Horror Games

While it's still a few months off from October, I have the sudden urge to run something horror related for my players. I've built a relatively simple homebrew game, and figured out a basic plot, but does Veeky Forums have any advice for running a horror game? Has anyone done it and actually succeeded in scaring your players?

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Players are scared of levels. Shout out "A GIANT SQUID LUNGES FROM THE CLOSET." And let the hype man in the group make a big deal about it, which in turn makes the players in a better mood.

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Try to create an atmosphere while you're playing that will put your players on edge. If your game is set in a deep, dark forest, invite your players to a game session innawoods. Keep it dark. Keep it moody. Use a music player or an ambient noise program to set up a soundscape for the game.

Remember that a large part of horror is about suspense - not knowing what's hunting you is way scarier than knowing what kind of monster it is. Also, if they care for their characters, they will fear for them more.

Someone have that screenshot when someone makes an example out of Dead Space, with using trust in horror games?

Players don't get scared, they get immersed.

You have to build something before you can break it. The characters have to matter before they can be destroyed. The story has to draw the players in before it can affect them. And the threat has to be built up before it is explained and maybe overcome.

A while back I came up with a step-by-step based on my own experience.
>step 1; give the PCs a clear and relatively simple goal, you can only be scared when you have something to lose, the PCs need a goal they want to achieve so that there's tension when it's threatened.
>step 2; introduce threats, start to imply that something is working against the character, increase the overtness of these slowly, for however long it takes for them to catch on.
>step 3; introduce a clock, now that the players know there is a threat, make them aware of the time limit they're now acting under to complete their goal.
>step 4; the final confrontation, once you feel the tension has reached appropriate levels the threat directly confronts the PCs, exactly how this encounter will work depends on what system you're running
>step 5; conclusion, either the PCs complete their goal or they're failed, if you're intending on continuing the campaign further then make sure there's some loose end, if they lost then someone survived to tell their tale, if they won then the underlying threat remains and must be faced again

there is also what I consider my golden rule: the PCs should be able to win. If the players have no hope then they won't care about the outcome, if they don't care about the outcome then they won't feel the tension. Cultivate hope just as much as fear.

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One subtle trick I learned from another one of these threads is this:
Get a simple track of white noise or something similar and play it on a loop from the start of the session, but at a REALLY low volume so you can barely even hear it. Naturally, don't tell the players about the noise.

If they notice, firstly, the volume is too high, but just play it off somehow. You're a GM, I'm sure you can think of a clever excuse. (I always just said it was for ambience. They eventually will forget about it anyway as they focus on other stuff and not even notice it.)

Let the noise play throughout the session, and whenever you want a scene or area to feel really creepy or unsettling, ease down the volume of the white noise until it's completely silent. It's subtle, but the relative silence can really help in backing up a creepy atmosphere.

It's worked for me and my players, at least.

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Anyone remember/have a link to that old post about the guy doing a one-off where his players explored a Martian ruined temple that turned haunted/cosmic horror? Talked about how the players had to wear gas masks until their character was killed, he cranked the thermostat up and down to make them uncomfortable, and only lit the place with a few candles, and had those kickass sound effects?

suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/12130366/

Unless your group is into role-playing and not just rolling to kill monsters and baddies - forget it.
You need specific players for such game, anyone won't do

You are aware that you can, in fact, game with non-autistic humans. Some of them might even be well-adjusted, balanced adults, capable of going days or even years without a Monty Python reference, a rape joke, or a room-clearing fart. People who have careers, baths, mortgages, that sort of thing.

DM did a horror game for us, but it eventually swan dived into a magical realm.

Ooh, what flavour?

The fuck it has to do with anything, you fucking moron?
Different people play different games for different reasons. If your players embrace murderhobo approach to TTRPG, there is just no way you can play a horror game with them, because it's not what they are looking for.

But sure, it's autism, because on Veeky Forums, everything is autism

I... Holy shit that's some creepy psych horror. Never had a player make their character commit suicide before just to not have to keep going in the session.

Horror monster waifus and husbandos for all. Well, almost all. Some of us didn't survive.

Often times it works best to give players less information as opposed to more.
For example, perception checks yielding little to no information in places where they would expect otherwise.
"You see and hear nothing. The trees stare back at you like judges." in the middle of a dark forest put my players on edge before they even knew something ominous was anywhere in their vicinity.
Getting them to jump at their own shadows is also effective. False checks and red herrings are your friend.

