rolled 12 = 12

Too damn cold.

You should ask Awake that. He lost friends as I recall because of shenanigans like playing outside.

Obesity

>>18672962
I keep hearing about this awake guy, someone briefly lost their shit the other day because he posted in a thread.
Whats the scoop?

Their hyperprotective mothers are afraid of everything in the world, and most of the world is outside.

>>18673080
He's fairly legendary when it comes to setting the mood and atmosphere for games.

Thing is, he mainly runs horror games. Hence the aforementioned losing of friends.

>>18673080
He's goddamn crazy and a genius horror GM.

Miniatures are no longer made of lead, and are vulnerable to moderate breeze. To say nothing of character sheets.

And generally, people are wimpier now.

>>18673094
Addendum:

If I remember correctly, one of the things he's done in the past is say in game how the smell of mint always precipitates encounters with a monster, and then secretly replace a friend's hand rolled cigarette with a cigarette made of the same rolling paper and mint instead of tobacco, so it tastes horrible and gives off a strong mint smell.

>>18672944
In the 80's, there were still places in the country where people didn't feel the need to lock their doors. Times change.

So... running horror games general?

>>18673140

>Times change

and always for the worst

>>18673140

I didn't lock my door until I recently moved to the city. Places like that still exist.

They're just innawoods.

>not having a patch of dirt in the back that dries in the sun and creates the perfect "wasteland" for your miniatures

so many games were played , it looks like the surface of char in the afternoons. I just use a pencil to dig out little bomb craters and bits of moss for shrubs. Little patches of grass make for great tree cover

>>18673156
Feel lucky, then. My hometown is innawoods and it's rife with theft and breakins due to the drug issues that people have.

>>18673116
That's goddamn diabolical. Any other stories about this guy? I can't imagine someone running a horror game so intense that they lose friends over it.

>>18673140

There still are. In my town, people know better than to go opening doors willy nilly...

Would you like to hear about my town?

>>18673210
You own a gun, right?

>>18673193
I didn't do minatures, but in the hillside beside and behind my house, played in tree roots and dirt and stuff with anything. GI Joes, Ninja Turtles, Transformers... anything and everything were scenery for battles between good and evil!

>>18673222
Is that town called Silent Hill.

>>18673219
Hold on, I might have some screencaps saved of his work.

Sup/tg/ might also have some threads.

>>18673223
I don't live there anymore, so it's a non-issue for me.

>>18673089
Sadly this. People are just too afraid to let their kids play outside anymore, and franly, I can't blame them, what with child molesters and weirdos running around.

I'd say this is a major factor in why Halloween is no longer celebrated as it used to be, which is a damn shame.

>>18673236

Nope. It's a little town called Oak River...

>>18673243
I've found none, alas. Oh well, you never know, maybe he'll hear his name on the wind and show up.
(Probably not).

>Go hiking in bush with friends
>See a plastered abo trying to fuck a dead rabbit
>Never go hiking again

>No one does that anymore. Why is that?
Columbine and 9/11.

>>18673222

continue

>>18672944
More and more kids grow up in cities.
video/computergames.
tevevision.
lazy/stupid parents
the stuff they put in the drinkingwater and toothpaste and various other things make people less imagniative and more passive.

etc

Blair Witch Project.

>>18673276
Tell us about your town.

>>18673274
The world has always been like that, it's just that no one noticed all the bad shit.

I used to hold Werewolf: The Apocalypse games on hiking trips. We did a chronicle that ended in the Grand Canyon, as we backpacked the 46 miles of Paria Canyon to get to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Epic.

man i used to play in the woods around my grandparents house all the time when i was little.

>>18673274
Molesters and weirdos have always been running around. People just didn't know about it. Blissful ignorance and all that. One of the downsides to living in the information age.

It's a lovely little town. When you first make your way into the city, you'll notice all of the streets are cobbled. Things don't change much around here.

When you first arrive, try to show up about noon. We don't have many restaurants in town, but we do have one lovely little place downtown called the Grapevine Inn. The locals all tend to keep to themselves, but this is a great place to hear gossip.

The locals are a little bit clannish though. We don't get strangers very often, but we're far too polite to pry into your business. If you come in from the main road lost, we're happy to point you in the direction of where you're going. Just make sure not to go too far off down a side road or a private drive. The woods you see, it's easy to get turned around back there.

I live by the woods. This is my house. We'll talk more about that later though.

I dunno, I was a kid in the 90's and I played in the woods.

Course I grew up in Vermont which is nothing but woods, but still, I did play in them.

Here in our town, things are great. It might seem strange as an outsider, but we have a curfew here. Young people have to be in by no later than seven thirty, and grown ups must be at home by eight in the evening. It's better that way, really. See, it would be bad to have idle hands wandering around at night. Who knows what mischief people might get up to. Proper folk stay in their houses when the sun goes down.

