Scaring your players

Whilst preparing to move yet again (college life, course 342, advanced moving), I was packing up the olde gaming materials and decided to take a break. I picked a back issue of Dragon at random and came up with issue #162 - Halloween. I came upon an article by Bruce Nesmith in the Game Wizards column. The subject was scaring players. Notice the word players as opposed to characters.

The article had some good ideas for doing this. For those GMs that have been able to scare the players, it is quite a treat (unfortunately, rare). The article suggests that you use the most powerful tool you have against the players, the player's mind. Set up situations where the players have some time to think about the situation that you describe. Take the time to emphasize the sounds and sights that will help build suspense. Players are so used to getting ambushed at every turn that they do not think about attacking what attacks them. Give them a few minutes to think about what *might* attack them is more effective than what actually does jump out.

We all know (I hope) that you should never give out the name of the critter the PCs are attacking. We should describe the beasty and let the PCs decide what it is. To take that a step further, make the descriptions related to the PCs point of view. A good example in the article is describing the height of a monster. Instead of saying "it is 10 feet tall", say "The beast towers over the tallest of you, nearly scrapping its head on the ceiling of the tunnel". Just little things to make the scene more personal and less stats and numbers.

The final tip they had was have the monsters attack in a way the PCs did not expect. If the PCs are setting up an ambush by the door, have the beasty burst through the wall! Having a huge arm around a PCs neck holding him about a foot off the ground through the wall tends to get people's attention. Have things happen for effect more than damage, like having giant centipedes crawl over the PC and head for the face. You give the PC a chance to escape unharmed, but most people do not like insect like critters crawling over them.

Like all tricks and traps, one does not use the same one over and over again. Do not try to scare the PCs in every encounter, and the players with see through your plots if you continue to have their plans fail by a monster coming through the wall instead of the door. A good scare goes along way for the rest of the session.

After reading the article, I was thinking "Yeah, it sounds wonderful, but will it work on my group?" I already had my answer. Long before ever receiving the issue, I ran a little scenario that did scare the players. I play in a group that only retreats if you are getting your collective asses whipped. I have never seen the players scared about a situation. They (I included as a player) were never scared of what might happen. I sprinkled around a few rumors that led the players/pcs to think there was a vampire about (it also helped that they were low level, this had them worried but undaunted). I had them meet a NPC in a friendly setting, and they liked the fellow. One night, the NPC disappeared in unusual circumstances. They found a blood trail that led to the local graveyard, of which they had heard rumors about also.

The setting was at dusk. A natural but chilling fog was about, limiting vision to about 2 or 3 horselengths. The were strange lights and plenty of noises (bats fluttering about). Occasional footsteps could be heard, and the clincher was the creaking sound of a door opening. They were not going to go into that graveyard for anything! That is the first time I had ever seen a full strength party dodge a main encounter. They had just a little too much time to think about messing with whatever was in that fog.

The one tip that I have to add is to use NPCs to emphasize the horror of the scene. NPCs slain easily while defending themselves gets the players thinking ("He ripped his throat out like it was clay!). Anything to make the scene more suspenseful. The above graveyard scene was done without any props and on a bright sunny day. If you use props, make sure it adds and not detracts from the scene (do not use a figurine for the monster until you need to, let their imagination shape the monster).