Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Omnirahk, half-Rahkshi 10-14-06, 07:09 PM	Inspired slightly by The Best Lines Ever (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=304933), I'd like all you DMs out there to start sharing things you've done/thought of that could scare the pants off your PCs. To start: DM: About 15 feet away you see the noble you were sent to protect. Suddenly, a swarm of bats surrounds him. You watch in horror as they tear his head off. The bats then coalesce into the form of a ghoul. He begins to devour the body. Then he pauses and - aware of you - looks up. He speaks. "What are you looking at?" I'm sorry. Few things seem scarier than a Gravetouched Ghoul Swarmshifter/Paladin of Slaughter/Thayan Gladiator with a Vorpal swarm attack. Mind you, a spider swarm would have been scarier to an arachnophobe. Still, the hook just changed from "Prevent the dire consequences of his death" to "Survive the dire consequences of his death." Start sharing!
Eled_the_Worm_Tamer 10-14-06, 07:31 PM	I ted to fall back on a few simple techniques to scare players. Step 1: Why they cant leave, be it that there abourd a ship on a long sea voyage, trapped in a town or monistary by a raging storm, or tied to an oasis by need of water. Dont let them run. Step 2: Why they cant stay, the threat. Zombie hoard is traditonal, but a vulrent plage or a bezerk Golem, it needs to be something that could kill them if they let it, something out of there ability to face. Step 3: give a ray of hope, the Plage has a cure, the monster some rare vulnerability, the Zombes a cuse that can be removed, something that they reach for aginst the odds. Step 4: Apply preasure, dont let them relax, seldom let them plan, use descriptions to remind them death is wating, eagerly wating. Ok, its a set of clasic Horor tehniques, but it works.
Sergikins 10-14-06, 09:21 PM	I ted to fall back on a few simple techniques to scare players. Step 1: Why they cant leave, be it that there abourd a ship on a long sea voyage, trapped in a town or monistary by a raging storm, or tied to an oasis by need of water. Dont let them run. Step 2: Why they cant stay, the threat. Zombie hoard is traditonal, but a vulrent plage or a bezerk Golem, it needs to be something that could kill them if they let it, something out of there ability to face. Step 3: give a ray of hope, the Plage has a cure, the monster some rare vulnerability, the Zombes a cuse that can be removed, something that they reach for aginst the odds. Step 4: Apply preasure, dont let them relax, seldom let them plan, use descriptions to remind them death is wating, eagerly wating. Ok, its a set of clasic Horor tehniques, but it works. It works, except when they ahve teleportatin magic
CharlieRock 10-14-06, 09:26 PM	I have one player who has a phobia of ogres. May be due to one almost killing him at an early level at the beginning of an old campaign. Ever since then he gets VERY nervous around ogres.
Darth Sephiroth 10-14-06, 09:26 PM	Then have whatever is causing the problem leave an dimensional anchor/dimensional lock effect on the area.
DemonDavyJones 10-15-06, 03:16 PM	Ooh! This looks promising! "Get back up there ya coward!" *bicycle :bump: -kick* Anyways, on to the topic. 1. When the PCs enter a room, describe the ceiling in rediculous detail. "Craggly rocks and stalactites" ect, ect. Continue untill they run because of the "killer ceiling":shocked: . 2. Have the hook for the dungeon be something along the lines of an army dissapearing there:plotting: . When the PCs enter, make the room full of blood to six inches:bigeyes: :mymy: :bigeyes: . Pile bones in the corners. If they continue, send in the vipers crawling underneath the blood! 3. This last one is complicated. In any dungeon, have a door that says in some ancient language, preferably one the PCs understand, "The Halls of Paranoia":thinks: . When they enter, make it a twisting, branching hallway that always leads back to itself. Have the door need a huge search check to find, and dissapear from magic if necessary. Every so often, tell the PCs that "there's something out there" or "something moves out of the corner of your eye, it looks dark, shadowy, and indistinct." continue untill they get really freaked (:hides:), making the description softer a little each time it happens. Eventually, have a door that, when opened reveals a room lit by a diffused blue light of some kind. Then (just about) shout (almost) the arrival of a distorted humanoid wielding spiked chains that crashes through the walls and screams "death to the infidels!":OMG! . Make it reasoned however you want.
otakutaylor 10-15-06, 04:21 PM	This was used on me once before, hope you don't mind. Untimely pause in a sentence. DM- "You open the door, the room is bare but large and is dimly light, inside you can see a Great Gold Dragon-" Takes a sip of his drink. Players- "Oh fudge!" DM - "-fly. He buzzes past your head." The whole group applauded that, even though it scared the crud out of us. (Everyone but me was evil in that game, so we had reason to be scared of a gold dragon.)
