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Message: <blockquote data-quote="gamerprinter" data-source="post: 6296993" data-attributes="member: 50895">Sometimes when I want to invoke "scary" into a given monster, I show evidence for what it does, even without actually encountering the monster. For example, I've been working on a possible campaign for Kaidan, and in one instance there is a child (a seven year old boy) who is currently possessed by the spirit of an evil onmyoji wizard. At the first encounter with the PCs, they see a child hiding in a rice paddy, near a village where everyone is dead, slaughtered by someone/something, and the child is apparently the only survivior. When a large group of pitchfork wielding commoners seeking the missing threat, they arrive at the boy's location before the PC party do, and the child begins to point at the PCs as being the culprits in the slaughter. The boy escapes before the party can confront him, while trying to negotiate with the angry mob to convince them, they are not the culprits.Also before the next actual encounter with the boy, more evidence of slain commoners are found everywhere. The players all begin to get paranoid, that this murderous and lying child is continuing to point at the PCs as the culprit of all the murders. While this creates paranoia among the players, rather than actual fear - it is impacting their emotions in a way that a direct so-called scary encounter with anything else does not.So I guess there need to some means of building the horror before an actual encounter to make that encounter seem scary to the PCs. Any direct engagement without this build up is anti-climatic at best, without an ounce of 'scary' in its presentation.In my <a href="http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/98413/30-Haunts-for-Kaidan-PFRPG?term=haunts+for+kaidan" target="_blank">#30 Haunts for Kaidan</a>, for example, there's a minor oni that gets 'accidentally summoned' and begins a reign of terror, killing people and inadvertantly creating haunts in doing so. In fact a third of haunts presented in that guide are all from the victims of this particular oni. The oni in question is very weak physically, so not really a threat to any experienced adventurers, however it is very sly and willing to do the most heinous acts unto weak locals. So again, this is a case where evidence of dark activities encountered before any actual encounter with a monster, creates the emotion and the concept of scary to the players - not the actual encounter with such a being itself.Scary has to be presented as a build up long before an actual encounter. I could not invoke scary, if I provided no background build up at all.</blockquote>

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