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File: 1347563234367.jpg-(17 KB, 381x235, fridgehorror.jpg)
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What are some subtle "something here is not right" ideas for NPCs and items and such for a psychological-horror flavored campaign? Stuff that at first glance seems normal, but if you look again or think about it later, it hits you how unnerving it really is.
>>
Good luck charms found at low level that actually help out, but later on it is discovered that they contain the tortured souls of holy monks. Veins of darkness spread throughout the charms until it becomes night black. Put it on a lawful good character.

There is also the subtle biology. Humans have a good idea about what looks normal in other humans, and anything off can instantly change the mood of someone. Things like mutations, or someone who look older/younger than they should. Things like that freak people out.
>>
Aw man I love doing shit like that. For Example
>Party saves a Little Girl from Vampire Overlord
>They go to town and go to the tavern to plan there next move.
>Girl tells them she's hungry.
>They tell her to go to the bar keep he will whip her something up to eat.
>Five seconds later she is ripping open the barkeeps jugular and drinking his blood.
>>
>>20710797
In retrospective they really should have listened to the paranoid wizard.
>>
>>20710683
Have some npc walk up to the party and explain that the best way to prove you're an envoy of God is to wear a cake on your head.
>>
Why are there no beds in any of the buildings?

Why does everybody have a [whatever]?

When you taste it... that's not normal rain.

"How could they possible have known that?"

What the hell is that smell?
>>
There was a story about a boy that didn't feel pain. At all.
Just realize how fucking scary that is.

>"You stepped over something. It looks like a piece of Lego. However, your feet doesn't hurt."
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>>20710797
Real subtle, bro.
>>
find simple things that people normally dont notice, until they arent there

in other words - lack

lack of birds, for instance, lack of mirrors, lack of cats, lack of grown ups of a certain sex etc
>>
give them some advice from an undoubtable source. make them ignore it for some obvious profit. fuck them up with it later.

ie. "voodoo is heresy" then do this
>>20710780
>>
>>20710849
In summary its not as subtle as it actualy was, took them a while in game to get to that point, but no one ever questioned, why the little girl never ate or why she hid under the paladins cloak during the day, except the wizard, who was smart enough to put up wards while they slept.
>>
>>20710856
This is spot on. OP this is the best idea.

The other thing that really freaks people out are things that look and act like people but aren't quite 100% on.
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>>20710780
>There is also the subtle biology. Humans have a good idea about what looks normal in other humans, and anything off can instantly change the mood of someone. Things like mutations, or someone who look older/younger than they should. Things like that freak people out.

Yup.
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>>20710683
Oldie but goodie:
Characters enter an abandoned residential building. In one of the apartments there's a tub in the toilet that has a garbage disposal unit installed. The flat is otherwise perfectly normal.
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>>20710905
????
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>>20710683
Strange behavior can be another good subtle tweak.
For example player bumps into someone and the person drops what they are holding. At first begins to curse then see's the PC and becomes extremely apologetic.
Just sudden shifts in emotion at something the PC's mention. Like a women who is flirtatious suddenly becoming angry or frightened.
Or better yet people acting like something that is abnormal is just part of everyday like
To take the lack of birds for example
"Oh those birds just went south for the winter." when its clearly summer.
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An npc that joins the party to help on what ever quest the party is on. The npc never eats, never sleeps, in fact if you look for more than a second, he/she never blinks. Bad things start to happen when the npc joins the party. Your horses are bitten by a deadly snake, your food supplies spoil, it rains everyday on the road, some of your party member suffer from afflictions like small pox or high fever.
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>The last man on earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door...
>>
A person goes missing out of their own home, party investigates and find a full length mirror in their house. After looking into it, they feel intense vertigo, and when they leave the room the layout of the entire house has been flipped.

Then the owner comes back.

>Owner was just on some seedy vacation and doesn't want anyone to know. Would rather bullshit anything than tell the truth.
>Mirror is just some wizard knickknack to rearrange the furniture
>>
One I've tried before is describing someone in a dark suit every time they go to a new location, or return somewhere.

Keep doing it until they make a deal out of it, then just have it turn out to be a string of random people who are all wearing similar costumes. Have it slowly die off.

Bring it back after a session or two, but when they start to inquire again make it the same person every time.

Then describe the same person in the most unlikely of places. Have him stumble into their campfire. Make him walk out of the latrines as they go upstairs in the tavern.

Of course, none of these are in combat locations. He's just a normal dude who's plagued with such un-luck that he bumps into the same group of murder hobo's everywhere he goes.

They go knocking on doors for information, and they find one place with the door left ajar. They're players, they're bound to investigate. There's a man in a dark suit hanging from the rafters, twisting slightly in place from left to right, and right to left. There's a stool on its side, and a note on the counter to the side, describing his sheer terror, and the fear of "them" finding him again.
>>
List of stuff that may or may not be applied simultaneously:
>There are no children in the village
>You see lots of people drinking in the tavern, but noone is eating
>Nobody is touching each other
>Whenever someone mentions the sea, every local who can hear it coughs
>People around this place seem to like animals a bit too much. They even sometimes have contests.
>There are no insects in this village. Lots of spiders though. A fair bit above average, actually.
>As you near the left-handed blacksmith, he waves at you with his left hand. As you leave, you notice that the sound of his hammer striking the hot metal he was working never stopped.
>The person you are speaking to has no fingernails or hair growth except for a tuft of straw-yellow hair on his head. When he speaks, his mouth doesn't open, but sound still comes out.
>The hunchback's lump changes sides
>>
>A cheerful little girl who likes to draw and color.
> Every drawing is a huge circle, gone over hundreds of times with black crayon/marker/pencil whatever worn down and pressed hard into the paper.
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>>20711061
what lump?
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>>20710975
Or people dropping something, and never picking that something up.
When a PC picks it up and hands it to them, they just stare blankly.
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>>20711002

Hello, ladies
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>>20711049
Fucking brilliant!
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Everyone in town smirks and acts smug, like they're all in on some big inside joke and you're not
>>
even if it rains no one is closing their windows.
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>>20711049
For some reason I imagine this being a Bethesda game
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>>20711002

>It was the last woman on Earth.

And then they fucked the human race back into existence.
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>>20711049
I did something similar to that with a mime in a Changeling game.
they didn't question it until he turned up in one of there closets.
>>
Talk about the strong family resemblance in a couple of NPCs. Like they have the same eyes.

Everyone in the village has the same eyes.
>>
This thread reminds me of some story on /tg/.

