The Guardian’s article last week about the 50th anniversary of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was an opportunity for reflection about the experience of horror media, and how we’re trying to capture it in the new FiveEvil game.

(“Chain saw” was two words in the original film, who knew? Not me until recently!)

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) is a horror classic for a reason. That atmosphere of hot, sticky, unrelenting dread is unlike anything else. It’s very well-directed, despite its reputation as a drive-in cheapie. Famously, it feels like the most violent film ever made, even though there’s almost no onscreen violence. By the end, when the final girl is almost incoherent from the trauma of it all, you know exactly why.

FiveEvil can handle many styles of horror, including this. One of the key tools we use is Intensity.

If you have seen the film, you will remember the hitchhiker scene: a vanload of young folks pick up a hitchhiker, and his vibe is off, and it gets worse from there. The escalation in that scene gives a perfect example of how Intensity works.

Intensity is a number from 0 to 6. The GM running the game sets this number, saying how intense things are in the scene. It’s like the director looking at a film scene and deciding what kind of music should to use. If everything’s chill, Intensity is low. If it’s getting bad, Intensity gets high.

Intensity is important because it tells the players what they’re shooting for when they take action. A low Intensity means a low roll is enough. A high Intensity means they need a higher number to succeed.

I like the hitchhiker scene as an example because you can see the intensity ratcheting up, step by step. Here’s the first half of the scene, if you want a refresher (CW for self-harm):

At the start they’re driving along in the van, all is well, everything’s easy. (Intensity 0!) Then they decide to pick up a hitchhiker. He’s a bit off-kilter, talking about working at the slaughterhouse.

The mood starts to shift. When he pulls out the photographs he’s taken, it’s an uneasy moment – look at how the characters act as they pass them around… (If this was a scene I was GMing, I would right here place an Intensity d6 on the table, with the 1 face up. Nothing makes players start paying attention more than placing that Intensity die on the table…)

The hitchhiker keeps getting more erratic, and weird. Then he takes Franklin’s knife right out of his hands! (The GM turns that Intensity up to 2.)

Everyone’s on edge, what’s he going to do with a blade in his hand? See 3:10 for the answer, but mind that content warning! (And the Intensity goes up again, to 3!)

The clip in the YouTube video runs out here, but the scene carries on, hovering in that uneasy space for a bit. The hitchhiker gives up the knife but everything he does is freighted with uncertainty. (As GM I’d keep the Intensity where it was, even though he isn’t holding a knife any more, the scene doesn’t feel any more relaxed…)

And then, finally, things spin rapidly into chaos. The hitchhiker tries to hurt someone, and there’s panic! (Now Intensity goes up to 4!)

So in the space of about four minutes of screen time and a single scene you see how the intensity of the moment can keep stepping up and up and up… It’s a perfect demonstration of how to use Intensity in your games, because you really can see each increment upwards as things get more and more intimidating and strange. And every step up in Intensity has a direct impact on play. The players feel it because they have to interact with it constantly.

Intensity is great as a GM tool because it compresses lots of difficult tasks into something really simple. Setting the difficulty of each dice roll – gone! Communicating the tone of the moment – sorted! Ensuring everyone’s on the same page about risk – done! It’s just one more quality of life improvement that we’ve built into FiveEvil! This is why we talk about tearing 5E apart, and then reassembling it.

I think we’ve built something better.

Download the preview FiveEvil Splinters for a complete playable short horror campaign in five parts!