Of course, you're certainly allowed to go out if you're a member of the city police, or especially if you're a part of the neighborhood watch. That's a very big deal here.

>>18673219
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/14309619/
Here's Awake's first thread. I'm sure there are more on suptg but I can't be assed to find them.

They cut a clearing through the small chunk of woods behind my house so it's not as cool as it used to be. We actually had a damn secret hide out under an old fallen tree that was just right that it was well lit but still next to impossible to see into from the outside. The only easy way to get to or from it was to climb onto the tree and use it to cross the nearby creak.

>>18673552
Are you like me, anon? We had something very similar; there was a tree that had it's roots grown out of an embankment that we turned into a base. It was this huge old something, maybe oak? The roots were huge, and the tree split in the middle growing out, so we used the middle part as a fort and the roots as part of the fort and a dirt slide.

And... yeah, I got nothing to add that's /tg/ related other than my obsession with wandering around the woods in my old KY home playing Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy with my best friends.

See, we've been having some trouble. We may be just off from the highway, and off on the other side are some train tracks. Sometimes families just move away, but sometimes there are accidents. See, they say if you listen really, really closely at night or early in the morning, out by the woods, that you can hear the sound of the train going by. People keep getting the silly idea that they should go hop on the train as it goes by, so they wander off into the woods.

You shouldn't go into the woods.

>>18673657

I don't want to hear about your town anymore.

If you do go though, make sure it's during the day, or you'll get lost. If you look around for long enough, and search in just the right place, you'll find the old train tracks, and you'll see in a minute why hopping the train is such a bad idea. It's dark when people try to hop on board the train, and if you fall you might drop off into a pit, or hit a tree, or fall down onto some rocks, and if that happens we won't ever see you again. Getting off is just as dangerous, and the train goes through the woods in another direction for a very, very long time.

Where does it? I'm not rightly sure actually. I've never heard of anyone who got on it coming back, much less saying where they went.

Between the skeleton thread and this thread I could have sworn I wandered in to /x/. The only thing giving it away is that these threads aren't shit.

>>18673762
Proof that when /tg/ wants to, it can have the better creepy threads than /x/.

On the edge of town we have this clock tower. It's a really neat clock tower, and it's attached to the local library. It rings every hour on the hour, of course, but it plays a very special song certain times of day. The neighborhood watch has it plays the same song at the start of curfew every night, and again in the morning when curfew is over.

But it plays another song too, one right at midnight. If you lay wide awake, and listen really, really carefully, you can hear the notes chiming out their song. I think I only hear it because I'm so close to the woods.

>>18673849
... right, duly noted. Madge, we're NOT GOING TO THIS TOWN the next time we're that way on the interstate. I don't CARE IF WE ARE NEAR OUT OF GAS, WE"LL MAKE IT TO THE BP DOWN THE ROAD!

>>18673828
Oh we've proved that many times over.

The thing about living so close to the woods, I hear things. The neighborhood watch and the police are always patrolling nearby. They say there's always vagrants and hobos in the woods. Those people are dangerous you know. They hop off the train, and the ones who don't get hurt are drunk or crazy. The ones that fall off and get hurt... well, sometimes you find blood in the forest. Sometimes though, I can find them near my backyard.

>>18673960
Either that's fake, or that is some fresh goddamn blood.

I'm going to choose to believe the latter.

Our town has a great library. You can find all kinds of books, really old, old books. Things that haven't been printed in a long, long time. I've found everything from children's stories, interviews with the native americans that used to live here, and accounts of the settlers in the area.

It might seem silly to you, but we have a banned books section. The city has a library committee that decides what should be on the banned books list. It really isn't restrictive though, I mean sure there are a few books that are about the native's religion and superstition that are banned, I grant, but mostly it's stuff like old census figures and documents about the town that we certainly don't want damaged.

The neighborhood watch starts their patrols there, and they tell you when it's time to go at night. Some of them are on the library committee, they really like books I think.

rolled 59 = 59

>>18674077
I'm just waiting for you to tell me you have a lottery in your town...

>>18674073
Hobo blood is good for you bro.

Fortifies the soul.

This town is the reason I carry a flashlight and duct tape in my car, and a knife wherever I go.

Just in case.

rolled 80 = 80

Rolling for san

>Fucking picture in my Captcha

>>18674152
I have a machete under my driverside floormat.

You never know.

rolled 89 = 89

>>18674178
>floormats perfect for hiding weapons.

Why didn't I ever see that! I can put my roofing hammer under there.

>>18672944

0_0

There's two of em'!

>>18674184
I used to keep it under the mat in the well that holds my spare tire, but now I have bolt cutters there.

>>18674184
I keep my Napoleon 10-pounder under my doormat. Not only is it a hell of a self-defense weapon, it also makes it extremely difficult for traveling salesmen to get to my doorbell.

