Make the players uncertain of what just may lurk in that dark room.

Give enemies where all that fancy sorcery, swordsmanship and ammo is of no use against the monsters.

Kill or seriously harm a PC every couple of sessions.

Mindgames.

"You enter a dark room. It smells of dust and time, and a broken cabinet lays crippled next to a little girl in the corner. On a table in the center of the room sits a collection of waterlogged tomes."

"I talk to the little girl."

"What little girl?"

"..."

>>4327061

Old but good.

IMPORTANT: if your players don't wanna be scared, you can't scare them, so don't try.

>>4327097
Music and props goes a looong way...

>>4327124

Still no.

It's like watching a horror movie.

If you want to be scared, you will be.
If you don't, you'll keep making cracks about how Jason's cock has a hockey mask, even in pitch black and blaring speakers.

When the PCs first show up to the place that they're investigating, they see one shadow burned into the floor.

As the campaign goes on and the body count increases, more and more shadows appear on the floor until at a certain point, all of them disappear. When the PCs next enter that place, the burned out shadows burst out of the PCs' shadows and start attacking them.

>>4327132
Worked for me...

>>4327097
If they're playing a horror campaign, the GM can atleast raise paranoia and uncertainty. Make them hesitate. Make them conspire against players, etc.

How does one use this 'secret note' method, though? I've seen it mentioned on /tg/ a few times, but no details are ever really given. How the hell do you scare them by sending private messages? How do you make players suspicious/conspire against eachother?

>>4327186
I dunno, but right off the bat, you can tell all or a few that one of the PCs is working for the antagonist

In my campaign I induced extreme paranoia in my group after they followed my DMPC, who was a sea elf paladin who took them to an underwater temple of Dagon. I played the Paladin in an especially annoying DMPC manner with him coddling the much lower level PC's. Once I established the mood that the characters would be ok because I was busy semi railroading them around that when all of a sudden a tentacle snakes down from the darkness above and lifts him up screaming into the unknown. Now my players suddenly realize that they have been led to an underwater temple to a demon lord with no way of escaping without the paladin and now a nagging sense that they will not survive without him...

A good idea is to make sure the players know they aren't forced to work together and be a jolly tight team.

Even better: give them choices where it would be advantageous for their characters to betray one or more of the others. This would probably work even better if they were first separated, so that they're fewer together and thus feel more vulnerable.

>>4327349
Er...without saying who.

>>4327362
...Now the PC's are scared of the environment, so then they begin to run across the main chamber and into a side room with the intent of escaping the tentacled menace. Just as the wizard is about to reach the door entrance, a tentacle whips out, wraps around his neck, and rips his head off. They close the door and breath a sigh of relief. The wizard player is a little put off by the fact that I killed him off without a saving throw until I pass him a note saying that he is still alive. After searching the room they head down a spiral staircase into the chamber bellow and find the wizard standing there in perfect health.

>>4327480
The PC's all ask him how he is alive still and he answers honestly that he doesn't know. Then the sea elf paladin walks in like nothing happened. Now the players are confused but they are already suspicious of the reintroduced party members. When they break camp I ask who will be on the shifts and the Paladin agrees to sit the first watch while everyone else sleeps. The Rogue in the party is the most paranoid and decides to stay up with the paladin. I pass a note to the rogue saying that the paladin sat across from him and stared at him unblinkingly for the entire night.

>>4327362
>>4327480
>>4327608
FUCKING AWESOME

>>4327608
When it comes time for the next person to stand watch while the rogue and paladin get to sleep it's the wizards turn to stand watch. Again the rogue is suspicious so he decides to stay up with the wizard. I have him role a constitution test and tell him that despite your best efforts, you succumb to sleep. I also pass a note to the wizard saying that he saw the rogue eventually nod off before he himself went to sleep. When they wake up, they find, to their horror, that the Cleric of the party has had her throat cut from ear to ear while she slept. The whole camp erupts in action as the rogue begins accusing the Paladin and the Wizard, the Wizard player begins accusing the Rogue player and the Paladin, and the Paladin accuses both of them. The only other party member is the Druid and he isn't sure what to make of the situation. While narrating the conflict I casually mention that the Cleric begins making breakfast for the camp. When there eyeballs finally receded into their heads I tell them that the Cleric is fine and that there is no sign of the blood form her throat wound, which also is not there.

