Also in the Alien movie there was a breathing sound in the background in the computer room. THX for the hints. Apparently I was already doing most of the stuff right, but then I've been playing and GMing for well over 2 decades now.
There are absolutely terrifying things in Star Trek. The horror often comes from the fact that the crewmen are made helpless or that whatever they've encountered doesn't obey typical laws of physics/space/time. Watch the DS9 episode "The Waltz" or the Next Gen episode "Genesis" to see how you can absolutely embrace Lovecraftian themes in the Star Trek setting.
You're a life saver, i found this just today out of nowhere while i was questioning how to make a TTRPG scarier just a week before the first game session, i'm 100% using this in my CoC campaign and other to come, 10/10
Getting the balance in timing between creeping horror and abject terror is probably the hardest balance for me, having enough hints to try and make people realise what is going on before tearing the world down around them :)
A lot of the latter two rules can be aided by simply being descriptive. It's about taking an abstract, hypothetical scenario and making them "real". Reinforcing diegesis. Grounding the player in the world their character inhabits, so they don't have the comfort of emotional distance that "being a player in a game" provides. Engage all their senses. Describe what a space sounds like, the ambient noise (or lack thereof). (This is where rolling randomly for environmental sound effects - a creaking board or wind flowing through a hallway - can work wonders. Especially if you're rolling it the same way you would for "meaningful" random events, like a monster encounter. Make the players fear the rolling of the dice.). Describe how a space smells and, where possible, tastes. Not just obvious smells like blood or rotting decay, but environmental scents that tell the player about the place. Smells like mildew, mothballs, burned wood, chemicals, sweat, or food (fresh or rotting, tells a different story). Part of the issue with Star Trek is that everything looks sterile, as if smells were a thing the future society engineered away. An environment that smells like _something_ is more real. And none of this gets into how _monsters_ will smell, either in their presence or leaving scent behind. The sense of touch needs to be engaged wherever possible. Sensations like slime, or a dampness in the air that clings to the skin or soaks every surface. Objects having dust or crumbling at a touch, that adhere to the fingers unless wiped off. If a PC gets damaged, lead with a description of the pain. The sting of claws raking across skin. The ache of blunt impact. The feel of a bone snapping, followed by a surge of pain and adrenaline. A throbbing headache, or the burning of something corrosive. Make the player know that their player avatar is the victim of violence. Shrink the emotional distance, so they must imagine the suffering of their character.
@@liquidink2413 Oh there are many ways to frighten players. These are only three rules. I have another video coming with another rule. I'm sure there are like 30-40 good rules to follow.
Ripley was attacked by Ash in that computer room. He tried to kill her by shoving a rolled magazine in her throat. Only non-alien violence in the movie so it was probably intentional.
I had a game in which the players meet a God-like ally only to find that the actual threat once they no longer see him as a threat is powerful enough that this being is looking for all the help he can get. Like a false monster scare just to show the scale of the real threat. I find that works you get to make them jump twice.
I find the manipulative's behaviour of a lovecraftian monster much more appealing than simply being "evil". Even if the players know that he lies and/or is deceptive, it just makes it more unpredictable
I'm writing from my work station, that's why the name is "Cantareira Lofts". Well, "Call of Cthulhu" and "World of Darkness" are my very favorite TTRPG, so, why I knew this channel just now?! I think few people knows about the existence of it. Well, later I'll subscribe... that's for sure. Before I forget... Mr. Petersen, you are a legend.
This is really good advice and perfectly describes what went wrong with a Sci-Fi horror adventure I ran. When I set out I intended to try and realistically design the setting (a space station) as best as I could. The problem being that my idea of realistic no longer felt familiar at all. It was hard for the players to imagine themselves there, and hard for me to describe the location to them.
I had no idea you had your own RUclips channel! I am going to recommend it next week, on my video where I talk about haunted houses in roleplaying games. By the way Sandy, you did an amazing job bringing the weird horror of the Mythos to Pathfinder, my review featuring your book is one of my most viewed reviews, and I will continue to use that book until the end of my roleplaying game career.