Of course, some nights I like to sit and stare out the window. The air is nice, and the moon is bright. It's so lovely out. Some nights aren't like that at all though. I get the queerest feeling, and I lock all the doors and close the blinds on my windows facing outward. I still feel worried though, on nights like tonight. I'm happy that the neighborhood watch is around here so often, but I still get the feeling like vagrants are prowling outside by moonlight.

>"Lightning bolt! Lightning bolt!"
>"Hey guys look! A raccoon!"
>screen wipe to a bunch of bloody nerds sitting in a ER room

And that's why people don't play games in the woods any more.

Listening... right now tonight. I'm not sure if it's the train I'm hearing or not. The sound, it's like some sort of bell ringing on the train. I think I may poke my head out, if only for just one moment to see if I can hear better outside.

If you should ever find yourself in the sleepy little town of Oak River, come by and say hello.

>>18674362
>>18674226
>>18674077
>>18673960
>>18673849
>>18673732
>>18673657
>>18673518
>>18673474
>>18673417
>>18673276
>>18673222

I demand an Oak River Quest. Or this is my next campaign setting.

Is this archived?

>>18674362

NOOOOOOO, DON'T GO IN THE WOODS!

I am honestly amazed that stories of the games I've run are still told on /tg/. I just really like DRYH and horror games, and seem to have a knack for it.

I lost a girlfriend due to a horror game I ran, which honestly wasn't too bad of a thing because it was on the outs anyway. Heading to sleep soon, but I have time for a few tips for horror GMs if anyone would like them.

>>18674477

Yes please.

>this thread

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPQge4ib4WI

>>18674495
All right, since I work better with specifics, there's tips for running Gothic horror (The classic variety, not the angsty fat chick kind) or how I'd run this wonderful horror setting of Oak River, because it'd make an excellent start for a game.

>>18673285
Holy shit he was right.

>>18673150
Nonsense, sometimes they get better, or are you honestly going to sit there, and say everything was better when we had to worry about being killed by wild, non-human, animals every second of every day?

>>18674530

Ballin.

>>18674477
Always glad to see you pop by. I can honestly say that you're my favorite namefag.

>>18674537
I neither confirm nor deny that speaking my name three times in a thread gives me a subconscious call to post the ways of horror.

>>18674557
It's quite good. It has the inherent creepiness of small towns that seem perpetually trapped in the past, along with an element of totalitarian 'protection' that seems to be related to their control of the town.

For suggestions, I'd change the 'banned books' section to an archive. Getting permission to use archives is a major part of academic work, so there's a reason to have it, but it's restricted to outsiders and people casually wandering in. Most libraries list their archives, and have requirements for people studying in them; it's normally older documents, or large amounts of unbound stuff that they won't put in the regular connection.

Reminded me a bit of Something Wicked This Way Comes, which is a fantastic book for understanding how to get that element of creepiness.

>>18674624

>(X) Archive

What do you think of some of the other elements though? I wasn't quite certain whether I should go for a Cult, Indian Burial Ground, or pull out a Monster. Whichever way I went I'm leaving what's in the woods a mystery to the reader, but which direction would you go with it?

Oak Rivernon is my hero.

Everyone is a fat shutin who's afraid to go outside.

Also technology, technology anchors us to our homes.

don't speak too soon while the wheel's still in spin.

>>18674624
You sir, are a legend. I want to be in one of your games, and I'm a particularly faint-hearted person. Keep being awesome, Awake.

>>18674694
I'm hardly awake now, friend, but I'm thinkin' that you'd be trying to avoid certainties, wouldn'tcha? An absolute aint nearly as scary as sommat that indistinctable, yeah?

Besides, it don't need to be nuttin more than the 'folk themselves. After all, innit 'the way things always are'?

>>18674694
It depends on where you're taking the game. They don't need to be mutually exclusive elements, because they can all intersect nicely.

Keeping the true reasons ambiguous is the most important part of good horror. That element of mystery is what really creates good horror. People aren't scared of a well-lit room, just like they aren't scared of things they completely understand.

At the moment, I can see a few ways to go. The simplest is to decide that one of those evils is true, and the other two are blinds created by it to conceal its identity to curious people. It's the best way to modify the game organically for your players, and freak them out when they find out the true cause behind things.

If the monster is real, then the Indian Burial Grounds and Census Information conceals its activities and gives a plausible explanation for how it was created.

If the burial grounds are the true horror, the spirits learned the need for subtlety and possess members of the community who are out at night, killing those who step onto their land and carefully guarding their activities.

If the cult is true, the burial grounds are the site of their worship and give the details of their perverted religion. They use the hidden signs to lure victims, and sacrifice them.

>>18674809

Dandy, thank you. I also considered the town as a possible Werewolf game preserve, but decided ambiguously on it.

