form.
This is rather important if you are working on a Horror Themed game. Enviornment is a big part of every horror game, but enviornment by itself can not make a Game into a true Horror Game. If you have a Scary Enviornment, but the characters do not Suffer, the game becomes as scary as an Amusement Park Ride. Amusement Parts tend to rely on Jump Scares or Gore Porn. But there is very little tension that comes from the worry and dreat of what is just around the corner. Without one or the other, the Horror element evaporates into the ether of storytelling and you just have a disgusting enviornment with happy-go-lucky characters whose goal seems to get from Point A to Point B and observe standard horror senery along the way.
I mentioned Gore Porn because this is where a Horror Movie shows how truly weak they've become. The story lacks in the compelling tension that pushes the characters forward through the story. Gore Porn seems to result when there is a lack of that tension. And this is a major problem in both Horror Movies and Horror Games. Gore does not make anything scary. It is the end result of something that is supposed to be Horrible. We're being given the end result of disgusting while not being given a reason to fear what would cause that disgusting to happen. We might as well just start a game with "You and all of your friends are dead. Game Over".
Gore is appropriate in both Horror Movies and Games, but when its used as a Crutch for piss poor storytelling, we dont really have any compelling reason to have any objections to the Gore. Gore Porn is NOT scary. Its Gore. Throwing copious amounts of blood and body parts everywhere barely phase us any more. But with good storytelling, something as simple as a bloody scalpel can be terrifying. Why? Because the root of Horror is that Horrible Things Happen. It is the Fear of those Horrible things that is the compelling emotion in the audience. If we do not have that compelling emotion to be afraid of the Horrible Things, we will not have any reaction to the Gore that inevitably happens as a result of the Horrible Thing. When Film and Game makers jump straight from the Horrible Thing to the Gore, thats skipping the part where we have our Fear reaction, thus, the Gore does not have the effect on us that is intended.
Theres a big problem with the formula.
The problem is that in so many of these stories, I could really give a shit less what happens to most of the characters. The reason for this is that I have absolutely no way to relate to them. At the start of this post, I mentioned that we are brought together by our common interest in making RPG Games. We have something in common. If something bad happened to one of you, I'd have a much much stronger reaction to what happened than I would if the most gruesome form of death happened to a character. I dont want anything bad to happen to any of you. The key here is that I should not want anything bad to happen to the Characters. And thats the problem with the formula. Every single stereotype of the characters I can not relate to on any level. This prevents me from being able to care about how they die.
The characters in too many horror movies and games have become so unlikable that I actually start rooting for the bad guy. This is the exact opposite of what needs to happen. Im supposed to feel good when one of the bad guys gets killed, and feel a sense of loss and sympathy when one of the good guys suffers. I start looking forward to seeing the characters that Im supposed to project my sympathies on when they suffer. With that, the Fear is gone. I dont see it as Horrible because the only Horrible Thing is the character themselves and not what happens to them. Thus, Horror translates into Gore.
We have different relationships with each of our friends and family. They are all part of our own individual "inner circle". We relate. We have things in common. Not all of our friends are friends with everyone else. You have a different relationsip with your grandparents than you do with your significant other, and those relationships are also different from those that you consider to be your friends. In storytelling, the audience needs to allow each of the characters into that "inner circle". They also need to have a different relationship with each type of character. In a Romance, you'll typically have a male and female lead, and the story is about the relationship between those two characters. The audience also consisits of males and females, where the females relationship with the female character allows them to experience the story as if they were the female lead in the story. The female audience has a different type of relationship with the male character as if it were how that male character were treating them. The male audience sees the female lead as the object of desire and projects themselves into the position of the lead male character. Then the lead male character typically does something absolutely absurd that the male audience would not do in real life. While the female audience can relate, as they see the absurd actions of the male lead happen frequently to them. The male audience on the other hand is unable to relate to the actions of the male lead. This destroys the Suspension of Disbelief for the male audience, and generally explains why males are not as fond of Romantic Comedies as females are.
