[FastJack]

And, in many cases, you're not even "killing" them, just shunting them off the Physical Plane back to wherever they came from...

[Kot]

In the 'physical minor Horror' case, you are killing them. But wait! 'Derez moar' where they came from.

[Fizzygoo]

>Stolen Ph.D. research paper by Paul Simmonet on an MIT&T research project funded by an Ares Firewatch grant in 2068.

"Aetherial cohesion is the level, the complexity, of a spirit's cognitive historical experiences as expressed over multiple summonings especially after banishment rituals and other more violent paths of disrupting the physical manifestation of the spirit. Aetherial cohesion is directly proportional to the quantity of mana channeled by the summoner. For the case of free form manifesting astral entities the cohesion must be dependent, though exactly how is still unclear, upon the background level of mana in the geophysical region from which it emerged.

"Darwaller, et. al., proposed that in order to gauge the background mana levels of a region one could summon two identically draining spirits; one from outside the region and one from within, and then test them with the Spengler & Dee Spiritual Aptitude Test in order to determine if spirits summoned within the region score higher than those from without. (The authors of this paper acknowledge that A ) the need for "two identically draining spirits" has not been verified to within +/- 41.4% and that verifying that the summoner used equal mana between both summonings to within even the enormous error range for two spirits, one of which summoned within a known high background count region, is beyond our current ability to accurately measure and B ) The SDSAT is not without its critics.)

"Our tests have shown that, over the course of 424 summoning tests, that in every case those spirits summoned within a high background region have scored higher on the SDSAT by an average of 32.8% than their "twin" summoned in non-background regions. Even ally spirits and watchers, when called, scored higher when summoned from the high background regions."

"Our Data.
[38.1 MB Deleted]

"In conclusion, with recent measurements indicating that there is a global increase in the natural mana levels, not to mention the spike seen during the return of Halley's Comet, we expect to see an increased aetherial cohesion among summoned spirits, especially those "born" freely from the environment and that summoning spirits will become easier and less taxing on the summoner. In addition, with the tests done from Renolds, Chou, et. al., that with rising mana levels more and more spirits will be able to manifest on our plane without the need for a summoner, including spirits from the metaplanes, our data shows, when matched against Renolds, Chou, et. al., that spirits in 10 years time will, on average, have nearly three times the aetherial cohesion and mental aptitude as the spirits summoned today. Our greatest concern is that this will include astral and metaplanar entities that are hostile towards metahumanity."

OpusMe1

[Dead Monky]

It's pretty accurate, Fizzy.  Horrors in a Shadowrun game is a spiral down to madness and corruption, as they ARE coming and nothing can stop that.  NOTHING.  They are the nightmare given flesh and teeth and bone and they will devour your soul and make what remains into their plaything.

In Earthdawn, the mana cycle has already peaked.  That means that any Horrors out there are a dwindling population; no more spontaneous incursions.  Fighting a Horror becomes more Classically Heroic ^(TM) then, because there is an end to the nightmare, an end to the tunnel.  Killing this one helps the world as a whole, even if there are still many more out there.

In other words, it turns ShadowRun into Call of Cthulhu.

[thalandar]

If you look at some of the classic "horror" movies (Alien comes to mind), the horror comes from the unknown.

Isolate the characters.  Contacts become unreachable.  The NPC's around shy away, shop owners close up shop.  Bartenders seem nervous when serving them.  DON"T TELL THEM WHY.  Vehicles breakdown, cause unknown, on a deserted block of the Redmound Barrens.

In classic horror movies, they hunt down the main characters one at a time, seperating them from the group.  Now, in my games, the PCs are smart, and try to stick together.  SHOW NO MERCY.  Kill off contacts, it has a similiar effect.  Have commlinks become mysteiously jammed.

Have the players make random preception checks for no reason.  Say things like "the alley APPEARS to be empty".   Don't give them "knowns" to deal with, give them "unknowns".  Don't say "you hear footsteps behind you", say "you hear a slithering shuffle behind you".

Its all about setting mood.  Play eiry music, keep the lights low.  Have the NPC's talk in whispers.

