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Message: <blockquote data-quote="greywulf" data-source="post: 3126721" data-attributes="member: 4285">Ooo! Good thread, all solid ideas and tricks. I second the recommendation for Heroes of Horror too.I've GM'd Call of Cthulhu for the at least a decade, and used lots of icky tricks:- keep the players Hit Points secret, so they don't know just how close to death they are. This works especially well in claustrophobic, violent areas. I used that for a Call of Cthulhu -in-space game set in an almost abandoned asteroid mine. Almost, that is, except for the Star Vampire. Old White Dwarf scenario, and a classic- emphasize the senses other than sight. Describe the smells, sounds and the fetid touch of invisible fingers clawing at their flesh. Only use sight as a last resort. - foreshadow. Have them find a body. Then the head. Then the eyes........- twist the rules (but keep the twists internally consistent). Dampen magic, have cleric spells stop working. Just make sure that the twists also apply to the bad guys too, so the players can (eventually) exploit it- Isolate the players. Make it clear that they are the Last Men Standing. Split them up. Put two teams in different rooms while gaming and have them need to find each other to piece together the clues. If they heard the sound of distant screams, it /could/ have come from the other team-members!- Darken the room, light candles, consider mood music. I set a game in a carnival ater dark, and played "What's new pussycat" by Tom Jones on loop, over and over and....... by the end of the game, we were /all/ insane! Nothing is scarier than Tom Jones. Nothing.- Have an expected evil be swept aside casually by a greater evil. Remember Bishop from Alien? - Have the first encounter go Really Really Badly for the players. Don't kill 'em (ok, maybe just one....), but shake them up and make them realise that their weapons are useless. Just as they're after your blood, have one of them find a body clutching a Clue. Maybe they need a Book. There's always a Book.- Oh, and make sure you've got a Carrot.  There has to be a motivation to carry on, and enough clues to keep them going. Otherwise, horror adventures can be all just Sticks hitting the players, and all sticks and no carrots ain't fun gaming. Hope that helps!</blockquote>

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