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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tinner" data-source="post: 2538652" data-attributes="member: 19667">Make the familiar horrible.Take normal everyday innocent things and turn them into terrors.No one is afraid of grandmas. Grandmas have cookies and hugs.But if grandma tears your cheek off and eats it the next time she pinches your cheeks, there's going to be some serious shock there.Make it worse by having grandma and everyone else around her act like nothing happened.I've terrorized gamers with boy scouts and choirgirls, Puppies & ice cream. Anything can be horrifying if you twist it enough. Turning something safe and pretty into an object of horror is far more frightening than the standard tentacled monster from the far realm.The other thing that freaks people out is a loss of control.Obviously, this has to be used carefully or the players will cry "railroad".But doors that lock & unlock when they shouldn't, and police who remain unsympathetic, (or worse) when shown evidence of supernatural activity can really give pc's a feeling of being all alone against the unknown.Put the pc's in positions where they have no time to prepare, and their hard-earned equipment can't be used. Anything that reduces the player's level of control and forces them to react on the spur of the moment will heighten the fear factor.</blockquote>