Gothic horror though?

>>18674808
And this man has hit the fourth option. Everything is as it seems. People are just territorial, and use these myths to hide that they're bastards.

Rumor is a powerful tool in the minds of your players. There's a lot you can do with half-information, their own suspicions, and the common methods of doing horror.

A monster is scary when you first see it, and then it becomes a challenge when it's in the light.

A man, driven to casual cruelty and shooting anyone who comes near his property, is a horror that some of us have experienced in life.

>>18674624
>Look back through the thread
>"Awake" used exactly three times as a name (and once as the actual noun)

You glorious motherfucker.

>>18674694
>>18674624
I have to agree here, about the quality of Oak Rivers.
Reminds me a little of the small towns in the Piedmont area of South Carolina where I used to live, a lot of them were quite similiar. Friendly people, usually a little brick library, a bit less on the cobbled streets, since most of that was in the lowlands, but a lot of fields and thick woods around. Although, unless you were a local, you didn't really go in the woods. Too easy to get lost...

>>18674808
>>18674854

That does make for a nice twist.

>>18674860
>mfw I just spoke Awake 3 times aloud.
Oh god, he's going to show up on my doorstep, or appear in my dreams now isn't he.

>>18674913
Nope. Now you'll appear in his dreams. It's like a reverse Kreuger.

>>18674841
Christ, just the idea of murderous hobos had me scared.

Especially with the anon above talking about how he went on a hike and saw a hobo fucking a rabbit or something.

>>18674841
Gothic horror, at its core, is about enclosed places. It's about locking the players in with a mystery, and then letting them find out that the answer is more than they can take.

In Gothic horror, never describe the source of the horror until the climax. It strikes at the shadows, moving subtly. It corrodes people from the inside, turning them from rational human beings to inhuman monsters wearing the skins of men.

Gothic horror also demands that there are no true answers. Even if its entirely realistic in the set-up, there are things that just can't be explained. The supernatural is real, and never gets a rational explanation. Every answer leads to another question, and it's never the answer you want to hear.

Keep it enclosed, keep it subtle, and keep it inexplicable.

>>18674938
That's EVEN WORSE! I've read about his dreams. They make my nightmares seem like sunshine and lollipops.

>>18674943
Like in that one story that I can remember where this fella's stuck in town, the locals are acting ornery about it and then shit starts hitting the fan and the townsfolk all start turning their eyes his way, chya?

>>18674940
Doesn't even need to be murderous so much as drugged out. A hobo hopped up on cheap meth would be just as dangerous.

Used to live in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and there was a problem with Meth there. Lot of hobos too. I didn't go out at night except by car.

>>18675003
Oh hey! I lived in North Little Rock! More of a crack problem than meth though.

>>18675003

Fort Smith you say? Small world...

>>18674938
I like that term. I think I'm going to use that as a plot element in a game at some point. People drawn into a gigantic meta-nightmare by some accidental repetition of a phrase or piece of music . . . perhaps a short riff made by the accidental wind organs or Aeolian harps created by city construction. As it spreads, silence becomes the only refugee, as the sound has infected all artificial noises.

>>18675003
Oh yeah, I am sure without the drugs they're probably great people. I mean, look at that Alan Moore guy. Great homeless man. But I meant murderous to describe their actions.

Awake already hit on it. Even King has written about it.

Suspense and the unknown cause the most fear. Once you know, you can begin intellectually digesting.

>>18675052
That reminds me of that movie...um...The Day before Yesterday? Or maybe it's the Day After Tomorrow. Can't remember. Anyway, everyone is trying to kill themselves.

>>18675003
One of the reasons I'm a bit more careful about choosing urban exploration sites for gaming nights is due to meth-using hobos with knives. I'm honestly surprised I wasn't murdered, but thankfully, one of my players is somewhat large, and we got outta there by parleying a bottle of JD for safe passage.

It's one of the reasons you need to be sure of an area you're going to use isn't inhabited by any ornery locals. Or that all of your players can book it fast enough to get the hell out if you're caught and threatened.

>>18674943
My personal favorite example of people's fears corroding their humanity is the old Twilight Zone episode The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street

>>18675087
The Happening?
>>18675052
Thanks, although when I wrote it I thought it sounded sexual.

>>18675108
Maybe.

>>18675083
>yfw Awake is actually Stephen King
>mfw

>>18675105

That. Is. My. Favorite. Episode.

>>18675096

I've always wanted to use an abandoned train cart downtown myself.

>>18675128
not sure if want....

>>18675128
If he is: I'm still pissed about Flagg, man.

>>18675143
You could be the boxcar children!

Only instead of chipper little orphans who make a modest happy living in a boxcar, you're a group of kiddies clinging to life in a boxcar in the middle of nowhere, scared out of your minds because They are Not Happy..

Or something better, because I am not really good at this atm.