It was to do with some adventurers in a swamp village or something? The first thing they meet is a guy with broken legs trying to travel on some planks or something. It was a mindfuck campaign. Anyone remember/have that?
>>
> create a simple, idiot character
> players mark him as "comical relief" and treat him as such
> he turns up occasionally
> his behaviour gets more and more irritating
> at one point one player whacks him
> he dies
> party ventures on
> he turns up again, merry as always
> he is whacked again
> hurr, GM won't give up his pet comical relief
> he dies numerous times
> apparently becomes more and more powerful
> one player suggests "guys, there is something seriously wrong with this situation"
> next time they meet him, players are too creeped out to interact with "him"

From this point onward there are many ways it can end; in this case it turned out that this something was actually an embodiment of chaos that - with every resurrection - tapped into more and more of its power.
>>
Perception check (perception/awareness, detect, whatever), moderate difficulty/

Anyone who passes the check notices that every kid is bouncing a ball in unison with each other. And those that do well notice they all are wearing complimentary-colored clothes (red/green, blue/orange, purple/yellow). Those that roll exceptionally well not only notice that they are also all mumbling prime-numbers... in unison, but that they all are keeping an eye on the party through peripheral vision.
>>
everyone in the town has their sleeves rolled up!
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Any one got an creepy game screen caps or stories? I'm in the mood now.
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>>20711085
His hunchback.
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>>20711154
BY AZURA BY AZURA BY AZURA!
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That isn't snow.
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>>20711066
every crayon writes in the same color, even if they look different.
everytime you look, the child is starting drawing a line. when you look again the sheet, she's starting again. and again. and again. there are no other sheets around.
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>>20711154
>actually explaining it
have it creep them out forever
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>>20711178
You also haven't sniffed enough of it.
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>>20711154
There was one awesome story like this, about a joker I think, minor recurring villain. Every time he was killed he returned stronger.
After a while the players found a circus and several dead people squeezed into joker's outfits or something. Does anyone happen to have the screencap?
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All males in town are wearing pretty big shoes and they never take them off
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>a man is dragging a child down the street in the evening
>the child drops his hat
>but the man keeps going
>when the party approaches the suspicious man, they turn out to be a completely ordinary father and son, even though there's hardly a facial resemblance
>after some minutes of convincing that everything is absolutely okay and the bright smile of the child who assures you it's his daddy, the party ventures on
>the next day's morning, a mutiliated corpse is found in the slums
>it's the man
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>>20711205
This one?
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>>20711213
And how exactly would that be creepy?
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>>20711129
it's been calculated that, due to the genetic diversity and rate of mutation in human DNA, restoring the current population of Earth without accumulation of birth defects negatively affecting later generations, a base minimum of no fewer than approx 2000 individuals, at an 8-to-1 ratio favoring females, would be required, and would take several centuries.
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Every time a certain NPC's name is spoken aloud, horses nearby whinny.
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>>20711224
Yes, exactly. Thank you.
>>
>>20711154
>in this case it turned out that this something was actually an embodiment of Chaos that - with every Resurrection - tapped into more and more of its power.

It was good up until that point. psychological horror is no longer scary when you explain to them what's going on.

This one kind of sucks, but it made my players a little bit unnerved.

>first time playing a tabletop RPG for everyone
>We're playing 4e, I'm the DM
>party goes into a cave that the locals suspect has some sort of evil in it
>run into orcs and they flee
>there's a side passage that they run into and they find a small underground stream and decide to follow it to it's source
>see a little bit of rock that seems to have been chipped away
>get closer and realize it's a hallway
>they follow it and find a room with lots of old worn stone furniture. some of it is knocked over as though someone left in a hurry
>there's a large tattered banner on the wall, it is very faded, but was clearly a deep red and has a fish on it
>they search for clues and find nothing
>they leave and continue to walk upstream
>the ranger feels something wrap around his leg
>he looks down to see the banner from the room they left behind 10-20 minutes ago
>he sticks it in his pack and they head back to the room
>they find everything to be in wonderful shape and the furniture is no longer overturned
>the banner is on the wall in pristine condition and there are lit torches on the walls
>the ranger looks in his pack and finds the banner missing
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Every time a certain horse's name is spoken aloud, NPCs nearby whinny.
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>>20711231
this is good information to know
>>
Late at night, you can hear the earth thumping.
>>
Have random people repeatdly asking if they can buy something off the players. Could be some boring mundane thing or something a bit mystic and obscure.

Sometimes it gets mentioned in other trade situations. Like a shopkeeper will tell the players he has lots of xxx in stock like they should be amazed (with mundane item), or complains people keep asking if he sells xxx.
>>
The local currency is spiders.
Living spiders.
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Everyone in a town keeps mentioning in passing that awful thing that happened that we never talk about. They always refuse to ever expand on this subject.
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>>20711231
Doom shall take this into account when he reboots humanity.
Doom already knew it, of course.
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>>20711257
Fluttershy
>>
A repetitive mannerism. Something just a little bit out of kilter.

As an example, let's just imagine that a party visits a town. It seems mostly normal except for a hideous, disfigured young man who goes out of his face to conceal his appearance. He's almost always around, quietly watching the party. They ask someone who he is.

The villager waves his hand and laughs dismissively, without a care in the world.
"Oh, that's just young Tom. Don't mind him. He's perfectly harmless as long as you just give him some space!"

Whenever you mention Tom in any conversation, they say exactly that. They do exactly that. Every single villager, every single time. Use precisely the same wording every time. After the first few times, you might want to allow perception checks to notice just how fake and hollow their laughter is.

Then the killing begins.
>>
Because players rely on your descriptions to see the world, you can't use visual cues and make it be subtle. Your best bet for subtle horror is in actions and behaviors. Someone mentioned "wait, how do they know that?" which is a good one - so long as you do it in small enough quantities that the players don't just accept it as the natural state of things.

Behaviors which are off in some slight way are also ideal - just tweak something slightly. Word choice is a good place to start. Make the character in question refer to something in an unnatural way. Just be careful to make sure it's not immediately obvious.

Basically, the best way to do subtle in tabletop is to embed meaning in things you were already saying, because if you have to explicitly describe it, your players are going to know it.
>>
The players are constantly warned not to go in to the woods. No matter what you do, do not go in to the woods. On no account are the woods to be entered. If you're going to the woods, stop now and turn around.

Woods turn out to be completly bland with nothing of intrest or worth.

