Help me...make my session spooky

[Hurlbut]

I have one session to run before October is over.
The setting is Pathfinder Chronicle using PF ruleset.
The backdrop is the Beldrin's Tower in Precipice Quarters.

The players are RPG veterans, their characters have commit themselves to the reclamation of Precipice Quarters. They have faced several undead opponents within the district so far. They are currently back in the City proper for at least two days.

The tower itself is on very edge of the precipice (the sea side of the district is basically a cliff) over the sea, groaning when hit by high winds. Rumors are abound about very valuable and powerful items in the tower. Adventuers have gone into the tower more than once, some return with treasure, others are never seen again.

The players intend to hit up the tower in search of the legendary wealth/artifacts that could help to rebuild the ruined district.

A paladin, a cleric, a wizard, 2 fighters, a rogue, and a sorcerer are in the party.

So...how can I make the session in the tower very spooky for my players?:smallbiggrin:

[Cheesy74]

EDIT: Gygax also gave an effective technique in Tomb of Horrors. When something like a room collapse or shifting walls is happening, don't let the players think about their actions. Count down in real time. I guarantee you they will start freaking out by the time you reach five.

Confusion breeds fear. Periodically ask for a round of spot or listen checks from the players, scan their results, then proceed as if nothing had happened, ignoring their questions.

Occasionally have them see something out of the corner of their eye with those checks (on a nat 20 or some similar event) but have nothing be present when they actually look.

After they become numb from their endless failed search and spot checks, drop a grappler on them. I don't mean have them encounter it, have the thing literally drop from the ceiling on them.

Then maybe have their characters fight something too.

[VirOath]

As above, and take some really nasty tricks. Like having the Floor literally attack them. "A large blade suddenly forms out of what seems to be liquid stone and slashes toward X, only to splash down as water after the blow."

And feel free to do something similar with Tall Grass.

[Hurlbut]

Wait what? Do the what with Tall Grass? :smalleek:

[Postmodernist]

Take off your pants, that'll freak them out.

But seriously, +1 for cheesy's suggestions. The best part about confusion is that your players will jump to their own conclusions about what is going on, making your job easier. Let the onus be on their imaginations, not just yours. Most importantly, make your players think that they're in very real jeopardy of losing their characters. This can be encounter based, but atmosphere helps enormously. They're facing undead, right? Describe to them the horribly mutilated bodies of the victims and the suffering of the survivors. The location you've provided sounds appropriately creepy as it is, just make sure to keep the tension ratcheted up.

[Hurlbut]

Clarification: They *faced* several undead opponents in Precipice Quarters. The Beldrin's Tower is in Precipice Quarters, but it haven't been specifically mentioned to have any undead presence. (frankly that's a good thing as they just plow right through any undead encounter i threw at them except for the ridiculously overpowered one I threw at them)

[Cerlis]

you know, where they are in some sorta hard to see area (fog, or tall grass) and little monsters you cant really see come out and nip at them. Preferably fairly weak, but almost impossible to see because they are small and you cant even see whats under your feet much less whats coming for you. Small and not hurting much but growing increasingly aggressive

and as for the countdown thing. Not sure if that will work with everyone. You'd know though. But just cus they are veteran RPers doesnt mean they dont know the rules. I was thinking with any sort of filling room or collapsing wall or whatever, instead of having a large thing happen every round, giving them an entire turn to think of it, it progresses a bit every character turn. So maybe 5 feet of the floor collapses every turn, and so the last character realizes by the time their slow reaction time butt can even move they will be right next to the edge. Possibly also forcing another player to intervene.

Remember, we are all playing DnD. In real life a skeleton attacking us, a monster, a giant spider may give us a heart attack, but most DnD players will treat it as normal. Now....give some sort of helplessness. Such as a monstrosity slowly (slowly) drawing a player into its gapping maw with a large tongue, or it being pitch black and some monster jumping out and attacking the only one that seems to be aware, so when that character starts screaming the others dont know why, and in the struggle even the attacked player might not know. the moment the light lights, it sprints away, all they see is a sharp toothed maw and clawed feet scampering away as it hisses.

The idea is not to kill your players, or attempt to use cliche's on em. Fear is fear of the unknown. What is eating me, what is chasing us, what does it want, how do we fight it. A (seemingly) unkillable monster that seems intent on trying to abduct one of your players is scarier than one trying to kill you all. Just try to remember good movies where you where scared without ever seeing the monster. Alien, Jaws, I'd say tremors but most people dont like that movie haha.