>>18675128
>>18675165
>>18675164

For all we know Sacha Baron Cohen is OP, Awake is Stephen King, you're M. Night Shymalan, I'm Dave Chapelle, and Vin Diesel is lurking the thread.

>>18675128
Haha, I wish I was a writer. Then I'd be making money on my writing, rather than the whole graduate school shtick and continued training in my field.

Seriously, though, King is an excellent inspiration. Yes, his work can follow patterns, and the Dark Tower was really fucking disappointing at the end (meta-textual note; this is the exact point King was trying to make, because evil revealed is never as terrifying as evil in the background), but he's got a good, steady style and a lot of his work is really damn good.

I have a lot of respect for the guy, despite the flack he gets from a lot of self-important literary critics who seem to think everything should be Proust.

>>18675143
Mah nigga.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZTe4SJnxPc

>>18675194

Or, alternately, clinging to the boxcar because it is the only shelter that IT doesn't follow them into...

Citizen, what are you doing on this late?

>>18675202
Hey.

>>18672944

Not many people live close to the woods anymore.

I certainly enjoyed scrambling around in the two acres that was on my family's land. But for someone living in rows of houses in the suburbs or an apartment in the city, there's no woods to go to anymore.

>>18675234

Uhhh... browsing 4chan and drinking lots and lots of caffeine.

>>18675252
>>18675234
?

>>18675208
King ALWAYS whiffs the endings, even he knows it. Yeah, I agree, Dark Tower in particular had a theme of "evil collapses when confronted," but it was done in such a manner that made many fans seriously upset. I can forgive the Crimson King, but Flagg getting offed so casually? This guy survived a fucking hydrogen bomb. Somehow.

Hell if the ride wasn't fun, though.

>>18675143
Scout it out, figure out a good time to run it, and sneak the people in. If it's still on the tracks, you can get nailed for trespass pretty easily, but so long as you're all decent-looking individuals who just admit to the cops that you're there to tell stories, they'll be pretty cool guys.

On that note; never bring anything remotely illegal with you when you're doing any gaming on public property. If you're doing urbex to find gaming spaces, follow the general rules on forums for urbex and respect the spaces you use. If you're busted, don't book unless you know you'll be able to get away. A running man is always suspicious, especially if you look like the typical black-coat-and-trench gamer stereotype.

>>18675252
QUICK MAN TO THE BOXCAR!

>>18675252
I'm not sure you should be telling them so much about town.

>>18675275
Point o' horror, a lot of the time. Enjoy the ride.

And yeah, he's had some shitty, shitty endings. It's always disappointing to watch him craft a wonderful story, then write some hilarious cop-out ending. Still, the guy's got chops.

>>18675323
At this point, the bad ending's almost part of the charm.

Nothing will top the LITERAL deus ex machina in The Stand, though.

>>18675299

Nah, it's cool, we need more tourists.

>>18675284

Heh. I doubt we'd book it, but it's a damn cool little spot.

>>18675275

Believe it or not I liked Graveyard Shift, The Boogeyman, and Sometimes They Come Back.

>>18675369
Remember, the old ways are best.

>>18675323
Hmmm, on the note of King, would Bag of Bones be a good story to draw some inspiration from? Not on the actual beastie, mind, but on the attitude of the townsfolk towards anyone who 'steps out of line'?

A lot of guys, having spent most of their time playing games where they are adventurers and, therefore, mostly immune to the effects of disturbing a particular village's/town's/city's peace, beyond a proverbial light slap on the wrist and/or quest hook. In horror, the average NPCs can be just as antagonistic as cultists or the monster lurking behind you or the curse, etc.

>>18675416
*as THE cultists fuck i'm tired

>>18675367
Yeah, that was stupid. I don't know what he was thinking. It was oddly stupid. Flagg can be a great archetype for a good antagonist, especially if you work with him in the long run of a horror game. Make the foe human, dedicated to dark powers, and subtle, and you've got a nice villain to work for you.

The idea of the 'recurring face' is a good way to work on horror; just let a common figure (doesn't need to be the same person) come back again and again, just in the background of events. Let the players decide the identity. And from there, carefully build their paranoia like a house made of onionskin cards.

>>18675369
You'll notice King seems more apt at ending his short stories and novellas. I suspect this is because they can be open-ended.

>>18675416
Not a bad place to start. King actually writes a LOT about small-town life out in the sticks, and the more banal horrors that sometimes characterize it.

>>18675416
Yeah. Small-town horror is good horror.

It's sometimes harder for players to really feel like they need to behave, however; bear in mind that your players need to feel like these rules are real for the characters. You put a bunch of guys who wanted to play a hack and slash in a nuanced horror game with ornery townsfolk, and they'll be bitching within twenty minutes when their attempts to steal a bulldozer and weld a dozen chainsaws to it gets them arrested and major consequences.

