For me, I interpret events through my character.  So, I would look at a situation and say "yes, if I were to actually encounter a weird fungal monstrosity in a clearing of the forest at night I would be terrified, therefore my character is terrified."  But any fear I might actually feel would be a result of my not wanting to lose valuable hit points or sanity points my character might have.  In other words the feelings I actually experience revolve around meta game concerns and not actual fear or horror.  I mean I could certainly be grossed out by something really gory or whatever but I'm never sitting in my chair at the table shivering with fear or anything like that...

You need as much player buy in for Creepy scary as much as a Horror GM needs to portray it well.

The CoC 7th Ed game I'm playing is run by a Keeper that knows the rules, background well and he clearly puts a lot of work into fleshing out a scenario.
It shows, as he's a good keeper and portrays the creepy horror very well.

But like has already been said in this thread before, the players need to be part of it too with appropriate RP and getting into the mood.

Quote from: Zevious Zoquis;833581But any fear I might actually feel would be a result of my not wanting to lose valuable hit points or sanity points my character might have.  In other words the feelings I actually experience revolve around meta game concerns and not actual fear or horror.

So you can't be scared while reading a story or watching a movie because it's always in your mind that 'it's just a book/movie'?
I guess that's where immersion and imagination comes in for me... like, I was reading the 'Ted the Caver' story TheDungeonDelver mentioned and I was just totally 'there' with ted... felt the claustrophobia and the panic of unseen things in the dark. At one point I wanted to stop reading because it was getting intense... at no point did I reach for the 'it's just a story' perspective to calm myself down because that would have ruined the fun.

I would probably try for "serious" horror if anything.  But the group I play with is more about getting together and goofing around (we're all longtime friends IRL first and foremost), so I doubt anything would really scare them, because they'd be too busy joking about it.  And I'm OK with that.  We have periods of complete immersion, where I could probably, if I tried, get some creepy atmospherics going.  hard to say when those will occur, though.

Quote from: Simlasa;833608So you can't be scared while reading a story or watching a movie because it's always in your mind that 'it's just a book/movie'?
I guess that's where immersion and imagination comes in for me... like, I was reading the 'Ted the Caver' story TheDungeonDelver mentioned and I was just totally 'there' with ted... felt the claustrophobia and the panic of unseen things in the dark. At one point I wanted to stop reading because it was getting intense... at no point did I reach for the 'it's just a story' perspective to calm myself down because that would have ruined the fun.

Oh yeah of course, but I think with a book or movie- if it's good - I can get really engrossed and forget its a movie or book.  I don't find that an easy state to achieve with an rpg.  There's a lot more going on that interferes with that happening.  I suppose its not impossible, but it would take a pretty exceptional GM I think.

Quote from: tenbones;833539Haven't any of you had "those players" that are wisecracking through everything? And what you thought was going to be creepy-Cthulu turned into the HBO Lovecraft show with Remo Williams?

Yes.
Those are the players geared for Evil Dead style B-Movie Camp. They are great fun at that.

I will not play a straight Call of Cthulhu game with those players.
I would rather run a game with even just a single player who understands the atmosphere of a straight CoC game over a group full of wise-crackers.

It's simply a matter of  matching players with play-styles.

Quote from: tenbones;833422Spun out of the Grimdark thread...

For those of you that run Horror games, or games with elements of Horror in them. Do you go for WTF scary? Or campy horror? How do your games hold up under the dark clouds of super-scary games?

I've spent years trying to sell my players on Cthulu - but they veto it. So I have to sneak it in without actually saying CTHULU!!! Ironically they tend to enjoy the dread when I do it... but only in doses. Anyone run something longterm like this? Or is it Evil Dead campy horror?

I mix it up. I've run an ongoing Cthulhu game for about...I think around 5 years with mostly the same players. Sometimes its a full-on campaign, more often one shots that may or may not be losely connected.

I can scare the hell out of players. I found that out a while back. It takes the right circumstances, and the right attitude of players, but its happened a few times. Even induced a panic attack in one player unfortunately. There's reasons for this, tied up in a lot of my method and partly just who I am as a person. Since I was a teenager I've actually been told by people that I'm "scary". It always somewhat amuses me, as my mental picture of myself is pretty much Ernie from Sesame Street, but friends say I'm more like Alan Moore or Anthony Hopkins in demeanour. So there's that. I also utilize music and ambience.

But thats generally not what I go for. Most of my games are patterned closely on Hellboy/BPRD comics, so pulpy investigators in a Cthulhu-ish world. There's some WTF horror, but it tends to be good natured fun more than anything. I try to stop just short of campy, but its a line Ive crossed many times.

And honestly for me weaving the mystery holds more appeal than the scares. I like introducing players to bizarre, frelled-up situations and seeing what they do, how their minds work, what conclusions they leap to. One of my players is a cop and its always amusing to me how different his choices are to another player, who regularly GM's D&D.

As for the Cthulhu mythos...I tend to take them as inspiration, but go my own way. I've never actually used Cthulhu in a game. I like investigating folklore and mythology and creating my own additions in the vein of Mythos creatures, but not directly taking from Lovecraft. Ran a long campaign that focused around a cult of Moloch.