Have to be careful with this sort. Most players are anal bastards that know how the game works and will keep searching till they have found the obvious plothook/monster/treasure. They will become annoyed when it is "too hard to find".
>>
Choose one player, try picking a more hot-headed one and, whenever he is all alone, have him meet a NPC
That NPC taunts him, curses him, picks fights or whatever, just have him fight the character and die.
Then, whenever that same player is alone, have him fight the guy again and again, maybe he wants his revenge, or picks fights again, whatever, just have him come back again and again, and start giving hints to the other players that the NPC is in fact a delusion, or invisible to everyone but his PC rival.
Then you start giving everyone hints that the PC is schizophrenic, and just keep going until they figure it out, its quite fun
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>>20711257
>>20711252
BLUCHER!
>>
A old fence along the road has been left unattended for so long, that only the posts remain. In the red light of the setting sun, one post's shadow reaches in the direction opposite the others.
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>>20711260
Fucking earth elementals.
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>>20711347
I hope you mean earth elementals fucking.
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have a a character or group of characters speak strangely, almost as if they are struggling to use their mouths. think Gman. make their movements odd, like shaking hands with a limp wrist and walking like they're new to the concept. have them never refer to themselves, never using the words I, mine, me, etc.
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>when you look into a mirror the reflection lags, not much but just enough to be perceptible
>there's nothing wrong with the mirror
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>>20711350
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>>20711354
They're just getting their rocks off
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>>20711364
"To see one's image blink"
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>>20711354
I meant both. "Fucking earth elementals" like "Running water" or "Flying pigs".
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>>20711002

>The last man on earth sat alone in a room. There was a lock on the door.

A letter shorter.
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>>20711364
>When someone else stands in front of the mirror, nothing seems to be weird
>Except that the reflection is always staring at you
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>>20711002
I see your great science-fiction and I raise you a brofist.
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>>20711406
oh shit this is pretty brilliant
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>>20711406
I liked the first one, but this is much superior.
>>
Once during RT game, the Trader, his retinue, men-at-arms and voidships were preparing a planet for an imminent attack of Tyranids.

Since the planet was not-that-developed, there was only one facility where people could be tested for genestealerism. (or so they were told)

Since there wasn't too much time, RT decided that all the important people (generals, governor, astartes etc) should be tested ASAP. And how elated they were when it turned out that many important personas - including governor - were indeed the genestealers!

But when the Astropath - during a fight with an important AdMech governing this facility - discovered that he was carrying 'stealers spores, creeps ensued.
>>
describe some noise when the PCs arrive at some new location, like cicadas buzzing. one night, have them roll a check to see if they notice that it suddenly stops.
>>
Whenever the players enter a creepy place, hand them notes.
Those notes are thoughts that form in their minds, involuntarily.
Just some creepy blither that makes no sense. Or does it?
Something like "The earth is hungry. Its heart throbs and demands cleansing. The earth is also thirsty."
>>
>>20711459
>>20711436
You guys know that those are from Frederic Brown, right? The first one is the opening sentence from a larger story but itself is the shortest science-fiction story.
>>
>>20711495

Shit, I meant "arbitres" not "astartes".
>>
You like ketchup.

You hate tomatoes.
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>>20711157
Magnificent
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>>20711406
>wild animals
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>>20711512
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knock_(short_story)
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>>20711565
I remember reading this and other Brown stories on a book called Lost Paradox when I was about 12. I would kill to have a physical copy of that book nowadays.
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>>20711157
THOSE DAMN MODRONS
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You find dog tracks.

Rolling a perception check shows they were made by something walking on two feet.
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>>20710922

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaudUAHZinw

lol
>>
Life is cheap. Death is free.
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>>20711623
oh shi...

>perception roll reveals there seems to be a skeleton inside you
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>>20711658
>it's made of spiders
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>>20711623
You find human footprints.

Rolling a perception check shows they were made by something galloping on all fours.
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>>20711668
>skeleton spiders
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>>20711678
that's actually significantly creepier.
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>>20711678
>Feet for hands
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>>20711623
>>20711678

These... and on a critical success of the perception roll, you realize the "dog" seems to have been walking the "human".
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>>20711509

"I wanted to pretend I didn't know why anyone would have done such a thing. But I knew, After all, I've been avoiding the stars with all my might since we passed the Oort cloud. They've looked differend since then. When I'm not talking or listening to music, I hear them whispering, just past the edge of comprehension. 'Blood' is one of their favorite words."

"'We were hear when you were prokaryotes,' said the stars. 'We will be here when you are dust'."

"'We were here when you were dust. We will be here when you are vapour. And you, in the meantime, will serve.'"

"You will serve us. She will serve us.'"

"I'd kissed halfway down his neck before I realized I wasn't thinking of those things. And, this time, now about Captain Hao, either. I was thinking of the pulse in his throat. Strong, heady, rhythmic, saltier than skin. The red, the life, hiding inside him. I wanted to touch that. To taste it."

"'What do they say?'"
"'They say I am not worthy of them. That I must die and my blood will consecrate the ship.' His fingers tightened in my hair. 'But it is foolishness. I have never been suicidal, even out here, and I find them easy to ignore. If they want me to kill myself, they will have to try harder, hmm? So, what do they tell you?'"

>captcha: sacrifice kopics
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Where can I get some creepy, random quotes to scatter around so my players can read em?
Something the likes of this: >>20711002
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>>20711717
IM OUT
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So hey people, do you know any good pc games in this subtle creepy sense? Idk how /tg/ is about vidya, but all this talk made me want to play something with this kind of atmosphere really bad
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>>20711739
Agreed, it shouldn't need a fucking natural 20 to realize that dog is walking around on only two legs. Especially since critical successes don't fucking exist.
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>>20711742
Amnesia: The Dark Descent
Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth
Dead Space 1 and 2

Basics for what you want. Others can add more.
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>>20711729

Jesus christ, I really killed the mood with those typos. My bad.

Point is, I like the idea
>>20711509
had. In the right setting.
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>>20711791
I've tried Amnesia but I just didn't find it interesting, besides it doesn't have any "disturbed/disturbing" characters, which is what I'm kinda looking for here. Call of Cthulu sounds interesting, as for Dead Space, I'm just not into shooters
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>>20711791
Penumbra: Black Plague, maybe.
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>>20711853

Now we're talking. Good game. Creeped me out well before Amnesia.
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>>20711839
Condemned 1 and 2 are pretty good if you like to kill homeless people
>>
Current game I'm in.

Met a creepy old women traveling to pay hommage to some long dead god. She kept using this phrase Azam Me. No idea what it meant, probaly just some local idion or something. Added a nice strange sense of otherworldyness to her though.
>>
I see blood in every person. Just think about it: you are standing near someone, he's talking, laughing, thinking he's smart, handsome, successful. He expresses his opinions, is proud of his social status. All the while, blood flows through him. It quickly skitters through his veins, goes into his heart, boils and smells. But it's hard to smell it - it's trapped in his body. For a time being. But without a doubt, it's there.
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>>20711853

Overture was so much more tense than Black Plague, I found.
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>>20711732
Make them up. Even the stupidest of phrases will be utterly horrifying if the setting is right. The players will form their own context.