[The Cat]

I find recognizing your usual narrative style and then, for no readily apparent reason, changing it in a scene scares the pants off most players.  If you're usually a GM who gives verbose, detailed descriptions of places, suddenly give them the bare minimum information.  If your NPCs are usually "guy in a bar" descriptions, describe some in excruciating detail.  If you use maps with lots of detail, give them one that is lacking or map out locations that really have little to do with the primary plotline in high detail and give them those.  Mix the narrative styles in the same game night, in the same scene.

Alter the emphasis you put on words.  They make a perception check say, "YOU see nothing."  Be intentionally vague on useless checks (again, perception check for no reason that passes or fails, "you didn't really see anything, but there was this buzzing sound..."  Emphasize words that make no sense to emphasize in descriptions and NPC dialogue.

If you want to be really subtle, record a game session or two and listen to things you say over and over especially in descriptions, then note them and absolutely refuse to say those things.  Take other words and phrases you use a lot and make a list of them, changing them to different words with the same meaning.  Your players usually won't notice the change overtly, but they will pick it up subconsciously and get a little nervous without knowing why.

On the down side, if you do it right, you may end up with rampant paranoia and the scene that never ends as they get so paralyzed they don't move on for a while.

[Nomad Zophiel]

I knew a GM who used to do that sort of thing in reverse, lulling players into a false sense of security then springing a trap. Two examples:

Every now and then when describing the outside he'd say "a drone flies overhead." Most of the time they were innocent but it provided great camouflage for the one time the bad guys sent a scout drone.
Lesson: Repitition of the familiar breeds apathy. Drones, squatters and internal audit programs all show up regularly.

Another great one involved terrorists threatening to release a canister of engineered ebola in a crowded corp meeting unless their demands were met. Straight up adventure, right? Then we got to thinking. If they've got one can of the stuff they've had plenty of time to make more. For that matter, if they could steal a sample culture from a corp biowar department they must have a decent support network. Before we were even in the building, one can had become a huge network with the potential to do things much worse than the situation we were called in for.
Lesson: Leave some clues to make your players and their characters wonder how the bad guys got to the position they're in. Playing off of their speculations can be fun.

[savaze]

If you're looking for play-style changes...

Ever tried having NPC's fight the players as hard as the players fight them.  I had a player who liked to do called eye shots with precision weapons and another who liked to shoot off the NPC's strong-side arm with shotguns and other big round weapons.  I turned that around on the players a few times with a huge change to play-style. 

Ever try increasing realism or physics on players?  Mortality and pocket book always seemed to work rapidly for me.

If you're looking for creep out session/s...

Try something on the edge of everyone's ethics/moral system.

Move into the realm of the great unknown, which can be hard if you have a lot of rules lawyers.  I always started putting those types pf players out of their comfort zones by creating a new environment that doesn't operate according to the standard rules (like a closed matrix node owned by a strange party with different rules - possibly started for some kind of specialized training that turned into some strange game or torture/breaking method) or a different dimension (where gravity is different) or put them in a dreamworld (e.g. Inception). 

Lastly put them in a situation where none of the players have the skill set that they need, and they didn't know they'd be needing those skills in advance, like deep water or high altitude (e.g. in a submarine 10,000 leagues under the sea).  That might fall into the fear for mortality realm.

[James McMurray]

It really depends on the players as to what will scare them. For some, the psychological horrors mentioned in this thread are great. But if your players are more focused on the numbers, then only numbers will scare them.

Step 1: give them a run where they end up fighting a foe at the end: cyberzombie, high magic adept, whatever Make it a really tough fight, with at least one runner going down (but not necessarily dying). The runners should win, but just barely.

Step 2: give them a few normal runs.

Step 3: give them a run that starts off with them realizing that there are 5+ foes of the same type as at the end of run 1. If X almost killed us, 5X is scary as hell.

[Rockopolis]

Reveal that behind the Johnson, they have, in fact, just dealt with a dragon.
I'm going to want to keep an eye on this thread.

[CanRay]

I did it with a Dump Truck at a Con Demo.