CryoSilver 10-15-06, 05:57 PM	Scaring PCs is easy: make them feel overwhelmed and powerless. Scaring players is even easier (and more fun). 1: Smile a lot 2: Roll random dice and jot down notes (about what doesn't matter, but it helps if you look at a particular player when jotting down a given note and smiling just a little more) 3: Ask "are you sure?" every time your players say they are going to do something
Shiikeras 10-15-06, 07:04 PM	I enjoy fake deathtraps. Like a room that fills 3/4 of the way up with water. Or a pit a few hundred feet deep with a large cushion at the bottom, along with rope and a bow/arrow. After these happen, I make a real one. :)
PhaedrusXY 10-15-06, 07:06 PM	Go read through the "1001 things Mialee could be looking at..." thread. Pretty much anything in there should work. Don't forget the mindflayer in the background giving the thumbs up. :D
AlphaSquirell 10-15-06, 07:34 PM	When they enter a room, have a certain door on the opposite end creak shut, quickly. When they finally decide to open it, have it be an EMPTY (completely empty, not even any dust in it) closet. ~My group did this, freaked out, and I think they were worried about it being a *insert monster 6x the toughest CR they could hope to handle here*. They shut up when I told them "What would be the point? You'd die, and I'd have to wait until you rolled up new PCs" Bring LOTs of extra character sheets, and hand them out (just in case!). Shadows and funny lighting. That kobold bending over something with a candle in his hand will make a HUGE shadow behind him on the opposite wall. (which is perferably what the PCs see before they even get to where they CAN see the kobold) Lots of animate objects. Then a room FULL of stuff (lots of furniture, in particular) that is not animated. (really feeds into the "paranoia" thing) "You enter to behold a giant creature standing before you, with an octupus-like creature in place of it's head. It smiles (if such a creature can said to "smile") at you and advances with arms upraised in a...... Whoops, wrong room!"
Piggyfreak6 10-15-06, 07:45 PM	When they open a door, have a creaky old chair in the middle of it with a beam of light on it. Just keep discribing the chair, and be extreamly discripitve!!! The trick is that the chair has nothing wrong with it except for maybe 1 short leg. They will freak out trying to figure out what great evil this chair might be!:devil:
Eled_the_Worm_Tamer 10-16-06, 08:50 PM	Have 'pet' monsters that your known to like more than you do the players. Dragons and Ilithids are mine, my players instantly know there facing a foe who will test them to the limit and do its best to escape to haunt them later"
pierow37 10-16-06, 08:56 PM	Have a permanet image of 1000 ogres charging you down the hill. have them trample you. Then let them waste all of their teleport spells.
Voldar_Mecorthio 10-16-06, 09:20 PM	A balor demon stands on the other side of the PCs inn room's window holding the severed heads of several vilagers, better if the PCs know them. He then writes "run" on the window in blood. PS: I did this on Halloween last year to a friend of mine, only without a severed head an wearing a hockey mask and holding a huge knife. He was so freaked out, I filmed it and blackmailed him with it for months.
BobSutan 10-16-06, 11:28 PM	3: Ask "are you sure?" every time your players say they are going to do something That's a staple of my game, along with "You open the door? Which hand did you use?". Stuff like that scares the crap out of them just waiting to see what's coming next :)
RetiredThief 10-16-06, 11:40 PM	Seems the scariest thing to players is anything that steals experience points or levels from their characters. A close second is anything that shows a propensity for making off with their magic items. Their characters can get battered to a bloody pulp, go days without food or rest, suffer freezing cold and inferno heat without the players batting an eye. But steal EXP?:OMG! :gel: And sorry, I just saw this smilie and had to use it. No reason.
ressurrector 10-16-06, 11:50 PM	I like to have my players randomly roll spot/listen checks. Just to keep them on thir toes, and desensitize them for when the checks actually mean something. Put in a monster that the players know like the back of their hand, then give them class levels or such that lets them do things completely outside what they could normally do. (Pseudodragon with levels of dragonfire adept for a breath weapon and humanoid form) Players get really freaked when their initial impressions are incorrect, and thing they thought were mere decoration (a pseudodragon on some guys shoulder) aren't.
kelvinaw273 10-17-06, 01:34 AM	A DM once spent an entire session building up an 'all hands are against you' session against my (now ex-) wife wherein she was hunted down by the rest of the PCs, most NPCs etc. for a serious crime committed by accident. At the end, as a vampire sinks it's fangs into her neck he finishes the session with: "And as you feel the sting of the fangs you realise that your collar is digging into you, and awaken from your dream." He then left the table and ran for his life. In spite of being six-months pregnant, she caught him - but was too out of breath to kill him.
Koverchenko 10-18-06, 05:15 AM	I have several techniques I use to scare my players, but one of my favorites is to create a highly unstable environment and put them in a situation where they have to navigate it. At one point in my last campaign, the PCs had to enter a haunted cathedral and retrieve a holy item (a magical lantern) that they hoped would help them protect their town from the plentiful undead of the region. Inside the cathedral were all manner of horrors--zombies, ghouls, shadows, a spectre or two, and a Quell standing at the altar (a Quell from Libris Mortis is an undead-fighting cleric's worst nightmare--it possesses an ability called Interdiction with which it can "turn" clerics and cut off contact with their god, making it impossible for them to use their turning abilities!). Aside from the zombies and ghouls, all these horrors are rendered powerless in the sunlight. So naturally, my PCs decided to make their assault on the cathedral during the daylight hours. However, the day they chose to do so happened to be a very cloudy day where the sun was frequently blocked out by passing clouds (I roll months worth of randomized weather for my campaigns, and have it organized day by day, allowing me to supply my campaign with interesting weather and also keep track of how much time passes over the course of the adventures). Now, there was still plenty of sunlight outside to stop any nasty incorporeal baddies, and the cathedral, with its big stained glass windows, would be pretty bright when the sun was out. However, when the sun went behind a cloud, I ruled that it would be dark enough inside for these creatures to operate. I constructed a percentile chart to roll each round to determine whether or not the sun was obscured by a cloud. The resulting battle was pretty intense--the cleric actually prayed aloud each round that the sun would keep shining/come back. The players had to deal with the CR of the encounter changing round by round as different creatures became active and entered the fray, only to suddenly be rendered powerless and retreat. And nobody--not even me--could ever be sure just how long the party advantage would last, or how long they would have to endure the full fury of the undead onslaught. I tell you, no matter how badly a DM scares his players with his cruelty and diabolical plot twists, true terror comes from random uncertainty. When not even the DM knows what will happen next, that is when players go from 'scared' to 'uttterly terrified.'