>Don't look [direction].
>This room was full awhile ago. Now it's hungry.
>The don't look at the [object]
>Touch the [object]
>Don't touch the [object]
>It's after you.

Shit like that. Extremely vague. The players make it scary. You just feed them what to worry about.
>>
>>20711791
>>20711742
Metro 2033.

"When we destroyed the world the gates to Heaven and Hell were atomized as well, the souls have no where to go and just hang around the metro forever. A cruel but not entirely undeserved fate".

"Atyon, get off the tracks!" *sound of a train coming down the ruined passage way, headlights go past and you can see light coming out of windows that are not there and the silhouettes of people commuting to work* "This tunnel must relive the memory of its last days forever. Best to stay off the tracks".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyV5LKs_xXs
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>>20711326
This.

Last night the players were looking for a way to cross Golarion's inner sea from Detmer to Vellumis. They found a posting calling for able-bodied men to help sail across the sea. The owner of the boat was a kind old man who taught them how to sail so that they could have free passage in exchange for free help. When they asked what an old man was doing alone with a cargo ship he told him that his old crew was no longer with him. When they asked what the cargo was, he said his flock. They spent a week at sea, getting drunk, sailing, singing, telling stories of their adventures while he told stories about sailing. When they arrived they unloaded their wagon from the deck and asked if he needed any help unloading the cargo. He told them that the two customs officers would be more than enough help for the evening.

(continued)
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>>20711521
.....but that's a normal thing, right?
Mommy always said I was normal....

>have a player loot a flask, bottle, whatever
>every time they take it out of the bag, it's emptier than when it was put in
>no cracks or leaks on the bottle
>Eventually, they'll put something in the bottle that isn't a liquid
>???
>Profit
>>
Players are travelling from one village to another.

Come across a young woman in a wedding dress. She's beng attacked by four armed men.

Enter combat to save her.

Men turn out to be demons in disguise and are difficult to take down.

She thanks and rewards the players with a token flower each which brings good luck.

She leaves. Players continue on to village.

Arrive at village. A funeral is taking place as they arrive.

A young woman is being buried...in her wedding dress. Her lover is searching for the killers.

Players find the roses they received have rotted.

Story continues, several sessions later players are in another village. Woken in the middle of the night.

In the darkness they can see the girl in the wedding dress. Her face a rotted corpse.

She dissapears once more. Forever to haunt the players with little explanation of what happened.
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You pass through a small village. It is abandoned but everything is pristine. It is about midday and the one ship in the village has its good neatly on the shelves and there is a half eaten apple on the counter as if the ship keeper was having a bite to eat.

Out in the fields there are sickles lying forlorn in half harvested fields. There aren't even any animals. Not even spiders in the webs.

You pass through as there is absolutely nothing to do here.

If you return to the village it is always abandoned, but it never seems to decay. And the things move. The fields are harvested. The shop rotates its stock. Meals are laid out sometimes. the pictures the children chalk on the walls change as they are weathered and redrawn by the children.

But there is never anyone there when you pass through.

Have this village be a stopping off point between two cities so people pass through quite regularly.

Everyone else you talk to sees the village as normal and nothing amiss.

Never sleep there.
>>
>this thread
DIRECTED BY M. NIGHT SHIGGY DIGGY
>>
>>20711936
When they got off the boat the bard tipped the old man 10 gold for the ride, to which he responded, "Oh thanks sonny boy, I appreciate the thought but I'm not going to need this anymore. I'll see you around." They arrived at night so the first thing they did was go to the local tavern, have themselves a drinking game while the bard played for tips, then they bought themselves a room and passed out. When they went to bed that night, they slept for about 3 hours before they heard a scream. The party's sword and board runs downstairs naked and sees an old homeless man wrestling with the innkeeper. He charges the homeless man out of the inn and starts fighting with him. I gave the party the sickened template for drinking so much that they all eventually passed out, some of them had to be carried to the room (except for the bard, who didn't get totally smashed). The rest of the party runs downstairs and sees this happening, so the lawful good fighter (who is partly inspired by van helsing) runs over and grapples the homeless man, putting him in a full nelson, while the ninja is attempting to knock him unconscious. The bard comes running downstairs after being awoken by the noise and uses sonic scream on the homeless man in attempt to knock him out. This puts the homeless man over the damage threshold and he explodes in a puff of green gas and gore. Everyone within 30 feet had to make a will save. That's when they finally realized shit wasn't right.
>>
>>20712043

They went to inspect the innkeeper who was now unconscious and completely pale. The sword and board lifts him over his shoulder and rushes out to find him a priest while the ninja runs down the street to find some guards. I told him that two were walking down the street towards him. He runs over to them and tries to explain what had happened. One of them hits him and the other attempts to grapple him. He still hadn't realized what had happened and starts shouting, "Why are you doing this? I'm not the one you should be hitting!" At this point to avoid an embarrassing player death I told him that one of them emits a low groan and attempts to bite him. He starts running in the other direction and the party quickly dispatches the two guards, making note that these were the same guards that helped the old man with his cargo.

(continued)
>>
>>20712106
They eventually discovered what was going on, albeit too late. The closer they got to the docks, the thicker the crowd of zombies. The parties wizard rode to the guardhouse to sound the alarm while the rest of the party attempted to stem the tide of zombies while waiting for the guards to arrive. While the wizard was riding through the streets on his horse he was suddenly afflicted by a strong pain to his chest, when he looked down he saw that he had a deep wound across his chest as if cut by a sword. He saw the old man running down an alley away from him so he gave chase. He summoned a boar to run him down and was successful, but the man turned the boar on the wizard and ran out the other side of the alley. The wizard then cast invisibility and started to chase after him, while behind him the guards were doing their best to fight off the zombies that were advancing through the streets.
>>
>>20711231
would that be 2000 diverse humans i.e. humans from all races? How many would be needed for a more homogenous group like all-Caucasian or all-Japanese?
>>
>>20712187
The old man ducked into a china shop and waited for the wizard to come in after him. The wizard, being clever, sent in a silent image after him. All the glass in the shop shattered, sending shrapnel flying out the display window, then the wizard entered in. The wizard cast grease on the stairs that the old man was set up on and then pulled out a quarterstaff to try and bludgeon him to death. The old man summoned an animated bone to try and fend him off and then an animated scythe to fight back. The player backed out of the fight and sent two guards in in an attempt to finish the old man off. About a minute after they went in he saw them run out in terror. We ended the session there. The old man is an agent of Urgathoa (goddess of death, plague, and disease) and still has a few spells left while the player ran out. I'm interested to see whether or not he'll risk letting him get away or if he'll attempt to face him to the death. If he leaves his guard over the china shop to get the other players the old man will definitely run into the night to spread more chaos and disease.
>>
I like to throw in small details to get the player's attention, incongruent details I know they'll ask about, and then act like they're crazy when they investigate.