Two players kept arguing about using the stolen pimped-out SUV while the dump truck came closer to wrecking the facility they were hired to protect.

The rest of the group were freaking out as I explained just how much closer, and faster, this huge engine of destruction was going.  AFTER the engine had been taken out.  (It had been on the top of a hill, and I had the guy driving it in AR just drop it into Neutral.).

Closer.  And closer.  Almost there now.

[Charybdis]

I did it with a Dump Truck at a Con Demo.

Two players kept arguing about using the stolen pimped-out SUV while the dump truck came closer to wrecking the facility they were hired to protect.

The rest of the group were freaking out as I explained just how much closer, and faster, this huge engine of destruction was going.  AFTER the engine had been taken out.  (It had been on the top of a hill, and I had the guy driving it in AR just drop it into Neutral.).

Closer.  And closer.  Almost there now.

Heh....all depends on whether there are any proper vehicle barriers in place 

Note: The above link is a remotely-driven vehicle collision test. No drivers were harmed in the making of this video...However, one truck was moved to FUBAR status....

[CanRay]

They had a chain link fence, a small shack that the minimum wage security guards hung out in (And had been leveled by 40mm launched grenades), a series of trailers where the workers slept (And had barred the door after seeing the scary Shadowrunners), and a building that was mostly supports and some exterior walls, and the rest was construction plastic.

Oh, and some garbage bins filled with splintery, low-grade, vat-grown softwood.

And a Pimp's SUV, with the passenger's side looking like the back of the sedan in "Pulp Fiction" after John Travolta failed gun safety forever.

[Exodus]

I did a simple run that ended up freaking out the players, maybe because it was after doing a variation of Bottle Demon. Basic idea was to enter an abandoned building and either recover a lost individual or proof of death in the form of a small item (in this case one of those implanted child locator RFID chips). Photographic ID was provided and detailed richly, including the clothes and a small figurine the child was carrying. After some perception rolls with noncommittal responses "you think you heard X, could be the wind" etc. I had the players roll magic+essence for little reason.

Some investigation/meaningless monster combat later the PCs are drawn toward the closing door ahead of them, figuring the Principal was running from them they followed and found the small figurine. One of them picked it up wasn't expecting this so I figured I'd ad-lib a bit. This player took the figurine with them. As they left the room the door shut again and inside was the small figurine. "I already picked it up man" "You did?" "Yeah" "But your pocket is empty"  . Mr. Gullible went to pick it up again when the mage stopped him and decided to assense it. More ad-lib later and I'd described this ghostly thingy here

in glorious detail attached to the aura of Mr. Gullible and struggling to break free, however other than seeing it I gave no more info. Of course, I'd already decided that it wouldn't actually do much so after being surrounded by a small army of summoned spirits (2 full mages in full oh-crap mode) I figured it would break loose before getting combo-zapped into nothingness by everything with a speck of magic.

Normally that's where it would've ended, a little side thing to add flavor to what was a desperate hail-Mary idea for a run. However I figured I'd add some extra flavor and rule that all the magic being tossed at the same time knocked the power out in this old derelict so the lights went out for a couple combat rounds, when they came back on the figurine was missing and instead at the exit to the room. Door slams again. PCs yank open the door to nuke the figurine, apparently thinking it's another doomsday maguffin. The PCs just kind of took this and ran with it, talking more about the figurine than the Principal, messaging their contacts on-site to research what they saw, and running data searches. In other words, my 30-minute or less I'm-Out-of-Ideas run just became something more. I had 2.5 hours to fill so I was happy to humor them within reason.

To shock the characters out of their legwork circle, I was being vague on everything, I called for a groupwide perception and gave the highest one the notice that he saw the figurine out of the corner of his eye on a desk. Then things became the Dr. Who episode "Blink" through some buildup. I basically took my own plot, and I use that term loosely, off the short and uneventful rails it was on. Turned out great.

Dr."Don't blink. Blink and you're dead. Don't turn your back. Don't look away. And don't blink. Good Luck.

[CanRay]

Beauty!