Niccodaemus
First Post
The movie Dark Floors might provide some cool ideas. It is available on Netflix streaming
Dark Floors (2008) - IMDb
Dark Floors (2008) - IMDb
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Looking for Ideas to Creep Out My Players
- Thread starter Oversquid
- Start date
A group of inmates who have the same names as the PCs. If the PCs investigate, they find that the inmates look quite like themselves, but maybe slightly off. I.e. if one PC is large with brown hair and blue eyes, so is the inmate. But the inmate has different enough facial features so that they are not identical.
Not doppelgangers, just look-alikes. The inmates all believe that they are the PCs, and seem to have general knowledge of the PCs history and background.
For extra fun, add an inmate who does not map to any current or present PC, but acts like she was part of the group's history.
Not doppelgangers, just look-alikes. The inmates all believe that they are the PCs, and seem to have general knowledge of the PCs history and background.
For extra fun, add an inmate who does not map to any current or present PC, but acts like she was part of the group's history.
aco175
Legend
I find that when people are talking about horror, there seems to be two kinds- suspense and gross. Some movies build up with suspense and hinting at things while gross means they show things like slow motion heads being chopped off. Either is fine, but I would think that suspense may be better to pull off with descritions and not use pictures.
A few ideas to add to furnishings;
bloodstained footprints leading to a wall. Can be a secret door or not
surgery table with blood in various layers of dryness hinting that it does not get cleaned between surgerys. Maybe throw in bits of brain matter chunks, like some sort of lobotomy (sp) was taking place.
I liked the scene in the new Indianana Jones movie when they were in the jailcell of Indy's friend and the clues were scratched onto the walls and floor. You could use chalk, charcoal, blood, stone scraping to make marks.
A few ideas to add to furnishings;
bloodstained footprints leading to a wall. Can be a secret door or not
surgery table with blood in various layers of dryness hinting that it does not get cleaned between surgerys. Maybe throw in bits of brain matter chunks, like some sort of lobotomy (sp) was taking place.
I liked the scene in the new Indianana Jones movie when they were in the jailcell of Indy's friend and the clues were scratched onto the walls and floor. You could use chalk, charcoal, blood, stone scraping to make marks.
Niccodaemus
First Post
Ok... how about this.... you make a bunch of notes... and put them in little envelopes. Each round, each of the players opens one. The notes describe the environment in different ways... one note might be "you notice a crazed look in player "B's" eyes."
"Player "C" slips a shard of broken glass up his sleeve"
"You see a black slime oozing out from beneath the door"
"The room is covered with cobwebs and filthy stains"
Assorted things... to make the characters not trust their environment or each other.
sometimes the ooze will be an illusion... sometimes is will be real.. even though only one person can see it. Even if others can't see it, they can be hurt by it.
"Player "C" slips a shard of broken glass up his sleeve"
"You see a black slime oozing out from beneath the door"
"The room is covered with cobwebs and filthy stains"
Assorted things... to make the characters not trust their environment or each other.
sometimes the ooze will be an illusion... sometimes is will be real.. even though only one person can see it. Even if others can't see it, they can be hurt by it.
nedjer
Adventurer
Made lists of kind of creepy stuff/ omens for clone Corruption. They're not horror, but here's a small sample of omens and 'unsettling events' that might amuse:
- Birds trapped inside and trying to escape a sealed building
- Blood of unusual or changing color, texture or properties
- Bloodstains
- Body parts of adventurers and monsters
- Books and scrolls so fragile they crumble or implode
- Books and scrolls which animate
- Bricked up windows and doorways
- Brittle coins that crack easily
- Broken mirrors
- Broken teeth
- You look in a pool or mirror and see someone you don’t know breaking into your home.
- You wake with gills and no ability to breathe air.
- You witness a crime from afar; then get to the scene and find no evidence.
- Your food contains body parts and you start to gain memories, abilities or complications drawn from the original body.
- Your new friend seems great, but there’s a head in the larder.
Niccodaemus
First Post
I put up a post on "haunted house design" on my blog you might be interested in. It it my perspective on designing for RPGs in context of my work on designing haunted attractions for theme parks and such:
Shatterworld: Behind the Scenes: Haunted Houses Part 4: Design Considerations
Shatterworld: Behind the Scenes: Haunted Houses Part 4: Design Considerations
The best part of true horror is the feeling of helplessness thats so rare for PC's.
Keeping that in mind I had a villain once you could use.
He's a mindflayer whose completely sane with one small caveat. He believes that brains are bad for him and he must devour the raw flesh of the undead to prevent his soul from escaping. Other then that he's a perfectly reasonable guy, for a mind flayer.