BobSutan 10-18-06, 04:43 PM	Care to post that weather system you were tracking? I could really use something like that for my next encounter I'm running them through next weekend. One of the PCs will become a werewolf for the very first time, while they're all 300 miles out to sea on a ship. This could very well end the party if the crew gets killed and they end up lost at sea.
Sulaco 10-18-06, 04:47 PM	I'm sorry. Few things seem scarier than a Gravetouched Ghoul Swarmshifter/Paladin of Slaughter/Thayan Gladiator with a Vorpal swarm attack. Mind you, a spider swarm would have been scarier to an arachnophobe. Still, the hook just changed from "Prevent the dire consequences of his death" to "Survive the dire consequences of his death." The problem for me is that your example requires the players to to look at that scenario and then meta-game the living hell out of it to realize they are dealing with a "Gravetouched Ghoul Swarmshifter/Paladin of Slaughter/Thayan Gladiator with a Vorpal swarm attack."
Voldar_Mecorthio 10-18-06, 05:23 PM	Here's something I used when I got mad at my players for spreading caltrops over every square inch of the dungeon. (stupid Bag of Endless Caltrops) DM: You see a long hallway, you can't see the end. Players: I walk down, spreading caltrops. (I feign anger at this, but am secretly doing a Mr. Burns "Excelent") DM: After going about 300ft, you start to hear a rumbling sound, and you see ten ogres with greataxes charging at you. Players: RUN!!! DM: Caltrops dummies. :devil: They were mad. And pulverized by the ogres. (only one died, and we laughed about it afterward)
Omnirahk, half-Rahkshi 10-18-06, 05:39 PM	The problem for me is that your example requires the players to to look at that scenario and then meta-game the living hell out of it to realize they are dealing with a "Gravetouched Ghoul Swarmshifter/Paladin of Slaughter/Thayan Gladiator with a Vorpal swarm attack." Not if I describe it to them as "A swarm of bats surrounds the man, their fangs glowing with a foul magic as they tear his head off. The bats then coalesce into the form of a ghoul, who begins to devour the corpse." I'm assuming that by the point of facing a ghoul with class levels, they should already know what a ghoul looks like. And part of the horror is knowing that the guy they were supposed to protect just died. They know his death has very dire consequences for them.
aotrscommander 10-18-06, 05:44 PM	"You enter the room. The walls are covered with dozens of posters of Mialee. "Naked." Too much?
john_045412 10-18-06, 05:54 PM	-Change the pace of the adventure. I enjoy giving them extra time and detail in some areas, and then just as they are getting use to the slow pace... force them into quick decision making. -Brushes with danger: Let the players "see" the effects of what they are going to be scared of before they encounter it. (Use an ally who has saved them before or a group known to be powerful.) -I like the idea of an enviromental based saving throw... the first time make it's DC really low. The next time... tell them you can feel its stronger... each time increasing it. Have minor effects stack with each failure. Plagues, Corruption effects, evil radiating magic items, and the like help. Really any chained checks work... like chained endurance checks for running. -Level draining has ALWAYS scared every party I have DMed -Incorperal enemies that can slowly pick away are good. -Once in a while actually having a PC die. (Many DMs never let players die.... EVER. That leads to a charge in first, plan later attitude sometimes.)
john_045412 10-18-06, 05:58 PM	A DM once spent an entire session building up an 'all hands are against you' session against my (now ex-) wife wherein she was hunted down by the rest of the PCs, most NPCs etc. for a serious crime committed by accident. At the end, as a vampire sinks it's fangs into her neck he finishes the session with: "And as you feel the sting of the fangs you realise that your collar is digging into you, and awaken from your dream." He then left the table and ran for his life. In spite of being six-months pregnant, she caught him - but was too out of breath to kill him. That is an AWESOME idea I am NOW integrating into my next "missing a few players" session.
Greg K 10-18-06, 07:23 PM	This one might be simple. If a low to mid-level party is travelling in the wilds, have a gargantuan or colossal dragon fly overhead and cast a shadow down over them. Perhaps, also, have a boulder or dead cow fall from the dragon's grasp and land near the party.
Maeamian 10-18-06, 10:17 PM	This one's brilliant, although not my idea origionally, but I used it to great effect. Leave just one gold piece on the ground somewhere My party spent twenty minuets trying to find my devious trap when it wasn't there. Another one is a bloody hallway with arrow slits and such, and a checkered floor. Again, nothing but where a battle had recently happened it.
