What are some good methods for building tension in a horror game?

Host it in a war zone.

>>54033305
Whatever you do, don't kill off Mrs. Carmody in the first fucking episode.

Music and ambience are everything.

Also, look at the way sentences are structured in horror literature, and adjust your descriptions accordingly - short. Sharp. Tense. When you're building up tension, keep everything you say short and tense.

>>54034043
Yes yes yes, I'm sure everyones ideas will be totally interesting. Having the players follow signs until they reach a "signs have been compromised' Sign an then fight a monster. Brilliant.

File: IMG_0386.gif (2MB, 200x174px) Image search: [Google]

2MB, 200x174px

>>54034075
See don't follow little girl, pcs go through door turn corner, little girl sitting right there, door locked behind them, only one way to go.


Follow little girl


Evil Laugher

>>54034007
Dude!

>>54034075
Best use of "signs have been compromised" is to have used nearly nothing but 'dangerous' signs before hand, so the party can't be sure exactly how much of the threat they've successfully ID'ed.

I really want to run a 'The Mist' game.

It's such a fantastic setting.

>>54034645
A Stephen king setting?


Gurps or CoC

File: jenga.jpg (48KB, 500x335px) Image search: [Google]

48KB, 500x335px

Play Dread.

>>54034689
>>54034645
These go hand in hand.

>>54034666
Well, no, just The Mist in particular.

Monsters in the fog.

It's a really fascinating departure from his normal work, because there's really no supernatural elements involved -- the monsters, even the mist itself, are natural phenomenon native to another world, leaking into ours through a breach in space-time.

It's science fiction.

>>54034812
Lovecraft is definitely recommended if you love this kind of crap.


Sci-fi horror all the way

>>54034924
Oh, totally, I'm a Lovecraft fan.

But The Mist isn't supernatural in the way Lovecraft was. The monsters are just alien animals, doing what they do. They're no more malicious than a wolf or a bear.

The show is shaking that up, though; I'm getting some Lovecraftian vibes from it, with the mist knocking out electronics and causing shared hallucinations.

>>54034689
What's Dread?

>>54035055
It's a rules lite horror system whose primary mechanic is pulling out jenga blocks. If the tower falls you die or are put out of commision. Mostly good for one shots

>>54035055
A horror RPG that uses a Jenga tower for task resolution.

It sounds gimmicky but it's a lot of fun and can get REALLY tense.

>>54034978
Personally I believe lovecrafts monsters aren't supernatural or malicious.


Love crafts monsters are so advanced we view them as supernatural, and they don't care about us at all.

To use 40k as an example, the dark eldar care about us, at least a little, because if they don't have us to cause pain too they get eaten.

cthulu doesn't care about us. He isn't negatively impacted if we don't exist, we are just in his way. Much as like ants are annoying, we are annoying to Cthulhu. It isn't malicious to kill some ants.

The difference between the most creatures and Cthulhu is sentience, Cthulhu can make logical decisions

>>54035069
Exactly

>>54035069
Cthulhu is just an alien priest.

It's Yog-Sothoth that doesn't care about us.

Nyarlathotep DOES care about us, and that's a problem.

>>54035120
Dude they rammed his head with a steamboat and he didn't even do anything, that is about as close to not caring you can get

>>54035139
He went back into a fucking coma!

He sank back down into R'lyeh!

>>54035139
Pretty sure that ramming a boat into him just convinced him it was a good day to have a lay in.

>>54035160
>>54035170
Eh, whatever I was going to wake up but know I don't wanna

>>54035186
Good sense, It's like when you wake up with a headache, and you figure you'll just sleep it off.

>>54035170
>>54035186
>Yawn. Hey, what do you know, the stars are right!
>Let's see what's going on at the surface; I bet the humans have made all sorts of statues!
>Ow! Oh, ow! Fuck!
>Screw this, I'm going back to bed.

>>54035208
>ugh this fly keeps divebombing me
>I'll just sleep it out, they ain't got that long of lifespans anyways

>>54035160
Did he do anything when he was in a coma? Checkmate

>>54035120
In all seriousness, the only monsters worth worrying about are the ones that are strong enough to cause us problems, and care enough to do exactly that(e.g the mi go)

Is the Mist tv show any good?

>>54038524
It's alright

File: c3dxh.jpg (51KB, 453x420px) Image search: [Google]

51KB, 453x420px

>>54034043

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/12130366/

There. Have a field day.

>>54039021
sometimes I forget this is where spurdo came from

>>54034512
Pay ghats baby stuff. Watch this.

>Players enter unfamiliar environment
>