How to make your players paranoid:

[blank_redge]

How to make your players paranoid:

Drop a seemingly innocuous picture into the chat group, leading up to the day of the game. No text, no explanation.

 

[Sardukhar]

"Gosh I really love you guys. Like, a lot. Okay, game on!"

 

[eraser7278]

"The issue's not whether you're paranoid, Lenny, I mean look at this shit, the issue is whether you're paranoid enough." - Max

 

[Arcafonk]

Personally, I use very oldschool tricks, like rolling lots of dices behind screen for nothing or asking who walks first

 

[jacqsynn]

I found that a really good way is to have the PC Techie that does the auto work, to ask the Fixer that owns the Van the following question. "so why does your Van need a 7 CPU processor, 3500 MU of storage and EMP shielding that exceeds military standards, as well as a Satellite Control Module linked to an unknown Satellite. And by unknown Satellite I mean not actually owned by anyone?" That gets the paranoid thoughts a going real good.

 

[weregeld]

OH GOD! not more of THE van, I still think I was the only one properly paranoid of the dammed thing. To really bring the paranoia to a boil in my game I find a combo of random awareness notice rolls (no matter what the roll is I point out some random terrain feature or individual) and being occasionally nice to them works nicely.

 

[Suhiira]

Think I posted this before ... but ...

At the start of a Vampire the Masquerade campaign I told my players up front: 90% of what I'll tell you will be true, and if you ever figure out what's REALLY going on I've done something wrong.

 

[guidokpd]

I just describe random things in detail. The crowd jostling them, a passing vehicle, the drones flying overhead.

 

[Arcafonk]

being occasionally nice to them works nicely.

Hahaha, this is so true !

 

[Nomad_Xenon]

I love the classic stressed: "are you REALLY SURE?" ahhh, an inmortal classic.

I just describe random things in detail. The crowd jostling them, a passing vehicle, the drones flying overhead.

I tend to drop random descriptions of items or situations just to give more flavor to a particular scene, then I discovered that that random info made some players suspicious... and paranoid A great tool if not overused.

 

[Suhiira]

I recall a couple incidents from my Harn (mid-evil fantasy) campaign ...

#1 - Party is traveling on a road as they're passing a farmstead a dog barks at and follows them incessantly. Half my players decide there is a brigand ambush nearby and we spent the better part of an hour resolving their sneaking around looking for them. Needless to say .. it was just a barking dog.

#2 - Party traveling again and this hawk starts following them, after all they may scare up some game/food. One player pulls out a bow and shoots it (nice shot actually, I really thought he'd miss). The party "ranger" equivalents (skill based system not class based) spend 15 minutes or so ragging on him and making him track down and bury the poor bird.

The "key" to making them paranoid is to randomly describe something innocuous as all players KNOW anything the GM describes is important. Do it too much and it loses it's effect.

 

[Arcafonk]

I tend to drop random descriptions of items or situations just to give more flavor to a particular scene, then I discovered that that random info made some players suspicious... and paranoid A great tool if not overused.

Doing the same, to conceal elements, because I like to give away some things for free.

You describe things, sometimes they will stuck on this, waste one hour or two then... "you should not have wasted all this time because... mr X is allready dead". Do this until they are used to you, then give away some important details, but not everytime