ChaoticGood 10-19-06, 12:39 AM	Sometimes, the best laid plans fail to scare, but the smallest detail completely creeps the party out. One party I had fought a band of pseudonatural kobolds who left a trail of oily black slime wherever they went in their tentacle form. The party never discovered this detail, having witnessed the oily black slime in the kobolds' lair but never having made the connection. Later, aboard a ship, the party kept waking up to find drops of the oily black slime on the deck, on their equipment, and even, in one case, on their bedsheets. Did this creep them out? Not at all. They just got annoyed about having to cast prestidigitation every morning to clean things up. Eventually, they made the connection between the kobolds and the slime. Did they even once ask themselves, "How did they get here?" or "Why are they following us?" Nope. Not once. They just went right to work tearing the ship apart board-by-board in search of the "little pests." On the other hand, another party I had spent almost an hour of real-time trying to figure out how to get into a large obsidian block structure. A large portion of this time was spent exploring the roof for vents and the like. Once they were inside, they discovered that the roof was made of a magical substance that functioned like one-way glass. The instant they realized that the monsters inside could have been watching them explore the roof, one of the players blurted out, "Whoa! Spooky!" and the others all started nodding in agreement. It's one of my favorite memories of DMing... but I honestly had no idea that such a simple detail was going to get that kind of reaction!
TheWerg 10-19-06, 12:54 AM	Never, ever, ever describe anything in detail. Be a bad DM. After about 6 sessions of this, randomly describe a hallway the PCs are walking down as "with traces of mold running up and down the cracks, spreading from ceiling to floor in some areas, etc." I had my PCs spend an hour trying to figure out how to completely destroy a random feature of the environment. I just sat there cackling in mirth for a while. It only made them more scared... :D
Toran_A_Sunder 10-19-06, 12:57 AM	My players once pooped a brick when I had them, at first level, meet one of the main NPCs in my campaign world, Raj Shardul, the Rakshasa. Like I said they were first level, and were just rescued by Raj after escaping the island they were stranded on for a week or more. They thought it was the end already. It doesnt always work, but ridiculously high level CR's will scare the bejeezus outta any almost completely unequipped party. One thing my friend does when he DMs that, while not so much scarey, keeps us well on our toes is to randomly ask us when we make a d20 roll if we want to action point it. The first couple times we thought he was being helpful, giving us a hint into a bad roll, until someone rolled an 18 on the attack and got a total of, like 25, versus a guard or something, and the DM asked "Would you like to action point that?" :OMG! Did...did you not hit him? I dont know...did I? It was awesome.
cog_and_taz 10-19-06, 09:21 AM	At the end of a really REALLY horrible dungeon, the final room, and the oldest trick in the book. "as you enter the room, you see that it is a fine-hewn grey stone room, with no furnishings, yet no mold either. In the middle, you see a little girl in a blue dress, bouncing a ball up and down with one hand and clutching a headless doll with the other. She turns, and speaks to you in a lovely voice 'hello, I've been waiting for you, for so long... it's so lonely down here, can we play?' She moves towards you, smiling. As you back away, you hear a thousand voices in your mind "don't go... I won't let you go.. stay here..with us........for ever...". Your vision begins to darken and fade, and you feel your strength leaving you as you fall to the ground, a thousand giggling voices in your mind..............." An hour later, they woke up in the same spot and nothing had happened. They look around though, and find the same headless doll and a bloodied note that reads: "please don't leave me here... don't go.". If that doesn't do it, give up. So, what do you guys think?
ressurrector 10-19-06, 11:43 AM	Woah..... Just woah...
Sulaco 10-19-06, 11:52 AM	Not if I describe it to them as "A swarm of bats surrounds the man, their fangs glowing with a foul magic as they tear his head off. The bats then coalesce into the form of a ghoul, who begins to devour the corpse." I'm assuming that by the point of facing a ghoul with class levels, they should already know what a ghoul looks like. And part of the horror is knowing that the guy they were supposed to protect just died. They know his death has very dire consequences for them. Yes, but it still involves meta-gaming to know that it is a ghoul with class-levels. I'd rather have them scared witless cos the PCs don't know what it is, not cos the players do. My favourite example: The party were clearing out a dungeon when one of them notices movement down a corridor. They ready themselves for action and wait. Moments later, a skeleton appears at the edge of their light radius. It is floating in the air, a coronoa of old broken and corroded weapons slowly circling around it. They cut loose with ranged weapons, hoping to take it out quickly. I described in detail how the arrows stopped in mid air, some 5 feet or so from the skeleton, and then were slowly pulled in to join the others that encircled it. Again they tried and the same thing happened. They were nearly peeing themselves with fear at this seemingly unhurtable foe, little suspecting it was merely a gelatinous cube with a bit of creative description. :devil:
BobSutan 10-19-06, 12:39 PM	At the end of a really REALLY horrible dungeon, the final room, and the oldest trick in the book. "as you enter the room, you see that it is a fine-hewn grey stone room, with no furnishings, yet no mold either. In the middle, you see a little girl in a blue dress, bouncing a ball up and down with one hand and clutching a headless doll with the other. She turns, and speaks to you in a lovely voice 'hello, I've been waiting for you, for so long... it's so lonely down here, can we play?' She moves towards you, smiling. As you back away, you hear a thousand voices in your mind "don't go... I won't let you go.. stay here..with us........for ever...". Your vision begins to darken and fade, and you feel your strength leaving you as you fall to the ground, a thousand giggling voices in your mind..............." An hour later, they woke up in the same spot and nothing had happened. They look around though, and find the same headless doll and a bloodied note that reads: "please don't leave me here... don't go.". If that doesn't do it, give up. So, what do you guys think? You win. /thread
Sulaco 10-19-06, 01:17 PM	So, what do you guys think? Doesn't do it for me at all. The whole scary-little-girld-want-to-play thing is way too clichéd for my taste. It also creates and then leaves unanswered a lot of questions. It might be an intersting springboard to an adventure that involves discovering the answers to theos questions, but doesn't work as horror for me. Then again, this is merely my take based on reading a truncated version on a comuter while sitting in a well-lit room at work. Horror is all about atmosphere, so a DM creating the right mood and really selling it could make it work in a manner that simply cannot come across online. To me, horror is created through context. Back in my teens I used to explore this in art and photography. I would take otherhwise innocuous items and create tension by placing them or using them in unexpected ways. A single child's shoe lying in the middle of a road, a dusty old rocking horse with a single runny drip of red "paint" on it, a rusty old wheelchair lying abandoned at the end of a dock, things like that. All of these suggest that something dark, something bad, has happened without being too obvious. That is the essence of good horror: letting the audience's own imagination make it scary. I'll give you another example from the same campaign as the cube incident: The party were invesitgating an old mine. There was a lift shaft but the lift itself was destroyed, forcing them to climb up it with great difficulty. As they were making their way out they heard a noise. The miner in the party instantly recognixed it as the lift operating...the same lift that was destroyed. A few moments later it stopped. They were about to go invesitgate when they heard a mine cart start rattling along the tracks form teh lift, the tracks that also were destoryed. They called out but there was no response, just the sound of the cart getting louder. No matter what they did there was no response, I just told them the sound was getting louder. The combination of the unknown, the lack of response, and the seeming inexorability of it had them scare whitless, so much so that they eventually fled in sheer terror. One of the players was visibly shaken by the whole thing. Afterwards they asked me "So, what was it?" and were shocked at my response: "I have no idea, I was just toying with you." I really did have no idea and I'm glad of it. Since I had no idea what it was I could listen to them speculate and then play off of those speculations. It was priceelss.
