Slowly Building Anticipation

With Halloween just days away, I thought I would share an idea I had as well as a few play experiences that helped create memorably scary moments. In all cases, I used a slow approaching method to help build suspense and anticipation before combat.

Slow Can Be Scary

When you have time to think about impending doom, that doom is scarier. Whether it’s the slow march of zombies, or a room filling with water, the more time you have to consider the outcome, the more time your heart has to race.

I wrote a description for a monster that I never ended up creating a stat block for, but it’s purpose was to play on this exact aspect – the building of anticipation. It was called the Ruin Worm for lack of a better name.

The Ruin Worm

Nasty...
Nasty...

To help aid in the suspense of the creature eventually finding the PC’s, I thought it would be good for them to hear rumors of it – including false rumors. Things such as…

1) It spews water, flooding rooms, drowning it’s victims

2) It has many tentacles that can reach many rooms at once

As far as the reality of the creature, there were to be a few indicators that the creature was getting close… these indicators increase in intensity as it gets closer, building on that anticipation.

Indicator 1 – The first thing players notice is that water begins flowing into the room they are in. It’s very shallow – just an inch or two.

Indicator 2 – After a round or two of water running into the room, they will begin to hear the padding of many footsteps and scratching of claws from down nearby hallways.

Indicator 3 – The room then fills with low level minion creatures… lots of them… they are easy to cut down, but there are a lot of them… those that hit PC’s latch on to hinder movement. They are relatively slow because they are a bit heavy, but each one that latches on reduces movement by 1 (for example). Getting them off is as simple as killing them but, again, there are many. Their purpose is to latch onto prey for their master (who is coming soon!)

Finally, the creature arrives – It is a large creature with a giant gaping mouth. It’s long (30′) and pulls itself through the halls with it’s 6 short (but powerful) arms near it’s mouth. It’s wide enough (and flabby enough) that it’s body blocks the passages it travels down (at a slow 3 speed). As it goes, it spews water (saliva) from it’s mouth which it’s body tends to push in front of it as it moves (hence the ‘water’ moving into rooms before it gets there).

To aid in the suspense, I thought it would be great to have the PC’s hear rumors of this creature before entering a dungeon/ruins, etc.

Darla

I also thought I would share an actual play experience related to the slow approach method.

Yea, kinda...
Yea, kinda...

Back in my 2nd Edition days, I ran a game for my younger brother. He was investigating the cabin of some old female hermit in the mountains, but she was gone at the time. As he was on the second floor, he heard a scream from outside. It was dark outside, but the cabin had torches lit at the front… just enough for him, when looking out the window, to see “Darla” emerge from the woods moving towards the cabin while looking up at him shrieking! She did not move fast – I described her as impossibly large human female, perhaps 800 pounds, “charging” into the cabin, followed by many small figures. He had some time, which caused a bit of a panic… first he tried to barricade the door, but that didn’t go well, so he fiddled with the small window, but had issues there. All the while, she was yelling as she came up the steps, and the pounding of her feet on the stairs shook the floor.

Eventually she burst into the room, shattering the door – her eyes glowing red she was followed closely by her “children”, about 10 kids with red eyes themselves… sharp, claw like hands. A fight ensued and he defeated them, but it was an epic encounter that found them bursting through walls as they fought, and even falling down a floor and fighting at the woods edge.

To this day, my brother says that was the scariest game he has ever played.

Trapped in the Inn

I ran another encounter similar to the Darla encounter above (inspired by, in fact) for a 4e game.

This guys head...
This guys head...

The players came to an abandoned town late at night, but there was a room at the Inn on the second floor with a candle lit – so they went in and up to investigate. In the room was a body, and a ghost! The ghost was kind enough, spoke to them for a few minutes, but stopped when there was a noise outside. The players looked out the window and saw scores of dark creatures rushing into the Inn via the doorway below them. They ran on all fours and had the heads of that guy in the Silent Hill movie… yea, the one pictured on the right. As they threw the bed against the door and positioned themselves, I described the clawing/scratching from downstairs – like dogs running on tile – those sounds echoed louder as they scurried up the stairs, and then louder as they approached the room the players were in.

A fight eventually ensued and they won, even with some of these creatures coming through the window behind them.

BUT WAIT!!!

What might have made the moment even scarier (looking at it now) would have been to have the skittering roar of claws come to a stop outside their door… followed by complete silence… I could have then let the players debate what to do next for a while… do we open the door? Do we wait it out? And then BOOM, I could have had the creatures burst through the window behind them (instead of coming in the door at all!).

Conclusion

Giving the players some time to think about what is coming, while using various indicators as reminders can really build anticipation. Throwing a monster at the players is fine, but it is what they expect, and once they are in combat mode, it can be difficult to build much suspense – they are fighting for their lives already. But before combat begins, they are faced with the unknown, which is creepy.

That’s not to say that you can’t build suspense or anticipation DURING combat – I feel I have been able to do that before as well, but rather that this is just one approach!

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Categorized as RPG

3 comments

  1. Hehehe – I’m not familiar with Silent Hill really – never played the game. When we saw the movie, I thought… I’m not going to be into this I’m sure (and I wasn’t) BUT when I saw him I was thinking… WTFAWESOME!

    Had to use him – or at least, use that as inspiration in this case, hehe.

  2. Great stuff. Creating tension through anticipation is an excellent technique that I have not used enough myself. I’ll definitely keep these examples in mind as I think about trying to build a little fear into my next adventure (and that’s something I think about all the time. . . ).

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