[Cerlis]

Take off your pants, that'll freak them out.

But seriously, +1 for cheesy's suggestions. The best part about confusion is that your players will jump to their own conclusions about what is going on, making your job easier. Let the onus be on their imaginations, not just yours. Most importantly, make your players think that they're in very real jeopardy of losing their characters. This can be encounter based, but atmosphere helps enormously. They're facing undead, right? Describe to them the horribly mutilated bodies of the victims and the suffering of the survivors. The location you've provided sounds appropriately creepy as it is, just make sure to keep the tension ratcheted up.


death by zombies and potential of being turned into one? Scary
Death by being slowly eaten by a zombie while your paralized and still alive? Scarier

and of course, it would be a good idea to try to look up some non-trope monsters. Sure you can have animal like monstesr, or undead, buy maybe avoid skeletons, werewolves, panthers, ect. Like if you have to have an animal, werewolf is very cliche'd and unique encounter. A Krenshar would be scarier. Expessially if they never got a good look at it.

[Hurlbut]

Oh I was thinking of using Derro. Have one of the party get abducted in middle of a fight and have him/her tortured. Use the magic to amplify the screams through out the tower.

[Marnath]

I submit that one room should have a small alchemy lab with a shelf full of potions, in a small room. As soon as you touch anything on the shelf, it collapses and smashes the lid on the big vat in the corner. The Ochre Jelly living inside bubbles over the top and lunges at you. This is assuming your PC's who would be interested in going into a cramped alchemy lab room can survive a round or two with the jelly before escaping out the door.

[BeholderSlayer]

spooky background music always helps

[Cerlis]

Oh I was thinking of using Derro. Have one of the party get abducted in middle of a fight and have him/her tortured. Use the magic to amplify the screams through out the tower.

Well one of the main problems with that is your essentially railroading a player into doing nothing but watch his character suffer. And I think the whole, hearing screams is rather cliche ish.

What about....instead...torture ALL the players without abducting any of them. Maybe when they enter a lair they are scanned by some magical device that doesnt seem to do anything, or there is a mist constantly in the lair. Perhaps some ominous talk going through the airducts about the experiment starting. As the day goes on (days, minutes, weeks) each player occassionally feels a sharp pain in one part of their body, perhaps something important. Fighters each have one arm(different ones, left vs right) cramp up, Wizard has headaches, Cleric is short of breath while Paladin's heart aches with sharp pains. The Rogue's legs cramp up and the Sorcerer starts to lose his voice. Soon the pain becomes stronger and they see their pained body part is beginning to become transluscent (their arm, legs,) or in the case of the wizard or those where this would be weird they get debilitating headaches (not all the time, maybe once every few minutes?). Part way into the dungeon they come across an illusionary image where the evil wizard is taunting them, showing them his experiemnt, which is a flesh golem made out of the player's increasingly disappearing body parts. And to prove it he pokes the golem with a hot poker making a player scream.

-heh, just an idea you gave me. Just be careful you dont mix up torture and death with "Scary" in the above example, the pains and aches would put em at a disadvantage occasionally but they'd still be able to adventure.

[Hurlbut]

Actually I was thinking of using the torture rules in the kobold quarterly where the player has to choose to give up information or roll for a torture effect himself.

[VirOath]

Wait what? Do the what with Tall Grass? :smalleek:

Have the grass act as a home ground for a Mimic-like grass creature. Have the grass itself attack them, yet have no way to tell what patch of grass attacked them.

Long whips formed out of strands of grass that come from a different location every round, do one attack then break apart so that the grass blades are scattered to the wind.

Your party will either be silly or stupid and die. Or, they will be smart and try to plan out movement patterns and do square attacks. Or they will freak out and run out of the field. Or they will go ballistic and just burn the entire field and start clearing out grass as they go as a precaution.

And, you can apply this to a whole bunch of things. Corn Rows were my favorite :smallbiggrin:

[Saintheart]

Obligatory reference of OP to Heroes of Horror.

...That's it. I'm done. :smallwink:

[Hurlbut]

Have the grass act as a home ground for a Mimic-like grass creature. Have the grass itself attack them, yet have no way to tell what patch of grass attacked them.

