There are some tried and true methods for sharing the fear, or scaring the living daylights out of your audience. These apply equally well in role playing games as they do to other formats of horror as well. From probably the earliest days of sharing a tale around the fire these techniques have been spreading the joy of being scared down through the ages, so pay close heed reader, lest the darkness swallow you before you finish my terrible techniques…

First and foremost is framing the game. You want the player to know upfront this is going to be an adventure filled with horror. You probably wonder at this point if this is the best way to instill fear but consider an example. Say you are running a game where the fearsome krakledon thought extinct for over a millennia erupts from the earth and swallows whole the birth town of our adventurers. If it is unexpected, i.e. the players think they are in a standard game, the players become shocked at this event, rather than in fear (fear may come later but shock is generally the initial response). If you have framed it (and this does not mean specifically saying it was horror but perhaps scary portents on the lead up) then the event will not take them by surprise it will scare them as they realize the krakledon is some great evil emerging from the ground (note, krakledon is a made up creature. Don’t go looking for it.). Some games do this just by playing them like Call of the Cthulhu and Ravenloft. If you are playing that game you are already in the frame of mind that is required because you expect it to have horror in it.

Lighting can be used to great effect when playing a horror game. If ever there is a time to turn the lights out and use candles it is while you are playing a horror game. Spend some time making sure your candles have built up wax drips down the side, new candles can ruin the effect. Also, use a GM screen and have loads of tea light candles burning on your side so the light from them comes from below your face, casting eerie, scary shadows. You can of course take this further and deck out the table like a gothic nightmare and even get some spray on spider webs to play. If you have a stark basement or a dusty attic, put it to use and play there. If you have a shed and live in a windy area that will make strange noises, all the better.

If you have only a kitchen table to play at, investigate getting a spooky soundtrack to play through a sound system. I have several favorites to use. I have one that is as old as the hills with chains and witches, winds and wolves. All great stuff for traditional horror. Being a bit of a horror video game nut I also have several horror video game soundtracks that spook the nerve from my players! I have one in particular that spooks my (15 year old) daughter so much that I have been banned from playing it due to the nightmares that follow! If you can, have a generic soundtrack just looping but if you want to get specialized, cue up the tracks you need and use them at predetermined points in the story to send your players packing!

Narration techniques also come into it. Make sure you overplay your big baddies and have them become unforgiving nightmares in your portrayal. If you want to hit them with something new start describing the leadup a little quieter so the players have to really concentrate on what you are saying and then when you want to surprise them BOOM! Make it loud and use large hand gestures! It should unnerve them. Also with a horror game make sure you are descriptive. Don’t say “You look in the ballroom and see a vampire with his two thralls in tow” say instead “A gaunt pale figure walks to the table. He spies an open curtain reflecting the scene and hisses something to the misbegotten pale man that stands next to a second beautiful but tragic figure of a woman. The pair react quickly and run forward closing the curtain and then move to the table to snuff out two of the candles near where their master will sit. The pale figure then moves so quickly, almost at an inhuman speed to seat himself at the table. He waits for the woman to come forward. She grabs the crystal wine glass and draws out a bottle from inside her cloak, unstoppers it and pours a thick red wine into it for him before withdrawing to the shadows with her male counterpart.” Description is key here. Never, ever, name your creature types. Let the players work it out. They are likely to decide that this is a vampire but they will never be 100% certain because you never stated it was.

Draw on your own experiences. If you have ever been on camp and told ghost stories around the campfire then remember what scared you. That style of tale sharing is the oldest that exists and the tropes it uses are easily translated to the table for scares a plenty. Remember also that people love to be scared. The adrenaline rush they get from having their heart quicken, even the appearance of goosebumps make the player alert, aware and in a heightened state. Don’t tame it down, pile it on!

Give some of these a try at your next horror game and let me know how it went! Until then, keep rolling, but look over your shoulder. Because I heard once that a GM dared to roll the dice in jest of the gods of horror and his soul was sucked straight from him. Now when a GM stands and sits three times while waving his d20 in the air saying Dire Derek Rolls they are struck down within 8 hours by an accidental death. Of course no one can prove that it is this same GM but better safe than sorry, right?

Mark Knights is  40 year old guy living in a small rural town called Elliott in Tasmania, Australia.  I have been role playing since I was 11 years old playing the original versions of Dungeons and Dragons, MERP, Elric, Dragon Warriors and the like amongst other genre games.  I played D&D 2nd Edition through the 90′s but I ran Earthdawn for my fantasy setting and loved it as a GM.  When 3rd Edition came out for D&D I tried it but found it too heavy on rules.  I ignored the 3.5 edition of DnD in favour of Earthdawn (big mistake) as I thought it was just a money spinner.  When 4th Edition DnD came on my players and I gave it a red hot go but hated what it had dumbed the game down to be.  On a trip to Melbourne to buy some 4E stuff from a hobby store an old mate of mine pointed me at Pathfinder and in a Fantasy setting I have never looked back.

My fantasy games would mostly fall under the headings of fantasy horror if a genre was applied to them. I love the feeling I get when a player is creeped out by my game or they get involved, reacting with fear or horror at the game. It is largely why my favorite fantasy game is Earthdawn (I know I only play it via email at the moment and Pathfinder is my main game) where it is all about the darkness and the things that live there. Not to mention what they can do to you once they find you. This turns me to the point of my blog today. There are two definite streams of horror, the traditional path or the worlds of Lovecraft inspired weirdness.

