I spent three hours with him in his bright cell, and he whispered things that were not to be believed. As I left he bellowed his hoarse screams at lights-out.
That night, I couldn’t help but dream of them—formless in the light and donning gruesome shapes in the darkness. My restless sleep disturbed my wife. When she asked, I told her what I dreamt of; what he had told me.
As I sat in traffic, the morning sun dancing off of the cars in the opposite lane, I struggled to see beneath them. Between asphalt and engine, in the shadows, something moved.
At the office, leaping from the patch of sunlight on my desk, it took form in the shade beneath. I could not bring myself to approach it.
What had the madman’s whispers done to me? And my god, what terrible knowledge have I passed on to my wife?
Madness is a staple of horror stories. It is often the driving force behind the serial killer, the grim fate awaiting those who explore what we weren’t meant to know, and the excuse for the more mundane neuroses of the characters.
There are some pitfalls to worry about when running a game that includes madness. Chief among them is the danger of caricature. Exaggeration and comical madness can harm the atmosphere of a Dread game. If the characters encounter a homeless man who has been driven to the point of paranoia by the horrors he has witnessed, it lessens the impact of the experience if he is wearing the stereotypical tinfoil hat and raving about CIA mind control devices in his molars.
Madness can be a subtle yet serious element to your game. Remember that most neighbors of serial killers describe them as quiet, unassuming folk, the sort of person you would never suspect—not raving, temperamental lunatics with a maniacal laugh. Sociopaths are often considered friendly and highly charismatic.
Keep these traits in mind when playing such a character. It is far more disquieting if someone who is otherwise friendly suddenly stops talking and coldly and emotionlessly assaults you.
Take a little time to do some research if you know a character in the game is going to be insane. Look into what doctors have to say about the particular affliction, and try to reflect that. A little bit of realism here can offer a big pay off.
Likewise, if you expect one of the players’ characters to go mad, take some time beforehand to prepare a list of symptoms for the player. Madness is a horrific experience, and if you do a little homework, that should come across in the game.
It is always a good idea to ask about the fears characters might have, but in a game with insanity as a theme these fears will tend to be more irrational. “What do you fear that most people don’t?” “What happens during your commute to work that terrifies you daily?” “What are most people afraid of that you are oblivious towards?”
If the story holds opportunities for people to be driven insane, you should also ask about what predilections and defenses these characters have. “Is there a history of madness in the characters’ family?” “Why did you spend those two months committed to an asylum when you were in high school?” “How has what you witnessed in the war hardened you?”
The two easiest ways to incorporate insanity into your stories is to base events on the triggers for the quirks written into the questionnaires and to center the story on a horror which is incomprehensible to the human mind.
In the first case, take some time to explore the questionnaires thoroughly before you put the finishing touches on your story notes. Did the players create any fears or compulsions for their characters? What about addictions? Was the character mentally stable, or would a bit of nudging in just the right direction tip them away from sanity?
Perform the cheapest sort of pop psychology on the characters. Narcissists, self-loathers, sadists, and masochists abound—it just takes a little reading between the lines. Once you think you’ve found a crack in the character’s psyche, pry it open. Plan events that will exploit and magnify these parts of their personalities. Layer this over the normal levels of stress in a Dread tale, and there should be no trouble pushing these characters to the brink of sanity.
The second type of story follows in the footsteps of authors like H.P. Lovecraft and Algernon Blackwood. In these stories, the threat posed to the character’s mental health is as potent, if not more so, than the threat to their physical self. You will want to use things such as alien gods that defy logic in their physical form and psychologically are to humans as we are to gnats. Even beholding such creatures tears at the fabric of the human mind, making them the perfect nemeses in stories of madness.
Take a look at the supernatural horror chapter again. Many of those tips will surely apply to these stories as well. Be sure to come up with a few illogical and contradictory descriptions before the game, so you are not at a loss in the heat of the moment. Emphasize the insignificance of humans before these entities—that is where the horror lies. You will also find that isolation will not be much of a problem. Who would believe the characters? Even if anyone did, what could they possibly do to help?
Strong, powerful faith in a religion or philosophy can help characters deal with witnessing things that would otherwise drive them mad. Alternately, it could drive them further and further into the insulated world of their belief.
When you have a character whose questionnaire indicates they have a strong belief, you may have to deal with their pulls differently. Instead of pulling to avoid going insane, they might be pulling to avoid slipping further into this belief. For the most part, it is safer for players to reject these pulls—at least in the beginning. They may fall to their knees and recite the Lord’s Prayer in an attempt to drive off the unspeakable. While this may be useless, at least it isn’t as counter-productive as tearing your own hair out.
Eventually, however, it should catch up to them. Any belief held strongly enough can begin to feel like madness.
The trouble with madness is that it can become boring. It can have a crippling effect on how the characters view the reality of the story. If you narrate the game as if the players see and experience the world just as their insane characters would, the players can no longer trust the reality they are offered. When players can’t trust the story’s reality, they can lose interest in it.
Allowing the player to see what is going on without the taint of their character’s madness and then making them pull if they want their character to act on such information can prevent this. In essence, the pull represents a moment of clarity for the character. This way, the character is still insane, but the player can enjoy the game as the others do.
Likewise, many characters will have unusual or obsessive compulsions, or even everyday addictions. Whenever the players want their characters to resist these compulsions and addictions, ask for a pull. Some only need to pull when in the presence of a trigger, such as needing to lock a door three times, while others will need to pull at a set frequency. Recovering addicts take things one day at a time, and often an hour at a time. Play it by ear—if it seems like the character would be tempted or compelled, ask for a pull or make them play it out.
For the stories that contain creatures and secrets humans were not meant to know, you can ask for a pull simply to gaze upon such ineffable horrors. These pulls work much like similar pulls described in the gore and supernatural chapters. Characters of the players who refuse to pull can be frozen in horror or awe, reduced to a temporary catatonic state, or sent fleeing in gibbering terror until they are far enough away to regain their senses. It is typical of this particular genre to have characters suffer from more permanent mental stress, usually in the form of mild paranoia, phobias, or neuroses accompanied by premature aging, shaky nerves, and the like.
Of course, madness—uncontrollable, raving madness—is a wonderful way to remove a character once the tower has fallen.