Tailor it to the players. Talk to them before the game and find out what they're afraid of, fascinated by, what turns them on, and what they find funny. Psychology is a powerful tool.
edited 31st May '12 12:35:47 PM by Exelixi
Mura: -flips the bird to veterinary science with one hand and Euclidean geometry with the other-My two cents: make sure something non-trivial is on the line (e.g. the characters' lives), and make sure that the players know that this is not an empty threat. Without danger (or the perception thereof), it's hard to make something scary. Additionally, if the characters' lives are at stake, ensure that the players are emotionally invested in said characters.
Second, try your best not to be derivative. Many moods are not spoilt if the players recognize where you ripped off the monster of the week from- horror is.
Third, fear of danger is only rivaled by fear of the unknown. Not every beastie needs to be cloaked in shadow, but try to keep things unpredictable.
Smile for me!In my experience, mood lighting and especially music can work wonders. Scour the soundtracks of your favourite horror films or games, get some sound samples of creaking doors and ominous thunder and put up some sputtering candles.
Try not to startle the heroes, but the players - simple things like suddenly killing the lights, grabbing a player by the arm or cutting off the ambient music mid-track might work well.
If you killed a player character, bring him back as a grotesque caricature of his former self. A generic zombie is less scary than an old friend who now tries to chew your face off.
Be vague: "You don't see anything in the pitifully small area illuminated by your torch." is preferable to "There's nothing of interest in this room." Try not to overdo it though, this can slow the game down massively.
Heh. I was once wondering if I could ever run a Call Of Cthulhu game for my friends. I gave up on that as soon as I realized how my friends do roleplaying: They got in on it through stuff like Order Of The Stick and Darths And Droids, and now they (as well as myself, whenever I'm playing) are all trying to pull off stunts straight from Mr Welch's mighty list so they have some funny story to tell online.
Gaming with those guys is a hoot, it sure is, but I doubt that there is anything that could get us in the right mood for anything besides jokes and bravado.
A shame, really.
edited 31st May '12 2:48:45 PM by Kayeka
Make them play a game of Little Fears. The original one. People have been traumatized by this game.
On a more serious note, music is a serious bonus. Be careful of not using well-known horror soundtrack, because nothing kills the mood more easily than someone saying "Hey, I remember that song, it's from Silent Hill!". I found that little gem
recently, it's perfect for some demonic mood.
You should try to know what scares your players. Don't use their fears exclusively, but when you need to push really someone far into it, drop something they are really afraid of. As a guy who fears Body Horror, it's the best way to get me running if you present that to me in full glory.
On a character standpoint, more than danger, they must be scared because they don't control the situation. Don't hesitate to make them tumble, drift, sweat profusely, having their vision go blurry, as soon as they panic, because that will increase the stress even more. Amnesia The Dark Descent make a good job of that, as your character start to go nuts as soon as something moves in the shadows.
But I think my best advice would be this: you need to screw the player's mind as much as their characters. Roleplaying fear is not very effective, and rarely works; experiencing distress and fear will make the character go down the same route. A good horror game needs to be creepy, and make your players afraid of the dark!
... well, that's just my vision, anyway!
edited 31st May '12 3:25:09 PM by Talden
Pat. St. of Archive Binge
Mine through these threads from /tg/:
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html?tags=scary
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html?tags=horror
edited 1st Jun '12 3:12:52 PM by AckSed
Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.[...]
Third, fear of danger is only rivaled by fear of the unknown. Not every beastie needs to be cloaked in shadow, but try to keep things unpredictable.
I'd like to throw my two cents to that. If the story is about big scary monster chasing the players, this might be tension, but the horror lies in anticipation (did I use this word correctly?) of danger, rather than in danger itself. This is mentioned as the third point. A monster jumping in and going "BOO!" is a shocker at first, and then it's action. But it depends on which kind of horror you mean, as there are flavours to it and some might work well with a story that would ruin the other. I'd say that in the end it's all in the mood you create in-universe and IRL.
In my opinion, the line between Horror and Action is dependent almost entirely on the protagonist's ability to fight back. The case studies for this are, in my opinion, Terminator, Terminator 2, and Aliens (yes, I am a James Cameron fan, why do you ask?)
Compare the first two Terminator films. In the first, the only assets the heroes have are their wits, which aren't a whole lot of help against an indestructible killing machine. The first Terminator is very much a horror movie - the protagonists' attempts to fight back are designed, at best, to slow the Terminator down, and as the movie goes on we see more and more how unstoppable this thing actually is. But the second Kyle blows it in half with a pipe bomb, it stops being horror and turns into an action piece. Yes, the Terminator still doesn't stop, but the audience knows that it can be hurt, and that the heroes have some way of hurting it.
In the second, the heroes have a terminator on their side. While it still isn't as powerful as the one chasing them, it shortens the gap enough that it gives the heroes a credible chance of survival throughout the movie. Terminator 2 is much more of an action-thriller than its predecessor, and this is the entire reason for the change.
Finally, Aliens. We're introduced to a squad of badass Space Marines that look ready to tear apart anything in their path, and even though we have some idea of what they're up against, we're able to relax a bit - hey, these guys should be able to take out one alien, right? And as it turns out, they actually can. Too bad there's a hell of a lot more than one alien out there. Seeing these stone-cold badasses get torn to fucking shreds is the moment that makes Aliens Cameron's scariest film - if these guys can't stop these things, nothing can. But with all of that said, Aliens ceases to be scary the moment Ripley gets in the power loader - she's on even ground with the queen, and ready to kick some ass.
