What Scares You?

[Sejs]

Swimming in really -deep- bodies of open water where you can't see the bottom: I like to know what's under me when I'm all vulnerable and whatnot. Boats on open water, on the other hand - no problem with 'em at all.

Spiders. A number of bad experiences when I was a kid (I'd had contact with both of north america's human-dangerous spiders before I was 8y/o) really strong, toasty arachnophobia in me. Kill it (while raw panic runs behind your eyes and your heart races), or flee from it (so as to kill it from as great a distance as possible) are pretty much my only reactions to spiders these days.

Drowning / Suffocation. It just really seems like an unpleasant way to go. You're going to die, there's no air, and there's nothing you can do about it. Just the hopelessness of it gets me. Right up there with Being Burned To Death as far as poor ways to die rank.

 

[Robbert Raets]

Most rational fear: The General Level of Stupidity among Human Beings

Most irrational fear: Bugs

Silliest fear in hindsight: Being abducted by Aliens

 

[Mark Chance]

Fear: Watching a movie in which some actor has to kiss Julia Roberts. Her mouth is freakishly huge. Inhumanly so. I cringe expecting the poor sod to reel away screaming incoherently from a bloody hole because Julia Roberts swallowed his lower jaw.

That, and bees, hornets, wasps, et cetera.

Oh: And NYPD Blue. I tuned it once (just once) and saw Dennis Franz's giant, hairy, naked buttocks. I became hysterically blind, and cannot now even watch a commercial for the show without feelin queasy.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

Soul-death.

Dying isn't that bad, especially in D&D where you can often be brought back. And even if you aren't, you end up on the plane of your god--which in most cases is a Happy Land (tm).

But creatures that actually eat your immortal essence. That's scary.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

I'm looking for things that would genuinely frighten you, either IRL, or if you were an adventurer.

I would use the idea of the unending. Once a character is dead, you either raise it or move on. But torment without possible death is scarey to an adventurer.

I had a druid with a very nasty plan for a fellow adventurer once (it was the "if he ever does that again" sort of plan and turned out to be unneeded.) It was a rediculously high powered game with automatic no level loss resurection no matter where you died. cheese city. So I made it very clear that my druid would not kill the offending fighter. Rather, he would have all his limbs removed, with generous application of healing magic to make sure he didn't die from blood loss. Then probably his eyes and tounge for good measure. He would be slung in a hamock in the center of the druids village, and the village youths would practice their archery and other fighting skills on him. Snacked on by animal companions. Infected with various diseases so that the village healers could learn how to treat them. And lovingly cared for to ensure that he lived many long years to serve in these capacities.

Immortality becomes a very scarey thing when you remove the instant healing parts of it....

Kahuna Burger

 

[Broken Fang]

Needels

Being confined...as in having all limbs bound and being placed in a sensory deprivation tank.

 

[Angcuru]

*Pictures Chris Schlager(the greasiest human being alive) dressed up in a white rabbit suit holding a basket of hand grenades.*
.................

That undead babies thingy is REAALLLY creepy!

 

[Philip]

The unknown.



The best scare I could ever get out of my players (and for myself), is by not specifying a threat directly, but just hinting at things. Its called 'free-floating anxiety' in Psychology: tou know something is wrong, some dangerous or bad is going to happen, but you don't know what, don't know how to prepare, and you start filling it in with your own worst fears.

I had this game where I let the players come across a bunch of dead people, just lying there with all their loot. No obvious signs why they died, just that each one bore a peculiar marking.

Next the PCs are in the town. I ask their Wis modifier and secretly make a roll. I tell those who failed (they are considered to be the most gullible/superstitious) that they recognize the marking found on the dead bodies in the clouds overhead.

Within no time the PCs are scared out of there wits, searching for any handhold what that sign means, making al kinds of assumptions about evil cults, magical curses or diseases, coming of the apocalypse etc. Then built on those fears, and the tension will rise and adventures will practically write themselves....

 

[Magic Missile]

I have a fear of explosive decompression...

 

[Sixchan]

Hmm...I have what Rincewind called a Fear of Grounds. Heights don't bother me. I can be at the top of a skyskraper and have no problems. It's when I look *directly* down and see where I would hit the ground if I fell that scares me.

Also small Suspension bridges. Swinging doesn't make me feel great, and on particular bridge in Glasgow can be swung by just 3 people jumping on it.

Oh, and Wide Open Spaces. This is just uneasyness, but I'm still classified as having Agoraphobia.