Herald@Large 10-19-06, 03:48 PM	As the party leaves town, a black cat walks across their path. As the party comes back to town, the formerly-friendly townsfolk run away screaming. When the party returns to town, every living thing in it has vanished. Half-eaten meals are still on the table, trails of footsteps end in nothing. When your players arrive, be thumbing through the Call of Cthulu handbook and making notes. :plotting: And one of my favorites: The party enters a room with only one exit. Once everyone is inside, the door closes and cannot be opened by any means. The only thing in the room is a button. As they search for a way out, a voice comes out of nowhere: "TEN -- NINE -- EIGHT --". If someone presses the button, the countdown stops, then starts again two minutes later. If they let the countdown continue to zero, all that happens is ... Wait for it ... Pause for drumroll ... The door opens! :evillaugh
CryoSilver 10-19-06, 04:06 PM	The item the party can't get rid of. In a game I DMed this spring, the party picked up a strange little vial. More than once they disposed of it, but it always showed up again. It really POed the party necromancer, whose fault it was the item was in their possession in the first place.
TwiddleStootch 10-19-06, 04:59 PM	I once did something that scared my PCs, and I wasn't trying to... at all. they were raiding a troll fortress, no big. they dealt with the first squad of trolls, and then came to the next part of the fort where they found a troll lieutenet(SP)(fighter levels) taking cover behind one of several large rocks in the center of the are(it was a training area for the trolls). as soon as I described this, my PCs were SURE that the rocks would: 1) Come alive and attack them 2) fall on them if they got close or 3) that there were earth elementals inside them ready to come out(meta-gaming since those character had neevr seen any kindfo elemental, but i let it slide) I had the troll stay behind cover, so the PCs approached slowly, wary fo the rocks. nothing happend. so they beat the troll, still nothing. they then spend atleast 10 minutes dicussioning weather or not they should destroy the rocks, they didn't in the end. there was never anything odd about the rocks, I jsut put them there to give the troll cover :D
cog_and_taz 10-19-06, 07:24 PM	Thanks everyone! Sulaco, I agree that this is cliche and absolute garbage, it just works on some people, that's all. Honestly, I wouldn't be caught dead using such a bucketful of cheese on my players, I was just saying something that may work for most.
malignor 10-19-06, 07:28 PM	Here's a neat one. Have a hall that led to a "waiting room". The furniture was all broken, and bloody, unidentifiable pieces of once-living tissue were smeared all over the place. On the wall, freshly written in the blood of whatever was slaughtered here, is a detailed chronicle of the party's actions for the last 10 minutes, up to the point they walked into the room. One by one, take a player to the next room to describe what happens. "Then the room goes black (deeper darkness). The voices of the party screaming and screaming while sounds of something tears them apart. Then the darkness is gone and you're standing alone. The gore in the room is magnified a hundred fold, and the writing is covered with bloody handprints and mad, skewed scrawlings of 'HELP ME' and 'ALL YOUR FAULT' and 'BETRAYAL', intermingled with illegible writings which suggest they were more commentary, of the rape, slaughter, mutilation and cannibalization of the party... by you and 'THE OTHER'." In fact, it's simply DeeperDarkness, some illusions and a few teleport spells. All the PC are in different but nearly identical rooms. = = = = = = = Another one... An octogonal room, where each side (except the entrance, and the exit) has a coffin. In the center is a 4-sided obelisk of black stone that tapers to a point at the top of its 10' height. On 3 sides of the obelisk is a bas-relief of what looks like the end of the world. Fields of naked, damned people, depicted in biblical forms of anguish. One side they are all being eaten alive by swarms of insects. Another they are all nailed to posts, wasting away under the forgiving sun. another they are all eating each other in a fit of savage madness. The last is blank. The coffins are all closed, except one, which is slightly ajar. When you open it, inside is what looks like a young boy, between the ages of 8 and 10. He's dead, but preserved to look alive, and is well dressed and smiling with wide open eyes that stare through you. [make a spot check, DC 5] You notice that not only is he dead, but he's been ... hollowed out... completely and nailed to the back of the coffin through his head by a spike. [the players react] As you look, the body falls to the foot of the coffin. The now crumpled hollow boy then emits a deep, heavy and mischevious laugh while still inanimate, but its eyes are looking up through you and then you hear nothing <zone of silence> and steel plates slide down to entrap the party inside. Where the child was spiked to the coffin is the nameplate, which has been scratched beyond recognition as if by a tool or daggar. The other coffins are empty, but have nameplates. For each PC there is a nameplate inside the coffin with their name on it. When the last coffin is opened, the obelisk glows red hot (3d6 fire damage per round of contact) and the silence is lifted. The obelisk hums and vibrates as the boy (inside the coffin or not) lets out a scream that never seems to run out of breath. The deafening noise goes on for a minute straight and then it all stops. The steel doors are gone, the obelisk is cool to teh touch, the coffins are all sealed and the boy inside the one coffin is gone. Down the hall, from whence you came, you again hear the faint laughing of that deep voice, mixed with the fading footsteps of the hollow boy, running free.
