[Cthulhu] Scare Tactics...

[Labmonkey-XL]

I know there is a thread for scariest Cthulhu scenario's, but I think this needed it's own thread. Here we can list a brief synopsis of an adventure, and nifty tactics you can use to scare the PCs out of game.

I'll go first:

I have this player who is DEATHLY afraid of spiders. We played in a room with the lights turned low, and some mood music in the background. The player was investigating the bathroom of an abandoned house (home of a child killer) and he started having hallucinations. The water spout in the bathtub had millions of spiders crawling out of it.

He lost his SAN roll and became catatonic, and the bathroom walls and ceiling became infested with thousands of spiders. Now I had planned this scene before hand, so I went to a party store and got a bag full of those fake plastic spiders.

I threw them all on him and he jumped out of his chair freaking out. The rest of the PC group was shook.

The player has had a close eye on me ever since. He said it was one of the scariest moments of his life. I was proud of myself.

 

[Norfleet]

Well, other than the "sniper", one thing you could try would be, at a particularly opportune time, drop one of those jelly squid things right on a player's face.

Anything involving live ammo works pretty well, however, as I mentioned in the other scary thread.

 

[Labmonkey-XL]

Well, other than the "sniper", one thing you could try would be, at a particularly opportune time, drop one of those jelly squid things right on a player's face.

Anything involving live ammo works pretty well, however, as I mentioned in the other scary thread.

Well I could always just shoot a player in the face.

That could scare them too.

 

[Phebius]

Well I could always just shoot a player in the face.

That could scare them too.

In a Delta Green game last weekend, the Keeper fired a cap gun under the table, which scared more than a few of us.

He's also been known to turn on an electric razor to add atmosphere to someone's character's skull being surgically sawed into.

 

[WizWrm]

Hm...I remember reading about something similar to that spider thing.

It was a normal D&D game, and the author was writing an article about realistic PC reactions - he felt that adventurers tended to be emotionless, fearless, and altogether too calculating.

So, during a trek through the forest, he said, "OK, so a giant spider drops down on you."

General indifference.

The GM suddenly reaches into his box, pulls out a live tarantula, and drops it on the table.

Two players fell over in their chairs; one, who was afraid of spiders, ran into the bathroom screaming.

He ruled that whatever you did was what your character did.

 

[Norfleet]

Well I could always just shoot a player in the face.

That could scare them too.

I did that. That was my "sniper" stunt: I conspired with another player, and an accomplice, to make it seem like that player had been suddenly shot by a sniper, right during the "sniper" arc of the adventure. At the exact moment I described the sudden sniping of a hapless player, the non-playing accomplice fired a rifle blank, and the accomplice player fell over as if shot. The players dived for cover. It was great.

 

[Norfleet]

The GM suddenly reaches into his box, pulls out a live tarantula, and drops it on the table.

Two players fell over in their chairs; one, who was afraid of spiders, ran into the bathroom screaming.

He ruled that whatever you did was what your character did.

Oh, yes, that's a great trick for injecting a bit of realism into adventures. Tends to work better on other people, than me, though. Are tarantulas edible?

 

[s/LaSH]

Are tarantulas edible?

Yes, certain tribes of the rainforest grab them, cook them and eat them. I don't know how they are raw, however.

On a related note, I've heard it said that tarantulae are not very venomous, and that it'd take about 20 tarantulae to kill you. Good thing that they're very territorial, then, isn't it?

Now, back on topic...

Wait, I've never played Cthulhu. What am I doing here? What is this place?