What Stories Scared You As a Kid?

namelylight · Post by **namelylight** » Thu Aug 21, 2014 4:14 am

So, I want to start up a campaign in my local area with a system that's not quite well known. That system is Little Fears: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Fears. Basic synopsis is that the player characters are children. I was kind of thinking that I could try to do a campaign that's kind of like a season of something like Are You Afraid of the Dark? or Goosebumps (maybe even Scooby Doo?). The players probably are going to be adults, but I'll be advertising it with a local game store so some younger people might show up.

I thought I might get a better idea of what might be cool if I threw a question out here.

I guess my question is this: what were the sorts of scary stories really struck your fancy as a kid?

toddwo · Post by **toddwo** » Thu Aug 21, 2014 1:53 pm

When I was a young lad, my folks let me watch "Kolchak: The Nightstalker" and re-runs of "Night Gallery" and "The Outer Limits". All of that stuff sort of freaked me out then, and I I can remember many sleepless nights that resulted. Naturally, this is all stuff that I try to mine as best I can now!

Keeper Jon · Post by **Keeper Jon** » Thu Aug 21, 2014 2:29 pm

When I was a little kid, real little, my brother and I shared a room and we had bunkbeds. Being older, I got the top bunk... even as a kid, we used prison rules to sort things out. At any rate, I remember having a recurring dream/nightmare of a skeleton climbing up onto my bed from the foot of the bed and clawing its way up my legs towards my face. That used to freak me the hell out. Seriously bad.

Later, I saw Salem's Lot, and the vampires in that freaked me out. And, I remember, (vaguely), some terrible B movie about mud monsters. They were mud golems, and I remember a scene in the movie where the hero and his girlfriend found two human-shaped cutouts on the ground in the forest. As if someone took the two halves of the person shape, (front half and back half), and constructed a single mud person. For some reason that also scared the living crap out of me. Mud monsters... damn, why'd it have to be mud monsters?

Nvision · Post by **Nvision** » Thu Aug 21, 2014 3:18 pm

I had what I referred to as "a crack monster" that plagued me until I was four. There was a large crack in the upper corner of the semi-detached home I lived in. At night, I swore something spoke to me from that crack, and occasionally I would see the glint of eyes in the widest part. At three, I begged to have my bed moved to the opposite wall, but it still taunted me and I was only free of the thing when we moved out the next year. There was also a pleasant old man who would chat with me from the open attic hatch in the hall and encouraged me to ignore the thing in the wall. I miss him, but not the crack monster.

Aside from that, Tom Baker-era Doctor Who creeped me out, but mostly his floating head in the opening credits. Also Gef, the talking Mongoose.

EddyPo · Post by **EddyPo** » Thu Aug 21, 2014 7:16 pm

I recommend the book, Tales for the Midnight Hour.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tales_for_ ... night_Hour

It is a children's book, actually a series of books, that are darker than other books of it's kind at the time. Freaky as Hell actually, especially for kids. Check out the stories "The Furry Collar" and "The Jigsaw Puzzle". Two of my favorites. There is definitely some grist there for your games.

Thomas R. Knutsson · Post by **Thomas R. Knutsson** » Thu Aug 21, 2014 7:22 pm

Back in the 80s the first episode of the first V mini-series when you got the reveal that the visitors were lizard-men from outer space really freaked me out, and I didn't dare to watch the rest of the mini-series and didn't start watching V again until the following TV-series began.

Also Salem's Lot that Jon mentioned earlier was really creepy, but I managed to watch the whole thing, albeit with a heart beating very strong in my chest.

Ah, I miss the old days, when horror movies really could scare me.

namelylight · Post by **namelylight** » Fri Aug 22, 2014 2:02 am

Oh, that's a lot good ideas. I'll see if I can find a copy of Tales for the Midnight Hour. It sounds exactly like what I'm looking for!

EddyPo · Post by **EddyPo** » Fri Aug 22, 2014 2:18 pm

Cool! Consider recording some game play. I'd love to hear an actual play of Little Fears.

Thomas R. Knutsson · Post by **Thomas R. Knutsson** » Fri Aug 22, 2014 2:25 pm

As a kid, I found this German children's book (that was translated to Swedish) in a library, took home, read and the visuals scared me so much I got nightmares dreaming about men with giant scissors and such.

Struwwelpeter - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struwwelpeter

EddyPo · Post by **EddyPo** » Fri Aug 22, 2014 2:58 pm

Thomas R. Knutsson wrote:As a kid, I found this German children's book (that was translated to Swedish) in a library, took home, read and the visuals scared me so much I got nightmares dreaming about men with giant scissors and such.

Struwwelpeter - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struwwelpeter

Oh I need to get this book for my son.