When a storyteller writes a story, the story needs to be written to allow the audience to be able to first relate to each character, and be able to maintain that relationship for the duration of the story. Say you have a character in a movie that you can relate to, then the character does something that is completely unfitting of the character. That destroys the audiences relationship with that character, the character is no longer in that "inner circle" with that subsection of the audience, and the Suspension of Disbelief dissolves and the story becomes people reading lines. The words spoken and actions taken by the characters need to remain true to their form. Say you start out with a RomCom. Male lead expresses his affections for a female. Then he does something totally unbecoming of his character where he puts on a Chicken Suit, creates a Ray Gun out of duck tape and paper clips, tries to break into the NSA to steal their secrets to sell to a retired member of the KGB when a time traveler comes out of nowhere, drops a house on his sister and tells him to get back home that he needs to click his heels together three times to patch together the brother sister bond between a Unicorn and a Wallabee to save the Zoo from Bankruptcy. The level of absurdity in that example is equally absurd as the guy trying to put on a Chicken Suit to win back the affections of the estranged female protagonist. Sure, guys do stupid stuff, but we have a difficult time relating to that excessively stupid stuff. Women on the other hand see many things that guys do as being equally absurd to the NSA Zoo Purple Wallabee.
In a Horror Story, I need to be able to project myself into the story and experience the story from the point of view of one of the characters. Females will try to project themselves onto the Virgin Characters, whle the male audience will project themselves on to one of the other stereotypes. The Slut Dies First because neither member of the audience is expected to project themselves onto the Slut. But the relationship with the Slut resonates as False. The Slut is not allowed into our "inner circle" and we wouldnt have anything to do with that type of character if we met them in real life. Thus, we dont give a shit when they die. We dont care that they die first. But if we're supposed to be afraid, we need to have some semblance of sympathy for them. Even a Recovering Slut gives us more of a relationship with the character than the Slut whose only purpose is to bang or try to bang the Athlete, then die.
The death of each character needs to be given an approriate level of impact. Each character is going to see the death of the first character as the most impactful. The other most compelling death is the final death of the bad guy. But if these are characters I cant relate to, I often root for the bad guy, feel good when the Slut dies, then bad when the bad guy dies. Their suffering along the way provokes no sympathy from me, or sense of dread that anything bad is going to happen to any of the characters. I would react Negatively, but in a different way if different people I know suffered in some way. I'll have one type of a negative reaction if my girlfriend gets killed, and I'll have another type of strong negative reaction of one of my parents were killed.
One of the reasons that I personally liked "The Cabin in the Woods" was the fact that they addressed each of the stereotypes. They stayed true to the Horror Template by first killing the Slut, but I had a sense of sympathy for the Slut because of the way the story was written. She wasnt really a Slut, but was manipulated with drugs and pheramones. The character was initially a decent human being and the type of person that I'd allow into that "inner circle". She suffered by being manipulated and changed into a Slut in a way that did not break my Suspension of Disbelief. Every stereotype was completely destroyed, but still maintained by the way the story was written. But the story wasnt an excuse to show a bunch of Gore. The story became more complex when the very first scene of the movie was a bunch of labcoats working in a facility reminiscent of of a secret government weapons program. They of course were the "Bad Guys", but even then, they were written in such a way that you could relate to them and understand why they did what they did.
"I like dismembering people" is no longer a viable source of fear and tension for most people. It has evolved into Action with Blood and Guts. The characters need to be deeper. They need to have relationships with each of the other characters, and they cant all be fucking idiots that you cant relate to at all. Even the bad guys need to be deeper. The desire to chop people up into little bits has been done so many times that it is a carboard cutout without a deeper meaning. Watch a Zombie Movie and most of the time you could give two squirts of piss less how many zombies die. But what if there was a chance that the Zombies could recover from their condition? Then youre not killing Zombies any more, youre killing Humans, and that has a lot more emotional impact on an audience.