"The room is a mess. Papers are flung everywhere, the windows are smashed, there's a pair of yellow boots in the corner and the door is knocked off its hinges"

"I investigate the boots"

"Huh? What are talking about?"
>>
>>20710683
Been running my own custom campaign. The second act was all fucking with their heads. One part they enter a house in this over run town find everyone dead and a mutilated dead girl in a chest in the back. Also they find a hiding similar girl under a bed. Later I revealed she was actually a crazy wight demon following them and had killed the girl.

Also they entered a church under a spell. It was filled with townsfolk but everyone but one guy failed a check and saw them as monsters. Made him leave the room and explained to the others they could try and convince him but only through checks. They ended up burning down the church and killing everyone inside then told him afterwards, twas hilarious.
>>
>>20711911
Oh man, Metro 2033. The next one is coming out soon, I hope it's as creepy and weird as the last one.

The thing I've always liked about it is how the weird stuff - the shadows, the voices in the pipes etc - is only made weirder by how "normal" the rest of the setting is. The Metro world, while extremely well-executed, is rather formulaic of a post-apoc world, which means that when you see the shadow form of a long-dead train hurtling down the tracks in front of you, or dead soldiers still guarding their posts stood atop their graves, it sticks in your mind far longer than moments from games more engineered towards horror, such as the Amnesia or Dead Space games.
>>
Looking down you notice the baroness has two left hands.
>>
>>20711174
Whoosh
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>>20712014
THE HITCHER WAS A GHOST
>>
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>the villagers are deliberately trying to freak the newcomers out
>Any inquiries as to why they do the things they do is deflected by "oh, that's just the way we do around here"

I am so fucking glad my players never saw the original Wicker Man. That film is filled with freak-out gold
>>
Man, /tg/ is really bad at being mindfuck today. Most of these are like "Scary Stories to Read in Dark" without the pictures.
>>
>>20712511
but that one about the scarecrows really was scary.
>>
>>20712304
It's the same reason you often have better luck creeping players out in WFRP than Dark Heresy

In Dark Heresy the characters are always on the lookout for scary things that need to be taken down; it's their job, after all.

But in WFRP they're minding their own business helping the miller root out rats, taking care of a few bandits on the road and suddenly they're getting freaked out because they found a rackety shack out in the woods where they didn't think anybody lived

The thing is, in order to rock their foundations, you need to establish those foundations first.
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>party members keep finding photos/images of themselves brutally butchered

>crying/sobbing is heard from dolls, statues, or mannequins

>one of the party members is found decapitated. the next morning the party awakes to find him alive and acting normal

>a town's citizens show no sign of pain or even bleeding when injured

>after being in a town for too long, the party members begin craving unusual tastes

>animals are heard seldom speaking for brief moments, often in unrecognizable languages, with horrid voices
>>
>>20712520
ME TIE DOUGH-TY WALKER
>>
>>20710905

Who, or what the hell is that thing?
>>
>>20712538
that one was just dumb.
>>
>>20712565
Someone without eyebrows.
>>
My D&D game has "the bunnies." Every now and again, someone who is fanatically devoted to something begins to accumulate rabbit friends. Not pets, just wild rabbits who become friendly. After awhile, these people disappear. Their tracks lead away from their homes, are gradually joined by more and more rabbit tracks, and eventually the person's tracks are gone, and the rabbit tracks scatter.
>>
Your players find some ancient relic. A strange metallic cube. It doesnt seem to have any residual energy or field around it, beyond being unusually cool to the touch. Looks like something purely ceremonial. And fairly old too, a dull iron brown, although its not iron.

They will wonder about it, pick it up, turn it over in their hands a lot, trying to read the inscriptions or decipher the pictograms. Each side had one very elaborately carved image, in a kind of embossed or bas relief effect. There are nine of them, each depicting some wierd creature, and a large spherical object, possibly the sun, it looks to be nine stages of growth, with the sun becoming smaller in each one.

They will inpect the device, perhaps looking for edges or joints, I mean, it *feels* hollow, and the embossing is obviously done from the inside, but each edge is flush with the next. Except on the corners. There is a kind of indented pyramidal shape on each corner, like the device sat in the middle of something. Each indent is marked with a symbol, which research tells you is a counting system, from one to ten. its as though the device was hooked up to ten different inputs. Perhaps its something magnetic, or electonic in nature?

Wait for the look of confusion, or realisation. Then, Sanity checks.
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>>20711180

Now THAT's quality.

Player: What's in here?
>GM: You examine the room, noticing the layer of dust on everything. No one's been in this den for quite some time. Let's see, what's in here? The knickknacks on the desk, the bureau full of molded clothing, the grinning corpse in the fireplace, the the iron wrought chest in the corner
Player: The corpse in the fireplace?
>GM: what corpse? there's a mantle over the fire place...
Player You said there was a corpse!
>GM: No I didn't. Let's keep going, you're derailing the game.
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remember what your goal is. you want the players to run away from the terror, rather than confront it - if they do that, they either beat it or get fucked. either option leaves them done with it. however if they flee, they're going to remain scared of it forever.

>have a freak occurrence with no way to investigate it
>have it happen again
>establish some rules for it
>eventually you start breaking those
>at this point it's manifesting in tangible ways
>shit gets real, throw whatever scares at them
>at this point they either try to deal with it or flee
>leave them barely alive if they don't flee
>the rules are changed again
>the rules have a way where they can stay safe from it or they can try to deal with it (which as they have seen is difficult)
>make sure they have a way to basically run like hell that would (probably) mean it won't chase them
>now you only have to hint at the rules changing again
>they will either fight it now or run
>if they fight, awesome, have them face the biggest baddest stuff you have
>if they don't... they'll be yours. you can never show the thing again and they'll still be checking every shadow twice.

you can scale it down to keep smaller occurrences still creepy after a few sessions.
>>
We are the you are the
Help me help me help
SHouldn't be
Should should should
Are you should
Spilling corruption
Blood filled mouth
Full of lies
>>
>>20712636
I'm confused.
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>>20712705

Roll 1d10 for SAN damage.
>>
>>20712699
>>20712712
>>
>>20712712
What realization should there be?
>>
Your party finds an ancient circular stone door covered with tribal markings blocking their path. Reaching out and touching it reveals it to be a giant stony spiderbutt.

