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Tanuki Tales
2016-07-09, 10:01 PM
So, I just finished reading this (http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/6088875/) wonderful example of learning why to be careful what you wish for of a laconic GM; between it and the Nightmare Fuel page for DnD/Pathfinder on TVtropes, I have not found my thirst for gamer horror slaked.

As such, please do share the most terrifying in-game moments you've experienced over your gaming career. Bonus points if anyone was actually brought to tears, if the game had to be temporarily stopped or if your group even had to stop playing for some time because of the wigglies it brought you all. :smallamused:

The Glyphstone
2016-07-09, 10:15 PM
The only time I've ever genuinely been scared to any degree in a game wasn't in tabletop, but in a parlor LARP. It was a locked-room scenario with a bunch of misfits, malcontents, criminals, and one small child, played by moi - everyone being an experienced LARPer, we all really got into our roles and made the night super, super intense.

Tanuki Tales
2016-07-13, 08:16 PM
The only time I've ever genuinely been scared to any degree in a game wasn't in tabletop, but in a parlor LARP. It was a locked-room scenario with a bunch of misfits, malcontents, criminals, and one small child, played by moi - everyone being an experienced LARPer, we all really got into our roles and made the night super, super intense.

Mind elaborating? Or did board unfriendly things happen?

The Glyphstone
2016-07-13, 10:54 PM
Mind elaborating? Or did board unfriendly things happen?

Yeah, board-unfriendly things happened (in character, obviously). Board unfriendly things definitely happened. I think half the cast made it out of the night alive, and thanks to one of the (dead) PCs, even the survivors ended up permanently worse off.

Joe the Rat
2016-07-14, 08:04 AM
The most gripping, actually-feel-it game I ever played was using Dread. aka the Jenga Tower game.
Anything with a risk/chance involved required a pull from the tower. The tower goes down, somebody dies. No plot armor, no bank of damage soaking, no character-concept fortune tokens. You're dead.

I'm irritated by man's inhumanity to man, unimpressed by supernatural bogeymen, can usually out-squick anyone else at the table, and don't find a seafood platter very mindbending. That damn tower builds suspense. In the heart-pounding, hands-shaking-when-you-go-to-pull way. There's no jumping and slamming hands and getting excited when you do well... just relief that you live another round.

You start, it's a game.
After a few pulls, you focus in on every test.
A few more, you stop taking notes.
A few more, and you notice everyone is sitting further and away, physically distancing from the table and one another.
And soon you're all in hushed tones, and that stack of blocks makes a hell of a racket when it goes. But before it does, it just sits there, getting more and more unstable, wiggling at the slightest touch. Do you stay put, or do you try to sneak by? Do you search the room more thoroughly, or leave potential dangers undisturbed? A confrontation of characters rapidly bumps risk for all. Sooner or later, somebody fails, somebody falls...

Eno Remnant
2016-07-14, 08:29 AM
I'm in an SCP campaign. Scares galore.

Particularly frightening was having a herd of the most unkillable things in existence less than 30 ft. from the party.

Though I think the time that scared me the most was when I almost experienced my first character death. The party was up against some incorporeal rats that killed through Strength damage, and they'd almost taken out the DMPC. My character, being a lovestruck fool, tries to help her out, and gets dropped to 1 STR. He's on the ground, screaming in impotent fury and trying to kill these rats with his breath weapon, desperately trying to keep the DMPC alive. Suffice it to say, IRL I'm (not-so)silently praying every time she makes a save against the attack. We got out of it alive in the end, and while I died later on, and that was tense and scary, it wasn't nearly so bad as this instance.

Tanuki Tales
2016-07-14, 02:57 PM
Yeah, board-unfriendly things happened (in character, obviously). Board unfriendly things definitely happened. I think half the cast made it out of the night alive, and thanks to one of the (dead) PCs, even the survivors ended up permanently worse off.

So was it like a Saw scenario where you were pitted against each other, or one of you was really the villain and wanted to see the darkness in the human soul...or...?

I just want as much juicy details as are allowed to be shared. :smallwink:

Wonton
2016-07-14, 04:11 PM
The only time I've ever genuinely been scared to any degree in a game wasn't in tabletop, but in a parlor LARP. It was a locked-room scenario with a bunch of misfits, malcontents, criminals, and one small child, played by moi - everyone being an experienced LARPer, we all really got into our roles and made the night super, super intense.

Do you look anything like a small child? I'm curious how that worked. I realize you need some suspension of disbelief to LARP, but that's pretty funny/bizarre if you're a grown man.

trikkydik
2016-07-14, 04:15 PM
Do you look anything like a small child? I'm curious how that worked. I realize you need some suspension of disbelief to LARP, but that's pretty funny/bizarre if you're a grown man.

LOL, did someone just get judged in a D&D thread. so funny!!

Wonton
2016-07-14, 04:26 PM
LOL, did someone just get judged in a D&D thread. so funny!!

? :smallconfused:

Maybe I didn't communicate my meaning properly. There was no judgment. I was just simply curious whether someone needs to look kinda like a small child to play one at a LARP, or whether people would just roll with it even if it was a 6'2" 190 lb man.

