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Thread: Scare my players - IN SPACE!
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2020-05-23, 01:01 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2018
Scare my players - IN SPACE!
I'm going to run a space horror game
The players will be on a huge, mostly empty freighter ship and racing against time to defeat some mad hijackers so they can save the few crew members left.
What I would like help with is mood-setting. Give me some good scenery that might be on a scary cargo spaceship, or some descriptions I can use. Here's an example: "You can't help but run your hand along the wall, thinking about how only a few inches of metal separate you from the dark emptiness of space. It is empty, right?"
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2020-05-23, 09:18 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2012
- Location
- South Jersey
- Gender
Re: Scare my players - IN SPACE!
I've never run this game, but reading through it I feel like there's some good mood setting stuff in here, and it's PWYW:
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product...-Void-Core-PDF
Good luck!Last edited by rredmond; 2020-05-23 at 09:18 AM.
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2020-05-24, 06:42 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2018
Re: Scare my players - IN SPACE!
Thanks, Rredmond! I like that resource, but I'm still looking if anyone else knows a good list of horror quotes. Themes like emptiness, insanity and despair are common in the game I'm using (real cheerful, I know).
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2020-05-28, 12:10 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2007
Re: Scare my players - IN SPACE!
Any only the quiet hiss of the ventilation systems to keep your hollow footsteps company as you make your way through the passage...or is that the sound of atmosphere escaping through a miniscule breach in the hull.
Aliens vs. Predator on the Atari Jaguar did it right: No soundtrack just keep it quiet with the occasional ka-chunk and hiss of a door opening. And then a sudden screech as something launches itself at your face from the darkness.
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2020-05-28, 04:56 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2007
- Location
- England
- Gender
Re: Scare my players - IN SPACE!
When your players ask what they hear, tell them that all they get is silence and then wait for the dread to set in.
Spaceships are noisy. Endless metal hallways with nothing to do but carry echoes for miles and miles - voices and ghostly footsteps are scary, sure, but most of the time it's someone doing their job several decks down. Engines that pushed the vessel out of atmosphere would deafen bystanders for hundreds of metres, and while in space there's no sound their ever present rumble vibrates the entire ship incessantly. And however alone you are or how quiet you think it is, you're accompanied by the endless drone of the air circulators, pumping oxygen through the ship and scrubbing Co2, viruses, and flakes of skin away to make it palatable to the crew.
But no. You guys? You get silence, save for your own heartbeat echoing in your ears.....~ CAUTION: May Contain Weasels ~
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2020-05-28, 08:13 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2018
Re: Scare my players - IN SPACE!
Ah, that's really good! Thanks everyone! I'll keep this open for more ideas just in case.
Here's another one I came up with:
"As you open the door, the air pressure must be different on the other side. At least, that's what you tell yourself as a cold breeze pushes your hair back. The instinctive part of your brain tells you to hide, like some small creature when a shadow passes over a field."
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2020-06-05, 10:03 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2019
- Location
- Wyoming
- Gender
Re: Scare my players - IN SPACE!
If you have some way to produce ambient noise via a home sound system, find some good creepy space ambient music (youtube is pretty good) and set the volume as low as possible. People will hear it even if they don't realize it. It'll be that little nagging thought in their mind "hey did I just hear something?". Particularly if you can get something low-frequency enough to create the vibrations in the air/floor/walls they won't just hear the setting, they'll feel it.
Also: don't try too hard to scare the players. Often times they'll scare themselves. Paranoia, distrust, "strange events". It's great to think it'll be like a movie with some good scares, but the reality is unless your players are particularly easy to scare, they're probably jaded, cynical and genre savvy.Knowledge brings the sting of disillusionment, but the pain teaches perspective.
"You know it's all fake right?"
"...yeah, but it makes me feel better."
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2020-06-06, 06:00 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2020
Re: Scare my players - IN SPACE!
I think you're looking for more description ideas and mine are more setting related but here they are anyway.
Sure, there may be air purifiers but they haven't had any maintenance while there's a monster on board. Stuck in a sealed tin can, those creatures may as well be exhaling directly into your lungs at this point.
To ramp up tension, if it's a territorial creature, sure it can hunt anywhere but if you have to travel to engineering where there are scratch marks and sent spots, you Know it's going to try to kill you if it finds you.
One more thought. Future space lights are probably bright, low power consumption and last forever. Everything is lit like TV Star Trek. Except that really long corridor between the deck and mess hall. That, you can only see a little door light at the far end, so good luck getting down it. roll dice behind a screen whenever they go down it.