What is the scariest game you've played or DM'nd?

[Arravis]

I'm thinking of running a one shot Call of Cthulhu game so I've been looking into ways I can put some fear into my players. I am not sure what plot I'm going to run yet though, I might have to re-read my old H.P. Lovecraft books . Anyway, I'd love to hear stories and advice on the scariest games you've had for any system...

 

[Henry]

I'm thinking of running a one shot Call of Cthulhu game so I've been looking into ways I can put some fear into my players. I am not sure what plot I'm going to run yet though, I might have to re-read my old H.P. Lovecraft books . Anyway, I'd love to hear stories and advice on the scariest games you've had for any system...

My advice would be to know your players. Come up with things that would unnerve them (though not too much, as you want them to in the end say they enjoyed it.)

Second, come up with situations that would scare YOU. Chances are, many of your fears will be your players' fears.

Some really off-the-wall ideas from a CoC game I ran early this year:

-Tub of running water. Most players will think to shut it off. The water's amorphous tendrils reach up to attack the PC. If it grabs them, it pulls them in, and the surface tension becomes rubbery and unbreakable. Bullets bounce off, knives slide as if on a teflon bubble, etc. The other PC's must watch their friend down in plain sight.

-Everybody's gotta go sometime, right? To the restroom, that is. In the restroom, the toilet, sink, showerstall, etc. are VERY cramped. Trouble is, it seems to be getting more cramped all the time. Eventually the PC realizes that the whole room is shrinking, yet the door frame is remaining the same. The door opens inward, so they cannot leave unless they are able to break the door down. The outside PC's can either help, or watch their friend eventually get squirted out the bottom of the door like toothpaste.

-Flying animated kitchen knives and skillets are always a treat.

I have others, but they were really more specific to the adventure I ran. To me, being in plain sight of a friend and being unable to help save them from death is a very nasty thing to see. Plus, if their spirits come back as revenants, they have something to be pissed about - especially if the friend ran away in the end because they couldn't stand the sight.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Chill box set from Pacesetter Games. It was the cirus/park module, just good players and good DM. The DM went to a lot of detail and had pictures from the local state fair, that he filmed for the TV station he was working at, late at night before the people were showing up.

 

[Umbran]

The scariest game I ever played in was a Deadlands mini-campaign. Six sessions, and only one straight encounter with a supernatural horror, at the end.

The second scariest game I've ever played was a 4 hour long larp, which had no supernatural elements at all. I played an off-duty cop n the middle of a hostage situation.

The secret to scaring people in a game is immersion. Your players simply won't be scared if they haven't strangled their disbelief and tossed it into the corner. Your players will really have to sink into their roles to feel fear.

In order to produce fear, you must first produce tension and apprehension. In the movies, they have visual, audio, and timing tricks they can use to quickly generate tension. At the gaming table, you don't have those tricks at your disposal, so trying to scare with rapid fire encounters with supernatural monsters won't work. The players will stop feeling fear, and start feeling like warriors, which isn't what you want.

So, take it slow. You only really need one scary thing in a whole evening of horror gaming. You simply have to drag it out, savor it. Imagine your gaming session as a reading of "The Telltale Heart", and you'll be on the right track.

 

[Praeco]

Completely diceless fantasy/horror game. One of the characters accidentally teleported the group to a demi-plane where a force resided, and fed off the aspects of the life force of the characters. One person became progressively older, another became weaker, another found they could not speak. All suffered effects but the person who got them there in the first place. The creature chose to take the physical form of that person. The game faltered a bit at the end, but in the meantime was tense enough that the players were nervous every step of the way.

I ran it with a friend, we used sound effects from various Nine Inch Nails remixes to enhance the mood. There is some messed up sound effects there. Since it was paperless and diceless, the lights could go out at any moment as well.

 

[Macbeth]

This may be a little far from what your looking for, but the scariest game I ever ran was a GURPS game with relatively week characters, in the style of a teen horror movie. I call it my "5 kids go camping" adventure, and basicly it means the PCS have no real weapons and a comlete lack of common sense, and every NPC has major psychological problems and a bazooka. Thats the short summary of it. Since the characters wre perpetually in mortal danger, and every NPC was likely to try and kill them, the suspense was uncanny. I know its kind of a cheap plot, but it lends itself to a great mix of humor and horror that produced some of my best gaming memories.

 

[Savage Wombat]

I always fondly remembered a game I played in. The PCs weren't up to fighting the mysterious ghostly murdering monster without more info - so, following instructions, we holed up for the night to do more exploring in the dawn.

In the middle of the night, the PCs hear the sound of claws scratching at the door. Deep, harsh scratches. None of the PCs move or make a sound. Eventually, the noise goes away.

In the morning, we discovered inch-deep scratches in the wooden door.

On OUR SIDE of the door.

...

One of the players went to the window and screamed for a full minute. "Tension breaker; had to be done."

 

[S'mon]

I ran 'The Haunted House' Call of Cthulu adventure in an old house with a big cellar. It was pretty scary - scary enough my wife's PC absolutely _refused_ to go into the cellar.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

I'm thinking of running a one shot Call of Cthulhu game so I've been looking into ways I can put some fear into my players. I am not sure what plot I'm going to run yet though, I might have to re-read my old H.P. Lovecraft books . Anyway, I'd love to hear stories and advice on the scariest games you've had for any system...

You must buy Delta Green: Countdown, which has some of the best ideas for horror adventures ever - even outside of the whole "government conspiracy" genre. The best part are:

- The Hastur Mythos: An otherworldly entity that slowly warps reality and screws with the characters' senses. I used this in a Forgotten Realms campaign, to great effect.

- PISCES and the Shan: Your characters are on the trail of a shadowy cult who kidnap rich and influential people and drill holes into their foreheads. What do you do when you discover that they are actually the good guys? This made for a very memorable Warhammer adventure...

- The Skoptsi: An evil cult whose initiation rites are guranteed to scare the out of your male party members. Sadly, I have yet to use these guys in an adventure...

 

[Bleys]

The main things I can think of that have worked well for some of our games in the distant past were all mood-setting things done outside the game.

* Play the game at night, if at all possible.
* Play in a room with lights on a dimmer switch, so you can slowly drop the room into dusky darkness.
* Try to play somewhere that's "spooky" in and of its own right.
* Get your hands on some good, relevant sound effects.
* Lastly, depending upon your players, don't tell them that it's going to be a 'horror' session (of course, if it would work better for them to know, so they can work themselves into the right mindset, then tell them... that's only something you can judge )

Best of luck, and I hope you scare the bejeezus out of them