Conformity is hard for people who don't really get the importance of social pressures, which is part of why I regret running a convention horror game. Well, that and some other elements that disgusted me to my core.

>>18675495
I'd have to agree there, friend. Bigger fan of his short work than his long ones. Maybe because he feels he doesn't need to faff around and make it bigger? I dunno, just my feels on that.

I've been wanting to run a horror game for a long time but after I bought the books I wanted to work with I soon realized that my group of players are a bunch of hyperactive monkeys.

One example comes to mind right now. Give players an odd puzzle to solve. They appear to be concealed in a circular room made entirely of TV static and yet it is solid. Think the egg inside Rasputin's head in Psychonaughts. They take two minutes to ask me how they are supposed to get out without even trying anything. The guy who made a character that was a skin head says his character starts to piss on the wall. Gets mad when I tell him that he is now standing in a puddle of his own piss because there isn't enough room to stand anywhere else. This isn't anything in character. He is actually mad at me for imaginary piss.

>>18673960
It's fake. It's not smeared, so it isn't a wipe or a swipe. It's too clean of a line to be a castoff pattern or arterial or dripping blood as someone moves, and there's no evidence of lateral movement, which would be there in a line like that for castoff, arterial, and spattered blood. I'd put the chances of it being real as 1/1,000,000.

>>18672944
I don't game outside anymore OP, because do you remember when a dice goes off the table and even though it's sitting right next to someone's foot it takes 5 minutes to find it? Multiply that by every goddamn leaf or patch of dirt around you. It's crazy how much that stuff adds to scenery confusion when you're trying to find one, goddamn, little brown die.

>>18675547
Have you ever tried to run a classic zombie survival-type game? I have a couple times, and it's always started great, I get really positive feedback on the first session or 2, but then it just loses steam as zombies become more commonplace and players lose focus on the plot. Do you have any tips for keeping a game like that on track and interesting for players?

>>18675710
Sorry, I guess a question goes here.

Any idea how to deal with gamers like this when they make up the vast majority of the people in my area? I've tried talking to him and others about this kind of stuff but no real effect. Just ended with me rage quitting on my last game, yelling at each player individually "Fuck you!", and giving them all the finger as well and walking away.

>mfw OP thinks /tg/ is the board that's going to advocate going outside.

>>18675768

Are you kidding? I'm definitely going jogging after this thread... away from the woods.

>>18675818
No. You should come. In. The woods are fine. See the trees. Smell the FLOWERS. Take a load OFF and REST. FEED the animals.

>>18675727
As has been written since the beginning, zombie games are about the brutality of men. Zombies aren't a monster, they're a setting. When food gets scarce, do people turn to raiding each other? Do they turn to cannibalism, due to going insane and believing themselves to be moving closer to the living dead?

Watch Dawn of the Dead (the new version); that shows you how the zombies change from a cause of horror to an environmental aspect. Think about what horrors people can create, and then go forward with that.

Another solution is known as the Resident Evil route; biochemical zombies, with a slow shift to genetically-engineered creatures that are nightmarish amalgamations of organic parts. This keeps the threat evolving. The Crimson Head scare from RE1 is a great inspiration for how to go about things.

Heads aren't the only weak point, either. Go for Return of the Living Dead Zombies for a different form of horror. When the creatures are invulnerable, and can only be stopped slightly, rather than killed, the horror is maintained.

Side note, don't just come out and say "You see zombie." first time they see them. Set mood and let them draw their own conclusion. Let them find out the hard way what type of zombie you are using.

>>18675754
It's hard to do. You can't force players into horror. The first rule of scaring your players is that they need to want to be scared. If they're not into puzzle-solving, then you're not gonna be able to just sit up and run a game like that.

To get them to work with you, subtly integrate it into games, and give them a choice. Don't go full-on into atmospheric horror the first session; play the game like a different type, and gradually introduce the elements. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. If they decide that investigating the creepy cult you've hinted at is more interesting and it leads them down the path, then you'll be good.

Horror games are one of the hardest types to run. This isn't a boast on my skill at running the damn things or anything like that; it's an observation I've made after years of running practically everything. The players and the GM need to cooperate to get a good game down. Descriptions of gore aren't horror, they're purple prose/someone's fetish (oh god why). When they come on the heels of mystery and exist for a reason other than "Organs are scary, bro", then you've got horror.

>>18675922
Generally, for really fun immersive games, you'd want to avoid codifying things right off. Describe it, present it, make them see a picture in their mind. Don't just go "YOU-SEE-A-ZOMBIE. IT-IS-EATING-HUMAN-FLESH. THE-SMELL-IS-REVOLTING. YOU-ARE-SCARED." That won't work yo!

