Share your Keeper methods of setting the Cthulhu Mood...

[cybernetic]

I've recently become enmeshed in Call of Cthulhu...previously I hadn't really known much about it and throughout all the hype for CoCd20 I was drawn into the Mythos and the works of H.P. Lovecraft...a trully brilliant mind....anywayz....Just wanted to start a topic for everyone to share how they set the mood for their Cthulhu games....and how other scare their players......


Myself, I run CoC games only at night now..close the curtains...play in the lowest spot in my house (which is kinda like a den that is half underground and half above...)

We use flashlights for light....and I have another flashlight that has a red lense for special occasions...i occasionally like to call for lights out for dramatic and role playing reasons...

To help the atmosphere...I tend to use Plastikman (aka Ritchie Hawkin)....it very ambient techno that kind fits any situation...it kinda has an eerie effect in the dark when played softly....(I'm also working on making some original back ground music as well...considering I am pretty good on the music ends of things..)

Other little things are dramatic pauses...and pointless die rolls....looking off into the dark behind a player briefly while speaking to them....

what does everyone else like to do scare and/or set the mood for their Cthulhu games??

 

[Piratecat]

VERY important: move around. Walk behind the players. Talk to them while you're behind them. Stalk around the table, pace, stand next to them. When something scary is happening, get behind the people who it's happening to and lower your voice... whisper. It works wonders.

 

[cybernetic]

as a "side effect" of being a musician, I have a lot of musical equipment on hand....so I actually go to the extreme and use effects processors.....and add reverbs....delays....

one of my favorite things is I have surround sound....so I like to slap 3d delays effects on.....and I can make simple little noises and they bounce around the room!!

 

[GreyOne]

Eat a player.

 

[cybernetic]

Eat a player.

Do you recommend players raw, diced, or fried?

 

[Cthulhu]

Do you recommend players raw, diced, or fried?

Depends on whether they're role-players, munchkins, or rules-lawyers....

 

[Henry@home]

Conversely, I prefer to work "without a net, as it were"...

...I use no music, but I DO use sound effects.

I take my inspiration from movies which use no background music. In fact, one movie that inspired me the most in recent memory ... (you're gonna laugh)... "I spit on your grave." How many here are familiar with that movie?

For those who may have never heard of it (it's about 1970's vintage, I believe)... it is an unrated movie in which a woman is raped and is thought of as dead by her attackers, and subsequently exacts revenge in a very bloody fashion. This movie is NOT for the squeamish. However, it, as well as "The Blair Witch Project" made me realise this: A movie is FAR more real when there is no background music. Background music may establish mood, but it also gives us that thin veil between us and the silver screen, the realization that no matter what happens, it cannot affect us in any way.

Removing background music gives us the closest thing to total immersion that you can get without summonig Great Old Ones into your gaming room, or committing capital murder. I do, however, rely on several good sound effects to give us the feel that we are "there." Good sound effects, combined with gripping verbal description, are the two best audial tools a good horror GM has. In our Vampire: games, when we used to play, we had a repeating track of a thunderstorm in the background, turned low. It was very powerful enhancement.

As for "Gripping Verbal description," I recommend having an absolutely real picture in your mind of the locations and creatures before you desribe them. Describe them in short, but exacting detail, picking out the sights, smells, and sounds that would grab us the most. Do not forget scent; it is the most evocative of the smells.

Lowered lighting is a must. Maybe not "so dark you can't see," but as low as possible as to gauge player reactions. For this to work, you also need a way to dim lighting so as to raise it up without going from "DARK" to "FULL BLAST." I believe there are dimmers you can buy to attach to lamps and portable light sources.

I will ABSOLUTELY be borrowing Piratecat's idea about walking around behind the players and altering my descriptive voice appropriately. That ALONE will be worth a few "freak-out points."

These are the best pieces of advice I have come across in years of playing horror games. I hope yours are as good and evocative as mine have been.

 

[Cthulhu]

Wow...I never expected to read a reference to I Spit On Your Grave on this message board. It must surely be the End Times....

It certainly isn't a movie for the squeemish...or the squamous....

 

[Henry@home]

First of all - Cybernetic - would you happen to have any sound effects that you have created that you wouldn't mind sharing with us for download? I snap up sound effects wherever I can get them...

2nd of all - Great Cthulhu - since you are the most knowledgeable on this subject - what would you think freaks out those pesky investigators more - life with a soundtrack, or without?

 

[cybernetic]

I'm actually planning on converting my personal website www.digitaldark.net over to a Cthulhu resource site based on my games........ an will no doubt be posting many sounds there... as well as my ambience music....

are there any types of sounds you would be looking for....I have a rather large sound file collection... (I used to do some film stuff back in the day..) as of now its all in my sampler's format...so I'll need to convert to wav or mp3..but If I don't have a particular sound I can usually always make it

as far as the music thing...I've tried without..and even though I do have absolute silence at those key moments...I use the music of Plastikman because its the kind of music you really don't notice...it kind of effects you on a psycological level....which meshes nicely with CoC....you should listen to some of his work....there are those moments that REQUIRE silence though