Fear, Horror, and General Spoopyness

>>50130735
I tell them that I put some uranium in the Mt. Dew and they didn't notice because it already tastes like poison.

Its hard to make anyone scared when theyre surrounded by joke cracking friends. You gotta set the mood properly.

Invite your violent, drunk uncle to the game.

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I say detailed descriptions of gruesome, fucked up body horror

>>50130735
I once handed everyone a piece of paper saying "NOT THE TRAITOR" at the start of a session, never mentioned anything about it. paranoia immediately went to 11.

>>50133413

alternatively, pass everyone a 'The Traitor' card and watch the chaos unfurl

I've recently run a one shot that was extremely successful in scaring my players. I think you need a few important things :
1) Rhythm: Think of it like a horror movie, or a rollercoaster. You first set a baseline, that goes progressively into uneasiness. Then you add spikes of spooks, strange events, monster appearances and the like, to increase tension. After each spook,give a little breathing, but keep up the ambience, don't let it fall back. You want your base tension and the frequency of your spooks to keep increasing all throughout the game until the climax.

> How do you truly scare your players during your campaign?

They overdraf on their credit cards or forgot about the tupperware in the back of the fridge, so now it's all moldy (mold monster).

> What do you do to make the sleep with the lights on after the mountain dew is drained and the snacks are gone?

They had that dream where they forgot they signed up for a class and its the day of finals and they're panicing because they need to pass this class or lose their scholarships.

> What is the scariest campaign you have run/participated in?

They forgot to pay their taxes and the IRS came after them.

>>50134480
2) Tone : Set the mood. Dim the light. Play some background noise (nothing too disturbing, but a little creepy). Soften and deepen your voice for calm situations. Make it ring loud and clear for tense situations, but still keep a cold attitude. Be distant, emotionless, simply state the facts. But state them with great detail and great prejudice.
By the way, people who tell you that you can't do jumpscares in a tabletop? Think again, be creative, use the real world as well as their imagination. I had a gm once who crashed a plastic bottle full of caps to mimic the sound of a wooden door breaking. I had an assistant tap loudly on the window while I was distracting them in a different direction. I switched off the lights while making loud footsteps sound. For me and my players, it worked.

>>50134668
Speaking of which 3) Good players.
Sounds dumb, but your players must WANT to be scared, else, whatever you do will go to waste. Work with them. Try to see what each of them is scared of, IC and OOC. Use the backgrounds. One of them can't swim? Too bad, it looks like you have to cross some water. One of them just lost a loved one? Well I know who the spooky ghost is gonna look like! Don't be afraid to come up with shit on the spot if you see it could flip them off.
In the one shot, I had a room with a bunch of corpses. They suspected there was some kind of time anomaly and were anxious about these coming back to life to bite them in the butt. They checked once, twice. I saw they cared. So third time they checked, even though it wasn't planned, the corpses had moved towards the door, pointing an accusing finger to the players.

>>50134822
I may story time tomorrow if you want, but right now I go to sleep.

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>>50134822
>One of them just lost a loved one? Well I know who the spooky ghost is gonna look like!
I really hope this is the IC part...

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/12130366/
This campaign was pretty fucking spooky, if not the spookiest IMHO

Going to keep a close eye on this one. The first ever game I'm running is a horror game, that I'm using the Afterschool Activities tgbrew for...
And so far they don't seem all that scared :(