>>4327756

please continue, this is amazing. I wish I could find a gaming group to play campaigns like this...

>>4327756
>>4327608
>>4327480
>>4327362
Proceed...

>>4327793
2nd'd - i would fucking love to join a group like this

>>4327756
Now the Rogue player goes crazy, he says he takes out his dagger and grabs the druid. "You and me are the only ones who we haven't seen die in front of us. We can't trust any of these people" The druid goes well we don't know that because the Paladin was just taken not killed in front of us and when we were asleep any of us could have been taken and replaced. Then the rogue goes "What makes you think something is replacing us? Unless..." The Rogue player decides to stab the druid. I give him the sneak attack and the other players all jump on the rogue and attempt to grapple him to the ground. They soon have him disabled and disarmed and pinned and they tie him up. The rest of the party decide that the best thing to do is to try and re cross the entry chamber and make it back to the surface. They all agree that there must be something in the temple that is making them see things. They all head out back the way they came and get into the paladins magic pearl that he used to transport them to the temple. As they are ascending the sea floor the paladins head spins around with a loud crunch and he flops to the floor dead. Then as the Wizard sits up to see the situation his head falls off and he sprays everyone in the pearl with a fine mist of blood. The cleric looks horrified and takes control of the pearl and tells me that she is going back to the temple. The Rogue is screaming no like bloody murder.I pass a note to the druid saying that the wound where he was stabbed by the Rogue starts to throb with pain and when he looks down sees that the veins and arteries near the wound have begun to turn black in a web like pattern and spread toward his neck and down his shoulder.

>>4327988
Keep going!

>>4327988
So now the Cleric Player is yelling that he doesn't want to die from leaving the temple and that she will let the rogue leave as soon as they get to the temple. The Rogue is yelling that he doesn't believe her and that he doesn't want to die down there and have the same thing happen to him. The Druid, with his would seemingly spreading and seemingly deadly decides to side with the rogue and attacks the cleric. Now I'm sure by now most of you have seen what I did. I managed to start a CoDzilla battle between players and the Rogue in the meantime takes control of the pearl and makes directly for the surface. I am the referee between the two fighting but they are throwing everything that they can throw at each other without killing everyone in the pearl. After several rounds of intense rolling, the Druid emerges victorious. He unties the rogue before collapsing in the pearl. The Rogue and Druid have a minor victory celebration until I inform them that the Druid starts to shake and convulse as if having a seizure. I tell him that black foam pours from his mouth and black blood begins to seep from his ears, and then he is still.

>>4328134
For clarification, this pearl is some form of submersible, right?

Ask players not to share the GM notes. the ystick to it because they enjoy the paranoia
Have genestealers in every air vent, never fought, only heard o glimpsed.
Have random NPCs just drop off the face of the earth and rumours of their doom come back too PCs

>>4328134
So everyone but the rogue is rolling new characters, when the rogue crashes the pearl into the dock of the coastal village that they set out of. His relief at escaping is short lived however when he is arrested for the murder of his party. He relays the story to them about everything that happened. Now when he starts to tell the judge about how the various people were killed the judge listens to the tale and then finds him guilty. He tells the rogue that all the bodies didn't have the wounds that he claimed they did, rather it appears that all of the party were stabbed to death repeatedly with a short sword or dagger, the rogues weapon of choice. The last thing he sees as his head is put on the executioners block is his companions standing in the front row of the crowd gathered. As his head falls from his body he sees himself standing next to his dead companions, who smiles and gives a little wave before the darkness of death engulfs him.