They will never look at ruins the same way again.
>>
A great method for frightening nonsense?
Keep refreshing the captcha. Record it.
Hit a new captcha faster and faster, hit the "spoken captcha" button.
Boom, instant electric echolalia. Turn the sound all the way up for a never ending flood of madness.
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>>20712726
Read it again. Slowly. Try to picture the cube in your mind.
>>
>>20712565
>>20712605

Even a small subtle change can make something seem strange.
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>>20712733
I did this with a town square in a place that had a rather problematic large spider infestation in the nearby forest and many, many missing persons cases attributed to the spiders assaulting townsfolk at night... until someone tried to dig a well and received nothing but spiders.

An enormous spider had burrowed under the town and was chilling while its offspring fed their mama kidnapped townsfolk, using the tunnel system they bored to branch out towards other settlements and begin the cycle anew.
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>>20712755
>cube
>indented corners
>counting to ten
>cubes have eight corners
>ohgodwhat
>>
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They go to a zoo. All the elephants look like this and stare at you incessantly.

No one seems to notice.
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>>20712778
Also:
>cube
>one picture per side
>there are nine pictures
>ohgodwhat
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>>20712755
Do you mean that it's a cube but it's got ten corners?
>>
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>>20712636
>>
>>20712776
Theres also an actual spider with a stony aztec medallion looking butt, so you can use that.
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>>20712798
And nine sides.
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>>20712803
...Seriously?
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>>20712755
>>20712712
Yeah, I gotta say... that cube description got me. As I was reading the description I was picturing it in my mind, read past the part about the embossed reliefs without a pause, kept reading and suddenly thought "wait a minute... how are there 9 embossed images on a 6-sided cube?"... at that sudden though I was reading the part about the connection points on the corners, the 1 through 10 numbering system and the idea that this may be plugged into something at 10 connection points... then realized a cube only has 4 corners....

Well played sir. I fell straight into a non-euclidean trap that would have left me a gibbering servant of some eldritch god. Well played.
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>>20712778
>>20712790
>cube
>ten corners
>nine sides
>ohfuckmybrain

Y'knath k'th'rygg k'yi mrr'ungha gr'mula...
>>
>>20711157
>>20711581

Oh, that's ... a wrinkle.

YEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAH!
>>
I turned the first BBEG my group encounters in Rogue Trader from a helpful NPC merc, to a Chaos Spawn, to a background character in the next campaign.
The Trader noticed him as the loading crew of a treasure they were selling that he had almost killed them over. He ran to him, but when he arrived, they were done loading and left.
think the bad guy from Ghost Ship
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>>20712811
And the first player to realise this, makes a sanity check, and as players do, will tell you he drops the cube. Doesnt want to touch it anymore. It hits with a dull clunk on the ground and rolls into the corner. SAN checks all round, please.
>>
>monster that mimics human voices
>you are trapped in its lair
>you can hear the screams of the dying
>calls for help
>you have no idea which ones are real
>they laugh and giggle when wounded and when killed their voices slowly warp into the screams of a dying child
>>
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>>20712816
Yep. Uses its leathery butt to hide in holes protect itself from wasp stings or something. Said butt just so happens to look like a bluish-gray stone medallion.
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>>20712840
>cube
>rolls

why can't I hold all this ruined SAN
>>
>>20712798
>>20712811
>>20712790
ITT, /tg/ loses all its SAN points due to failing basic geometry.
>>
>>20711157
It's a *medium* check to notice children are moving something like a military parade?
I would've thought you'd notice something wrong as soon as you focus on the group!
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>>20712840
>cube
>ten corners and nine sides
>rolls into the corner

Pwhn'guul i ghawl'fwata ryiu wgah uul'gwan h'iwn guu'lal. Pwhn'guul i ghawl'fwata ryiu wgah uul'gwan h'iwn guu'lal. Pwhn'guul i ghawl'fwata ryiu wgah uul'gwan h'iwn guu'lal.
>>
>>20712860
Well frankly I first just assumed cube was a bad choice of words.

Still pretty cool though.
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>>20710797
My DM did that. Then made her the Blood of Vol and gave her nigh undefeatable stats (Half-Red Dragon/Lich/Deity-Level 1/Vampire with 18 levels of wizard) because he thought we needed a challenge. We only won because he forgot deity immunities and realized we were all getting super pissed (I alone did 250+ damage and she never healed and still kept coming)

Regardless fuck making kids anything other than kids. Children aren't scary and making them such makes the campaign seem silly (Unless you want a silly campaign, then, go for it)

/shaves neckbeard
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>>20712891
yeah thats why i was confused. I thought he meant "object", or there were like 2 images on some sides or something.
>>
>>20712912
Ill admit, Ive used this very description with two different groups for a Horror game. The first group was perfect, the sudden confused look from the player holding it, as he tried to wrap his head around the description, and then the terrified panic when he understood and he took his SAN check. They spent a good hour in the room with the cube.

The second group, I had someone point out, matter-of-factly to me mid description that "Ahem, cubes dont have nine sides, they have six. Are you some kind of idiot? Lol, learn to math" But the second group wasnt really in a horror mindset, despite wanting to play it.
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>>20712891
Thats what I was saying. You argue over whether or not this object is a cube and in the process lose all your SAN
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>>20712636

Cube with nine sides? check
Never mention the number of sides explicitly? check
Brains be fucked with? UH-YUP. :)
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>>20712960
the dude in the second group was an asshole.
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>>20712975
Yeah a bit of:

>"You said its a cube"
>"Yes. Its definately a cube"
>"But cubes don't have nine sides?"
>"No, they do not."
>"But this has nine sides."
>"From your count, yeah, nine sides."
>"And still a cube?"
>"Yep, definately a cube."
>Youvewrinkledmybrain.jpg
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>>20712960
I know someone like the guy in your second group. I hate playing anything with her because she pulls shit like that all the time. She's going to be a musician, you'd think she'd understand the concept of suspension of disbelief just from studying Peter and the Wolf.
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>>20713012
Next time just go "*AHEM* but that is the sound of a musical instrument, not a wolf stalking a child." For all of her stuff, too. I find that artsy degrees in general have a lot of those kind of people in them.
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>>20712980
Yeah he was our regular GM at the time. Introduced us all to horror (As in Call of Cthulhu) and was always saying how hed love to play, rather than run a horror game. He picked it apart at every turn, knew all the monsters from description and thus the stats, etc, and generally meta'd his way through it, and then complained I didnt run it right.

He was the reason I stopped describing the horrors directly, went from looking at a picture of say, a byakhee and giving a general description to just giving the 'impression' you get from it;

>Its disjointed, has a wierd gait, almost stop motion.
>A shifts toward you with a wet, slapping sound, like a pigsty in frenzy.
>Rough skin, feels like scraping your tongue along broken teeth.
>Smells like burning moss mixed with stagnant water.

Which I guess is a good thing, really.
>>
>>20713092
>He picked it apart at every turn, knew all the monsters from description and thus the stats, etc, and generally meta'd his way through it, and then complained I didnt run it right.