Long whips formed out of strands of grass that come from a different location every round, do one attack then break apart so that the grass blades are scattered to the wind.

Your party will either be silly or stupid and die. Or, they will be smart and try to plan out movement patterns and do square attacks. Or they will freak out and run out of the field. Or they will go ballistic and just burn the entire field and start clearing out grass as they go as a precaution.

And, you can apply this to a whole bunch of things. Corn Rows were my favorite :smallbiggrin:You do know the game take place in middle of Absalom, the largest city in the Inner Sea region and that the party is planning to braves a *large* tower, perched right on the edge of a sea cliff, that creaks when hit with high winds?

[Telonius]

I'd suggest Twitchy Commoner Guide #3. Give them some random person who gets unwillingly foisted onto the team. He knows all the ghost stories about the tower, and can act as a bunch of foreshadowing. He can also give clues as to when the team ought to be really scared. (i.e. he's jumpy normally; when he starts to actually cower in a corner it's probably pretty bad).

[Snake-Aes]

You do know the game take place in middle of Absalom, the largest city in the Inner Sea region and that the party is planning to braves a *large* tower, perched right on the edge of a sea cliff, that creaks when hit with high winds?

Well, I'd be pretty puzzled as why the hell there is grass on one of the tower's floors.

[BRC]

Real-World Ambiance is your friend here. Have the session in a darkened or dimly lit room. Have your notes on a laptop, but make the players use Flashlights to play.

[Sipex]

Here are a few things which may help:

1) Maybe try something which stares at the heroes. Not doing anything else. Maybe a type of bird or something which follows them around or a mouse. Just staring at them. They'll try to chase it away, have it run a safe distance then come back and just stare. Endlessly. Hell, even just use the phrase, "You feel like you're being watched." and bring it up every once in a while.

2) Have your players notice something for a moment then when they check back it's gone. "While looking in the mirror, you see a shape dart into the room behind you." Whenever this happens the players will look. Don't overuse it though. A good sign you're overusing it is the players not giving a damn when they see something.

3) Environment. Have a nice, calm selection of creepy music. Keep it quiet, barely audible unless everyone is quiet. Keep the control to the music out of sight and turn it off (or down, gotta do it stealthy) when the party enters a specific room you want to be particularily creepy. The sudden absence of music will unnerve them. Also, keep the lights low, maybe use candles.

4) Make the area require a bit of backtracking, just enough that the players can...say, go through a room then when they come back through, something has changed.

[Maquise]

Haunts. (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/haunts)
These should be of use.

[Hurlbut]

Haunts. (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/haunts)
These should be of use.oooh nifty, haunt 'traps'.
My only gripe is that the party is 6th level, that mean the paladin has fear immunity :smallsigh:

[shadowmage]

Have a Halloween sound track keyed up with screams and when there is a in-game scream play a real one. Or the moan of a ghost play it. Oh and just randomly giggle. Ask for a char sheet. Look at it roll some dice and giggle.

[AugustNights]

Details and Character traits.
Twice I've had an Epic party run in fear from mooks because of these.
On one occasion they babbled endlessly with a Skum Shaman (CR 5) in order to avoid becoming part of 'his dark ritual.'
On the other occasion a creature with no eyes, razor sharp teeth, and a white business suit, and a polite demeanor scared the hell out my players. He was meant to be an end fight, but they opted to give him what he wanted in order to avoid what terrors he offered. (He has a southern gentleman's accent, and the players said that was the most terrifying bit of it all.)

Also, creatures that seem helpful are terrifying. A candy man who would love for you to try his new tasty 'Green Mold Frosting,' can inspire all sorts of fear, especially if he reacts oddly in situations. People fear that which they don't understand.

Further, sometimes its scary when things ignore the rules.
Find ways around the rules. A Lich immune to Turning, a disease without a cure, a problem that doesn't respond to the answer. Terror is easily found here.

[Marnath]

Well, I'd be pretty puzzled as why the hell there is grass on one of the tower's floors.

Really? :smallconfused:
"A wizard did it" doesn't work for you this time?

[Hurlbut]

Really? :smallconfused:
"A wizard did it" doesn't work for you this time?
To be frank, I would be extremely cautious and suspicious if I walked onto a floor that's full of tall grass in middle of the tower.

[Marnath]

Oh, you guys mean IC. I thought he was refering to himself.