>>4328244
And with this, it went from awesome to CHOO CHOO.

>>4328154
Correct.

>>4328244
>As his head falls from his body he sees himself standing next to his dead companions
oh my god what the fuck

>>4328244
I then inform them that they all awake from their slumber to find that the cleric has had her throat cut from ear to ear. You should have seen the collective WTF when I said that. Immediately they start asking all sorts of questions and I pass out notes to each of them. Each note says "You are not the killer, Do not share with any other player".

>>4328299

So was the cleric actually dead this time?

>>4328299
You got one from me, too. NOW what the hell's going on?

Did you give one of those notes to the cleric's player too?

>>4328299
And that's the end?

>>4328474
Probably not; there was a 32-minute wait between posts earlier.

>>4328338
This time around, the players sort of caught on with the "rules" of the place and they decide to leave the cleric and try and make it back to the entrance again where much to their new surprise, the cleric was waiting for them, dead still except not from having her throat slit, but from wounds from fighting with the Druid. Now they rush back to the "safe" room and find again that the cleric is back to normal again. I hand her a note that says "You're hand has become a tentacle. Do not share with other players" Now they all start discussing what the hell is going on and come to the conclusion that you can't die and that at the same time they are also trapped down here, so if they ever want to escape then they had better figure something out. They decide that if anything they should continue through the temple and see what they could find. I threw them against a bunch of aberrations and traps. They initially threw caution to the wind and got killed in lots of gruesome fashions because they knew they would be resurrected. However, after each revival I handed them a note that told them about a new mutation they had. They then soon caught on that while they might not be able to die, it would lead to something worse and went back to defensive paranoia mode.

>>4328500
Yeah sorry I'm at work right now and I'm not at my desk all the time.

Found this one somewhere on (where else?) Tv Tropes... someone was playing the Rats in the Walls for CoC, and the GM had a CD player under the table with a recording of rats scratching...

>>4328713

>>4328713
Anyway I guess I'd better wrap it up since it's getting tl;dr, but anyway the players finally learn that the temple is built in a recursive time loop and that time only moves forward when they delve deeper into the temple and that they are actually going back in time whenever they move back toward the entrance. It is then insinuated that all of the creatures that they have been killing and have been killed by are there mutated time trapped future selves.

>>4328750
I believe that was from another thread of how to creep players out... probably at least a year old, on suptg.

>>4328785
So how did they get out? Or did they?

>>4328785
>>it's getting tl;dr

No it's not.

I'm going to steal your campaign right off the bat good sir.

>Anyway I guess I'd better wrap it up since it's getting tl;dr
>it's getting tl;dr

No it isn't. Keep going on in detail, I'm enjoying this.

moar

bump for moar

>>4328713
LOL RUBY QUEST

>>4328908
>>4329127
>>4328828
>>4328840

Wow...ok...let's see after that they continued through the temple and the Rogue get's killed by a cloaker and discovers that he is growing eyes on his chest and shoulder area. They manage to talk their way past a beholder who is babbling on and on about "I can't trust any of you, you are all dead, and the dead can't be trusted". He let's them pass after they convince him that they aren't going to slit his throat while he slept because he doesn't have a throat. In the end they fight the BBEG of the temple, an aboleth who is actually an amalgam of all of the PC's hideously mutated into an aboleth. After killing him they gain access to the control center of the temple and realize the only way to escape is to surface the temple, however the Paladin says that he would rather be stuck for an eternity than to bring this hellish nightmare to the surface. The PC's then killed the Paladin and surfaced the temple anyway which as I'm sure you can tell released them from the recursive time curse, but also unleashed Dagon on their world, who set about transforming every living creature he could get his tentacled appendages on into madness inducing nightmare creatures. The PC's ended up having to travel to the Underdark to enlist the help of the Duergar to reseal the portal and send Dagon back to the Abyss. However as it turns out, somebody has to take the temple back down and the Cleric decides it should be her that does it and she rides the temple down and severs the portal to the abyss which also severs what part of Dagon was on this side of the portal. After this she spots the Sea Elf Paladin walking through the main chamber, so she reaches down and pulls him up with her tentacle...