And that's why GM's rarely make good players for their own games
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>>20712690
I don't like doing that, just because once they face it the terror is gone. I just have weird, insane shit happen. An important thing, however, is to still have some form of consequence. If things are intangible for too long the players get used to it. I like to keep the consequences tangible, however. Like if they investigate an anomaly for too long, bad shit starts happening. Then, if that doesn't deter them, I'll have something weird pop out of no where and attack them, but I make it clear that the weird thing(s) is just as confused as they are.

No matter what, I keep things mostly subtle. Often times they won't ever notice it until a moment after, when its no longer relevant.
>>
>>20713092
everything they think they know is something you can use against them. sure, he's going to identify it based on the description but then the stats aren't right...

people who try to metagame are going to shit their pants from that alone.
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>>20713121
make it scarier so they won't face it, then.

horror you can't beat is just lame.
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>>20712636
Huh...Well that's hard to stare at.

Wait, what happens if your response is just "Meh"? Some of us have characters that have seen weirder shit than that.
>>
I didn't understand what the shit fit about the cube was until now. I then I laughed at the stupid cleverness of it
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>>20713193
Then your mind is already beyond saving.
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>>20713205
Hey now, I might sound like I'm crazy every time I open my mouth, but I can literally prove every word coming out of me. The world is a crazy place and I'm just collecting data.
>>
>>20713150
Its not there to be beaten, just a quirk of the world.
>>
rolled 5 = 5

>>20713215
I roll to disbelieve.
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>>20713228
Unless you go insane from the revelation, that the world is a crazy place, then you can't disbelieve it.
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>>20713193
To be honest, Ive never encountered a player/character whos response would be 'meh' (With the exception of that aforementioned guy) But my reasoning behind it would be "If your not willing to get into the mood of playing a horror game, then dont play a horror game."

Nobody gets really, truly scared sitting around a table with a bunch of friends, but if everyone is willing to get a little creeped out, or even spooked, a better time is had by all, and a better story is wrought from it. Even just giving someone a mild uncomfortable feeling, that they can translate into character is good enough for me.
>>
>>20710902
>>20710856
These. Setting up the mood of the environment is also important. People tend to be more on edge when they are out of their element. A perfect example is at night in a rainy forest. Especially in a setting where magic and supernatural creatures exist. Hell, I remember for a holloween special we went into a forest looking for some missing kids. Turns out, a malevolent forest spirit had kidnapped them out of spite. He spared our lives in exchange for sending valuable items his way. We originally thought we were hunting down a bear or a panther or other animal. All the signs were there. Eyes in the darkness, flashes of movement out of the corner of the eye, strange noises, lack of animals. All the signs of a predator. Not subtle, but the point is that once someone is in an uncomfortable situation, they can easily be led to believe what you want.
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>Our wizard woke up with lots of bite marks all over his body, with two fingertips missing and bits of lip, ear, and face gone.
>The fighter,normally ravenous, wasn't hungry for breakfast that morning.
>>
Here's an example OP
>Players are walking through the woods
>Natives are using bird calls to communicate
>One player makes his knowledge check about the animals (suppose they are hunting)
"Yes, the calls are of a bird indiginous to this area"
>what you don't tell them is that the birds have all migrated south. Unless someone actually points out that it's winter, or asks something similar. Leaving out key bits of information can be just as effective as lying. The brain, when unaware, will tend to interpret things in the most normal way possible.
>>
Lots of the old Twilight Zone episodes are great for creepy scenarios.

>on plane
>one party member sees something moving in the same direction as the flight out his window
>nobody else sees anything
>looks back
>it's messing with the wing
>nobody believes him
>plane lands, engine has clearly been tampered with
>>
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>>20713252
I once played a fucked up game like this.

There were 4 of us playing it with straight faced people just trying to survive/escape/not go bonkers.

And there was 1 other playing as Jack Sparrow type character.

He had few sanity points at all but was remarkably resilient to mental damage beyond what ever had driven him so far over the edge previously.

To his credit he played the character perfectly. When encountering what looked like an old soviet base with impossible geometries that, when you walked along enough corridors and stair cases would have you walking on what you previously thought of as a ceiling a long way above you, he just came out with "That fucking odd" and proceeded to get on with finding a radio transmitter.

Never did find out what he did for job. He always answered with "this and that", "things", "Jellyfish dentist" and "the very best that I can".

His levity made the wrongness more stark.
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>>20712636
So, wait; nine sided cube? six edges?
And now it's just *rolled off into the corner,
...I can feel the Science overtaking me, it is a good pain.
>>
>>20713361
Thats a good example of a character whos gone off the deep end. Has gone beyond rationalising things and is doing his best not to *think* about the things he encounters. He will firmly ignore the cyclopean, barbed, wailing thing that seeped in through the ceiling and finish the ritual as best he can. Stiff upper lip and all that.
>>
>>20711152
The one with the evilly-aligned soil and the iambic pentameter?

I really hope someone does, that's a good'n.
>>
>>20713441
For the love of all that is unholy, somebody please have this!
>>
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These. These are the perfect example of creepy feeling. You might describe the situation something like this.
"As you walk into the room, you sweep your gaze side to side. Nothing seems out of the ordinary. There is a door ajar off to the side, but no light seems to come from it."
If someone goes to investigate, their character would see a silence, but as soon as he turns to warn anyone.

"The room looks completely average. There is an overturned chair in the room, but other than that nothing of note"

Continue in this vein for a while. If anyone stops to check a time piece or look out a window, give them a sense that more time has passed than they thought. If you actually want them to confront the silence, you might have them suddenly be in other rooms, maybe missing a few arrows or other such consumables that would be used in a battle. Don't outright mention it, perhaps do something more like.

"You find yourselves in a room down the corridor. (Person A) your sword is drawn, and a strange greenish liquid is flowing down the blade. (Person B) your backpack feels a bit lighter. The room around you is very much in disorder, as if a large fight had taken place some few minutes ago, but strangely, you can see no bodies. The walls are inscribed with strange warnings 'Keep Looking!!' and 'Get out!' are repeated over and over."
>>
Characters explore an ordinary house. Nice suburban neighborhood. Plenty of rooms, spacious livingroom, nice kitchen, bedrooms for kids. Nothing horrific or out of place.

They check the bathroom. They find that someone has installed a garbage disposal into the shower.
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>>20713441
Agreed. Especially that one revelation about the villagers.
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>>20713476
Uuh, which kinda garbage disposal?
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>>20713512
The kind for getting rid of the bits people don't eat.
>>
>>20711152
Here it is:
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/6088875/
>>
First session of my Mage: The Ascension game is this Sunday, and right now the general story arc is that a semi-powerful Umbrood has gathered a cult of Nephandi, and are generally wreaking havoc.