Most stories are going to stereotype their characters to some degree. The characters that I cant relate to are the ones that are two dimensional cardboard cutouts that only say shit to progress the story from point A to point B and provide logical and emotionless plot bridges. We need to get here to stop this from happening. Yeah, whooptie doo. But having the characters make a choice of self sacrifice to protect the greater good is something the audience can relate to. We can run and hide and hope someone else takes care of this problem, but the odds of that are not good. Its gonna be dangerous as hell, but we need to get here to stop this thing from happening. This also shows other aspects of good storytelling. Character Growth.
Characters need to grow. You might have one, or more protagonists, but all need to Grow. You'll have a catalyst, and an Antagonist. You'll also have an eventual conflict, and the point where the Characters grow is where they realize they need to stop running and confront to overcome the Antagonist. This lack of Character / Protagonist Growth is also where many stories lose their audience in general. Theyre confronted, challenged, then grow stronger from their experiences in the story. Putting on a Chicken Suit to try to win back the female is not what I call Character Growth. Female gets what she wants, but the males are left feeling empty of that growth in a direction that makes them a better person.
There are a lot of different elements and so many different ways to tell stories, but most have commonalities they all share. Discovery of a problem is an experience for the Audience, but not always the Characters. Characters need an Obstacle to overcome, and need to Grow in order to be able to overcome those obstacles. The audience MUST be able to relate in some way to the characters they are expected to project themselves on to. Characters need to stay true to themselves. The story needs to be able to maintain the Suspension of Disbelief, and be able to remain within the limits of the Attention Span of the audience.
Theres gonna be a lot of you that dont bother to read this entire post. I know Im long winded, but has exceeded many peoples Attention Span already. Its one of the reasons that TV shows are an hour and movies are two hours. Some people dont have an attention span that can last an entire hour program, but can be satisfied by a half hour program. Give the audience some time before continuing on the same story, but the story can continue. In games, this is going back and forth between story segment and action segment. Too much story of situational reactions without an emotional response in your audience will bore your audience. Too little and we are not able to relate to the characters. The point is, if you're going to kill a character, make sure that your audience has a strong relationship with that character before killing em off. Dont just kill em off with the excuse of painting shit red. We need to have a strong relationship to have a strong reaction when / if they die. If there is a threat of their death, that is a sense of tension and a compelling reason why a character would do something, and many times, it remains true to the characters themselves. Save the Princess / Girlfriend / President / Hostage / Victim / Family Member. So compelling that times you dont even need to say a single word. Quest: save the Princess. Thats it. Thats all you need. Everything else is Spice, and can make for a better "tasting" story instead of ones that leave a "bad taste" in our mouths.
You have a limited amount of time for the audience to establish a relationship with a character. When you introduce characters, make it quick and meaningful, but not two hours of Prologue. Allow the player to experience the story from the perspective of one of the characters. I met this guy, he's quirky, but hey, he's family. I met one or a small number of friends, this is who we are and our relationships, then get on with it. Introduce new characters and details a few at a time and allow for appropriate important reactions. Make damn sure to maintain the Audiences relationship with each of those characters. Allow the characters room to Grow. Allow secrets to be discovered and relationships to change for dynamic characters. Allow the Player to discover the history of your world through the experiences of the Characters. History can shape the Characters, and their Objectives. But most importantly, make sure I can understand what a character is doing and why theyre doing something important so that I can relate to them in some way shape or form. Stories are emotional rollercoasters and dynamic stories give us different responses to different situations. This allows for the emotional impact of the death of that character to be much more meaningful when I can relate to a character and creates a dynamic story.
Storytelling games along with the Art of Killing Characters needs to give us some type of a relationship with both the Protagonist that Grows, an Antagonist, and a compelling Dynamic Objective. Our story and our experience as Players are about us getting there.
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Thoughts?