Firstly I'd like to say I'm sorry if I'm not in the right section, and I hope I won't anger anyone if I am.
I've been planning a Pathfinder game for awhile now. Originally the game was going to feature a lot of political intrigue, war between nations, secret societies pulling the strings from the shadows, and even more secret societies pulling the strings of the secret societies. Unfortunately a sudden job change left me without the majority of my players and where I live finding gaming interested people is hard.
With only two players left I looked on how I could run an appropriately fun and exciting game. Finally on the drive home from work one particularly foggy morning I came upon it. Make it a scary story/survival horror type of game. I could keep the world I spent months developing but I could make the players much smaller in it, a "side-quest" if you will to the bigger happenings in the world at large.
The basic premise is that the players are members of a mercenary organization that is employed by one of the two major war powers. Contracted to take a trading settlement in the high mountains the organization sent a large force to clear out the town and safe guard it for the armies of their employer. When the game starts it has been two weeks since that force was sent out, and the organization is too hard pressed to send more than a few people, so they send two recruits to conduct a search and try to find the missing mercenary army.
The town, called Raven's Crown, as I said before is in the high mountains and it's winter. Snow and low laying clouds block the player's vision, and the wet and cold threaten their health. The town itself seems to be empty, but the players (with a good check) should see faded blood splatters on walls and such.
That's the set-up. The game (if it takes off) has to deal with a society who is attempting to bring the Goddess Lamastu into the material world and bind her to a human host. The town and the surrounding area are linked to the rituals needed to do this and as Lamastu is the goddess of madness and chaos her powers are playing havoc with the world around the site of the ritual.
That's all I got, it's pretty basic and I want to improve it so I can present an excellent game. However in it's current state it sounds a bit too much like a certain survival horror video game. So this is why I have come to all. Please help the newbish GM.
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I'm not sure exactly what your looking for here, so I'll just give some advice about different things.
For horror, you need to know what type of horror you want, monster movie, freak show, personal horror (what kind of monster have I become from fighting monsters), or as you said you don't want (I think), survival horror. There are more, I'm just giving examples. Fortunatly, 3 of my 4 favorate D&D books are perfect for this.
"Heroes of Horror" gives a lot of mechanics and tips for horror games, long term and short. Phenominal book and comparitevly cheap for WotC books. A few things of note are mechanics for corruption and insanity, the more EVIL you interact with and understand, the more you risk losing yourself, or stepping down the darker paths. Especially if you ignor the alignment focus they put on it, it allows for "dark" heroes and shows the risk of fighting true evil. It also has a template creature that would work perfectly for your deity in human form (not the mother that the PD's think, the fully intelegent baby inside of her . . .).
"Libris Mortis" is probably the best of (and shortest [sad face]), or the moster type books, and can give a lot of helpful tips and hooks, some nice NPC's for both antagonists and nongood informants. The Mother Cyst feat/spells can also work nicely for an undead plague, or the threat of one. "Lords of Madness", a similar book on aberrations might help, but I felt that it was a little to forced and the Cthuhluness could have been much better as a horror, necromancy, or undead thing than aberrations: because they have tenticles.
The last book, Expedition to Castle Ravenloft is superb. As a new storyteller (DM), it is a full adventure that is all about classic, epic horror. Just do a wikipedia search on Count Strahd, Castle Ravenloft, or Barovia for more info. (I don't want to spoil anything). But even if you do not use the adventure itself, so much of it can be used as individual encounters, side plots, or you can take the entire story and boil it down to a short one shot with little problem.
As for what you have said, it sound good to me. A game I would want to play in. But some tips for horror, above and beyond general DM advice.
Know the difference between trying to scare the players and trying to scare the characters. The characters need some player by in, that is to say that the players need to understand that their characters need to act scarred.
It is usually hard to try to scare the players, because so many little things can destroy the mood, like one joke, or what your trying to do just doesn't affect them personally. I wouldn't try it until your comfortable with them and the game. I mean things like turning the lights down, playing scary music in the background, and changing you voice.
In horror games, don't let the players speak about mechanics, at all. Don't tell them what conditions they are in, (panicked, stunned, cursed, etc. . .). Describe it, but don't tell them exact penulties
Let them know periodically that some superstitions are real (even if not). Gypsy curses, certain herbs being bad luck, or a "sacred" place haunted by the fey, true or not, reenforce that most people absolutely believe these things (from all walks of life), and don't be affraid to let the PC disprove something only to have it turn out true later on (weeks later).
Keep the mystery thick. People don't know what is past the mountains, but they believe that they are monsters. In the real world, many tribal societies, like in South America believe that the next village over is a little weird, but the village after that are some sort of dog-people, similar to werewolves, cursed to be monsterous (but not evil) and wise people avoid them.