Storytiem?

Any horror game ideas?

Better question, how do you fit Peter Stormare into your tabletop games Veeky Forums?

>opens picture
>See it's a gif while it loads
>close it before anything happens

I'm almost sure that's a ruse, but still NOPE.

>actually believing this happened

>being this much of a pussy

If it's a NOPE then it's the fucking longest one I've seen. I had it running for two minutes with no changes. I think it's just a really big image.

Well it stared out seriously enough, and was sort of set up like an independent, private owned and operated X-files group though in practice it functioned more like Mystery Inc since our professionalism and expertise weren't so great and our funding was low. Mostly it was investigative work about reports made by people about strange things, but often enough there was a monster or supernatural being involved.

Eventually at some point though after having ongoing trouble with the work, and a particularly close call, some players started to figure perhaps it would be easier to try cooperating or at least interacting with the things we encountered rather than just trying to stop, kill or get rid of them. And so what started out as us figuring maybe we didn't have to go into every situation immediately hostile, turned into us realizing that monsters and supernatural entities were totally cooperative if treated nicely and eventually romantically. We went from using relevant knowledge, weapons and special items to combating the supernatural menace, to using our genitals.

Eventually, everyone had a monster waifu or husbando. The sad thing was that it actually paid off well, because in drawing these beings into relationships, also invited their help in the problems we faced after. If you think about it, if you have to go up against a horror movie slasher monster type of enemy, it would greatly help to already have another horror movie slasher monster on your side (and married to one of the characters, as was the case for the actual slasher monster we encountered and a character wifed).

>tfw felt bad for the DM who just wanted a straight horror game and was good at it, but we took it off the rails and he had to indulge some sick fantasies and RP relationships to an extent

The light flickers you dumb shits

Your group sounds incredibly awful.

desu the DM shouldn't have thrown us that bone in the first place.

The opening premise wasn't bad then it got fucked up

Yes, I agree.

Secretly get the most cooperative player in on it well before the game even begins. Maybe he's part of the evil at hand, or already afflicted by it, either way have him play normally for the first third or so of the session. Then the other players slowly start to realize it, or don't understand it.
Why is he accurately describing the shadows in his veins breaking out and splitting him up? The GM didn't say anything about that and he isn't saying anything now. FUCK didn't he give me a drink earlier? And I automatically trusted him because he's a player and not an NPC?

I think you could get some good mileage out of spiders, OP.

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The sounds kind of like what one of my players tried to do the last time I ran a suspense type game. They tried diplomacy. The rest of the party was finding pieces of them for days.

Makes sense. To be fair, as I said, not everyone survived. Like one guy thought he could change the ways of a mantis woman with love.

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What are some cool monsters and bad guys you'd put in a horror game? Do you prefer to go for a more slasher or supernatural approach to your antagonists?

Definitely supernatural. Slasher movie bad guys are generally only dangerous because they're hunting down a bunch of retarded teenagers forced to lug the idiot ball by the plot.

Supernatural shit gets into your head, where the real fears live - within yourself.

Slasher is just a flavor for action. Horror requires a poorly understood threat.

A threat which can be assessed can never be horror. The PCs have to be chased by something they initially fail to grasp. Naturally they will want to find out what is threatening them. Therefore a horror game is always at least part investigation.

Action kills tension, so in a purist game it is often marginal, if not completely absent. Relevant action only fits in the third act. Any action before that cannot face the actual threat effectively.

>A threat which can be assessed can never be horror. The PCs have to be chased by something they initially fail to grasp.

This is true, but the threat has to have limits.

In Nightmare on Elm Street the protagonists realize they can avoid Freddie Krueger by staying awake. In Drag Me To Hell the protagonist has a set amount of time before the demon comes for her in which she can try to find a way to stop it. In It Follows the protagonist can run away from the demon or pass on the curse. In slasher movies they can run away or hide from Jason or whoever.

There HAS to be a way for them to plausibly escape death when being menaced by the monster - if the audience knows their death is certain, it's not as scary.

Not knowing if they're going to live or die is scarier than knowing they're definitely going to die, because you'll give up on the character and stop caring. You always need to leave them a sliver of hope.