>>18675862
Will take a look at your suggestions, thanks a ton. I tried going the variety route, but I think I sprung too many too early. Setting was mid 60's on a mission to a cold war base that the US was getting weird sat images of. plane went down, sarge died to sick (zombie) wolves in intro, basic shit.

>>18675922
>>18675939
Fortunately I had that foresight, very shadowy descriptions, no direct conflict with stuff early on.
That was consistently more effective at frightening players than the shambling horde or bio-brute later on.

The 90s happened. The Nanny State came into full effect. Less and less parents would kids started to go outside and play due to various made-up/imaginary dangers.

Also LARPing has generally taken over that niche. Actually in my local area the Vampire LARPers are pretty well liked by the police. They tend to freak out and/or scare away the drug addicts and petty criminals.

>>18676010
haha okay that's cute.
Keep vampire LARPing and thinking you're badass.

>>18675939
Actually, the biggest problem is probably that they are hyperactive monkeys. It's almost like they forgot what the game was supposed to be between the time I talked to them about it and they finished their sheets.
Ooo, another example. Bro-tier dude makes sheet knowing super natural investigation in modern era and part of some sort of world wide demon worship conspiracy that they don't really understand. Dude has memory problems so I wasn't to surprised when he did this, but it spread to the other players as the LOLRANDOM flooded the rest of the sessions.

"Dr. Hitler" dressed in hood mask and cape with dish washing gloves hears the freezer door open in the other room and EVERY thinks that the npc is grabbing a gun from the freezer. He jumps out the forth story window and barely survives. Fights the paramedics who sedate him and never comes back to the table.

Not one part of that reads supernatural or investigation to me.

>>18675964
Yeah, it turns into survival horror, and as RE4 showed us, that soon turns into action where the zombies are nothing more than a nuisance. If it works, go for it; hell, I play RE4 once a year, and I'm still getting little bits of inspiration for more action-centric horror games.

Remember the inexplicable. While the explanation of something can be horrifying, always keep some aspects unclear so as to keep that element of mystery.

Well, my clock is chiming midnight, so I'll lurk here for a while longer, see if anyone wants any more advice, and then head to bed. I should get around to organizing some of my older stories, just to post a few of 'em up at some point. Still have a Call of Cthulhu game I haven't talked about, but I'm too damn tired to properly do it justice.

On that note, mechanical clocks make great background. Thank Satan keeping a clock running is part of my familial folklore, so I get to use it to put my players on edge.

>>18676010
>complains about "Nanny state"
>V-LARPs

Okay dude.

>"Dr. Hitler" dressed in hood mask and cape with dish washing gloves hears the freezer door open in the other room
>thinks that the npc is grabbing a gun from the freezer
jumps out the fourth story window and barely survives.
>Fights the paramedics who sedate him and never comes back to the table.

Clearly you terrified him in character and out of character to the point where he NOPE'd the fuck out.

>>18676108
I wish... they were standing in friendly space and this was only his second session in the game. Previously all he had seen was a coyote on the street and a dead man try to walk. This dude wouldn't be scared by that shit in games.

>>18676047

Oh I have never LARPed myself. I am not quite that ridiculous. It would go against all my attempts to hide my powerlevel. Also those guys really are creepy.

>>18676071
>Remember the inexplicable. While the explanation of something can be horrifying, always keep some aspects unclear so as to keep that element of mystery.

That's gold, that is. And we'd love to hear your stories again soo, Awake. As long as they don't end up inflicting SAN damage on you/us/world.

>>18674394

Do you actually want this?

>>18676194
Fine. Let them come. We will try to be hospitable to the guests.

>>18676194
Absolutely yes thank you please
>>mfw this happens

>>18676150
LARPing can be quite fun. You just need to find good people to play with. I'm involved with a couple of 'em, and they've been fairly good so long as people are in-character and work on their garb well. You'll deal with the creepy anti-social types, but you get that at pretty much every variety of gamer gathering place.

(Side note; the train that passes by my house just rolled by, screeching and wailing in the night. Appropriate.)

Horror LARPs are quite fun. I've mainly done the murder mystery types, although it helps to have a tall goth chick wearing a skimpy French maid outfit to distract players while you set things up.

>>18676160
I'll post some up when I have proper writing time, as I've got a couple stories in reserve these days. One of my gaming buddies is quite interested in JAGS Wonderland, which should provide some interesting material.

>>18676251

>Stories
>JAGS Wonderland
Fuck Yeah!!!

>>18676227
>>18676226

I might just do it then.

>>18676281
Only issue would be random trash coming in and being all "lol I shit on the floor in the library and sneak into the archives while they clean it up" and bullshit like that. It wouldn't be hard to ignore them though.

>You'll deal with the creepy anti-social types, but you get that at pretty much every variety of gamer gathering place.

That is an understatement. Last DnD game I went to a middle age man brought his underage "friend". They played brother and loli-sister incest duo.

