How does one do "horror" in a game? What creepy plot hooks or tips can you guys give? Players want a scary game...

Atmosphere.
Slow burn.
Perception checks.

You need to read your players; what might be perfect horror for one person is completely innefectual on another. Also don't spend too long building suspense/atmosphere, it can sharply lose it's mojo.

Body horror.

I was in a game of dark heresy in which one mission we had to extract an inquisitorial bigwig from an unresponsive station. It quickly turned into a game of Alien Isolation. Nothing was ever really overly scary, but our DM nailed the feeling of uneasiness and that something's watching you

Here's a question. How do I as a player take horror seriously?

Even when I'm rolling death saving throws for a character I've played for dozens of hours I just get excited and laugh at the situation. Spooky skeletons creeping towards my character in a crypt smeared with gore just makes me think "Gee I hope I don't get fucking murdered in this shit hole and no one notices, that would kind of suck" which is somehow comical to me.

Avoid jump scares, focus on atmosphere, a good scary setting should be subtle and slowly creep on the players not le friday night pizza place bullshits

Yes, you've got this right. Non-Euclidean geometry, duh.

Disempower your players.

Perceptions. Make sure you constantly describe sights, sounds, feelings and smells. If you don't describe smells, then when you finally do the players will be tipped off the smell is important. By referencing all five senses, you'll be making players uncertain if anything you describe is of value.

Helplessness. Make the threat unkillable. Or it comes back after being slain. Or there are an infinite number of them.

Pressure. Time limits, a time sensitive goal or a threat that is constantly approaching. Something that forces the players to stop using the "I search every nook and cranny of a room" tactics. This deprives the players of knowledge, creating uncertainty.

Uncertainty. Rolling behind your screen and making notes for no reason, random perception checks with no cause for them, etc. That combined with the above will freak a player out. If they don't have the luxury of time and you tell them "you don't see anything" or "you think you see something ahead" they're going to be a lot more conscious of the fact that they're going into something blind.

Paranoia. Add in situations that create ambiguity. If a creature can take somebody's shape or mimic their voice, it instantly creates paranoia. Completely dark rooms, narrow corridors, caverns where you can't see the ceiling, etc.

Create consequences. Abuse the concept behind the mimic. Create situations that punish or otherwise hamper players for their decision to act. Tempt them and then pull the rug out from under them. Not every time, but once or twice, whenever you feel they might be becoming complacent.

Vagueness. When you describe a perception check, try to be vague and suggestive. The wind blows through the hall through an open door and something rustles in the dark. Could be a tapestry... or it could be the hem of a robe.

It's all about letting the players freak themselves out with their own worries and fears. You plant the seeds and they make them grow.

what the fuck. did you steal my thread or did i steal yours?

It's more the GM's role to put you into a position where you're unable to think in that way. I'm 100% certain at some point in your history as a player you've come across situations where the GM has made you afraid.

Not 'horror' afraid, but paranoid. Maybe a doppelganger in the group. Or heavy use of mimics. Or you've been made to feel a lot of pressure, like an enemy is escaping and you keep missing them with your bow. Stuff like that.

If you have felt those, then you have the capacity. It's just the GM isn't doing it correctly. A crypt full of skeletons isn't going to inspire those feelings in a player; Helplessness, pressure, uncertainty, paranoia and vagueness are.

People fear the unknown.

The I am currently running a pseudo-horror game. In the last session, they had to track down some stolen property (maps and accounting ledgers) white eventually led them to an abandoned mine. It was a strip mine who's entrance was a huge pit. Only one of the characters had dark vision and light sources weren't strong enough to illuminate the very far. I used ambient sounds that got progressively louder as the moved deeper into the mine (I used a speaker with a remote that i kept ticking up from time to time.) And I keep things dimly lit in my games, but I turned out those lights too. Lots of perception checks with no results (there was literally nothing to find - the mine actually was abandoned and a red herring).

My players were on the edge of their seats the whole time. Repeatedly saying things like, "I don't want to do this", "I think we should go back," and the like.

I don't know if this helps at all, but I hope it gives a little inspiration.

Have you seen the modern remake of "the wolf man"? I forget the main actors name but Hugo weaving and Anthony Hopkins are also in it. Pretty good movie and an excellent rendition of a classic horror. Just because something is a classic doesn't mean it's bad, simplicity in horror is usually the best way to go.

You can't save the evil hot as fuck Necromancer girl with your cock

Horror more than any other genre requires the players to really be on board and not ruin the mood with shitty jokes and that kind of crap. It's all about building suspense which is very difficult

It really is true that women cannot ever be intimidating to men. Like that chick is obviously very powerful and can do all sorts of terrible necromancer shit, but she's also hot and dressed like a slut.

What if a woman in modest attire held you at gunpoint? Would her attractiveness still negate any fear?

or a room with walls in the shape of a pentagon when viewed vertically

Gaslight the players....change minor things throughout the story and act like it's completely normal..and that it was always that way...
The bar was always named the dead horse, what is this wet bitch you speak off.

You made Jace Beleren sad...

Yes. But even if she was ugly it still wouldn't be intimidating. I really can't explain why, that's just how it is.