Use that and similar ideas. People do not travel, do not like outsiders (for them for good reasons), and do not know just how bad (or not) life outside of their view really is.
In game, remember lighting. The ability to not see past a few squares makes the players feel like they need to stay on their toes and wonder/fear what is out there. Keep letting the "hear" strange noises, like slithering, slurping, ghostly moans, or skeletal remains being shuffled through. But don't let them see it (that is tell them what they hear don't say they see it, if they look, they may see it).
Roll random dice (d20) for no reason at all, but just look at a player with a small smirk like every half hour. Let them stew in what it may mean. Sometimes change it up, whispering "damn" or "woooh, that was close", just loud enough for them to hear, even though it means nothing.
For no actual game reason (itl's not a spell, curse, or vision), tell a player about their dream, or more likely their nightmare every few game sessions. Not every night, just randomly. Feel free to make it weird, and make sure to tell them less what they do but what they feel and sense.
Sometimes you just have to ditch the rules to make a [horror] story work. But you need to let the players know this before hand, and they need to understand they they need to trust you [DM] in this. You are not trying to pick on them, rob them of gear or class abilities, or screw them over, but trying to do something that may not normally work. A good example is Illusions, which lose so much of their coolness because they are defined. Let an illusion do a little more than what the spell allows for. At the same let some class features go a bit beyond what they normally do, such as a cleric throwing a lot of channel positive energies around ina boss fight against zombie hordes might actually turn the site into a hallowed location (as the spell), making creating undead there difficult or impossible or having some minor effect like all good creatures get a bless spell while there. Let such a player start their own saintly legend. Something that's true reward is not a mechanical benefit.
Lastly, because this is so long, use real world prophecy and dark omens. Look at the Bible, Daniel and Revelations particularly, and import some of the lines (with a little modification). Another good sorce is White Wolf's Book of Nod, if you can find it.
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If you have Rise of the Runelords, it has some great horror elements in it:
The Skinsaw Murders has great ideas if you want the Haunted House sort of horror. Scary setting, intruders witnessing strange scenes that go under your skin...
The Hook Mountain Massacre has a very different sort of horror. It's the "depths of the mind's depravity" sort of horror. Brutal, shocking, making the characters fight all the harder when they see that if they fail, the best thing to happen to them is dying during the fight.
And Spires of Xin-Shalast has an episode of a haunted location up in the mountains, showing what greed and deprivation can drive you to.
The bugbears from Classic Monsters Revisited are also deliciously monstrous. Especially against lower-level characters, they can become real nightmares.
Beyond that, some general advice:
Wow! Thanks Beckett and Wesker, that's some really great information. Beckett, survival horror isn't so much an issue as it is that I'm trying not to copy video games like Eternal Darkness and Silent Hill - one of my players is a HUGE Silent Hill fan.
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Some very good stuff here.
A few other things to consider:
While in most horror campaigns it is very hard to trust people (NPC's) give them a few that they can, and after making those people real over the course of time (they actually help the party, share the parties fears, losses, etc), kill them. Not all of them, just a few, you don’t want to make it a predicable routine.
A good tv show example of NPC bonding-
Think Peter Watts to Frank Black in Millennium. Even at the end when their friendship sours and Frank thinks that Peter was part of the conspiracy he still died trying to protect Frank and his family (not sure if you are familiarly with the series).
With the example you described it does have a very detached horror video game feel (Silent Hill/res evil). Where are all the people? What I mean by that is where are all the people important to the characters? What are they fighting for? The power of darkness and night can only be emphasized by the daylight. Villages, community, friends. Unless you want to run a grind/killzone type of mod where characters cut through a variety of undead you need to establish a connection, normality....the slowly sever it. Or fade in and out, every night has its following dawn. If you plan on running a serial horror campaign the mundane, humorous or non-horror situations, and even RL seeming complications make for a good break in all the darkness.
Avoid Horror Fatigue. Give the PC's their victories, even if they are small ones. You can't win every fight, but sometimes even failed efforts can minimize the damage some fiend can commit and the characters can still save lives. Also don't overdo the shock/gruesome aspect. Having the characters just hiking up a foggy mountain trail at night while talking to each other sets up more fear than an actual ghoul clawing at them in combat.
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One more thing to consider, especially if you and your players are horror movie fans more than horror literature fans. Find some appropriately creepy music and play it really low through the game ... increasing volume as needed for the situation. I'm not the biggest fan of potential distractions, but I did run a horror based home brew a few years ago and the music helped out with the creepiness factor.