>>4329565

So in the end everything comes full circle. Nice.

I'm planning on running a DH horror one-shot soon. Got the idea from the F.E.A.R. based thread from a week or two ago. And you, my good sir, have given me fresh inspiration.

Hats off, and Emperor bless the mutant. They make such fun and squishy things to shoot.

>>4329565

Winrar.

I must say that this is a horror D&D story brilliantly executed.

Well done, sir.

>>4330384
>>4330503
>>4330356
>>4330170
Well thanks guys I wish you guys lived here so I could run a game like this for you.

>>4330676
I love you.

While you're here. Any more tips or tricks of the trade?

Awesome story underwater adventure guy. I guess everybody's stuck in awe and can't post any more.

Shame.

>>4327092
plays out better in text games than live horror

players who don't want to be scared will just be like DOHOHOHO and move on

best trick is making them fight each other, or at least uncertain of their motives. Real paranoia is a lot more effective than fake fear.

>>4331247
This is true. I am just sitting here, thinking about how genius that story was.

Bamp.

ITT: great horror campaign, read it if you have the time.

Confuse the shit out of players. Try to isolate them.
They send a scout up ahead? Viciously attack him.
Have NPCs die to help emphasize there's a chance you WILL die.

>>4326876
According to my players, the best time I ever induced fear was when I was running a STALKER d10 homebrew I whipped up. At the beginning of the game I told all my players, "Alright I have random encounter charts that I will have you all rolling on. If you roll the worst possible result one of you will just die. Oh, and if you die in my game? I'll have to ask you to sit out the rest of the campaign. Sorry guys."

As to making them paranoid of each other? In my StarWars game I had nine (!) players on a Starship. I called them into my room in small groups and basically started lying to them. There was a darkside artifact they had picked up that was fucking with everyone's perception. I started with a few players and told them, "Look. This is going to go bad real quick, so we're going to get this over with. Your character has noticed that some strange stuff is going on the ship... and [player's] character is going to make a move. I need to know how you're going to prepare for this."

Started with two characters whose players had been vaguely opposed and before I knew it the battle lines were drawn in the sand and it was a Mexican standoff. :D

>>4334306
I lol'd

>>4334306
How do you draw in sand....when you're on a starship?

davidcarusoglasses.jpg

YEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH

>How do you make the players be suspicious of eachother?

I have mini-sessions for each player inbetween the main sessions, then leave it up to the players to explain (In character) what they've been up to since the party last met. They never tell everything and everyone thinks someone else is double-crossing them. Which everybody is.

>>4335044

This is a little stroke of genius.

>>4335044
In all of my games I recap what has happened in the last session. If I want my players to be suspicious of eachother I let one of them recap instead, taking cue of what he remembers and brings up.

I use this to gauge his intentions, as do the other players. Memory can be very selective.

>>4326876
>So what do GMs do to create fear in players in horror campaigns?

You have to have players willing to be afraid for horror to work. If they fight the feeling of fear, they're not going to be very good horror game players and you'll want to wait until either they've settled down or you find a different group. You can't ACTUALLY kill your players, so it's all about how much they've invested in their PCs. If they have nothing invested in them because they expect them to die quickly and pointlessly, there's no fear. It's pretty similar to how you can't really sympathize with the eightieth group of slutty stoners to get slaughtered by ignoring all the prior murders and going out to Crystal Lake. My players, for instance, simply refuse to take a Call of Cthulhu game seriously and thus I don't run them - they're treated as one-off parody Grindhouse games, and if we're going to do that Paranoia is a better setting. Yet when I start pulling CoC stunts in a universe which wasn't stated as Cthulhu mythos... they enjoy the fear. You may thus want to run some non-horror adventures FIRST to trick your players into getting involved with their PC before you start throwing in the threat.