Tips on making your horror game genuinely scary.
Put in a ghoul.
Remember to utilize fundamental human fears, like the fear there might be a ghoul around. Put in a second ghoul.
Undermine the player's sense of safety by introducing something dangerous to areas previously considered safe, such as a third ghoul (in a ghoul-proof room or the like).
Draw on modern social anxieties, such as political radicalization or global warming. You can easily personify these things as, say, a fourth ghoul.
Create a sense of unease by...fuck it, that sounds hard, fifth ghoul.
Sixth ghoul, just in case the first five aren't scary enough.
Create disturbing imagery like a seventh, eighth and ninth ghoul.
Something something sense of powerlessness something something the uncanny something something. Tenth ghoul.
Remember to study the horror greats - King, Poe, Lovecraft. What did they all have in common? All wrote about ghouls probably. Imitate them and put in an eleventh ghoul.
Well, if you have eleven ghouls already, you might as well spring for a full dozen ghouls. That's just good business sense.
Thirteen is the spookiest number! Obviously a thirteenth ghoul would be the scariest thing! Your players will be talking about this for months!
Ok, fine, I guess you could put in a werewolf or shoggoth or something. Just don't blame me when the players are saying "hmm, that was pretty scary, but you know what would have been really terrifying? A fourteenth ghoul!"
Make the game room fit the tone of your game by having sinister music, low lighting and a fifteenth ghoul under the table who will eat anyone who complains about the number of ghouls in the campaign. That'll spook 'em!
Happy spooking and always remember the three rules of horror: ghouls. Ghouls! GHOULS!!!!