To be honest, that’s one reason I don’t like Pulp Cthulhu. Don’t get me wrong, it’s cool, and I love the idea and being like Indiana Jones, but I find the Pulp rules get rid of a lot of the fear. My players insisted I run Masks of Nyarlathotep Pulp style because they died too easily in our first campaign a mix of Doors to Darkness, the two scenarios in the Keeper Book, and Shadows of Yog-Sothoth. I’m doing my best to keep it interesting and challenging, but then with Pulp Talents and elephant guns against Hunting Horrors is still a nightmare.
I'm gonna host it in the library, and it starts in the actual library. I'm gonna be a dream cat to help guide them but cats don't care so i won't interfere unless they get lost.
I wish I had seen this before and it's great advice. The only thing I and my players think when we tried to play in a contemporary setting was that it's easy to ignore everything as SFx today. Unless your characters are conspiracy buffs. So it can be hard as a Game master not to have a Scooby Doo situation. Because of that we went back to the 1920 setting and educated our self's about life around that time and around the places we used as a gaming ground.
This is amazing! Im trying to get a Call of Cthulhu game going and Ive only ever DM'd for disinterested family members before. Im starting out with the scenarios that came in the Keeper Rulebook and hopefully I can get enough interest in my group to buy more books!
people in the library are becoming comatose. evenly they find a secret basement under the liberty full of weird ancient books. then they go down and find Ghatanothoa. If you olok at him or even a picture you will become a mummy and be trapped inside your body for100's of years unable to move
These rules are good but there to subvert since players can become savvy to tropes like 'the big bad should be big and bad'. The creepy thing in the crawl space is actually a malnourished victim hiding from the true horror etc. I mean, this is itself part of the hero's journey trope. The initial quest, which sends the hero on his journey, turns out not to be the quest at all, but I feel like it's more a comfortable pair of slippers thing rather than subversion; one of the beats you want to hit in order to keep players engaged, not so much a cliché.
I really enjoyed your take on this subject. I have always done the first two things by focusing on the atmosphere and monster actions and descriptions. I have not considered your third rule, I play pathfinder rpg 1e. I usually use sound effects and visuals when I can to do that. Overall I really liked your video.
Rule 1: No. You can get a better story line from a sympathetic monster. The werewolf that is a good person, but is losing control, is worse than the werewolf that wants to change and kill. The latter, you know the evil, you hunt the evil. The former, you know the evil, but you also know that the evil is also its own hostage, limiting your actions. Rule 2: Agreed, and something I try to apply even in non-horror games to support immersion in general. Rule 3: Also an excellent general rule for building immersion.
Flavour text for combat results is hit and miss for me. Generally if it is a large amount of damage or a creature/player is slain, I will say something. If it is small damage or inconsequential, I will keep the combat moving.
I gotta say, your 2nd rule is such a simple concept that I've only been partially aware of, and been trying to solve in much less effective ways. I'm running a game in just a few hours, and will immediately put this bit of advice to practice. Thanks a lot!
*@Sandy of Cthulhu* when i am only hearing your voice, i often mistake you for the Canadian Professor of Psychology, Dr Jordan Peterson. Especially in this video where your talking about rules, i think it is Jordan Peterson talking about his book "12 Rules For Life". :)
7:30 - come on Jack! I’ve been binging your videos and noticed you weren’t cussing in them. The first video I watch within earshot of my kids... are you trying to get me in trouble with the wife?
Could a player not be a malign? I 'm sure, if done correctly, an alien monster could be a fully intelligent creature, It would still be scary if the monster was an extremely grumpy, extremely unstable, extremely dangerous anti-hero, like Morbius (from Marvel) who is mostly good . . . but who has a monster within, which comes out more often than his good side does. Of course, best practice is not to do this, or to allow it sparingly, say, only to extremely good role players. But it could likely be done. Then again, the player would not genuinely be playing the monster, there, I suppose. They would simply have a regular monster inside them.
the Statement of Alien vs Star Trek is arbitray. The Alien setting is designed to be scary...Not because it is more realistic. Even in Lovecraft you find the darkly phantastic and the strangely old and decrepit, which is why a haunted mansion is always ideal. The white room is Scary because it is white and safe looking but is totally alien to normal and represents something strange where technology is god. If you emphasize too much similarity, you end up with the diluting of the setting and Horror itself, which should be unnatural and terrifying. Otherwise space horror ends up too down to earth, literally, and people don't like that. Forget it. Stay in the Story World you create. Star Trek was not made for general Horror except for certain moments of tension and danger...Which is why many of the aliens in Star Trek and mortal danger is actually rather frightening off of the Enterprise or on it when a menace is lurking undetected. I will say it is better to ensure the player can imagine the place and provide for the imagination. I want to look into these rules to dig deeper. Lovecraft put it us in such an imagination...Yeah, don't listen to that last bit. That is more like the dumbness of "relatability to the audience" which is a distraction. Alien is not more realistic, but darker and grittier compared to the utopian Star Trek.