cog_and_taz 10-19-06, 07:31 PM	^ that, everyone, is someone who knows what they're doing. here's a less serious one, works especially well on metagamers and gives a good laugh later on. Throughout a dungeon, give hints that the final room is guarded by some uber-monster, in the final room, there will be precisely one cute fluffy and utterly terrified bunny. Be overly descriptive about it, and how they sense no evil or power from it, it's just an ordinary bunny. Also, litter the room with skeletons, and have the bunny stare at them constantly. Grin alot, and if they ask you something like "okay, so what is it really?" say "what do you mean? it's just a bunny!". Eventually, roll will saves all around in secret, and for those who make it, they see nothing. Those who fail see the bunny's "true form", a flaming horned menacing demon or whatever, be very descriptive and make it seem really tough(note: this is an illusion). Once they burn all their spells and so on on it, the real boss materializes behind them.
aotrscommander 10-19-06, 08:03 PM	^ that, everyone, is someone who knows what they're doing. here's a less serious one, works especially well on metagamers and gives a good laugh later on. Throughout a dungeon, give hints that the final room is guarded by some uber-monster, in the final room, there will be precisely one cute fluffy and utterly terrified bunny. Be overly descriptive about it, and how they sense no evil or power from it, it's just an ordinary bunny. Also, litter the room with skeletons, and have the bunny stare at them constantly. Grin alot, and if they ask you something like "okay, so what is it really?" say "what do you mean? it's just a bunny!". Eventually, roll will saves all around in secret, and for those who make it, they see nothing. Those who fail see the bunny's "true form", a flaming horned menacing demon or whatever, be very descriptive and make it seem really tough(note: this is an illusion). Once they burn all their spells and so on on it, the real boss materializes behind them. Actually, with a party containing any Monty Python fans, the appearence of a bunny in a game tends to involve reflexive fireballs anyway, so the Will save bit is probably redundant.
cog_and_taz 10-19-06, 08:06 PM	I know, I know.:D Except that the will save is for the illusion for those who don't watch monty python stuff.
Keltobin 10-19-06, 08:30 PM	Many players will get a bit of the willies when having to stick their hand in the mouth of a statue/ relief sculpture (you chose if there is a trap or not). I used this in a campaign after visiting the "Mouth of Truth" in Rome. The legend is that if you are lying it will bite your hand off. This is a concept that can be used in many situations and embellished by the DM.
OneWinged4ngel 10-19-06, 08:35 PM	At the end of a really REALLY horrible dungeon, the final room, and the oldest trick in the book. "as you enter the room, you see that it is a fine-hewn grey stone room, with no furnishings, yet no mold either. In the middle, you see a little girl in a blue dress, bouncing a ball up and down with one hand and clutching a headless doll with the other. She turns, and speaks to you in a lovely voice 'hello, I've been waiting for you, for so long... it's so lonely down here, can we play?' She moves towards you, smiling. As you back away, you hear a thousand voices in your mind "don't go... I won't let you go.. stay here..with us........for ever...". Your vision begins to darken and fade, and you feel your strength leaving you as you fall to the ground, a thousand giggling voices in your mind..............." An hour later, they woke up in the same spot and nothing had happened. They look around though, and find the same headless doll and a bloodied note that reads: "please don't leave me here... don't go.". If that doesn't do it, give up. So, what do you guys think? I remember a few years ago I used to go to the Call of Cthulhu boards. I had written up *LOTS* of creepy scenarios of this caliber, as did many of the other board members. Perhaps those interested in scaring the players might find it worthwhile to check those boards? After all, CoC is all about scaring the players... Also, lots of bigger things, and little, tiny things that would gradually just contribute to creeping people out. Those were some good threads... hmmm...
Goon_for_Hire 10-19-06, 08:36 PM	I'm a big fan of the "completely mundane noises that should not be" trick. I've used it a dozen times. For example: PCs are in a machine room when it suddenly fills with the sound of rushing water wheels, turning gears, etc., even though nothing is moving, or indeed, intact. Another that really worked was the sound of picks on stone in an apparently empty mine. You've never seen the holy symbols come out so fast. I've managed to have an entire party flee like peasants from a Great Wyrm with a single mongrelman or kenku using his abilities well. A variation is the "monster with power over his environs" thing. When the evil magician or whatever begins to get angry have the bushes nearby writhe, chains begin to clink, or old skulls start to scream. Guaranteed the PCs will asume the very gates of Hell are about to open. Still and sielnt ghost sound is our friend. My final favourite is the "dangle the players over something perilous" gambit. This involves a pit or cliff where something very hungry and very fast is dangling. I like black puddings and swarms. Have the footing give way, a trap activate, ot the supposedly stabel statue they're clinging to begin to sink down towards ravening death. Even if they can take the monster, the drama tends to put them in a panic.
cog_and_taz 10-19-06, 08:45 PM	onewing, thanks but it's still garbage, I appreciate how little it takes to scare people though... Goon, you've yet to learn how to really scare people, I can tell. Anyone worth their salt uses a black pudding swarm:P . Here's another one... for use in a town :evillaugh "suddenly, you hear a rumbling sound followed by a low bestial moan, and notice that the river is rising. As it touches the plants and animals, they melt with a hissing sound as steam rises off their bones. Soon, the river becomes a torrent and rushes over the town, melting stone, animals and houses as it goes. You begin to hear the screams of the helpless women and children. As the wave of death closes in on you, a wake of destruction and bones behind it, you have only one thought in your mind: there's nothing I can do." Can you say colossal gelatinous cube? Yeah, so I was descriptive, kill me.:devil: Sulaco, while this is by no means inspired by your gel cube, that description of it was awesome, I didn't see it coming, well done.
Voldar_Mecorthio 10-19-06, 09:10 PM	They fall 100 or so feet onto a small pillar about 20ftx20ftx20ft in a huge circular room about 300ft in diameter. There are sculptures of red dragons allong the walls, their mouths open like they're breathing fire. Then the trap starts. Lava begins to flow from the dragons' gaping maws, and they here a deep, satanic laugh as they watch their room fill with liquid hot lava. Their only escape route lies in a vertical tunnel 100ft above them, which begins to close as a slab of stone seals it off. Just to make it worse, monsters similar to lavawights but not as strong begin to climb from the lava onto the platform. Best used when you are rather angry with the players.
cog_and_taz 10-19-06, 09:18 PM	They fall 100 or so feet onto a small pillar about 20ftx20ftx20ft in a huge circular room about 300ft in diameter. There are sculptures of red dragons allong the walls, their mouths open like they're breathing fire. Then the trap starts. Lava begins to flow from the dragons' gaping maws, and they here a deep, satanic laugh as they watch their room fill with liquid hot lava. Their only escape route lies in a vertical tunnel 100ft above them, which begins to close as a slab of stone seals it off. Just to make it worse, monsters similar to lavawights but not as strong begin to climb from the lava onto the platform. Best used when you are rather angry with the players. "...and that was when we whipped out the decanters of endless water" on my players, it won't work, still nice though.
Phantem2 10-19-06, 09:47 PM	One really good example goes something like this: "you walk up to the old whitches house with a large statue of a stone knight holding a great sword aloft, make a spot check, (no DC but the players think there is), you think you see a foot twich or the sword move a little. at which point the PCs become paranoid. as soon as one of the players musters the courage to touch it (arrows do nothing usually due to hardness), have them make a will save (against illusions, but dont tell them that) if they made a pretty good one take the player aside and tell them they know for a fact that it is just a statue and the movement is an illusion. Not once have i had a player not use this to mess with the others which can be real funny.
Lunar_Shadow 10-19-06, 09:57 PM	Twoo Words: Tucker's Kobolds
cog_and_taz 10-20-06, 02:14 AM	"you walk into a dark, torchlit hallway. Shadows flit across the walls, seemingly with a life of their own. They eventually seem to notice you, and turn to you. Suddenly, you realize that they are all around you, and hear the chanting of a thousand voices as the shadows move towards you, beckoning:'join.....us......join...us... '. You hear the screaming of the rest of the party, mingled with screams from small human faces in the centre of the shadows. Looking around, you realize that the torches are small red faces, twisted in anguish and frozen in a silent scream, you begin to feel their pain, and almost scream, but restrain yourself. The shadows move closer still, and the chanting continues 'join us....'. Suddenly, your vision begins to fade, and the pain with it, the shadows move ever closer, and you black out, happy that the pain has gone. After what seems like an eternity, you wake up to see four shadows standing around you. in the centres of the first three are the faces of the other party members. In the fourth, yours. You look down, and realize that you are yourself turning shadowy and insubstantial. They glide closer towards you, chanting what seems to be the same words, but slightly different: 'one of us... one of us.....'" Better?:)
fullmetal80110 10-20-06, 02:56 AM	Well you see a cat, just a regular looking house cat. Have the house cat follow them around and not do anything, it gets them off ease, then say the cat charges at you! Have it be a druid villan or something, but have it follow them since like level 2 or 3.
LordTyger 10-20-06, 03:04 AM	"When metagaming fouls up..." I mentioned this in my post about a villian, but it fits so well here, too. Running CotSQ, the characters came across my custom-villian drow blackguard, a standard drow runner, and the blackguard's companion..a black unicorn. Now, I expected the party to try taking on the blackguard, have him show them the futility of their actions, and leave (as he is several levels higher than him, intentionally meant to be a recurring villian). However, when the party heard there was a black unicorn, they totally freaked out.. muttering and talking amongst each other, and decided to parley. Here's the clincher. The party is all level 10 characters.. a black unicorn is either cr 4 or 6..(it's late, and I don't have the book right here with me currently). The unicorn would have been the least of their troubles, yet it was the thing that made them decide against straight hack-n-slash. By the way, kudos to my group for RPing the seeing of a black unicorn for the first time.. went from "A horse..with a horn?" to a player making the connection that it's "a unicorn.. but aren't unicorns supposed to be white?" to the eventual conclusion of "Um, guys, I don't think we should f**k with this thing."