It's been said before but it's true: props and atmosphere can get that extra out of players. Lights low, candles, turn down the room temp, any of a number of tricks to help immerse them into the game pays off.
Biological and psychological tricks are just another tool but worth investigaing and experimenting with.

Even if you don't 'scare' them, IMHO that's not possible, you can get a response to the mood and tone of game you are setting. The 'creepy factor'. I've had players respond to that in games with actual shivers before.

Quote from: Zevious Zoquis;833623Oh yeah of course, but I think with a book or movie- if it's good - I can get really engrossed and forget its a movie or book.  I don't find that an easy state to achieve with an rpg.  There's a lot more going on that interferes with that happening.  I suppose its not impossible, but it would take a pretty exceptional GM I think.

In my experience that falls more on the players than it does on the GM. If nothing else because there are usually more of them and all it takes is one person who isn't willing or able to let themselves feel scared and ends up wisecracking through everything to prevent the game from being scary for anyone.  Everyone has to cooperate for a game to be scary for anyone.

That said, the GM needs to go to some extra effort to make things scary or horrific. The CoC game we played in the dark with hurricane lamps and mini  flashlights to see by, with a weird and creepy sound track running in the back ground, and with lots of rooms to separate players from each other was probably the scariest CoC game we've played.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;833567I find that "WTF Scary!" loses its punch if you are doing it all the time. So I tend to lean more on campy and occasionally throw the players a scary adventure or two.

Pretty much this too. It's too much effort to do scary every session. And we all love the Blood Brother 2 standalone adventures way to much to nix camp altogether. And most of the BB2 scenarios are way campy horror movie genre pastiches. For example, El Tigre, y la Primade de Destruccion where Mexican masked wrestlers fight female Nazi storm troopers and rubber suit aliens. Now we played this back in the 1990s before Luchadores hit mainstream America so Mexican wrestling movies were a totally foreign genre to us so it may have been the actual Luchadore masks that we had on display or maybe the stars were just right, but that scenario is hands down one of the most memorable game sessions we've played. And it was not at all scary.

Quote from: Bren;833650In my experience that falls more on the players than it does on the GM. If nothing else because there are usually more of them and all it takes is one person who isn't willing or able to let themselves feel scared and ends up wisecracking through everything to prevent the game from being scary for anyone.  Everyone has to cooperate for a game to be scary for anyone.

That said, the GM needs to go to some extra effort to make things scary or horrific. The CoC game we played in the dark with hurricane lamps and mini  flashlights to see by, with a weird and creepy sound track running in the back ground, and with lots of rooms to separate players from each other was probably the scariest CoC game we've played.

Yes, I actually popped by just now to add a bit to my previous post to the effect that along with a great GM, it would help to have a small player group (maybe even only one player) to minimize the distractions.

I've always had the notion in my mind to run a game of CoC with all the creepy "bells & whistles" so to speak.  Audio soundtrack, visual aids, atmospheric effects, etc etc.  I could definitely see how it could be at least a very unsettling experience.  I mean even just sitting around in a dark room telling ghost stories at night can be very creepy...

In the last two years (well almost three now) I've GMed (and I'm still GMing) a Laundry campaign.

I think it is the first time I managed to get real/scary/disturbing horror while players are cracking jokes. The Laundry adventures manage to have a perfect blend of horror and humor.

It is a difficult mix to obtain but the books really give you the keys to get it at your table. The "silly" parts of the "Laundryverse" let players make joke and release tension (as they always do) but in the process they get even more disturbed by the darkest side of the setting (and the more you play, the darker things get).

I don't aim to horror-scare my players, ever. I just don't consider it a pleasant part of gaming and would even consider genuinely scaring a player a mistake in my DMing.

While I don't have any such reservations about campiness, it is, most of the time not what I intend when I use horror elements.

What I tend to go for is what I would call "freaky". Horror elements that make the players on a rational level go "Yeah, this is fucked up and I would probably be scared shitless actual coming across this stuff", but that doesn't affect them much on a emotional level.

For example, when I use gnolls, I often put in some extra effort to make clear that, yes, these are horrible evil creatures. I would consider these efforts horror elements, but I don't employ them to scare and I wouldn't want them to be to campy either.

Neither. We play Werewolf: the Forsaken 2nd edition, and it's pretty straight, so not campy at all. But I don't find anything scary either, maybe occasionally creepy, but not scary. Can't say I've ever been scared in an RPG, I know it's not real and I don't suspend disbelief with purely conceptual things in the same way as with films, for example.

There are only 2 things that ever scare my players.

1. Level Drain

2. Lightsabers



Generally horrific situations quickly begin to resemble the movie "Army of Darkness".

Quote from: jedimastert;833695There are only 2 things that ever scare my players.

1. Level Drain

2. Lightsabers



Generally horrific situations quickly begin to resemble the movie "Army of Darkness".

This mirrors my own experience.

Although I've pulled off "scary" a couple of times. Ironically, it wasn't meant to be scary. It was just a scenario in Cyberpunk 2020 where the players had managed to survive a really long time in a year-long campaign, culminating in big fight in Copernicus Crater, and I had all the details for survival in space turned up to 11. They were terrified of dying - stray bullets, radiation, etc. Then the Aliens showed up... good times.