Why does this not have more views? Do people not know THIS is the guy who literally wrote the book on scary RPG's?
Game On! I am open to suggestions!
@@SandyofCthulhu No idea lol. We're trying to do the same! But you have much more clout and awesomeness.
man I wish I knew. Suggestions are invited.
*@Game On* i never thought to look for Sandy on YT, i thought he had passed on earlier in the decade. I know! Creepy, huh?
@@budahbaba7856 glad he's getting more traction. I think I wrote this comment when he less subs than WE DO lol.
Bless you, Sandy, for saving people from being spoiled on Alien, the best doggone film of 1979.
Also in the Alien movie there was a breathing sound in the background in the computer room.
THX for the hints. Apparently I was already doing most of the stuff right, but then I've been playing and GMing for well over 2 decades now.
There are absolutely terrifying things in Star Trek. The horror often comes from the fact that the crewmen are made helpless or that whatever they've encountered doesn't obey typical laws of physics/space/time. Watch the DS9 episode "The Waltz" or the Next Gen episode "Genesis" to see how you can absolutely embrace Lovecraftian themes in the Star Trek setting.
You're a life saver, i found this just today out of nowhere while i was questioning how to make a TTRPG scarier just a week before the first game session, i'm 100% using this in my CoC campaign and other to come, 10/10
Getting the balance in timing between creeping horror and abject terror is probably the hardest balance for me, having enough hints to try and make people realise what is going on before tearing the world down around them :)
A lot of the latter two rules can be aided by simply being descriptive. It's about taking an abstract, hypothetical scenario and making them "real". Reinforcing diegesis. Grounding the player in the world their character inhabits, so they don't have the comfort of emotional distance that "being a player in a game" provides.
Engage all their senses. Describe what a space sounds like, the ambient noise (or lack thereof). (This is where rolling randomly for environmental sound effects - a creaking board or wind flowing through a hallway - can work wonders. Especially if you're rolling it the same way you would for "meaningful" random events, like a monster encounter. Make the players fear the rolling of the dice.).
Describe how a space smells and, where possible, tastes. Not just obvious smells like blood or rotting decay, but environmental scents that tell the player about the place. Smells like mildew, mothballs, burned wood, chemicals, sweat, or food (fresh or rotting, tells a different story). Part of the issue with Star Trek is that everything looks sterile, as if smells were a thing the future society engineered away. An environment that smells like _something_ is more real. And none of this gets into how _monsters_ will smell, either in their presence or leaving scent behind.
The sense of touch needs to be engaged wherever possible. Sensations like slime, or a dampness in the air that clings to the skin or soaks every surface. Objects having dust or crumbling at a touch, that adhere to the fingers unless wiped off. If a PC gets damaged, lead with a description of the pain. The sting of claws raking across skin. The ache of blunt impact. The feel of a bone snapping, followed by a surge of pain and adrenaline. A throbbing headache, or the burning of something corrosive. Make the player know that their player avatar is the victim of violence. Shrink the emotional distance, so they must imagine the suffering of their character.
Very useful, I took notes
I dunno... that computer room only has one way in or out. I find that pretty terrifying XD
I'm not saying the room isn't creepy. But in a different way.
We've found another way to frighten players though! Make a key location they need to return to often one that can be blocked off like that :P
@@liquidink2413 Oh there are many ways to frighten players. These are only three rules. I have another video coming with another rule. I'm sure there are like 30-40 good rules to follow.
well yes, but it's terrifying because of its geometry, not its appearance.
Ripley was attacked by Ash in that computer room. He tried to kill her by shoving a rolled magazine in her throat. Only non-alien violence in the movie so it was probably intentional.