When the players met him heres how i set the stage.
The first thing you notice when you open the door is the cheery glow of a warm fire and the smell of incense. The second thing you notice is a man in a hooded robe sitting behind a table set for dinner.
Most of the table is obscured beyond the doorframe but what you can see has a 2 decaying human legs cuffed to it. As you watch you can see them moving! Whoever or whatever is strapped to that table is clearly alive.
The man looks up and from the depths of his hood you hear a cheerful voice emerge "Oh its you. I've been following you for quite some time now. Do come in, I'm sure you have lots of questions and I can answer most of them. And I assure you that I will.
If they file in you say....
As you come in to the room you see the woman on the table look over and whisper out through rotten teeth "help me. My name is Sarah, he's eating me. Please by the gods help me, i have to get home."
The man then says "hush Sarah these good people dont care about that. They've come to have their questions answered. And anyway your quite dead so whats the harm? Your children would hardly like to see you in this state anyway".
Then play out the conversation with numerous breaks for the ghoul to deny she's dead and beg for help or the cowled flayer to continue eating. Make sure to mention that he has impeccable manors, uses a napkin and offers the players a little "of the juicy parts".
If you really want to evil him up you can put a room off to the side, obscured by a curtain where more voices can be heard coming from along with chains or cages rattling. Never make it clear to the PC's whether the people back there are already dead or not.
The trick to this is 2 fold.
1. Make sure the PC's know very quickly that this guy is both very powerful and dangerous and has information they desperately need. So attacking him before the conversation ends is realistically out of the question.
2. Other then eating a still begging ghoul the flayer must be the most absolutely normal, nice seeming guy you can imagine. He simply see's nothing unusual about what he's doing. He doesnt gloat, play it up or throw it in the players face too much. He's just a normal guy who happened to have guests over during dinner.
Keeping that in mind I had a villain once you could use.
He's a mindflayer whose completely sane with one small caveat. He believes that brains are bad for him and he must devour the raw flesh of the undead to prevent his soul from escaping. Other then that he's a perfectly reasonable guy, for a mind flayer.
When the players met him heres how i set the stage.
The first thing you notice when you open the door is the cheery glow of a warm fire and the smell of incense. The second thing you notice is a man in a hooded robe sitting behind a table set for dinner.
Most of the table is obscured beyond the doorframe but what you can see has a 2 decaying human legs cuffed to it. As you watch you can see them moving! Whoever or whatever is strapped to that table is clearly alive.
The man looks up and from the depths of his hood you hear a cheerful voice emerge "Oh its you. I've been following you for quite some time now. Do come in, I'm sure you have lots of questions and I can answer most of them. And I assure you that I will.
If they file in you say....
As you come in to the room you see the woman on the table look over and whisper out through rotten teeth "help me. My name is Sarah, he's eating me. Please by the gods help me, i have to get home."
The man then says "hush Sarah these good people dont care about that. They've come to have their questions answered. And anyway your quite dead so whats the harm? Your children would hardly like to see you in this state anyway".
Then play out the conversation with numerous breaks for the ghoul to deny she's dead and beg for help or the cowled flayer to continue eating. Make sure to mention that he has impeccable manors, uses a napkin and offers the players a little "of the juicy parts".
If you really want to evil him up you can put a room off to the side, obscured by a curtain where more voices can be heard coming from along with chains or cages rattling. Never make it clear to the PC's whether the people back there are already dead or not.
The trick to this is 2 fold.
1. Make sure the PC's know very quickly that this guy is both very powerful and dangerous and has information they desperately need. So attacking him before the conversation ends is realistically out of the question.
2. Other then eating a still begging ghoul the flayer must be the most absolutely normal, nice seeming guy you can imagine. He simply see's nothing unusual about what he's doing. He doesnt gloat, play it up or throw it in the players face too much. He's just a normal guy who happened to have guests over during dinner.
Aeolius
Adventurer
Lovecraft? Asylum?
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnG8nOK7nqM]Away in a madhouse - YouTube[/ame]
- a cabinet filled with bottled tears, each carefully labeled
- a wall upon which tattooed mummified limbs have been pinned
- a collection of empty birdcages, each made of a different metal
- a large broken mirror, recently reassembled save for one missing shard
- a large cauldron inexplicably fastened to the ceiling
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnG8nOK7nqM]Away in a madhouse - YouTube[/ame]
- a cabinet filled with bottled tears, each carefully labeled
- a wall upon which tattooed mummified limbs have been pinned
- a collection of empty birdcages, each made of a different metal
- a large broken mirror, recently reassembled save for one missing shard
- a large cauldron inexplicably fastened to the ceiling
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