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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ringmereth" data-source="post: 2539772" data-attributes="member: 33915">While I don't have much experince with horror, I can tell you that, as a frequent player of spellcasters, one of the best ways to scare players is to seperate them from the group. The dark, mysterious, and horrible is much more bearable when you can stick a dwarf in heavy armor between it and yourself, but when it's just you, a staff or crossbow, and the beast from the abyss alone, things suddenly get a lot more tense.Also, if used well, swarms of bad guys can be much scarier than one or three big nasty horrors. With only a few adversaries to hide from or combat, the players have a much easier time hiding and fighting, since there's a smaller chance that one will jump at your back while you're occupied with one in front. If there's lots of them (and the players don't know how many), they have to constantly watch their backs, and if even one finds them, they have to kill it or it might bring dozens more upon them. Finally, small is often scarier than large. A hundred-foot long wyrm might be intimidating, but it's not scary; it's a big target. A small monster is much more deadly-it can hide and jump out at you from places you don't expect, as well as being much harder to hit. Besides, ancient dragons, no matter how many extraneous tentacles and skeletal appendages they have, can't latch onto your back and feed on your organs or dominate your mind subtley.</blockquote>