I had a game in which the players meet a God-like ally only to find that the actual threat once they no longer see him as a threat is powerful enough that this being is looking for all the help he can get. Like a false monster scare just to show the scale of the real threat. I find that works you get to make them jump twice.
I have 2 more
4: The monster's motivations should remain a mystery
5: The monster's behavior should never become predictable
I find the manipulative's behaviour of a lovecraftian monster much more appealing than simply being "evil". Even if the players know that he lies and/or is deceptive, it just makes it more unpredictable
I'm writing from my work station, that's why the name is "Cantareira Lofts". Well, "Call of Cthulhu" and "World of Darkness" are my very favorite TTRPG, so, why I knew this channel just now?! I think few people knows about the existence of it. Well, later I'll subscribe... that's for sure.
Before I forget... Mr. Petersen, you are a legend.
The revered Sandy of Cthulhu is giving away his best horror tricks. This is simply luxury.
Thank you, master.
and more in store.
Great. BTW: This is me,@@SandyofCthulhu :)
ruclips.net/video/T802iVKMBgA/видео.html
This is really good advice and perfectly describes what went wrong with a Sci-Fi horror adventure I ran. When I set out I intended to try and realistically design the setting (a space station) as best as I could. The problem being that my idea of realistic no longer felt familiar at all. It was hard for the players to imagine themselves there, and hard for me to describe the location to them.
I had no idea you had your own RUclips channel! I am going to recommend it next week, on my video where I talk about haunted houses in roleplaying games. By the way Sandy, you did an amazing job bringing the weird horror of the Mythos to Pathfinder, my review featuring your book is one of my most viewed reviews, and I will continue to use that book until the end of my roleplaying game career.
thanks! You may be interested in the campaign packs I'm now launching - admittedly for D&D 5e, not Pathfinder.
2:28 did this Man just imply that stalins murderers did not do the right thing by murdering stalin?
if you interpreted that with what he said, you are at the very least mentally deficient. american
top tips man, thanks. Looking forward to seeing how your Cthulhu stuff moves into D&D
Thanks Sandy!
To be honest, that’s one reason I don’t like Pulp Cthulhu. Don’t get me wrong, it’s cool, and I love the idea and being like Indiana Jones, but I find the Pulp rules get rid of a lot of the fear. My players insisted I run Masks of Nyarlathotep Pulp style because they died too easily in our first campaign a mix of Doors to Darkness, the two scenarios in the Keeper Book, and Shadows of Yog-Sothoth. I’m doing my best to keep it interesting and challenging, but then with Pulp Talents and elephant guns against Hunting Horrors is still a nightmare.
It's why I don't play it.
Play with historians. We can omagine the 20s. Love the video - great suggestions for my current project. 🖤🖤
Thank you so much! I loved the way you explained things in a thorough manner!
I'm working on a campaign and reading your book in the sunshine
I'm gonna host it in the library, and it starts in the actual library. I'm gonna be a dream cat to help guide them but cats don't care so i won't interfere unless they get lost.
I wish I had seen this before and it's great advice. The only thing I and my players think when we tried to play in a contemporary setting was that it's easy to ignore everything as SFx today. Unless your characters are conspiracy buffs. So it can be hard as a Game master not to have a Scooby Doo situation. Because of that we went back to the 1920 setting and educated our self's about life around that time and around the places we used as a gaming ground.
This is amazing! Im trying to get a Call of Cthulhu game going and Ive only ever DM'd for disinterested family members before. Im starting out with the scenarios that came in the Keeper Rulebook and hopefully I can get enough interest in my group to buy more books!
people in the library are becoming comatose. evenly they find a secret basement under the liberty full of weird ancient books. then they go down and find Ghatanothoa. If you olok at him or even a picture you will become a mummy and be trapped inside your body for100's of years unable to move
These rules are good but there to subvert since players can become savvy to tropes like 'the big bad should be big and bad'. The creepy thing in the crawl space is actually a malnourished victim hiding from the true horror etc. I mean, this is itself part of the hero's journey trope. The initial quest, which sends the hero on his journey, turns out not to be the quest at all, but I feel like it's more a comfortable pair of slippers thing rather than subversion; one of the beats you want to hit in order to keep players engaged, not so much a cliché.