The Glyphstone
2016-07-14, 04:40 PM
I duct-taped slippers to my shins and shuffled around on my knees the entire night. Hurt like the dickens, but I was the correct height, at least.

Wonton
2016-07-14, 04:41 PM
I duct-taped slippers to my shins and shuffled around on my knees the entire night. Hurt like the dickens, but I was the correct height, at least.

Omg that's amazing. That's dedication!

Rater202
2016-07-14, 04:44 PM
Does it count if I'm the one who made the game scary? Because I may have managed to play a Malkavian who managed to eat his way down to gen 2 once...

The Glyphstone
2016-07-14, 05:00 PM
So was it like a Saw scenario where you were pitted against each other, or one of you was really the villain and wanted to see the darkness in the human soul...or...?

I just want as much juicy details as are allowed to be shared. :smallwink:

I don't think we ever actually found out who/what was responsible - it was implied to be aliens or something, since the 'locked room' was a sealed chamber with mirrored surfaces on ever floor. It was designed as a one-shot though, so there wasn't really a plot so much as it was seeing various dysfunctional personalities bounce off each other. Sadly, my memories of details are fuzzy, but I do remember playing my character as convinced that we were in Hell, with each of the seven players representing one of the Deadly Sins (I had decided his father was an abusive fire-and-brimstone country preacher, so this ten-year old was excessively informed on the topic).

Tanuki Tales
2016-07-14, 08:41 PM
Does it count if I'm the one who made the game scary? Because I may have managed to play a Malkavian who managed to eat his way down to gen 2 once...

Sure, that counts.

So please, do go on. :smallamused:


I duct-taped slippers to my shins and shuffled around on my knees the entire night. Hurt like the dickens, but I was the correct height, at least.

Gylph, you continue to be my favorite mod on this site. :smallbiggrin:


I don't think we ever actually found out who/what was responsible - it was implied to be aliens or something, since the 'locked room' was a sealed chamber with mirrored surfaces on ever floor. It was designed as a one-shot though, so there wasn't really a plot so much as it was seeing various dysfunctional personalities bounce off each other. Sadly, my memories of details are fuzzy, but I do remember playing my character as convinced that we were in Hell, with each of the seven players representing one of the Deadly Sins (I had decided his father was an abusive fire-and-brimstone country preacher, so this ten-year old was excessively informed on the topic).


Now that sounds like a hoot and a half. Which sin was your character? Wrath?

Rater202
2016-07-14, 10:11 PM
@Tanuki Tales

Well, it was only scary for a small part of the time. Afterwards it became awsome.

Basically it was a small game in a mixed cotery sharing a haven. I was playing a Malkavian with the flaw that makes i so that you were embraced as a child. My character's Malkavian dimentia was a compulsion to count stars... But we were based in a big city with lots of brite lights, so light polution meant it didn't come up much. My character, being a particularly lucid malk, faked be mentally trapped in childhood(I was actually one of the oldest PCs, in both age and time as a Vampire.) My backstory was basically I turned up in the city, played up the charm, the prince was reminded of his own child from when he was a mortal, and took a shine to my PC. I was basically with the Cotery(likewise formed of favorites of high ranked kindred--the fledgling spawn of primogen, for example.) to keep my PC out of trouble, and ended up contributing to the stuff the cotery was doing becuase high dementation and auspex meant I was basically an oracle(love the Malkavian Madness Network, btw)

One night, our group finds a large vile that we determine to contain the still potent vitae of Caine himself. With no prompting on my part, the group unanimously decided that the insane child was the best person to hold onto that.(they didn't know he was faking.)

Did I mention that I was following one of those alternative paths of enlightenment, and the one I was on didn't ghiuve you automatic loss if you devoured another vampire's soul and encouraged you to gain power and sate your hunger.

So, a few sessions later, my character snuck out, drained a homeless person, fed them just a sip of Caine's blood to make a brand new gen two vamp... Then staked him and ate his soul. And the repeated the process, several times, until I hit gen two myself, then downed what was left of Caine's blood.(a dap on the tongue lowered generation by two levels and gave a couple of extra discipline dots. Half the vile was left by the time I hit gen 2)

I don't know what the ST had planned for the vile, but he let me do it.

And the way the other PCs reacted when they found out that kid they were babysitting became the most powerful Vampire in half the continent overnight...

The Glyphstone
2016-07-14, 11:33 PM
Sure, that counts.



Now that sounds like a hoot and a half. Which sin was your character? Wrath?

If I remember right, he assigned Sloth to himself, because of all the times his father would yell at him for being lazy in stuff like not brushing his teeth fast enough.

RickAllison
2016-07-14, 11:55 PM
Chutes and Ladders. There is something oddly terrifying about having no control, that your actions mean nothing, that you live or die at the whim of the dice.

But seriously, my group is awful at doing scary. One DM tried to do scary Hunter: the Vigil, but it never seemed so to me. Generally, we either never found the horror or we found it and killed it rather anti-climatically.

Snake-man who ate children? .410 revolver shotgun to the face.

