Any good spooky RPG experiences? I don't know if the people

>>49016040
A couple but it was mostly circumstance and not what the system was meant for. Basically a couple not-so-noteworthy things were out of place just enough to strike a nerve, and then something perceived as unexplainable would happen and then everyone has the chills. At least that's the jist of it.

One of those things that if you planned for it to be spooky, it wouldn't come off that way but having practically zero insight to the matter goes a long way to getting to PCs.

>>49016040

I managed to completely creep out two of my characters during a game of Call of Cthulhu. It was their first time playing CoC, so I ran the Haunting because everyone has to play that one shot at least once. Really the party was about as weeb as it could have gotten.

> We had one player who wanted to be a socialite sociopath with a canesword, hailing from a murderous underworld with all sorts of contacts to get video game-esque cool weapons. At one point she asked for a wrist-blade, and I gave it her because frankly I didn't want to bother arguing. It's impact on the game was incredibly minimal.
> Another player wanted to play an Italian Mobster. I was a relatively seasoned player, but this was my first time GM'ing, so I said sure, why not.
> And then we had the other two: A detective on leave from Boston PD, a relatively nice guy and the Call of Cthulhu equivalent of the paladin. He kept me from going nuts.
> And the oddball, it was a guys first time roleplaying and he rolled up this character who was the son of a hunter from some village (In 1920's America), and left for adventure (In 1920's America), taking with him only his name: Stein McJoy (In 1920's America).

You can imagine the shitshow that could happen, yeah? Frankly, it didn't. I put on some good spooky music and we investigated the house after some preliminary investigations in the area. The downstairs area went by relatively easily, Player 1 found Corbitt's Diary and wanted to read the entire thing then and there. I gave her some highlights and said to get anything useful she'd have to spend a few hours on it. She immediately wanted to summon a Dimensional Shambler.

They continued through the house, and I pointed out the crosses and rosary beads in most rooms, until they got to the children's room. At which point I cranked up the music a notch, and one player is repeatedly saying "Fuck you it's children" over and over. He can't stand ghost children, so I just smile and shrug.

>cont

>>49016040
you can't make someone feel scared who doesn't want to, evoking an emotional reaction from a story is reliant on the audience engaging with the material and lowering their suspension of disbelief so that they can care about it (if you don't care about anything you can't get scared). If a player doesn't want to be scared then they just disconnect from the story in order to avoid it, and once a player is disconnected from the game they usually start joking around OOC.

Find players who enjoy horror stories or don't play horror games.

>>49018933

They linger in that room for a while, and I try to move them on, start having the ceiling feel like it's getting closer, and bash against the wall with the bed in the other room.

At this point most of these guys are rollplayers, so the characters are really only defined by what equipment and skills they have. There wasn't much of an interest in playing the character or having IC conversations, and this made me especially proud of actually managing to creep out a couple of them.

As they go into the next room, wary at this point because one player is clearly on edge, I crank up the music some more. One player complains about the music, and thankfully they complain that it's creeping them out too much, so I turn it down. I know some people would insist I should ignore them, but frankly I'd rather my players had a good time.

The windows start rattling after I mention the abundance of religious symbolism in the room. After asking for an idea check they remember the religious symbolism in the other rooms as well, and begin to put things together, slowly. Before too much happens I launch the detective out of the window, the very same window I was flung out of in my first game of Call of Cthulhu, propelled by haunted bed.

As they slowly move onto the basement the tension begins to die down a little bit, but they're sure they don't want to fuck with whatever's in the house. After trying to grapple the possessed knife, and skillfully catching it in Player 1's abdomen, they leave, followed by a scratching sound in the walls as they flee from the front door.

They come back with enough fuel to run an American muscle car for about 10 minutes. You know, a metric fuckload of fuel. When they come back they fight Corbitt, breaking through the seperating wall with a sledgehammer, and having Captain Sledgehammer, the Mobster, get possessed by Corbitt and turn on his team.

> Cont.

>>49018994

The mobster wasn't best chuffed when Player 1 started unloading her gun into his leg, I think it was an Elephant gun or something, because she chose entirely based on stats. He fell to the ground pretty quickly, not dead but with two broken legs full of lead he wasn't going to be swinging the sledgehammer at anyone.

During this entire fight I ruled that strange warped looking bi-pedal creatures, taller than any man with long sinewy appendages faded in and out of vision, their alien sinister gaze locking onto the player characters. Sadly this had little to no effect on my players, the horror by this point was over and done with. We had a few good scares in the early game, but at this point it was done.

They went on to fight Corbitt, and it was an absoloute cakewalk, because I managed to spend all of his magic points on failed Dimensional Shambler summons, hence the performance prior, and Corbitt just lay their angrily staring at them as they tore his corpse apart.

I've managed to get a tenseness going in other Call of Cthulhu sessions with this party, but I guess it's a case of player involvement. If they want to be drawn into it, and they want to be scared they will. If they get their phone out and play Angry Birds or some shit whilst it's not their turn they're a waste of space in a horror game. They're not into it and won't get out of it what they want.

You can lead a horse to water, but you really can't make it drink. If you hold it's head under the water and repeatedly shout "DRINK!" at it the only altered effect you'll get is a drowned horse by the end.

>>49018960
While this is entirely true, I'll add that our horror games usually start with a lot of laughing and end up with a lot of despair. The contrast works really well.

>>49019086
oh absolutely, in fact starting with a lighthearted attitude while you start the game and get to know the PCs can be the best way of getting the players to like (and therefore care about) the group

>>49016040
The only genuinely creepy experience was during a max max campaign. We were on the run from a much bigger gang and decided to explore a hole in the ground hoping someone stashed some water there. We were well past the point where we didn't care about food, and only wanted water. All of us were severely dehydrated and had already resorted to drinking blood three times (from three different people).
Anyway, we go into the hole, it's much bigger than it looks from outside and it's pitch black inside. Nothing of value, just rags and bones. We go back. Something attacks one of us from the back. We don't hear him breathing or walking anymore. Suddenly, something screams "hunnngeeer!" and jumps in my face. It's on me and I'm struggling with it, feeling its stench as it's clawing at my throat. I manage to wrestle enough space to pull my gun and turn the thing into swiss cheese. Noise and blood everywhere. Some of the blood is my own, I'm bleeding from my throat. I push away the body and shine a flashlight at it.
It was just a normal human, in a severe state of malnourishment and heat-induced madness. The fingernails were at least five inches long.

>>49019268
Best story.

>>49019268
That thread was one hell of a ride.

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>>49016040
>assholes
Experience suggests the most to blame may be the one who is wielding insults.

My players get spooked by little detail on a regular basis.

They had no problem carrying baby giant Leng spiders on their chest while those sucked their blood and gave them spider perceptions while crossing the Plateau. But when they retturned to our world and the creatures turned into countless little mundane spiders that skittered away they got so uncomfortable, they disrupted the game.

One carries an infection now and has to see a specialist doctor every other day or so without insight. It's really starting to mess with them. Just to do normal PC stuff and be suddenly reminded of it by a marginal perception, it's getting to them.

Displacement behavior is normal, not an attack on the game or the GM. It means your efforts to create tension are working. But it also means you have failed to channel this tension from the players back into the game. Try providing relief and comedy in the story, a tension arc should rise and fall with the pace of the story. If you only push one extreme you provide no contrast and not only will the players find it in meta talk, the story will also suffer because contrast is needed to underline extremes.

The steps are:
Play slice of life
Establish stakes
Undermine it all with tension
Build tension in waves
Twist
Climax
Lingering suspicion