What are the best ways to utilize or feature anomalous radio transmissions in your horror games? Are they best used to help set the mood, or is it possible to focus on them as a major plot point like pic related? Does anyone have any particularly eerie or weird broadcasts to share?
Anomalous Radio Transmissions
Jason Peterson
Joseph Thompson
>feature anomalous radio transmissions in your horror games?
1.) something the party is facing gets a hold of a party radio. it talks to them on their own channels
1a.) it parrots back the voices of it's victims or the dead
2.) idly flipping through channels on a vehicle radio a transmission cuts off a shock-jock mid sentence, some term or phrase or code-word. then the DJs come back on mid-sentence.
3.) a classic case of "something comes through the static" on a TV or radio.
4.) a RADAR, LIDAR, or active SONAR ping returns on the screen with some symbol or recognizable shape. repeated pings do not echo back the same.
5.) clean static, on walkie-talkies. it means that someone or something nearby and on your channel is actively transmitting, and that they are transmitting NOTHING.
6.) when faced with static have the players roll a listen check/test nothing is there.
Brody Jackson
Fuck, that game was that type of scary where it doesn't so much terrify you, but fill you with a sense of dread and loathing that makes you want to either lash out at something or run as fast as you can. Pretty decent.
Vidya aside, I've never really run horror in tg before, but if I did in a setting with radios you bet your ass I'd play some numbers station recordings in the background during the creepier moments. archive.org
Jonathan Jenkins
I've always liked the idea of giving the PCs an ally over the radio, feeding them bits of backstory as well as the occasional clue from time to time. Get the PCs to trust this mysterious voice before throwing some doubt into the mix as to whether or not their trust is misplaced.
All really great suggestions!
I really enjoyed the extradimensional, almost Lovecraftian nature of "the Sunken" and their almost obsession with returning to our world. The game was definitely unsettling and interesting.
Landon Roberts
U had a "radiohead" robot npc in a campaign ones.
Basically a brain in a jar on a radio.
The way it would communicate with the player is by switching radio channels to make a complete sentence.
I prepared a few audio snippets butchered them together to make a sentence.
The players loved it.
After a while it got tedious and i just used my best radio host voice i could do. Sometimes game show, sometimes sports announcer.
Charles Price
"Cut and paste" conversations are also a great, unnerving way to use the radio.
Carter Jones
Characters talk with each other on image board. Its creepy thread. Someone mentions number stations. Someone says they transmite unusual number/symbol combinations lately. You look into them. Its adresses you were recently. Just as you realise this usual beeps of the station stops and women voice tells your home adress.
Elijah Hughes
That's a good way to put a sense of unease into the characters and their players. What are they supposed to do with this information? Is the numbers station trying to send them a message? Is it trying to send a message to others about the PCs? Either way, they now have someone or something's attention.
Thomas Lee
source?
Thomas Hall
Oxenfree