How do you scare your PCs?

palleomortis

First Post
Hey, it seems like most all of you get the PC's running with monsters. I think it would be fun to see what they did whith somthin' else. Maybe using a peice of parchment floating around that was addressed to them, sitting on the ground with a warning note. What say you?
 

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Scaring players is not an easy thing. You can create suspens and make them uncomfortible or intrigues like the letter idea you have, but scaring them takes a little more usually.
 

1) In d20 Modern: I had a villian drink a potion of invisibility and plant a note on a PC saying:

"Isn't it scary to be in the same room with an invisible guy with a knife?

(signed)
-- An invisible guy with a knife
"

2) Political machinations. This isn't creepy-scary, but it does make the party nervous.

3) bringing sex into the game. That never fails to terrorize.
 

The biggest thing I scared the PCs with was...

Y'know, campaign worlds always have these huge impressive sites scattered around. This was one of them. It's a huge temple (I even had a picture of it to show them) that's about 8 or 10 stories tall. The thing is made out of about four or five huge pieces of stone. The temple reeks of the highest quality Dwarven stonecrafting. It's ages old, has an important history, and plays an integral part in the world's politics. It was the party's base for a while. Well, they're sent to go fetch an item and at the end of the dungeon, there's a puzzle and they go through a portal. The portal dumps them out right in front of the temple where they see it's now rubble.

And I ended the session there.
 


I've found music to be effective. When I've been playing the light, airy town music, and suddenly switch to a charnel house theme, the players start to get very nervous. :)
 

Come to the session wearing all black - black shirt, black jeans, black shoes, black coat/jacket, black hat, black glasses, black socks, black pants (to be sure). As you take off the coat/jacket they see your button. It's the brightest yellow, has a smiley face on it and the words "I am so evil". That will put the fear of DM into them!

I was going to mention the invisible stunt, but the basics were already told.


And then, of course, you can make one or all players doubt their senses. Works best if there is no illusion magic available, but surveillance gear, but works either way:

Have them find a cute little dog in the wilds. It's sooo lovely, the little rascal, wagging its tail and letting the characters feed and pat it. It stays with them and seems scared of the wilds, so the party takes it with them. Let them spend a night in an inn. In the morning, the dogs gone. And then, either when they ask the landlord about it or just go down to breakfast, have the landlord ask them about that monster dog they had with them - huge thing, as big as a wolf, with red eyes that looked as if it were glowing, big fangs in the mouth with copious amounts of drool running out, fur black as the night, and so on.
Then of course, there will be cases of damaged property in the village, and noone saw something, they only find pools of drool nearby and big tracks. Finally, a child goes missing. The parents report that they heard a really scary howl in the house, when the father goes looking for it, he finds that the child is gone, without any signs of conflict, but with drool on the floor. Have them search for the child, search for clues, while the whole villages fears and hates them.
 



Cthulhu,

Darkness (As in the spell)

Torture

DM (me), thumbing through the Book of Vile Darkness while they try and figure out what to do next.
 

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