Gothic Horror

[tzaeru]

It's rather curious how usual immortality is as a theme; Whether through offspring (Castle of Otranto), in the villain (Dracula), through science (Frankenstein) or as a way to gain back lost love (Wake Not The Dead). I suppose that human mortality and ramifications of it are some of the strongest themes that there are; It's touched by not only many books of gothic horror, but also in detective stories (the ultimate crime? MURDER!), war stories and often in stories of human romance. From this perspective, I do not personally find say, slasher horror quite as convincing or interesting as it trivializes mortality. Similar, to me, happens with works of Lovecraft; Our mortal struggle ends up so insignificant, that there's barely attention left anymore to how we face our mortality. When themes of mortality play not only in the hero, but in the villain as well and in the whole of the surrounding world, stories can be formed that are rooted very strongly to not only our greatest fears, but also in the greatest of moral questions; The meaning of -- and means to -- immortality.. Life and death!

Of course, this is still but one aspect of it. To me it's the coolest, though.

[DrXavierTColtrane]

(bump)

Honestly, a clever player, and DM, in the case of Planescape and Spelljammer , would notice that the biggest 'horror' Ravenloft would have to offer them is not in the monsters, but in the claustrophobic loss of freedom. These two settings, more than any other, beyond their fantastical half penguin-shark half demon half fey sorcerer races that jump through soup-portals and fly on floating trees, is about the freedom to go where one pleases, when one pleases. Losing that should be the central focus of horror/dread from any character that enters Ravenloft from these settings.

This seems more appropriate here than in a discussion of the Dwarf hangout.

I also like the parameters of this topic in that it emphasizes "to you"--meaning it's not really about stating the opinion from stone tablets, but that anyone can talk about what they personally find horror to be, particularly within the limits of an RP experience.

Halloween is approaching. As Dan Aykroyd asks Albert Brooks, "Wanna see something really scary?"

What would it be?

What makes RL scary to your character?

[Budly]

(bump)

Honestly, a clever player, and DM, in the case of Planescape and Spelljammer , would notice that the biggest 'horror' Ravenloft would have to offer them is not in the monsters, but in the claustrophobic loss of freedom. These two settings, more than any other, beyond their fantastical half penguin-shark half demon half fey sorcerer races that jump through soup-portals and fly on floating trees, is about the freedom to go where one pleases, when one pleases. Losing that should be the central focus of horror/dread from any character that enters Ravenloft from these settings.

This seems more appropriate here than in a discussion of the Dwarf hangout.

I also like the parameters of this topic in that it emphasizes "to you"--meaning it's not really about stating the opinion from stone tablets, but that anyone can talk about what they personally find horror to be, particularly within the limits of an RP experience.

Halloween is approaching. As Dan Aykroyd asks Albert Brooks, "Wanna see something really scary?"

What would it be?

What makes RL scary to your character?

Out of Akens perspective, he was born to a lone mother, pregnant by some visitor at the traderoute in she lived and worked in. He was poor, had a shitty growing up at this in and mother died early. The worst horror to him was losing the little he had. Friends, companions. Being alone in a new world of horrors he never seen, but the solitude and feeling of not belonging to something. He worked his whole life for respect, comeraderie and belonging to something. He found it in the mercenary life. But he lost his friends and feeling of "Belonging" to something over and over in the Core. He never been richer but never found happiness, never found a stable home, a stability in life to use as platform for building a family and living until old. It is not always the monsters of the nights that is the biggest horror.

Revendall was pretty much a Sigil mage who dipped research into demonic beings to find a way out of the place, feeling locked down as you said. The City of Doors are now gone and there is no door out.

Aleyi is pretty much the ranger who started to fear nature after being a woodsman and guide from a family of generations of woodsmen. And moved to Ezra to hide from the twisted things.

[IllusoryWitch]

To me, Gothic Horror is not only about a sense of fear. Fear is incredibly simple to adhere to , manifest, and roleplay both as a Player, and as a DM. There are a number of movies, video games, television series, etc that can appeal to our base fears. Walking Dead, Saw, And any number of over the top jumpy in your face mediums. Gothic Horror is about dread and a sense of subtle unease. Not so much a fear of what is going to jump out and kill/eat/mutilate you or when, but a dread of what may not even happen. Gothic Horror is not supposed to be a 'comfortable' fear. It's that low down feeling in the pit of your stomach that something isn't right about a situation, even when everything looks glorious and beautiful on the surface.

