The Horror
Kicking off January is Terror Train, a movie about…terror on a train.
Terror Train's premise is interesting: college frat boys and sorority girls foist a cruel prank on a freshman, snapping his fragile mind. Kenny, you see, actually killed someone else once before attending college, although "they couldn't prove he did it." How do you know someone killed someone if you can't prove he did it? Shh! Suffice it to say that Kenny is an unbalanced killer who has it out for the students who pulled that cruel prank. Fortunately, the students help Kenny in his revenge by all throwing a costume party on an old train three years after the incident. On New Year’s Eve, of course.
Trains are interesting settings for movies because of the way they restrict the action in a linear fashion. Conversely, they’re difficult settings to run a tactical game because there’s so little space to maneuver. For games that rely on five-foot square spaces, trains don’t offer much.
But that’s also part of how a train can be a terrifying setting. Like all good ingredients for horror, the key to a horror setting is its unforgiving nature. You can’t stop a train easily, you can’t jump out of one (despite what you see in Westerns) and you can’t avoid going in one of two directions – forward or backward. Give the villain more mobility and the heroes are likely to feel trapped. That’s one of the more ridiculous aspects of Kenny the slasher in Terror Train – he can ignore physical barriers, train doors, clean up blood stains, remove dead bodies, all without breaking a sweat. Give your villain some supernatural help – a shapeshifter, a vampire, or even a being from beyond that can phase between realities – and the player characters have a mystery to solve that goes beyond who murdered whom.
The other element of Terror Train is the masquerade. Masquerades are a great way to play up a murder mystery and it’s practically a necessity on a train, where it’s entirely possible for a well-armed and organized force to sweep the train until they catch the bad guy. The key is to keep that organization from happening through drugs, alcohol, general disorderly conduct, and a good dose of stupidity. Parties usually feature all of these in excess.
Although Terror Train doesn’t go there, there’s one other feature that a train provides: the roof. Battling on a speeding train is a staple of pulp action, and if there’s going to be a climactic, unexplored place on a train to corner the villain, it’s a great choice. The train also shouldn’t be easy to stop – either it should be on a runaway course or confined in some way so that stopping would be worse (over a rickety bridge, inside a tunnel, etc.). Combine your climactic battle with the villain atop a speeding train inside a cramped tunnel and you’ve got a great action horror recipe to usher in the New Year!
Your Turn: Have your train scenarios ever gone off the rails?
Looking for more gaming inspiration? Buy Mike's book about The Evolution of Fantasy Role-Playing Games, read his fantasy novel inspired by his role-playing campaign, or follow him on Facebook and Twitter.
