Looking to Scare the $#!+ Out of My Players

[Thaniel]

My first DM (back in late '98) ran a Ravenloft game. One of the scariest scenes was when we were sleeping in this mansion (I think we were delivering a message to the homeowner or something). But anyways, the house was extremely spooky. No one got any sleep (no recovery of spells) because we were awakened by nightmares. How he did the nightmares was to send everyone out of the room except one person at a time (this was at college. Not hard to get out of the dorm room and wait in the hall). The room was pitch black except for the faint monitor glow of his computer. He then read to us (in a quite creepy deep voice) the poems that we saw in our dreams written in blood on the wall.

We all then came back in and our characters awoke simultaneously screaming (gotta love horror checks in ravenloft). We then recalled to the best of our ability the poems that we saw/heard (he only read it once - you don't always remember your dreams accurately).

The first two players could only remember the basic gists of their respective poems and it was then my turn. In character, I repeated in a shaky whimper of a whisper, the poem I was read verbatim. The DM shivered. I asked what was wrong and he said I just made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

 

[moritheil]

My players have a lot of faith in my tactical ability. Once I had an off-hand conversation with one of them concerning a few possibilities for vampires with class levels. Ever since, the group has been possessed of an almost pathological fear of the blood-suckers. No one's sure what I can do with them, and most don't want to find out.

The important thing to note is that it has nothing to do with what they've actually seen - it's more word-of-mouth spread by an honestly concerned player who ranks pretty high in the group in terms of tactical ability.

The whole thing is somewhat reminiscent of a famous scene from Constantine. The title character is a magician who, owing to a combination of opportunism and good luck, manages to off a major demon. Somewhat later, he goes into a room to rescue a child, and finds that the room is full of demons, evil wizards, and other assorted heavy hitters. Acting nonchalant, he simply announces that he will leave with the kid and no one will get hurt.

No one knows what he can do, but some of the more powerful and well-connected demons have heard about the demise of one of their number, and this announcement makes them pause. Seeing the big guns pause, others in the room begin to wonder, and meanwhile Constantine walks out of the room.

 

[devilish]

Nightmares of Mine

It looks like Iron Crown is still selling it : I haven't dropped it into the
shopping cart so I don't know if it'll give you an "Out of Print" message.
http://store.ironcrown.com/detail.jsp?itemId=2023&category=10099

 

[Jupp]

I watched Sin City yesterday and my mind is set on the plan to introduce Kevin to the players. It will be a delicous meal

 

[Joël of the FoS]

I’d humbly suggest going back to the roots of horror in RPG, i.e. Ravenloft… (inspired from the infamous Ravenloft black box*)


- You need to add detail. Not just “you are fighting a ghoul”, but add the details on the stench of the undead, the shadows possibly hiding other threats, etc. Help them visualize the scene.

- Ask your player for developped background. A page is enough. Then orient parts of your campaign around these backgrounds, to hit the players where their personal life is. They will care more.

- Strange yet familiar. Take an ordinary scene but add a few odd details to put them on their toes and make sure they ask themselves if something is wrong. Describe the creature they are fighting instead of saying "you are fighting a troll". Let them guess!

- Isolation. Make them foreigners in a gloomy scene, where their foreign language will make them alienated and unable to communicate. Or put them in an isolated place.

- Put the control in the villain’s hand. Everybody hate a game of cat and mouse when they play the mouse part!

- Assault on the body. Fot example, make a woman pregnant while she is sure nothing happened to put her pregnant, or similar strange event...

- Hit them in their nightmares, or maker them hear somebody else’s voice in their mind.

- Make the villains fully developed characters, i.e. not only people waiting for the players to arrive in their room. Make it a scary recuring villain.

Use these advices with parsimony. Do not overuse these advices!

For more advice, read more Ravenloft stuff (Ravenloft DM Guide is a good idea) or the Black Box. You can also read other DM advices for Ravenloft there: http://www.fraternityofshadows.com/Salon.html (get in the Evil DM Tricks ™ parts!)

Joël