It's October, that magical time of year when everything comes up horror. Rather than digging around, trying to find scraps of horror in movies and television, we get a banquet of content. Books, comics, even music all turn a darker shade of crimson as the leaves turn and the pumpkins dominate the entrances to stores and homes all over. On this table of bounty, I have been enjoying a number of horror offerings. One of which is the new Fox series The Exorcist (I know, it will probably be cancelled after its first season, but I can't help myself). I went in extremely cautious, and after 3 episodes I can say without reservation that I have moved to cautiously optomistic.
A quick review before I do a quick mining session. The first episode sets the stage and as such, moves fairly slowly until the very end. We are introduced to the young priest, the old priest, the victim's family, and the victim herself. This is not a rehash of the movie, though, and the show makes sure we know this. It also ties to the movie very briefly with an article in an old paper mentioning the tragedy at the end of the first movie. But this show is definitely a new entry in the world of the Exorcist, despite the initial similarities. There are some segments that give you hope that we will have a true horror series and not just a family drama, but it is really the last 10 minutes or so that fills you with hope for what the series will become. I am excited to see where they go with this show, and if the horror elements of the episodes so far are an indication, it should be a fun ride. As long as Fox execs don't screw it up...
So what can we mine from this that we can't get from any other possession story? The one nugget in the three episodes so far that could be used for gaming purposes is the way the possession occurs. Most posession stories show the posession from the witnesses and not from the victim. In this show, we see the descent from the victim's perspective. The demon is given a face, it interacts with the victim, and most of all, we see that the possession is not entirely unwilling. We see a broken girl with issues that give the demon a way to work its way into her willingly. It is not a hostile takeover. It is a seduction. What we see is a girl, hungry for attention and tired of being second best in her family, despite her successes. At first she resists, but the demon wears her down, acts as first friend, then loved one. This is so far one of the strongest pieces of the show, and also the nugget of rpg usefulness that I am mining from the show.
So how do we use this seductive possession scenario in our games? From an non-player character (NPC) perspective, they are not a victim. The seduced NPC that the player character (PC)s are meant to save may actually resist their attempts to help. They do not see the entity as an enemy, but a friend. Perhaps the way to defeat the entity is not an epic boss fight or intricate ritual, but a social contest with the NPC victim themselves. They must convince the NPC that the entity is an enemy and that it is the NPC's fight to win and not the PC's. Perhaps the "final fight" requires one or more PCs to continue to convince the NPC to fight while the rest of the party deals with manifestations caused by the entity to delay or eliminate the party. In this, we have more than a two-dimensional possession scenario, and one that can create more depth for the story and for the NPC, as well as the entity itself. The entity is not some boring bag of experience points, but something with motivations and character. A three way social contest between PC, NPC, and entity would be a highly entertaining final battle.
The other way the seductive possession can be used is on an NPC. Perhaps the entity comes from a particular item the PCs pick up. Perhaps it latches onto a PC when they visited a particular area. Or perhaps the game master (GM) sees a particular PC flaw on a sheet that would be a powerful invitation to an entity to start its seduction, something that happens completely unrelated to the current game story line. During play, the GM could privately send messages to the PC, tempting them with help or with ideas that could get them out of sticky situations (at some sort of cost, of course). These can be played as social contest requiring dice rolls, but it depending on the player, it could be pure choice. Accepting the help gives the entity another tick in possession, however the GM decides to track this. After a certain number of ticks, the PC begins manifestations, then potentially loses partial control of their character as the entity asserts itself. This could even happen in the middle of an adventure, so suddenly the focus is on understanding what is happening to the PC and helping them. This could even set up a choice for the party: help their party member and fail the quest, or finish their job at the risk of the possessed PC sinking deeper into the entity's clutches.
There are a number of ways to use the seductive possession in a game, both on PCs and NPCs alike. It creates an interesting dynamic, an enemy that can't be chopped or shot, and one that is not a brute, but a cunning and manipulative entity that preys on the weaknesses of mind and spirit that exist in any individual. It is a frightening concept, much more frightening than the faceless, angry spirit that most possession stories show. It forces a confrontation of self and of flaws that we may not want to acknowledge. That is a horror of a different sort...
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