Tips for running a suspense/horror game via PbP?

[The Glyphstone]

A successful horror-type game is all about the atmosphere, everyone knows that. But doing things over the internet adds a bit of isolation and makes it a lot harder to provide that atmosphere, since you have to do so much more of it yourself (the player). Anyone have tips/suggestions on how to make it easier for the players to immerse themselves in the creepiness that would be prevalent in a table game of that sort? Discussions of successful PbP horror games they've played in or ran? CoC does spring to mind, but any system stories or just system-general discussion would be useful too.

[Demons_eye]

Music, link creepy music. One of my old DM used this and it was effect if you listen to it.

[The Glyphstone]

Music's good - any recommendations for specific songs/tracks that work well to promote a suspenseful atmosphere, so I don't have to trawl through the entire works of Youtube with unnecessarily vague search strings?

Someone out there's got to have run a successful CoC or Ravenloft game vis PbP, or played in one. What was it that made the game memorable (besides everyone dying)? Am I in the wrong place, and should be asking, say, the Chaosium forums?

[Tyndmyr]

If anyone has to leave halfway through a game session, talk with them beforehand.

Make sure they vanish without warning to the other players, and leave a strange note behind.

[Pharaoh's Fist]

Someone out there's got to have run a successful CoC or Ravenloft game vis PbP, or played in one.

They might even have a link to it in their sig.

[The Glyphstone]

Sorry Pharaoh, the Monkening does not count as a horror game under any circumstances, unless you count the heated arguments as 'Horrible'.

[Pharaoh's Fist]

I never said me

[The Glyphstone]

Perhaps you could find such a person and direct them to this thread then.

[graeylin]

i dm'ed a game once, and even though i wasn't trying to be 'spooky', the effect ended up that way, according to my players.

use secret messages liberally... give each player a tiny piece of the puzzle, or a special message about something they hear, see, or especially, feel. Secret it to one person only, then secret something else to another.

'SOmething odd is happening, but you can't put your finger on it. You sense yourself being watched.'

"You hear a sound, like a faint child's cry"

"You hear something from behind the door ahead"

Their characters will react to what you told them, and the others will have little to no idea what they are doing, or more importantly, WHY. So the PC will say "I stop to listen at the door"

You secret text someone else "You wonder if John is possessed, suddenly stopping like that in the hallway. Is something trying to get you to stop? You feel an urge to move forward, quickly and get to the end of the hall"

Pretty soon, they are telling John to move, John keeps hearing babies cry and wants to stop, and everyone is all paranoid that no one else sees or hears what they do, or even wants to do the same things.

Put a face in the window. Put a sound behind you. Put a glint of light ahead of you. Bang some doors shut, creak some stairs...