Ahem! Mr Rules, bring me a cup and pot of tea.
I really enjoyed your take on this subject. I have always done the first two things by focusing on the atmosphere and monster actions and descriptions. I have not considered your third rule, I play pathfinder rpg 1e. I usually use sound effects and visuals when I can to do that. Overall I really liked your video.
Nice one!
Rule 1: No. You can get a better story line from a sympathetic monster. The werewolf that is a good person, but is losing control, is worse than the werewolf that wants to change and kill. The latter, you know the evil, you hunt the evil. The former, you know the evil, but you also know that the evil is also its own hostage, limiting your actions.
Rule 2: Agreed, and something I try to apply even in non-horror games to support immersion in general.
Rule 3: Also an excellent general rule for building immersion.
Nice tips!! Thanks for sharing!
A lack of #2 is what's kept me out of most games. Too many people obsess over stats and mechanics and not on telling a good story!
Flavour text for combat results is hit and miss for me. Generally if it is a large amount of damage or a creature/player is slain, I will say something. If it is small damage or inconsequential, I will keep the combat moving.
I gotta say, your 2nd rule is such a simple concept that I've only been partially aware of, and been trying to solve in much less effective ways. I'm running a game in just a few hours, and will immediately put this bit of advice to practice. Thanks a lot!
This has helped a lot! Tnx
*@Sandy of Cthulhu* when i am only hearing your voice, i often mistake you for the Canadian Professor of Psychology, Dr Jordan Peterson. Especially in this video where your talking about rules, i think it is Jordan Peterson talking about his book "12 Rules For Life". :)
there are two easy ways to tell us apart. First, he spells his last name wrong. (I don't have a "o" in it). Second, he has hair.
The monsters should be predators?
WHAT THE HELL WHY DOES SANDY FUCKING PETERSEN HAVE ONLY 722 SUBSCRIBERS
i am open to suggestions how to increase this.
"Don't discard the rules, let them serve you" - Level Design With Sandy 😂
Considering tese 3 rules how would you rate the SCP Foundation?
I think you should do more GM tips
7:30 - come on Jack! I’ve been binging your videos and noticed you weren’t cussing in them. The first video I watch within earshot of my kids... are you trying to get me in trouble with the wife?
sorry! You have my heartfelt apologies. At least it's not the F word.
All good. I meant it in good humor - it helps that they haven’t reused anything. ;)
Great video wish more like it. I want to use the build up not the jump scare.
Could a player not be a malign? I 'm sure, if done correctly, an alien monster could be a fully intelligent creature, It would still be scary if the monster was an extremely grumpy, extremely unstable, extremely dangerous anti-hero, like Morbius (from Marvel) who is mostly good . . . but who has a monster within, which comes out more often than his good side does. Of course, best practice is not to do this, or to allow it sparingly, say, only to extremely good role players. But it could likely be done. Then again, the player would not genuinely be playing the monster, there, I suppose. They would simply have a regular monster inside them.
And the player doesn't have to be a good guy. In fact, they could be a major antagonist, depending on how your rules work.
the Statement of Alien vs Star Trek is arbitray. The Alien setting is designed to be scary...Not because it is more realistic. Even in Lovecraft you find the darkly phantastic and the strangely old and decrepit, which is why a haunted mansion is always ideal. The white room is Scary because it is white and safe looking but is totally alien to normal and represents something strange where technology is god. If you emphasize too much similarity, you end up with the diluting of the setting and Horror itself, which should be unnatural and terrifying. Otherwise space horror ends up too down to earth, literally, and people don't like that. Forget it. Stay in the Story World you create. Star Trek was not made for general Horror except for certain moments of tension and danger...Which is why many of the aliens in Star Trek and mortal danger is actually rather frightening off of the Enterprise or on it when a menace is lurking undetected. I will say it is better to ensure the player can imagine the place and provide for the imagination. I want to look into these rules to dig deeper. Lovecraft put it us in such an imagination...Yeah, don't listen to that last bit. That is more like the dumbness of "relatability to the audience" which is a distraction. Alien is not more realistic, but darker and grittier compared to the utopian Star Trek.
Cha'alt!