Werewolves? My bear spray, held down by my dog pack, shot full of lead.

Vampires? Flamethrower shotgun.

Gangs with guns? Disarmed and mowed down beyond their firing range.

Spider-spirit that was created to be invulnerable to all of my standard tactics that removed the fear from his boss fights? First shot in one place that he had not thought to put armor on, then blown up.

Ancient vampire attempting to kill off our party? He only survived because another PC deliberately broke character (it was a kid who was convinced he was a Pokemon trainer. My PC had been established numerous times as a professor's aide, including giving him items when he caught enough Pokemon. The PC wasn't even mind-controlled to attack me, he just chose to), and instead got his Ursaring gunned down.

Set in a pair of 1v1 matches with vampires specifically to kill off me and my retainer for proving that gunfire has solved almost every encounter, by giving us enemies that will 1HKO us? Beat initiative by a wide margin, then fill them with bullets and/or lightning.

Seriously, my PCs were probably the scariest part of the game. The first one was like a Paladin who cannot tolerate evil, but is incredibly cunning and underhanded while cutting evildoers down. Killed one PC who tried to ambush him, and was only killed when the DM permitted another PC to buy a militarized tank, an endless supply of poisonous gas that offered no chance to resist death, and enough C4 to bring down a mountain that was also hidden so well that no checks were able to find it. To kill that PC, the other (who was attacked because he was an unrepentant murderer who tried to kill a security guard's family for tazing him) had to drop an entire mountain on him. The next was his wife, whose highlights included an explanation of how exactly she would torture a prisoner to prevent his escape while inflicting pain and avoiding death.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that at some point I became the villain of that campaign.

goto124
2016-07-15, 12:04 AM
How did the PCs get their hands on such good weaponry?

RickAllison
2016-07-15, 12:36 AM
How did the PCs get their hands on such good weaponry?

.410 revolver was just basic firearm. The flamethrower shotgun shells are an actual thing, just in low supply and highly impractical; the only reason the PC ever bought it was to counter vampires. Bear spray was shipped in from an Alaskan hunting store (whenever he got low, he would go to order more in). Standard firearm was a semi-automatic AUG (picked from an actual online auction site!). The Lightning gun was a merit from Task Force: VALKYRIE. The only thing he got that was a little ridiculous by the rules was an underslung grenade launcher, which he used a grand total of once with a baton round (basically, he used a grenade-sized chunk of bean-bag to knock someone down. Ouch). The explosives were made by another PC.

As for the equipment to take down the first monstrosity, I have no idea. The DM even admitted to me that he really just wanted my character dead so I couldn't solve every combat encounter, so that's why he wouldn't allow any degree of success on finding traps to find the C4.

One of the biggest problems was that all the other PCs chose to focus on melee combat. That doesn't fare well when it is possible to gun down the enemies before they reach melee range.

The Glyphstone
2016-07-15, 07:39 AM
Sounds like your DM tried to hard to go for 'big scary monster', forgetting that Action Economy rules and NWoD is super rocket tag. When you have guns and the other guy doesn't, you'll mow them down before they can get you. If both of you have guns, it's a question of who wins initiative, or who has more dudes on their side. Luckily, it doesn't sound like your DM ever wised up to the fact that enemies can attack in groups too - like, say, a pack of werewolves, or a couple vampires with long-range guns and Celerity, and instead kept reaching for bigger and more Fiat-y hammers. That would have killed you, then TPKed your buddies when they tried to melee werewolves.:smallbiggrin:

RickAllison
2016-07-15, 10:19 AM
Sounds like your DM tried to hard to go for 'big scary monster', forgetting that Action Economy rules and NWoD is super rocket tag. When you have guns and the other guy doesn't, you'll mow them down before they can get you. If both of you have guns, it's a question of who wins initiative, or who has more dudes on their side. Luckily, it doesn't sound like your DM ever wised up to the fact that enemies can attack in groups too - like, say, a pack of werewolves, or a couple vampires with long-range guns and Celerity, and instead kept reaching for bigger and more Fiat-y hammers. That would have killed you, then TPKed your buddies when they tried to melee werewolves.:smallbiggrin:

The DM was the same person whose previous characters including a social droid and a medic Twi-lek, neither with combat capabilities. Which is a good thing, he is fantastic at RP while awful at thinking tactically :smallbiggrin:

Inevitability
2016-07-15, 02:51 PM
Particularly frightening was having a herd of the most unkillable things in existence less than 30 ft. from the party.

Did 682 split into multiple creatures again? Because that would indeed be horrifying.

CharonsHelper
2016-07-15, 03:15 PM
I was shipwrecked on an island where a big game hunter, tired of killing animals, decided that he would begin hunting the most intelligent prey... man!

It was... the most dangerous game! (and pretty scary too)

Tanuki Tales
2016-07-20, 12:55 AM
I was shipwrecked on an island where a big game hunter, tired of killing animals, decided that he would begin hunting the most intelligent prey... man!

It was... the most dangerous game! (and pretty scary too)

And how exactly did...this is tongue in cheek, ugh. :smallsigh: