So you and your weird friends are about to sit down, eat some pizza, shuffle some papers, roll some dice, and get deep into the bowels of an unexplored and monster-filled dungeon, on the site of the ruined tower of a historic evil arch-mage.
I'm sure you notice the disparity there. While you are all comfortable leaning over the coffee table looking at your character sheets and sitting on a comfy couch, your alter-egos are slogging through the feces of years of orc travel, seeking a few gold pieces and a magic sword or two. Quite simply, you aren't going to be able to instill fear into your players hearts...or are you?
Setting the mood in a movie or play involves a lot of tricks, and many of those are applicable to a role-playing environment. Lighting, sound, dialog and movement are your keys to lock the attention of your players into your RPG world, and none of this needs to be complex in order to accomplish a bare level of what you seek.
First, are you well lit? In a dungeon? No, you can't be. Certainly you need enough light to be able to see the numbers on the dice, and to read and write on the character sheets, but not much more. In fact, when you are playing with the lighting you might even do things like not let people see the map unless the lights are turned all the way off and they just have a candle to read by (then take away the map before the electric lights come back on). One of the greatest ways to accomplish this is to use some of the remote-controlled lights and home automation tools available nowadays. Hiding behind your DMs screen, a slow drop in the lights via a remote-controlled dimmer switch can subtly shift the mood without expectation. An immediate turn-off of the lights timed with a sound effect at the right moment can put them into an immediate fear for their character's safety. The use of candles for lighting (perhaps one in front of each player, to simulate their torches, replaced with a flashlight for those with magic ability) can help give a real "trudging through the dungeon" feel.
When your lighting is in place and likely to make them feel more in-character, playing with sounds can put them into shock. Just the drip-drip-drip of water can create anticipation and shivers, as they start to wonder if it's water dripping or the footsteps of something coming up from behind them. Punctuated by distant screams, the players will definitely start to worry about what they are getting into. If you've got a laptop with speakers, there are numerous sound effects CDs available for sale on the internet to accomplish this, or you can purchase programs specifically for playing such sound effects. There should always be some level of noise going on, except when there is intentional silence. The lack of sound is one of the most important tools you can have...when all the other sounds stop, your players will stop and wonder what's about to happen. Don't abuse this tool though. It should be reserved for the really horrible events about to occur. Watch a movie that has a really good soundtrack that's appropriate to the scenario you are running. The Lord of the Rings movies by Peter Jackson won awards for their sound, and there is a good reason. Ignore, for the moment the actual songs in the movie and pay attention to the bursts of audio and moments of silence. This is what you want to achieve.
Dialog can be extremely important in setting the mood of conversations and confrontations, but you don't have to be a master of impersonation to accomplish this. When the players are interrogating a gnoll, imagine what his speak sounds like with a mouthful of teeth and a snout with a long floppy tongue. He's going to slur and spit and any hard 'g' sounds will be following with an 'rrr'. "I will g(rrr)ive you nosthing, do-g(rrr)ooders!", says that gnoll. Simple. You don't have to be consistent or complete to get your point across.
If the gnoll in the above example is waving his arms about as he speaks, don't say that he's waving his arms about as he speaks...wave your arms about! If someone the players are watching is skulking as he creeps along a wall, hunch your shoulders and speak in hushed tones, moving your head up and down in the rhythm of that creeping skulker's walk. You'll get a lot across that otherwise is unexplainable.
This all may sounds complicated, but really it's not. Begin with one aspect (movement and dialog is easiest) and see how appreciated and effective they are. It won't be long before a simple forgettable game session becomes something your players tell stories about years later. Have fun!
Greg Webster is a long-time gamer, having played in numerous games since the early 1980s, and gamemastering numerous others. He also in very involved in online forums and other places online where the interaction between people needs a careful eye and occasionally a quick blade. He writes more on these and related subjects, including information and examples of all of these things on his blog, available at http://d20bg.superhappyfuntime.com/
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