How to I scare my group?

[UD]

My group has seemed to taken a liking to ammo based weapons (we play way to much CyberPunk). Yeah, generally they arnt supposed to kill it, just make it out allive (well not *all* of them)

Anyway heres a list of encounters the group may have:

In the initial entry bay there is written on the walls in blood a message telling people to leave, flee and destroy the ship. Lying next to it is a dead ban in a pool of blood, having been shot several times.

General clanning on the hull, and the occasional scream.

Before they have the evidence about the statue being a god I will let them find the crew member who has decided that he can not take te truth, and has decided no one else will. He has planet a bomb in the engine room.... A race against time will ensure as the PC's work themselfs deep into the ship to deactivate the bomb. Then work back, to find that the man is now a fine spray on the floor of the room...

At some point maybe a floor will collapse into the level below, prehaps into some of the crew who have become Wights...

At one point a dead body falls on to the PC's out of a air vent.

After getting the computer/power back on line the internal comms will start to work (before its was just static) and they recieve a distress call from one of the lower levels, one of the crew is hiding in a storage compartment. When they arrive outside they find it locked, looking in through the window, they see a look of absolute horror on this guys face as he shoots wildly at something out of the PC's vision. After emptying the gun, he looks towards the PC's then back, to where the PC's can't see. Realising that they wont get through in time to help him he pulls a clip from his pocket he places it in the gun and kills himself.

When the mechanic/whoever is working to retrieve files from the computer when power is brought back online, he 'your next' message comes up.

Random spot checks, with cryptic replies like 'your not sure but there could have been something down there. its all still and dark now...'

Coming over two bodies where two crew members have fought each other to the death in a gun fight.

Captain's log of events, which is retrieved randomly. A lot of it comes across as the gibering nonsense of a mad man.

Crew log where the crew member talks about finding fluffy. Soon followed by a howl....

Finding a crew member curled up in a corner muttering to himsself incoherently.

Finally extracting the scientific data from the computer and prehaps learning that the statue is a dead god.

Mad crew members attacking them.

At least 1 attmept to posses a PC and cause havok. Im still not sure what teh best way to handle this is if the PC is possesed. Should I get the PC to play, or should I?

 

[UnDfind]

Yeah! That souds like a great adventure so far!

As far as PC posession goes, it's my experience that players tend to get upset when you take their characters away from them. Then there's always the fact that the player will end up with nothing to do for a while, which might tempt him to go to out of game topics and ruin the carefully-built ambiance. I'd reccommend letting the PC have control, but telling him (or passing notes) telling him what his character is going to do now. Make it one of those things where the guy is still looking through his own eyes, and has some control over his own thoughts, but he has to watch in horror as his body carries out the spirit's evil deeds.

If you get a good roleplayer posessed, then you could even get the horror factor of a wide eyed PC saying "I'm so sorry" right before he starts blasting at his friends.

Heehee...that would be fun! I wanna play!

 

[UD]

Thanks for the tip UnDfind.

When I have finished i will compile it into a useable adventure and post it in story hour or plots or somewhere.

What do people think its best to do for maps and things? Shuld I just make it up as I go along or work out a rough/detailed map before hand. I've got down that there will be five floors to the ship, and roughly whats on each floor.

 

[Numion]

Come to the session with 2e books! That oughta do it.

 

[Roland Delacroix]

The fear of physical threats is nothing compared to the fear of mental instability. Start having one character see things like blood on walls, etc. When everyone looks, including the character, nothing is there.

Incorpreal types are great, no physical enemy makes the enemy more unknown, what we don't know we fear.

I agre, Event Horizon is a GREAT movie for you to see, kinda freaky in a few parts.

Try Will saves all over. This goes back to the mental degrading. As the setting causes madness to creep up have em roll Will saves to not do stuff. The first time you say in the ships hold "make a Will save. Good, you grip the rail tightly, ignoring the nagging voice telling you the cold of deep space is a better choice than what remains on this ship." Reflex saves might work here too, to keep the save thing fair to all classes. Heh, i ran an awesome game once based on some Lovecraft stuff, there was this bell, not evil its creaters were beyond 'good' and 'evil', but when the bad guys rang it its reverberating coaxed everyone that thier eyes weren't importantm, why not gouge them out? The players saw NPCs everywhere tearing our thier eyes and, i swear on God's teeth, their hair started standing on end when I said "Make a will save, Hmm, you start gouging your eyes, hmm, only a little damage so far...."

Another good trick is the sleeper. What I usually do to make the game go longer is the first character that dies I talk to the player aside and ask them if they would rather work for me for a little while. Thier characeter would have been dead, but I just let em play a little longer as a sleeper spy/madman. Eventually I trigger him, he trys to kill a few PCs, and the rest of the party is totally freaked that the PLAYER could even do something like that. They start looking crosseyed at everyone else, not knowing who else i've made 'deals' with. Player and I grin evilly at this point.

 

[UD]

Cool tips Roland, thanks.

 

[Fade]

In the initial entry bay there is written on the walls in blood a message telling people to leave, flee and destroy the ship.

I'm not sure how it will go with your group. but mine are the sort of people who would do exactly that.

 

[UD]

Mine a cocky upstarts loaded to the teeth with ammo and guns. Nothing can defeat them. Yet...

Heh...

Also the alternative to not retrieving this data will be less than pleasent. (plus cr are allways nice....)

 

[madriel]

Please do write it up when you're done. It sounds awesome.

 

[adndgamer]

Yes. definitely sounds great

Reminds me of a story of the guys at id software sending a copy of Doom to a research station on Antarctica with a note saying something to the effect of:

"We hope that playing Doom won't make you go crazy and send you on a killing spree, but if it does, please send photos."