I'm not the biggest fan of potential distractions
I always play music during the game. It's no distraction. In fact, it helps set the mood. It is conductive to a good game.
Of course, you need the right kind of music. Nothing with vocals. Atmosphere music. If you're into computer games, raid the sounds folders of your favourite games, they often have good stuff, and nowadays, it's often directly in .ogg or .mp3 format. In some cases, you might have to extract the stuff from the archives (unless you find the stuff already extracted on the net as a download).
One good example is Heroes of Might and Magic V. The tunes are just lying there, in .ogg format, and are even named appropriately (the town, battle, siege and campaign tracks are great).
Beyond that, movie sound tracks are always great to raid for music.
HOMM4 has great music too.
Another recommendation for Foxglove Manor from Pathfinder #2 The Skinsaw Murders for a horror setpiece. We ran that two Halloweens ago and the entire group had an absolute blast. It's creepy and there are layers and layers of potential horror to peel through if the PCs investigate the whole place. My group was jumping at the slightest little thing, and I wasn't even playing up the atmosphere (no mood music, lights were normal, all dice rolls were clearly visible, etc).
Count me as another who uses music. Though I'm more likely to run more contemporary horror than fantasy, I've been known to incorporate horror into an occasional fantasy game. I usually use suspense and thrills to increase the horror ... I find it more fun that way ;)
One of my tactics in horror games is to give the party a good mix of PCs and NPCs, then starts killing NPCs off early.
There are a couple good psionic powers that might be worth duplicating for killing the NPCs (even if you don't usually use psionics). One traps the target in a cocoon of its own skin (also good for players who aren't there that day, gives you something to do with the PC), the other causes the target to commit suicide.
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I still don't think Music or Dim Lights should be used by a new GM. It makes running a game your not to confident in a little harder by adding more potential trouble. However, if you do want too, I'd suggest nearly anything by Midnight Syndecate, The Daredevil Score, The Crow Score, and maybe the Dracula Soundtrack (Bram Stocker's).
Personally wasn't as much a fan of Nox Arcana. I only have one albume, but there was a lot of sound effects with the ambient music that would be way to distracting. Wasn't that it was bad, mind you, just that it wasn't very good for what I wanted it for.
All great ideas guys and thanks for them as well. I once (Attempted) to run Expedition to Ravenloft and found that some of my players enjoyed the Midnight Syndicate music I played. So far I'm still mapping out the town itself but some updates I have to share are:
There are two groups of "survivors" in the town, the first is holed up in one of the town's inns and is lead/protected by two mercenaries from the large force the PCs are sent to find. The other is in the local temple to the sun goddess Sarenrae and is protected by the divine protections that temple naturally has and the head priestess.
The head priestess, Rabath, is not actually Rabath but a polymorphed priestess of Lashmashtu named Lemika who is slowly corrupting the divine protections from the inside through human sacrifice. This of course is unknown to the player and Lemika as Rabath is planned to be played as the stern, yet caring matron. She'll even request for the PCs to find supplies, help in their quests, and even ask them to find the missing people (those she sacrificed) from time to time claiming that not even the goddess of light's protection can completely break through the evil that surrounds the area. Of course these are all ruses to attempt to kill the PCs off
(Stolen from 4e Forgotten Realms Crimson Dust/Road drug) The players will also have to contend with wandering "Black Eyes" men and women addicted to a drug that allows them to see past the veil of reality but drives them slowly insane. It is possible for the PCs to come into contact with this as the "Black eyes" are compelled to bring others into their view of reality.
Already got the players to agree to a "fog" that limits their view in some situations to 2 or 3 squares(10-15 feet) and plan on using a lot of quick hit and run one shot flatfooted/touch attacks.
I'm currently running Ravenloft in PF. The above suggestions are so excellent I have very little to add. I would suggest potentially using the variant rules on Sanity (available in the SRD but appearing in Unearthed Arcana if you've got it). My players are downright paranoid about losing Sanity, because it's much harder to cure.
Also, make optimal use of environment rules; chipping down PCs' resistance through cold, exhaustion, etc. is great for making them feel unprepared, and uncertainty leads to fear.
One of my tactics in horror games is to give the party a good mix of PCs and NPCs, then starts killing NPCs off early.
There are a couple good psionic powers that might be worth duplicating for killing the NPCs (even if you don't usually use psionics). One traps the target in a cocoon of its own skin (also good for players who aren't there that day, gives you something to do with the PC), the other causes the target to commit suicide.
Totally inspired! I never thought of using Psionics for horror effects, but you're right. A lot of the power effects are very creepy. That suicide thing is soooo Freddy Krueger. I believe it's "Death Urge" you're talking about.
Ooo! Decerebrate would make a great MO for a serial killer!