As mentions Cthulu lore is quite a good place to start, but I would really take a look at H.P. Lovecraft's works. The diction is a bit difficult sometimes since it was written long enough ago that people spoke a bit differently. That being said though the way he describes the general vibe of terror as opposed to jump scaring or full on showing you the monster is what really enables his terror. His writing is the suspense of a moment before something really bad and unknown happens. In my opinion this is what makes great terror and horror settings. Unknown elements, and highly descriptive surrounding elements. If there is a mist, don't just say there is a mist, say it is thick like a miasma, that it is slightly sticky, that it seems to drag your limbs down with every step and breathing becomes difficult, the helplessness of the mist alone will build a sense of helplessness and what is terror but being vulnerable?

wait until you walk down some shit street only to meet a meth head chick with open wounds oozing puss whos been tweaking for 5 days with no sleep hold a gun at you

Yer gonna have to kill their characters. They gotta know it's for real and that their lives are on the line. If you want them REALLY scared, there's gotta be something important on the line and a REAL chance they could lose it.

Seriously hungry for duck right now

This sounds less like a fact about "men" and more like a personal issue of yours

make an objective in a place that is filled with legit danger. and then after you make people afriad to go there, force them to

This is a terrible idea and makes you look like you have a memory problem.

If something changes and you acknowledge the change it makes it clear its part of the scenario and something spooky is going on. Describing a little girl NPC in a room and then acting like you didn't the moment a PC tries to talk to her (an actual example given in a horror advice pdf that's sometimes posted here) makes you look like a idiot at best and an asshole at worst.

You will never make a game legitimately scary, you'll always be a bunch of friends around a table joking around and having fun. Best you can do is aim for horror-comedy.

wire up some tazers to a switch and put them underneath your players

every time you have a scary plot hook about to happen taze them as you read it off. do this on and off, some sessions don't have the tazers down, and some sessions do

doesn't really make them afraid of the scenario but it does scare them, if they're one of those types that tries to get a leg up and gets up from the chair handcuff them to the arm of the chair

The basic concept of horror is that there is fear of some harm or threat. However, in games there are seldom long-term consequences that the players really care about. This is why rust monsters are often scarier than vampires in games.

You could add much more long-term negative status conditions (and they should be negative and not power boosts) to monsters but it is hard to balance the game that way. Ticking timebombs like in the game Dread or Insanity or Corruption meters also help.

I guess old D&D aging effects and negative levels from undead is actually good design that way. Because these are things players actually care about.

>He thinks a round square is scary
It's basic biology that humans find women and children "cute," I personally don't feel it is impossible to make a female villain but most of the time people are crappy at it.

That pic isn't intended to be scary, it's meant to be fapbait. I can think of some scary women, the hags from Witcher 3 and psycho stepmother from Hellraiser come immediately to mind.

One encounter I used in 5e that worked pretty well was a run-in with a cyclops a group of 3rd level adventurers had while traveling through a valley,
>As the sun began to dip below the peak of the mountain to the west the group was forced to camp beneath a fallen tree to try to stay dry, and if lucky keep some sort of fire. At midnight the rain finally let up, but what they heard was... nothing, no animals, no insects no anything. Suddenly somewhere in the forest they began to hear the groan and loud snap of a tree being taken down, then another. The half-orc on watch quickly roused the others and covered the fire in dirt stomping it out, the Druid cast pass without trace and they hid beneath the tree as a beam of light came down from what must’ve been 30 feet in the air, it slowly scanned over the area, pausing over their campsite briefly before whatever it was moved on.
It may not be what you’re looking for but in this case they never found out what that thing was, or where that light came from but to them, as a group of 3rd level adventurers they learned quick that the wilderness was a dangerous and mysterious place.

you get really far with good soundwork. i used the tracks from the thief series and played whale noises when sipernatural things were happening. one player had nightmares about the statues that were followimg them

You have a good group user, I've known some who would try to fight whatever was coming...

Read ghost stories, creepypastas, horror stories. The ones that make you feel creeped out, think about why they do. Look especially at the way they describe things. How they build up tension.

Three things:
-Investment: Your players need to care about what is going on. If they don't feel like there's any stakes and they just treat it like a board game, then only a select few will find it scary. Mostly comes down to being a good GM; reinforce their actions in the game world so they feel relevant and grow attachments, and provide descriptions that are immersive.
-Threat: Your players need to be convinced that there is a chance of failure, and that said failure has consequences.
-Uncertainty: Not knowing something really sucks, you end up thinking of all these worst-case scenarios. Don't fill in all the details; keep things ambiguous, your players will (hopefully) do the rest. This applies to most things. It's not a dire wolf, but a large shadow barely visible in-between the branches. The bridge makes a creaking noise as you walk on it, maybe it won't be able to support all of you. The lady keeps darting her eyes away as you talk, why is she doing that? Maybe she's looking for something, or it's a nervous tick and she's being dishonest?

And then work on how to build and release tension.

DOn't just throw hordes of monsters at your party and expect them to be scared.

My last DM did that when he wanted to run a "Lovecraftian" horror game. We woke up ikn a room with no memory of how we got there and suddenly get attacked by a group of "Cthulu guys" as he called them.
No actual attempt at horror, just locked in a room with a bunch of low-budget Mindflayers. And then we moved onto the only other door in the room where we were, once again, attacked by a bunch of "Cthulu guys."

Repeat about 4 more times and the DM eventually ragequitting because we're just treating this as another murderhobo game, when we literally have nothing else to go on. Any attempt to do anything but quietly move to the next room and fight the next group of "Cthulu guys" was met with silence or "You can't do that, there's only one exit."

this game sounds like a masterpiece of anticipation, powerlessness and the unknown.

That sounds mildly illegal, user.

Faggot user and his retard buddies were just too stupid to recognize the genius of the horror session. Their GM deserved better than that.