For those who don't play Mage, translation: a demon has a cult of evil mages.

What are some good ways to make this creep the fuck out of my players?
>>
>>20713519
Ooh... The one with the spinny things in the sinkhole?

...That's definitely weird.
>>
>>20713536
There is a curfew that is not enforced that everybody goes out of their way to obey. Nobody wants to be out after dark. Everybody smiles a lot. Nobody talks about the "havoc". The people that do all vanish and are replaced the next day.
>>
>>20713526

>>20713029 here. Called it!
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>>20713565

That would be okay, but the setting is Minneapolis. Were it set in a small town, I'd go with this.
>>
>>20713587
Awww. Okay.

There's a manga written by Junji Ito that takes place in a large-ish city(and later spreads to all of Japan) where people are abducted and found later, dead, naked, and sewn together with fishing line. Radio frequencies keep broadcasting this "Nobody likes a lonely only! Army of one! One in heart! One in mind! Come together, now! Army of one!" message.

Entire groups of people start vanishing from large buildings with security detail in place to stop the Army of One killings from happening, but lo and behold while the guards are out guarding eventually one of them checks and the people they were supposed to protect are gone, only to turn up the next day.

The ending sucked

Maybe something like that? Could be a stretch.
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>>20713526
...what the fuuuuuuuuuuuck. That DM is an artist. Seriously.
>>
>>20713637

I kinda like that. I'll give it a go, see if it works out.
>>
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>>20713701
Best of luck.
>>
dice+1d10
>>
>>20713526
WHAT IS THIS I DON'T EVEN-

Oh my god.. what did I just read...
>>
Nice thread, a lot of good ideas.

Care to help a guy here? I need some quirk to suggest my players there is something wrong with important NPC at my game, kind of elegant casino owner who's important figure in the town...and secretely a werewasp. I need something that could make sene but won't give it right away.
>>
rolled 7 = 7

>>20713721
Realized that that wasn't tinsel on the trees
>roll SAN damage
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>>20713637
I remember that one. Yeah, the ending didn't really make sense. My favorite Junji is probably the one with the holes in the mountain specifically designed for certain people.
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>>20713830
He never appears to look directly at anything.
Compound eyes and all
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>>20713830
Twitchy disposition. Constantly on the move "flitting from one place to another", a particular fondness for sweet drinks. It doesn't even have to be anything particularly physical about him. Just the adjectives and adverbs you use can tip them off. IF they don't realize it 'til you unveal him, it makes for an even better 'oh my god' moment when they realize that you have been dropping hints the entire time.
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>>20712825

Ok, I want to steal this and use it now.
That's pretty slick.
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>>20713886
>>20713900
Thanks guys, those are good ones.
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>>20713834

oh christ, it's not
why didn't I notice before?
I blame the circle of buttsex in the bottom right
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File: 1347581224261.gif-(1.37 MB, 224x178, 1347532356317.gif)
1.37 MB
>>20711379
NOPE.
>>
>>20713331
> The brain, when unaware, will tend to interpret things in the most normal way possible.

So very true. Experiments on split-brain patients (people who have had the connecting structures between their right and left brain hemispheres severed) reveal how readily the left brain interpreter can make up stories and beliefs. In one experiment, for example, when the word walk was presented only to the right side of a patient’s brain, he got up and started walking. When he was asked why he did this, the left brain (where language is stored and where the word walk was not presented) quickly created a reason for the action: “I wanted to go get a Coke.”

The horror? Aside from a severed corpus calloseum, these split-brain patients are completely normal. As in, their brains do all the same things that your brain does. Case in point: there is a little man inside your head who's job it is to explain your actions, and he will make up utter horseshit to do so. To make things worse, that little man (known in some texts as "the Interpreter") may be the only thing keeping all of your thoughts and feelings tied up together in a package known as "me". Without him, you would be a collection of disjointed senses and reactions all doing things for their own reason, none of which necessarily rely on the rest of the body's experience. The Interpreter, by continually making shit up, is giving each of your actions a unified reason and thus giving you a sense of self. Be sure to think of this the next time you shift positions. Why did you do that? Just remember, whatever your Interpreter tells you has been entirely invented in the span of a few nanoseconds. Good luck ever trusting yourself again!
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>>20711331
>Woods turn out to be completly bland with nothing of intrest or worth.

So you're suggesting the DM be a fishmalk

FUCK YOU.
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>>20714248
Jesus.
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>>20713721

Ok, that ending was terrible.
Interesting though.
>>
Have the main city/ town that the party visits, reset every time they lose sight of it. So when they return have them greeted by the same guards, all the stores have the same inventories, they get asked for money by the same homeless man at the same location, and if they bring up something that happened before in the town, have the people try to act as if they know what the party is talking about in an attempt to keep them happy. Depending on what the players do in the city will determine how fast they catch on. Getting greeted by the same people in the same order in the same way will eventually become apparent, but being greeted by the guy they killed yesterday would be incredibly obvious.
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>>20711334
Fffffffffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.
>>
Now, I wish I could do this shit, but my whole party would just shrug and say "It's magic, it doesn't have to make sense."

Girl missing a face? Eh, just a ghost, nothing to be alarmed here. Crazy cube that counts to ten? Eh, magic artifact. Dog tracks that walk like a human? Eh, werewolf, nothing to see here out of the ordinary.

In a real-world campaign, maybe. But the generic fantasy campaigns that we're used to running has deadened them to anything out of the ordinary.
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I was thinking. The ten-sided cube--what would happen if you tried put a finger/thumb/hand (with the party helping)/etc. on each side?
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>>20714550
In the middle of a big magic battle, mention offhand what is obviously by its description a perfectly ordinary modern-day delivery truck driving by.

Even magic can have "wait, th'fuck was that?" moments.
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>>20714589
are you trying to lose SAN?

are you trying to make US lose SAN?
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>>20714589
THEY arrive.
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>>20714311
More brain horror... Your brain writes its own memories to fill in any gaps it comes across. These fake memories are completely indistinguishable from the real thing and are sprinkled throughout every single event you carry memories of. What's more, even with video or other records there will never be a way for you to be completely sure which parts of your past actually happened, and which parts were simply imagined for you.

H. P. Lovecraft once wrote that, "The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents." Think about this, and realize what a gift it is that so much of our brain is set to 'auto-pilot' or in the areas we don't think of. How we could die at any time, how a loved one could drop, the complicated actions of moving fingers to type or even breathing. All the numbers, percentages behind every little thing that happens every day. You truly would go insane if you could comprehend everything the mind is technically and actually capable of.


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