Koverchenko 10-20-06, 03:53 AM	I like to use monsters that the PCs do not usually see in an adventure--this adds both scare opportunities as well as variety and richness to the world. I remember using Twig Blights (a measly CR 1/3 monster) to scare the hell out of my players in my first campaign: The party was traveling along a road when it came time to set up camp. They moved a ways off to the side of the road, pitched their tents, and went to sleep. They posted watch, but the watch did not see anything during the night. They heard a few things, however, but I had already conditioned my players not to jump at the slightest sound--the first night on the road, the party member on watch got all excited about a rustling sound in the bushes and tore off in hot pursuit, only to find that the sound was a scavenging skunk--fortunately, the player backed away before the skunk had to get really nasty (I go camping a lot, and I know that the woods at night is a very noisy place, and if you get nervous about every single critter you hear walking through your campsite you will go crazy). The watch person looked around a little bit, but did not investigate the sounds too closely, for the sound they heard was the rustling of bushes. Now, for those who are not familiar, Twig Blights are rather weak little plant creatures. They look like small, strange red bushes and are capable of rooting and surviving like normal plants, but prefer to kill creatures and survive on their blood. They prowl around forests, preying on unwary creatures, and unknown to my players, the rustling sound heard during the night was actually a small group of Blights coming up to the campsite and rooting around the edges of it. The next morning, everybody awoke and prepared for departure. I had everyone give me a memory (Intelligence) check--if any of them had succeeded, they would have remembered that the odd little red bushes growing around the edge of the campsite had not been there the day before. But nobody succeeded. So I set up the battle board, much to the confusion of my players, placing the bushes on there, as well as a few trees and other foliage. I then asked them to show me exactly which path they would take back to the road. As they unknowingly passed by the Twig Blights, the little creatures all of a sudden attacked! It was a very low level battle, but it scared the hell out of them. They had no clue what they were fighting, and the idea of the bushes and plants suddenly attacking them was very frightening. They expected to fight monsters and animals and creatures like them, but they never expected to be attacked by plants. They were genuinely scared of the little bush monsters, and their cries of alarm and confusion were most satisfying.
cog_and_taz 10-20-06, 04:34 AM	Nice one, I always appreciate creative use of existing stuff.
cog_and_taz 10-20-06, 10:20 AM	*random necro voice* RISE, thread!
cog_and_taz 10-20-06, 10:51 PM	*cue mission bumpossible music*:incog: :incog: :incog: :shifty: :shifty: :shifty: :bump: :bump: :bump:
AlphaSquirell 10-20-06, 11:10 PM	*snip* stuff about twig blights *snip* Twig Blights RULE vs. low level parties that have never seen them. Mine made it across the entire first level of the Sunless Citadel before finding a Twig Blight. They fight the goblins, wipe them out, sweep through, and are fighting the chief/king as he stands on his little throne. As the monk moves forward to attack (and probably finish off) the chief, the lonely little plant, the one with no leaves, that looked dead, reaches out and strikes him. For a level 2 character, being attacked by a Twig Blight with an Attack of Oppourtunity kinda throws you off. It then preceeded to bolt to try and warn the Druid, but got killed before it got there. My PCs killed all bushes that didn't fight back and provoke them, just in case. If it didn't fight back, it might be waiting to "jump" them. (The case of Fire Magic being used on them, when the original ones were NOT vulnerable to fire, was kinda funny, as the Warmage blasting them with Lesser Orbs of Fire was doing less damage than the monk who simple punched the bush) Anything, ANYTHING at all, that isn't supposed to move, can be terrifying. Make it teleport. Very simple. We (the last adventure before the one that screwed our campaign so bad that I took over as DM, so this was my Pre-DM days) were clearing out this house, and this statue was on the first floor, near the entrance. Well, as we find out the house is full of various golems, we decided to move up and find the creator, so he won't harvest the town for more golem fodder. Well, as we get back to the entrance, the statue is gone. We notice this fairly easily. Mainly because it was MUCH bigger than us, and VERY hard to miss. So we get upstairs, and clear out a few rooms, and see it again. So we promptly flipped out. We are going to clear out a few small rooms, so while two guys are clearing out a library, and then one guy is in the hall watching them, and another farther down the hall watching him, and another around the corner watching him, AND watching the guy who watches the statue. (so while two guys raid the library, one watches the statue, with others dispersed in between so we don't lose sight of ANYONE at ANY given time) Well, the guy watching the statue was STARING at it, when it teleported away. (turns out it was a shield golem, or some such creature, but all we saw was a teleporting statue. That's not cool) Now to plan on springing a "Stone Knight" (think chesspiece) on my players. That out to be kinda fun... (for me, anyways....)
cog_and_taz 10-21-06, 10:38 PM	:bump:
cog_and_taz 10-22-06, 10:25 AM	Fine! If this is what it takes, I'll do it! Mission bumpossible: the sequel!:incog: :shifty: :bump: :duel: :monk: :headexplo :rofl: :ayyyy!: That better?
LivingShadow 10-22-06, 01:38 PM	Great thread. I may use it in my next adventure.