SCARING YOUR PLAYERS!

[Simon D. Aelsi]

Many RPGs scare their players... and they even might come to expect it.

Is this adviseable?  Do you even care?

In my game, there's a moment where a young woman (who becomes the main antagonist) is dead and has been for a while.

The player has to check on the body (for clues to progress) when the BGM fades.  Then the "shock!" ME plays as the body starts twitching. 

Then.... the scream. I made a custom scream that scares ME. That, combined with a scary face...  Then suddenly scary music...

Mind you, my RPG is NOT a horror game, it's an Adventure RPG game.  So... this may take the players by surprise!

There'd be no gore though, the sudden scream alone may be enough to scare the badonkodonks out of a player... *grins evily*

Anyway, your thoughts please!

Have you used a tactic to scare a player? (Even if only once)

 

[ThatMaestroGuy]

I've not used any tactics to scare anyone...but you had better leave that scare in there. Sounds awesome. =P

 

[Dalph]

Scary scenes\sounds are ok, as long as they fit well with the theme of the game.

What I personally hate are...scary pranks added in games that aren't supposed to be horror\prank games...the pranks just seem to be out of place and forced, plus they make me feel uncomfortable in some way.

But that's just my 2 cents.

 

[Simon D. Aelsi]

Scary scenes\sounds are ok, as long as they fit well with the theme of the game.

What I personally hate are...scary pranks added in games that aren't supposed to be horror\prank games...the pranks just seem to be out of place and forced, plus they make me feel uncomfortable in some way.

But that's just my 2 cents.

Noted!  Right, I wouldn't want to traumatize a player forever... D:

 

[Diretooth]

I personally like to use psychological horror to make players squirm. All it really takes is an idea and the ability to convey it effectively.

 

[Tonkatsu]

All it really takes is an idea and the ability to convey it effectively.

Exactly because even with the best will if you're not subtle, players will not be scared at all, this is all the work !

 

[TMS]

Since I've been trying to finish other projects, I still haven't started working on an RPG Maker game, but this is a question that comes up a lot when I write fiction. Some creepy stuff happens in my stories, but they aren't necessarily in the horror genre. I don't write with a view to horrify my readers, but it wouldn't surprise me (and would probably please me) if they find my stories scary. This is a philosophy that I intend to take with me into the creation of RPG Maker games. They won't be horror games per se, but there might be a number of things in them that players will find creepy. Anyone who's read through the Nightmare Fuel pages of TV Tropes will know that an audience can be frightened by things in even the most innocuous video games.

Not sure if that's on-topic or not. To answer the question from the first post, I would have no problem with scaring players in a game that isn't explicitly a horror game. As long as an incident doesn't seem completely at odds with the rest of the game, there's no reason not to include it.