>>18676329
>>Brother and loli...
No stop there I'm NOPEing the fuck out, where's that 4th story window?

>>18676353
Look for an old man named Marvin in a gray duster. If you are in a city that has had a rash of human mutilation involving eyes you may be getting closer.

>>18676329
I've been asked for logs of descriptions of extreme mutilation and body horror by one of my players. Because it was her fetish. I was told this in the most casual tone of voice ever.

I ran a convention game where the players didn't get the point of horror, and tried to run around being heroes and playing against the system, despite advertising it as a serious horror game. One of my players had clearly just been dropped there for the afternoon by parents who did not care. I was later ambushed by a three hundred pound man in some sort of fanciful rainbow getup and hugged, because he was giving out 'free hugs' and did not understand the concept of personal space.

I have seen water burn. I have seen galaxies die. I have seen the clockwork heart of the universe, beating its irregular beat and chiming the flaws, the gears grinding men to paste and rending their minds in twain.

None of that beats some of the antisocial creepy motherfuckers I have seen in this hobby.

>small town horror thread
>Ctrl + F "Higurashi"
>0 results

>>18676443
I can never shake the thought of how cool the whole hobby could be if it didn't attract so many obviously broken people.

rollin

>>18676497

There definitely needs to be a lot more calling people out on that kind of shit in the hobby. Guess what isn't going to engender feelings of good will and relationships - acting like a total creeper! C'mon now, people.

>>18676645
Yeah, it's gotten to the place that it's just the norm, and you're the odd one out for calling them on it.
Fortunately that's not such an issue with my group of friends, but at my local games shop it's fucking rampant.

>>18676194

YES, OR WE THROW YOU IN THE WOODS!

>>18676695
Yeah, it's pretty difficult to watch at points. Socially-respectable gamers can be great people, but when they treat their hobby as the end-all of existence and believe that social skills aren't necessary for life.

Thanks for listening, folks; I'll be back at some point for more horror stories and tips for running good horror games.

>>18676757

I shall await thee!

>>18673080
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/14309619/
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/14394648/

Someone archived this right?

>>18676251
>(Side note; the train that passes by my house just rolled by, screeching and wailing in the night. Appropriate.)

This just made me realize something. Sometimes, when I can't sleep, I go for walks around the neighborhood in the middle of the night. On those occasions, I often hear the sound of a train going by somewhere off in the distance, but as far as I know, there aren't any train tracks near my house.

>>18676846
I just read through these again for the first time in a long time and realized something odd. For some reason when I was young someone gave me materials and instructions on how to make a dream catcher. I don't know why I did it a the time. It may have been a stupid project back when I was in the cub scouts. The oddest thing about it is that ever since that day I put it up in my room I just have less dreams now. Less nightmares, less dreams all together.

I remember once bringing it down for a week and during that week I had some of the worst nightmares of my life. I think I want to bring it down again and see if I can scare myself senseless for a few nights in a row for some good drawing material.

>>18677367
I used to live in the middle of shitfuck nowhere. To give you an idea of how little there was to do (i left when I was 18) I would walk for about two hours to get to the train tracks and then walk along them for about three hours before turning back. It was actually pretty awesome fun, one time when I was 15 I found a bunch of bones and made a 'necromancer staff' rand around pretending to be a wizard all day long. Anyway, im rambling, my point is, at night I could hear that train like it was outside my window, even if I had gone on one of my midnight excursions to the nearby mountain (some freaky shit there I can tell you). The noise would carry for miles.

>>18678376
Also, in response to OPs question, I used to play outside all the time, I had wood and forests as a play ground and it was full of awesome. There were rivers, there were hidden groves and valleys full of wild goats and cows (rural area, fences break, animals get out and breed), there were angy Bogans (I once got chased by a dud on a tractor, would probably have run me over if I hadnt stampeded his cows at him and jumped a fence, there was even, I shit you not, a huge bog that would suck you down like quicksand, navigatable only by walking on fallen tree trunks and branches, in the middle of which was an abandoned (so I thought) shack, but thats another story. I didnt have any friends and I hated most of my family so I was alone most of the time. The reason I figure no one plays outside anymore is because 1. most people live in urban areas that dont have cool places you can explore without getting knifed (that happens in the country but we have tougher skin so its okay) and 2. most people have the internet and computers so they are never really alone.

Never bothered. I lived in south texas and sitting around about of scrabbly thornbushes in 110F heat was not going to positively contribute to anything. This wasn't even West Texas style Wile E. Coyote canyons and shit, just never ending 5 foot high thorn plants.

>>18672944

Bah, I turned out a hiker. The generation isn't completely lost and I'm finally earning my neckbeard.

>>18672944

Britfag here. It's never not raining; the DM screen would get soaked.

Captcha was 'pappie pride'. Anyone need a slogan?

>>18673286

Oh Straya, never change ...