Gothic Horror is the 'wrong' hiding under the 'right', the darkest lusts of human kind. Gothic Horror is based in emotion, in feeling, in passion. While RPing , it's about taking the harder of the two paths: Do we want to spawn a thousand monsters or scare our fellow player with their character's death in combat? Or do we want to make them feel uncomfortable, as if they're always in danger, not only from their surrounding, but from their own perverse desires.

Hint: It's always the later.

[DrXavierTColtrane]

In terms of character, I don't think Kenthelag experiences much horror. He has basic survival instinct and doesn't want to die, naturally, but I would assume that as they level up one of the qualities of monks is they should be more "Zen" about everything. As an Outsider, 20th level monks would (eventually) seem to me to not experience horror much at all (at least not on a personal, visceral level). For example, even a 3rd level monk has an increased resistance to mind-affecting spells and at 20th they're immune to them.

When he first came to the Mists, the sense of isolation was enormous, and I agree that most effective horror comes from that (we are all alone in our own minds, after all). Nothing is ever quite as scary as long as someone else is with you. As an orphan and then being expelled from his monastery, Kenthelag's previous sense of being completely alone in the world could be seen even as a sort of mental gateway that made his being receptive to a Ravenloft "abduction."

I think that's very difficult to maintain for long in an RP server, though, because you inevitably develop connections and friendships, as well as learn the ropes. Moreover, could such a server be enjoyable if it was unrelenting? In the quote from IllusoryWitch, she referred to the "claustrophobic loss of freedom."

That does make for horror IMO, but it's easy enough to...well, log out. One question is what would make people log back in?

I've found the most enjoyably "horrifying" experiences for me here have been the episodes of maximum uncertainty. I think ultimately that's why some players crave DM attention is that there's more of a sense *anything* can happen than when interacting with the setting. A hostile-acting new character I've never met or even a creature I don't know the capabilities of are frightening way more than even being at the bottom level of the MorningLord tombs ever could be, regardless of my character's power.

[Syl]

I thought most "Gothic horror books and stories were generally based off Good and evil... the morals of what is right and what is wrong... the struggle  to maintain what humanity you have in a world that pushes your moral standards to ones limit's trying to make them break. A monk can struggle just as much with Horror as anyone else.. Zen does not have much to do with it..  When the monk is forced with the decsion of choice... be it... Let a man die and yet another lives?... Watching a man change into a werewolf before one's very eyes is a very horrifying thing as well. it is completely unnatural and goes against order.

[shrugs]

[DrXavierTColtrane]

Perhaps watching a man change into a werewolf the first time would be horrifying, but I think anyone can become jaded to anything. Cf. combat veterans' tolerance for blood and gore versus mine (and presumably yours).

And as far as making choices, I think a Zen attitude would very much influence one's level of discomfort.

In any case, as I prefaced above, I'm not viewing this discussion as "my character's fears are the only true horrors." Rather, if you have a monk character, what is he/she horrified by?

[IllusoryWitch]

Slightly off topic, have you ever seen how werewolf transformation was handled in "Company of Wolves"?
Pretty awesome and horrifying for a movie that was made in 1984.

As for what a monk character can be horrified by. Hm.

Monks are all about purity of body and oneness with the self right? Knowing one's self? What if they were shown something about themselves that they considered unworthy, unpure, unclean or unable to resolve? What if they were shown that they did not have the sort of self control that they thought they had? That their sanity was actually something fleeting that could be taken away as soon as it was granted.

That all of their hard work could be removed with the snap of a finger

[DrXavierTColtrane]

Slightly off topic, have you ever seen how werewolf transformation was handled in "Company of Wolves"?
Pretty awesome and horrifying for a movie that was made in 1984.

As for what a monk character can be horrified by. Hm.

Monks are all about purity of body and oneness with the self right? Knowing one's self? What if they were shown something about themselves that they considered unworthy, unpure, unclean or unable to resolve? What if they were shown that they did not have the sort of self control that they thought they had? That their sanity was actually something fleeting that could be taken away as soon as it was granted.

That all of their hard work could be removed with the snap of a finger

Just watched the scene, and I'd say what makes it as much as the special effects is the reaction of the woman and the presence of the two little ones. The actress does a really good job in an extended scene of trying to show varying levels of horror. To me, that's what elevates it above, say, American Werewolf in London, because in the latter his big transformation is in isolation and is all about the effect.

I think your monk horror is a good example of making it character-based, which is what I'm hoping to get at.

Creative, personalized ways a character can experience horror.

[DrXavierTColtrane]

Sorry for the serial post, but re American Werewolf in London, what horror there is, however, is personal, the more I think about it.

When he's transforming, IIRC, he says something about "someone please help me."

And then, of course, the story is how he has survival guilt about his friend and may eventually kill his girlfriend. The only way out is to kill himself.

The horror is not "look at all these dead, mutilated people"--who are eventually portrayed as kind of comic--but "even a man who is pure in heart and says his prayers by night, may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright.."

[Merry Munchkin]

To me, Gothic Horror is not only about a sense of fear. Fear is incredibly simple to adhere to , manifest, and roleplay both as a Player, and as a DM. There are a number of movies, video games, television series, etc that can appeal to our base fears. Walking Dead, Saw, And any number of over the top jumpy in your face mediums. Gothic Horror is about dread and a sense of subtle unease. Not so much a fear of what is going to jump out and kill/eat/mutilate you or when, but a dread of what may not even happen. Gothic Horror is not supposed to be a 'comfortable' fear. It's that low down feeling in the pit of your stomach that something isn't right about a situation, even when everything looks glorious and beautiful on the surface.

Gothic Horror is the 'wrong' hiding under the 'right', the darkest lusts of human kind. Gothic Horror is based in emotion, in feeling, in passion. While RPing , it's about taking the harder of the two paths: Do we want to spawn a thousand monsters or scare our fellow player with their character's death in combat? Or do we want to make them feel uncomfortable, as if they're always in danger, not only from their surrounding, but from their own perverse desires.

Hint: It's always the later.

I think people tend to equate "fear" and "horror", when (at least in the Gothic context) they are not the same thing.

"Fear" as a psychological and physiological phenomenon is generated externally (e.g. a mountain lion is chasing you trying to eat you, or you see an oncoming car about to hit you, etc.)

"Horror" is, in a very real sense, internally derived -- it is your self-generated response to something that may not actually be fear-inducing to anyone else by itself.  Gothic horror has always hinged on choices that affect a person internally, rather than externally/physically.  Thus, "horror" is a feeling we experience as the result of the consequences of a bad choice (either by ourselves, or by others).  It is, in essence, a recognition of an internal decent into damnation that is unavoidable.

Frankenstein experienced horror at the realization of what he had *actually* created, not in the mere violent acts of his creation.  Dr. Jekyll experiences horror at the realization of what he is truly becoming.  Faust experiences horror at his realization of his own irrevocable damnation.  Dorian Grey experiences horror knowing what is concealed behind the cloth covering his painting.

Fear hits fast -- horror can creep up slowly and painfully, and you can't really outrun it, because it is inside you already.

[DrXavierTColtrane]

I agree with that, which is why I distinguished between Kenthelag's not wanting to die but a monk (in general) being less susceptible to horror.

Although one might use the two words interchangeably as synonyms (loosely), what Merry Munchkin is describing are two very different things.

When Kurtz in Heart of Darkness says, "The horror, the horror," it's not at all something he's afraid of. It's a realization. This:

It is, in essence, a recognition of an internal descent into damnation that is unavoidable.

[Bentusi16]

I would say the Ravenloft setting, as I've seen it described in the source material, is a mixture of cosmic horror and Gothic horror.

On one hand, like gothic horror it often touches on the soul and damnation. On the other hand, the Mists is a living entity, or entities, who is actively messing with people.

In fact the parallels between Silent Hill, and Ravenloft, are pretty stark to me.

Spoilers for Silent Hill ahead.

The entier way the mists operates, as far as I can tell, is to offer people what they want. All the dark lords, all the big ups throughout all the realms, are given what they THINK is what they want.

Let's take Barovias vlad stand in. All he wants, is Anna, or whatever her name is. So he made deals with the mists, over and over, because he thought that's what would get him what he wanted. But it didn't. And it never will. All he had to do to be with Anna again, was say "no". To accept mortality, and die, and be with her for eternity in death.

The mists doesn't MAKE you evil. The mists puts a choice infront of you and says "Look, this is bad...but it will give you something you want".

I played a paladin for a very long time, and one point he tried to hammer into peoples skull with no luck was that good is hard. Good rarely gets you what you really want in life. Good doesn't always even get you what you need.

From an outsider perspective, the mists are not actually 'devilish' in the sense of Faust, or Science (remember that a LOT of gothic horror is about the evil of science, and going to far into the realm of God). In the case of gothic horror in the Faustian sense, you're dealing with a devil who wants you to take the temptation. From what I have read, the mists doesn't. The mists tempts you. Tempts you HARD. Tests you. But if you pass the tests, it acknowledges it. Sometimes it lets you out, sometimes it just leaves you alone. I don't know about it actively rewarding you beyond that? Someone might cite something.

Gothic horror is also coming on the end of the enlightenment, but it takes a negative view of the "dare to think" of Kant. A lot of "man in his natural state is a beast". Hence why so often those who 'Revert" are portrayed as monstrous, which ends up leading into cthulian horror by the by.

Sadly, the biggest impossibility in ravenloft is that the best part of Gothic horror, the personal descent into becoming a monster, is almost impossible. It's simply not doable for the administrative staff to create a psychological profile of a character and tempt them towards damnation, because the heart of gothic horror is the very personal nature of the damnation. A paladin turning into a crusading zealot, a monk becoming so focused on self improvement they do harm to others, a poor mans quest for gold turning into avarice that hurts others.

The mists kind of comes across as "Oh, you think you're a good person? Let's see just how good you REALLY are". Which is very gothic horrory to me.

[DrXavierTColtrane]

Sadly, the biggest impossibility in ravenloft is that the best part of Gothic horror, the personal descent into becoming a monster, is almost impossible. It's simply not doable for the administrative staff to create a psychological profile of a character and tempt them towards damnation, because the heart of gothic horror is the very personal nature of the damnation. A paladin turning into a crusading zealot, a monk becoming so focused on self improvement they do harm to others, a poor mans quest for gold turning into avarice that hurts others.

I would say you're right because the player who creates the character is the only person who knows the character well enough to come up with that story. The best the server can do is (as Soren wrote somewhere that I read) provide the stage on which that story is acted. Additionally and assuming that "the best part of Gothic horror" is indeed the goal of RPing here, then the ecosystem of the playerbase also has to foster folks wanting to tell those kinds of stories.

DMs, of course, can help make those stories happen when players ask and can be facilitators for players whose plots mesh--"connectors" in Malcolm Gladwell-speak--but the creating player should always know how to make that character's tale of Gothic horror unique, rather than cliche.

There was a questionnaire posted recently about character creation, and I've seen many other such questionnaires for creative writers when creating any character. In the context of Ravenloft and not just at character creation but often thereafter, the player ideally is asking, "What tempts this character toward the dark side? What is the lever by which Mephistopheles could get this character to make a Faustian bargain?"

[Bentusi16]

For sure. But in the tabletop setting you tend to deal with a much smaller group of players, and a lot of DM's might ask for a write up about the character. We also have to deal with level difference. If two characters have an interesting dynamic but one is level 15 and the other is a brand new level 2 there's some serious limitations there, not the least of which they may not meet, since the level 15 has a greater area to operate in.

Gothic horror as a rule is extremely personal. The terror may not even manifest beyond the mind of the individual involved.

[Merry Munchkin]

Sadly, the biggest impossibility in ravenloft is that the best part of Gothic horror, the personal descent into becoming a monster, is almost impossible. It's simply not doable for the administrative staff to create a psychological profile of a character and tempt them towards damnation, because the heart of gothic horror is the very personal nature of the damnation. A paladin turning into a crusading zealot, a monk becoming so focused on self improvement they do harm to others, a poor mans quest for gold turning into avarice that hurts others.

Actually, don't sell your DM team short.  It is entirely possible to do this, and for the most part, all you have to do is ask.

Burleigh did exactly this in the course of a lengthy DM moderated plot -- and all I did was send a PM to a DM outlining Burleigh's motiviations, his struggles, and asked that if this could be accommodated in the course of the plotline, that would be wonderful for his character development.

And the DMs obliged, in spades, and the other characters I interacted with facilitated this (whether they realized it or not).  Actually did such a great job of accommodating me that as the result of fully IC RP, Burleigh made choices that resulted in his closure!  As painful as that was, it was an incredible ride, and fully IC for him.

[IllusoryWitch]

Sadly, the biggest impossibility in ravenloft is that the best part of Gothic horror, the personal descent into becoming a monster, is almost impossible. It's simply not doable for the administrative staff to create a psychological profile of a character and tempt them towards damnation, because the heart of gothic horror is the very personal nature of the damnation. A paladin turning into a crusading zealot, a monk becoming so focused on self improvement they do harm to others, a poor mans quest for gold turning into avarice that hurts others.

Actually, don't sell your DM team short.  It is entirely possible to do this, and for the most part, all you have to do is ask.

Burleigh did exactly this in the course of a lengthy DM moderated plot -- and all I did was send a PM to a DM outlining Burleigh's motiviations, his struggles, and asked that if this could be accommodated in the course of the plotline, that would be wonderful for his character development.

And the DMs obliged, in spades, and the other characters I interacted with facilitated this (whether they realized it or not).  Actually did such a great job of accommodating me that as the result of fully IC RP, Burleigh made choices that resulted in his closure!  As painful as that was, it was an incredible ride, and fully IC for him.

I agree, I don't think this is impossible. On the contrary, I think any DM team worth its salt should be striving towards exactly this.

[DrXavierTColtrane]

We also have to deal with level difference. If two characters have an interesting dynamic but one is level 15 and the other is a brand new level 2 there's some serious limitations there, not the least of which they may not meet, since the level 15 has a greater area to operate in.

For the right story, though, this can be a feature rather than a bug.

Who better to tempt your character than another character who has everything yours desires?

After all, Mephistopheles was way higher level than Faust!

[Budly]

We also have to deal with level difference. If two characters have an interesting dynamic but one is level 15 and the other is a brand new level 2 there's some serious limitations there, not the least of which they may not meet, since the level 15 has a greater area to operate in.

For the right story, though, this can be a feature rather than a bug.

Who better to tempt your character than another character who has everything yours desires?

After all, Mephistopheles was way higher level than Faust!

in all fairness, a lvl 15 might just be a man who fought countless wars against other humanoids and got out of them living. While maybe a lvl 8 been seeing superntural elements and been surviving that.

Silly idea here but the knight from Lodran (Dark Souls) is probably mentally more used to fucked up shit than the knight form Gothic Earth who been fighting in the 30 year war or similar and just met human beings.

[DrXavierTColtrane]

In my Twitter feed this morning:

Gothic Horror and the Odd Appeal of Melmoth the Wanderer

[Bentusi16]

I will say this, atmosphere is a huge part of it, and frankly it's unsustainable on this server I feel. Massive groups of players traipsing around treating monsters like bags of money and xp and the night like mid noon robs the server of any atmosphere and there's essentially no way to avoid it. Possibly horror simply does not work in a multiplayer large setting.

And before anyone asys anything, yes, even if I maintain my characters views, it ends up with nothing happening as I sit alone trying to maintain some sense that the server has elements I don't awnt to treat as exp bags and gold, and they level up and gear up.

Basically, unless you're willing to reject the horror, you get to sit alone.

[EO]

I will say this, atmosphere is a huge part of it, and frankly it's unsustainable on this server I feel. Massive groups of players traipsing around treating monsters like bags of money and xp and the night like mid noon robs the server of any atmosphere and there's essentially no way to avoid it. Possibly horror simply does not work in a multiplayer large setting.

And before anyone asys anything, yes, even if I maintain my characters views, it ends up with nothing happening as I sit alone trying to maintain some sense that the server has elements I don't awnt to treat as exp bags and gold, and they level up and gear up.

Basically, unless you're willing to reject the horror, you get to sit alone.

I think it depends who you RP with. Of course, during NCW, there's a large, huge, amount of players in a rather limited space so you won't get that feeling of isolation but try going with a small group in more secluded areas and you can actually experience it more. The outskirts is definitely not the ideal place for gothic horror; it's a great meeting point though and a good hub but as you said, you'll have a lot of people in one place at once.

[Bentusi16]

I will say this, atmosphere is a huge part of it, and frankly it's unsustainable on this server I feel. Massive groups of players traipsing around treating monsters like bags of money and xp and the night like mid noon robs the server of any atmosphere and there's essentially no way to avoid it. Possibly horror simply does not work in a multiplayer large setting.

And before anyone asys anything, yes, even if I maintain my characters views, it ends up with nothing happening as I sit alone trying to maintain some sense that the server has elements I don't awnt to treat as exp bags and gold, and they level up and gear up.

Basically, unless you're willing to reject the horror, you get to sit alone.

I think it depends who you RP with. Of course, during NCW, there's a large, huge, amount of players in a rather limited space so you won't get that feeling of isolation but try going with a small group in more secluded areas and you can actually experience it more. The outskirts is definitely not the ideal place for gothic horror; it's a great meeting point though and a good hub but as you said, you'll have a lot of people in one place at once.

All it really takes is one character who has decided not to participate in the horror setting to sap all the setting tension away. I ran into what was a DM event. Someone RPed basically not giving a shit while the rest of us were trying to have our characters be apprehensive. And the one person managed to yank all horror out of the scene. Horror requires you to kind of buy into it. On a logical level most people are aware horror is over the top and silly. In NWN in particular, we're AWARe that our characters are merely characters and we are in no danger. But there's a handshake agreement with the setting, so to speak, to treat our characters as, well, people.

I don't know why people don't feel the need to participate in the setting. Perhaps it's because they know theirs no real mechanical threat to them? I don't know. But it's an atmosphere killer.

And the whole point of NCW is to try and meet new people to RP and play with, rather then recreating groups over and over again. Meeting new people brings the risk of someone being a jerk, but it shouldn't be avoided.

[Budly]

I will say this, atmosphere is a huge part of it, and frankly it's unsustainable on this server I feel. Massive groups of players traipsing around treating monsters like bags of money and xp and the night like mid noon robs the server of any atmosphere and there's essentially no way to avoid it. Possibly horror simply does not work in a multiplayer large setting.

And before anyone asys anything, yes, even if I maintain my characters views, it ends up with nothing happening as I sit alone trying to maintain some sense that the server has elements I don't awnt to treat as exp bags and gold, and they level up and gear up.

Basically, unless you're willing to reject the horror, you get to sit alone.

I think it depends who you RP with. Of course, during NCW, there's a large, huge, amount of players in a rather limited space so you won't get that feeling of isolation but try going with a small group in more secluded areas and you can actually experience it more. The outskirts is definitely not the ideal place for gothic horror; it's a great meeting point though and a good hub but as you said, you'll have a lot of people in one place at once.

All it really takes is one character who has decided not to participate in the horror setting to sap all the setting tension away. I ran into what was a DM event. Someone RPed basically not giving a shit while the rest of us were trying to have our characters be apprehensive. And the one person managed to yank all horror out of the scene. Horror requires you to kind of buy into it. On a logical level most people are aware horror is over the top and silly. In NWN in particular, we're AWARe that our characters are merely characters and we are in no danger. But there's a handshake agreement with the setting, so to speak, to treat our characters as, well, people.

I don't know why people don't feel the need to participate in the setting. Perhaps it's because they know theirs no real mechanical threat to them? I don't know. But it's an atmosphere killer.

And the whole point of NCW is to try and meet new people to RP and play with, rather then recreating groups over and over again. Meeting new people brings the risk of someone being a jerk, but it shouldn't be avoided.

If there is no proper explanation that character should be smashed into the ground by a DM and maybe even shown how horrible things can be. In pen and paper there is ways to fix such a nonchalant player who want to be the hero in the most boring budget anime-disney movie way.

I think NCW is a good sign the server would maybe rejuvenate well from a full server wipe one day. Ending it all in a big bang of the Eternal Darkness. Im not saying it should, I am saying it COULD. Not should and that it would be fun and interesting to pull things back and make loot and such not so easily available among other things.

[EO]

All it really takes is one character who has decided not to participate in the horror setting to sap all the setting tension away. I ran into what was a DM event. Someone RPed basically not giving a shit while the rest of us were trying to have our characters be apprehensive. And the one person managed to yank all horror out of the scene. Horror requires you to kind of buy into it. On a logical level most people are aware horror is over the top and silly. In NWN in particular, we're AWARe that our characters are merely characters and we are in no danger. But there's a handshake agreement with the setting, so to speak, to treat our characters as, well, people.

100% true and something most have experienced I'm sure. There's not much that can't be done since we can't force people to roleplay fear and don't want to OOC punish people either for that. And killing them would only cause OOC frustration, not IC fear.

And the whole point of NCW is to try and meet new people to RP and play with, rather then recreating groups over and over again. Meeting new people brings the risk of someone being a jerk, but it shouldn't be avoided.

You're also correct them. I didn't mean isolate yourself with a group you already know but sometimes RP can be taken away from the outskirts, be it inside Vallaki or even outside. NCW lets people meet a lot of new people, some good, some bad. At the end of the event, a lot of new groups will have formed, friendships too and well, people will have discovered groups or people they may like less.