The Horror
My Bloody Valentine is a peculiar film, because while it technically takes place on Valentine’s Day it has almost nothing to do with the day itself. My Bloody Valentine (and its remake) is about a bunch of miners who, trapped when the mine collapsed, fall upon each other until just one miner survived. Heedless of the grisly murders that took place there, the usual gaggle of idiots decide to throw a Valentine’s Day party at the mine. Cue the screaming and the killing.
In addition to its mine setting, My Bloody Valentine distinguishes itself with a twist ending (MY BLOODY SPOILER!): the bad guy who murdered everybody the first time around is actually dead, and our hero really is a delusional schizophrenic who has convinced himself he’s not the murderer.
Creating the setting is easy: If there’s one thing the role-playing game industry doesn’t need more of, it’s dungeons. There are plenty of suitable mine maps and information that can be recycled or adapted. That said, most action horror heroes will not willingly go into a mine, so they need a pressing reason like innocents trapped inside with the killer.
Mines are a funhouse of horrors: collapses, poison gas, floods, bat and insect swarms -- anything dark and disgusting could easily be in a mine. There’s also the multitude of impractical but dangerous equipment: drills, pickaxes, hammers and dynamite. The killer in My Bloody Valentine uses all of these to good effect.
The twist of having one of the “good guys” be the killer is difficult to pull off in a role-playing game campaign, but significantly easier in a one-shot. A one-shot where all the characters are new to the players makes it more practical for a player to not even know himself. For a campaign, this can be quite the betrayal that might ticket the unsuspecting player off. So you’ll need to talk it over with him or her first, or at least ensure that the group as a whole is comfortable with the surprise. Some players might welcome to change – I’ve been in more than one high school game where players got bored and decided to just murder everybody.
The other option is to have the surprise killer be a non-player character. This is equally difficult, because all the effort put into group cohesion to form an investigating party works against the game master in this case. Players in dangerous situations tend to trust each other implicitly; faced with a hidden enemy, they will shoot an old lady if she even looks at them the wrong way. The character has to be established and trustworthy. Longer campaigns can provide this foundation, but the game master will have to plan it in advance.
And oh yeah, Valentine’s Day is supposed to be about love. It helps if the history of the mine is tied to one of the player characters through a love interest, or at least give them a date to attend the Valentine’s Day party. The serial killer’s got to murder SOMEBODY after all…
Your Turn: How have you dealt with the death of a character’s significant other?
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.