Whichever style of horror you like is what you should concentrate on presenting to your players. I love Lovecraftian stuff but I do use the more Gothic Horror style on occasion to mix things up. Knowing the difference is the key to the way you get the players involved.

Traditional refers to those works of horror that became widely popular through mass media and literature. These tales were popularised by the Gothic Horror writers in the 18th century but their fodder for their novels was well established by this time. It stemmed from folklore and stories shared with a basis in religion or even pagan ritual. Largely, the novels written at the time were written by women and targeted at women focussing on a female protagonist that was caught in a spooky mansion with elements of the supernatural that tested them.

These initial stories were very popular in their time but few have common appeal today. It was not until Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein that we see titles that are commonly thought of as traditional horror today. Writers such as Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker, Oscar Wilde, Robert Louis Stevenson amongst others that turned the idea of Horror into a creature feature, or horror of a deeper darker nature designed to scare the reader to the core. These titles endure to this day and scare every new generation. They endure because at their heart are tales of human vice and virtue played out in a fantastic way.

The traditional horror tack in fantasy games normally takes a known trope of the genre and plays it up to the group of players. As a GM you want the players to recognize the threat early and for the players knowledge of the threat to spur the horror. For example, using a vampire in a game causes all of the players to sit in a group and talk about what they know and what they need to do to survive. They treat every situation with kid gloves and wonder at the power of the creatures that they are facing. Will it die in sunlight? Can we get close enough to stake it? Has it got brainwashed spawn in the local community? The very presence of this type of creature almost dictates an investigation before the ultimate confrontation. Are the players up to the task? As they stare down the vampire they will feel their own hearts in their mouth as they roll the dice for initiative.

An off shoot of this style is to use creatures that has been made famous by the game itself. Consider the Beholder from Dungeons and Dragons (D&D). This creature is now synonymous with the game and nearly anyone that has played even a modicum of D&D knows of the floating eye tyrant. The responses tend to be the same so that we can recreate the idea of a traditional horror experience. I am sure that the first time the Beholder appeared that it was really quite a Lovecraftian style encounter though.

Lovecraftian horror is a newer version of horror and stems from the works of Howard Phillips Lovecraft who was an unsuccessful but prolific horror author whose works are now strong influences on most major horror writers like Stephen King, Dean Koontz and James Herbert to name a few. Lovecraft wrote horror stories that focused on strange, alien forces that had little or no cares for humanity and the madness that they caused in humanity when they found them. Each power was a unique thing that existed with the knowledges hidden in the Universe. Almost all of these powers or creatures were extremely destructive in a way that humans are destructive when they tread on an anthill. That is these creatures are completely oblivious to the suffering or destruction that they cause and even when or if they do notice they have no cares for it. This horror style focuses more on the insignificance and horror of the unknown than it does on fear of a particular type of creature.

As Lovecraft was never a full time author and died young in 1937 it has taken some time for his works to become influential. In fact he was largely unheard of in the 1970’s but started to gain a following as influential authors started to site his name in their list of influences. Lovecraft focused on this alien style of horror but as his creations become more mainstream (e.g. Cthulhu) some of his writing would also work in games of traditional style horror with the more popular of his creations.

But it is this style of game that appeals to me. Lovecraftian horror is definitely a different feeling of horror. It contains an element of the hopelessness of humanity against the never-ending Universe. It highlights how little we know, and when used creatively, how desperate and offensive we can be in pursuit of this knowledge. It is why Earthdawn appeals to me. There are a loosely affiliated group of astral creatures called Horrors. If you want a traditional game you can use a Horror that is common in type but the games that commit to memory are the ones that use the unique, bizarre and most alien. Also these creatures live off emotion and the manipulation of humanity for the purpose of feeding is truly disgusting and alien to take on as well.

Cultists fall into both categories. If they are cultists of devils, demons or angels then they fall much more under the traditional category of horror. This is because these creatures, weird as they are, are all in place around humanity to teach them of sins which are known impulses and urges. Whereas a cultist of a Horror may worship it so that it can turn all snow purple. nobody knows why. But on investigation your hero may discover that the blood of living sacrifices is needed to turn the snow purple. These motivations are alien and therefore the horror much more different and the cultists will be much more random to portray than a devil worshipper.

In my next post I will look at the ways that you can begin to instill this feeling of horror into your game. There are techniques that work really well and get the players to feel the fear that their characters are. The techniques for both of the above streams of horror are largely very similar and I offered the description above as a primer for you. So until next time keep rolling!

Mark Knights is  40 year old guy living in a small rural town called Elliott in Tasmania, Australia.  I have been role playing since I was 11 years old playing the original versions of Dungeons and Dragons, MERP, Elric, Dragon Warriors and the like amongst other genre games.  I played D&D 2nd Edition through the 90′s but I ran Earthdawn for my fantasy setting and loved it as a GM.  When 3rd Edition came out for D&D I tried it but found it too heavy on rules.  I ignored the 3.5 edition of DnD in favour of Earthdawn (big mistake) as I thought it was just a money spinner.  When 4th Edition DnD came on my players and I gave it a red hot go but hated what it had dumbed the game down to be.  On a trip to Melbourne to buy some 4E stuff from a hobby store an old mate of mine pointed me at Pathfinder and in a Fantasy setting I have never looked back.