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Reply To: Could A Tabletop Game be genuinely scary?

March 6, 2019 at 10:08 am #1357515

18062xp

My own personal experience of this is no, they can’t. I don’t personally find books or Boardgames to be scary because of the level of detachment between the player/reader and the medium. I think TV, movies and videogames have a different (better?) level of immersion that enables fear to be generated that RPGs and Boardgames simply can’t achieve. I do think that they can create tension but not actual fear. For example the Space Hulk mechanic is very good at creating tension with its “roll 6 or die” mechanic. You know, as the Space Marine player that if a genestealer gets in combat with you you’re toast. At best the sergeants have a sort of 50/50 chance in melee but everyone else is likely to be cut to shreds. Your only hope is that you can roll a 6 on a D6 before the gribbly reaches your square; the closer your adversary gets the more tense it feels before you roll the dice. However, as tense as it can be, it’s not fear. You don’t feel fear for the life of the Marine, or that you will witness some kind of grizly, violent death – you just take the model off the board.