A video game example of this principle at work is Amnesia The Dark Descent. You have no weapons of any kind, and even your past self has told you that fighting the things after you is utterly impossible. Run or Die, it's that simple. This leads to some incredibly effective moments, like one where you see the faint outline of a creature shuffle through a door... and you need to go through the same door to get out. And when you go through, there's no monster - just a pitch-dark hallway and sounds. Scraping, squelching, roaring sounds. And as you make a mad dash for the exit, pulse pounding, you hear the sounds get louder, footsteps start to follow you, but you can't turn around because the exit's still in front of you and you still have to run for it but HOLY SHIT HE'S STILL BEHIND YOU RUN!
But to be honest, I have no idea if the monster was actually behind me. Hell, I don't even know what it might have looked like. This brings me to my second piece of advice: Don't let your players see the thing. I've already sort of discussed how this works to the benefit of Amnesia, so this time I'd like to bring in the first Alien movie.
Alien is a masterpiece of horror - possibly the best constructed horror film ever made. Ridley Scott did everything right, from giving the characters realistic, likeable personalities to killing off his big star first to never, ever giving you a good look at the creature. Which is a good thing - frankly, a good look at the original version of the alien would show that it was simply a really tall guy in a huge helmet. The alien is only seen in shadows, silhouettes, extreme close ups, or flashes, and it's constantly in rapid motion, all to hide its form. You can go through the whole movie without ever getting a good idea of what the thing actually looks like. The one exception to this has it curled up in a position that still hides most of its actual shape. This lets the viewer's imagination do the bulk of the work, and what you can imagine is always, always scarier than any image can possibly be.
So yeah, that's my two cents. Keep it hidden and don't let them fight back.
I agree on the part about Alien, not so much on Aliens. I'd chalk it up to these flavours of horror. The first one is just plain scary. The second is a great piece of tension, but we already know what's going on, and instead of straight spookiness, we have the suspense. I'd say that the spookiest parts of Aliens were the ones when it seemed that no bad thing can happen, and yet we expected it'll soon change (i.e. when Marines entered the reactor).
In video games, you might interpret the either way, as I'm just giving it as an example. The parts of Alien vs Predator 2 I found spookiest, were the ones where you had to pass through Alien lair. There haven't even had to be many aliens, just the suspense. You are in enemy territory. You can try to go through, but you are but a single man.
edited 3rd Jun '12 12:03:01 PM by lordGacek
Don't just consider your players, but consider your PCs. Do you have expert PCs full of bravado that are going to investigate anything and everything, or do you have a bunch of wussy first timers who are scared of their own shadows? It's much harder to scare a cynical character than a newbie.
Also consider the pacing. Relief breaks can work just as well as constant terror, because it throws them off their expectations.
I once had an Orpheus campaign full of a bunch of PCs who had just started working for the company and were in training. The first place they investigated had local stories told of a "woman in white" who appeared just before someone died, so when they saw a flutter of white at the end of a hallway, they pissed themselves and dashed to escape. Once cornered, it turned out the white flashes were from a white plastic shopping bag, caught in the drafts of the old building and stirred up by the air as they ran like wusses. Oh, so much anger.
So after that relief, they were completely thrown when a skinned body embedded in the ceiling happened to be in the next room over.
edited 3rd Jun '12 2:16:27 PM by Doryna
Obfuscation is your friend. Don't let your players track their own hit points... roll the monster's damage for them, and if they ask tell them they're "shaken but alright," or "extremely battered" or "relatively whole, but it hurts to breathe deeply" or something of that sort. Ramps up paranoia.
Similarly, though this is something to be careful with, just lie to your players about things. Really. The first time they enter a room, describe details which are obviously important (for instance, the noose hanging from a rafter), but if a player tries to look closer, ask "what noose? There's no noose here," or something of the sort. Done well, it lends everything a further air of unreality, really great for a haunted-house scenario. Done poorly it's a bit Problem Sleuth "there's no KEY, just a GUN."
Also, if it fits the story you might give undue attention to unimportant details, to make the mood more paranoid. I think we have it troped, was it Schrödinger's Gun?
One thing that helps is to make sure that your players care about their characters. Have them put some degree of effort into making them, so that they actually care when it looks like they are going to die.
Also, don't invite the snarky guy (or at least ask him to tone it down). While I didn't single-handedly ruin the mood in the last horror campaign I played, it was only because it was already suspect because of the crappy pre-made module, and the first time DM. And of course, she's a rather timid and soft-spoken person to begin with, so that doesn't help.
Bigotry will NEVER be welcome on TV Tropes.![]()
Heh, when I was the GM, I managed to turn Call Of Cthulhu into a comedy game.
I fail at practice, but I've read a bit on the theoretic side of things, so I'm posting the second-hand knowledge.
While I'm currently the most snarky guy in my gaming group, I usually have a good handle on when to not be snarky. At certain points in horror games is when to not bust out the snark - unless you can somehow use it to enhance just how creepy/gory the scene is supposed to be.
That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw

So, I might be running a Cosmic Horror game pretty soon, and was wondering what sort of general tips people had for running a genuinely scary game? Obviously, everyone reacts differently to "scary" situations and so forth, but putting all that aside for the moment, what works for you?
Gimme yer lunch money, dweeb.