Abnormal

Players; Terry, Marc, Dani

Abnormal is a game of body horror. Where something progressively goes wrong with your body or your perception of the world.

The game has two main players the Witness and the Horror. There is a third player that plays npcs related to the witness.

The witness and the horror take turns by first rolling a die to determine what progress the scene between the two will take. There are four cards indicating the horror's progress each card affords the horror a new power. The witness can only use the die rolls to take power away from the horror. The game is stacked against the witness.

The witness in the game was Sondra, a call center worker in a small town in the south west. Under achiever, attractive, smart, she had a boyfriend that was better than her. Her family situation was a joke. The horror was people's jobs slowly taking them over until they were no longer conscious of the work they did. It first started as a nameless corporation buying up the call center, then replacing all the computers with just a line that fed straight into the back of the neck. The witness became assimilated and didn't even know it. In the end she became fully assimilated.

I had fun in a twisted way. This game was creepy and awesome! The way it's set up helps with the pacing and building an arc. The mechanics definitely stack it against the witness but as long as the player and character are willing to take risks, there is a chance that they will be able to have a "normal life," whatever that means after encountering the horror. There is a faint gameyness to it. You have to keep an eye on how many tokens are where (a total of six means badness) and decide how you're going to deal with that. But no matter what happens, rest assured that it'll be interesting!

And likely creepy. Did I mention this game is creepy? Terry and Marc (I wish the support's role was a bit broader- as long as the player has fun though!) did a great job. The first time she encountered the weird hole in the back of her neck, Joan's kiss, the scene in James's apartment with his "friends," recovering from an epic girl's night to see signs of a fight and her dear friend face down in a puddle of what probably wasn't a spilled margarita, the "ropes"... It was unsettling in the way a good horror movie is, only more intense because I was the one telling the story. Horror is hard to do right but I think this game does it. I especially liked what it had to say about female sexuality and pregnancy as it relates to the horror genre.

It took us a little bit to hit our stride but we did finally find it. The beginning scenes did set the mood and allowed us a good glimpse of the witness but we didn't always cut when we should have and there was a bit of uncertainty about who could narrate what. The arc developed nicely . Scenes later in the game were shorter but intense!

It was a good experience, I had fun with the other players and the game was interesting. I liked the system too. Is it weird that I am looking forward to playing a horror game again?

Thanks to Marc for facilitating and to Terry for his excellent run as the horror!

- Dani, aka Sandra Brown (The Witness)

Thank you Terry for writing up this game, and Dani for chiming in. I agree with all that has been said.

Abnormal is something that few games are, as you say Dani: it's actually creepy. The spontaneous creation of things that are scary is very, very difficult, in large part because of major mental barriers to being frightened during a story game, which are twofold.

First, there's the problem of being told that you should be scared. As soon as someone says, "And it's really scary!" the usual immediate reaction is to move to an observational mode, looking down on the scary thing from above rather than standing beneath its drooling jaws. This, much like explaining why a joke is funny, takes all of the emotion away, and what is fear if not emotional at its core?

The second roadblock is the fact that you are creating the horror yourself. It's tough to make something up that then scares you. I suppose it's not impossible, for indeed people write horror all the time (I've dabbled myself, in fact). But when you know all the facets of what you've made, it ceases to be scary, because there are no unknowns.

Which is part of what I think makes Abnormal a scary game. There are unknowns all the way through. Why is this happening to the Witness? What will happen next? What makes it all work? Even as I say this, though, I realize that for the Horror player, some of these questions are answered, and so the fear is lessened somewhat.

I have now played the game as both the Horror and the Support. I've yet to try the Witness. I look forward to that experience.

I haven't gotten to play this yet but I'm looking forward to it. I think everytime I've seen Marc in the last week the first and last words out of his mouth have been "Abnormal!" (on second thought maybe he's trying to tell me something)

I think there's a definite difference between creepy and scary and it sounds like this is more on the creepy side (which is awesome). More horrified than afraid. Does that sound about right to you guys?

I enjoyed it so much, I've got my own copy on the way! Because my library is not big enough already...

Anyway, yes, I'd agree that there is a difference between creepy and scary. (The dictionary might disagree.) There were some horrific things that happened or were hinted at. (What did Sandra do to Katie?! What happened at James's apartment?!) I'd say the difference is a feeling of safety, maybe? It's creepy but ultimately you know there are tools to deal with it as a player.

I do like the mechanics quite a lot!

One interesting thing was the Normalization stage, which says that the Witness starts to accept the things that are happening to her, at least in part! The game says that that is where there is more of a separation between player and character. I definitely felt that! It was a bit jarring but in the right way. Why are the Witness's feelings changing? What about the Horror has made any of it acceptable?

I am glad that I had the opportunity to be the Witness this time! But next time I'm looking forward to trying a different role...

Why are the Witness's feelings changing? What about the Horror has made any of it acceptable?

I think that's one of the things that makes the body horror genre creepy / horrifying: if the person freaked out it would make perfect sense. When they start to treat it as normal it freaks us out, which is the interesting part.

You put that very well! That is exactly what about it was so jarring. I'll never forget Sandra saying "I think everything's going to be okay." Poor girl...

In our game at least the timing of the normalization stage was excellent. And it helped that we reached the endgame, where the Witness and Horror became Permanently Entwined the very next scene. It was very fitting. I'd like to play again (naturally, LOL) but to me it seems the mechanics will do a good job of pacing things out so that it doesn't happen too soon.