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Old 04-24-2021, 07:13 PM   #1
Plane
 
Join Date: Aug 2018
Default Fright Checks without Terror

Quote:
Originally Posted by Zombies 109
These Fright Checks have nothing to do with Terror (p. 55) – they’re natural reactions to scary situations
This mentions stuff like "-3 for being alone at night" and another -3 if you never met a zombie...

Or +5 for grizzled veterans, possibly waiving a "nuisance" roll.

This makes me wonder what the most serious attempts we've seen (or list of examples) for patching together rules regarding fright checks.

The most mundane access to it I can think of is the Intimidation skill on B202 where a crit success by the user or crit failure by the target results in a fright check...

Intimidation is Will-based though (can even default to Acting) so it seems more of an "active attempt to intimidate" rather than a "I'm just passively intimidating without trying" though.

Zombies for example are weak-willed and don't generally try to scare people (in fact I'm sure they'd prefer you not be scared of them and stay put so your brains are easier to reach) but inevitably are scary.

Hideous/Monstrous/Horrific gives a bonus to the "attack" here but that's inconsequential if you're not trying to "hostile pursuade" someone.

Maybe it would be simply to come up with realistic versions of Terror to use to emulate scariness?

B93 requires either specifying sound or sight, so you might even define these like separate advantages based on that, like "Terrifying Looks" or "Terrifying Voice" ?

it begins as a mental trait (ie someone possessing you can't use it, you can use it in other bodies) so switching it to a physical one somehow would make sense to represent looking scary, though I'm not sure how to do that without things getting weird.

"Requires DX roll" makes it sound like you intentionally move in scary ways, and I don't know if you could combine that with "always on"...

Or maybe it's just "avoid falling down, as a mummy your natural scariness is briefly unscary if you trip and fall" ?
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Old 04-24-2021, 08:36 PM   #2
Toptomcat
 
Join Date: Jan 2009
Default Re: Fright Checks without Terror

A Generic Universal ruleset is tough because it's heavily genre-dependent. No one in a pulp-adventure novel other than the token coward even makes Fright Checks, and a Saving Private Ryan campaign would have practically no sources of Fright Checks in common with a World of Darkness campaign.
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Old 04-24-2021, 08:40 PM   #3
Shuckster
 
Join Date: Nov 2014
Location: Near Chicago
Default Re: Fright Checks without Terror

Horror talks about Intrinsic Fright Checks on page 139, it details just how to work out what fright check modifiers just about any monster would have, in a horror campaign you make a fright check just about every time you first encounter one as well as other times fright checks could be required, bizarre happenings, forbidden truths, dead bodies etc

Other than that, Ive made fright checks required for things like being suddenly surrounded by swams of bees, lit on fire etc

Last edited by Shuckster; 04-24-2021 at 08:43 PM. Reason: clairification
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