I'm working on fleshing out a campaign and I want to make them paranoid, but not outright afraid.

I want them to feel like something is off (Think uncanny is the word?) but I don't want to make it very scary.

I'm sorry- I don't know how to phrase it right.

EDIT: oh wait this might help,

I want it to feel like a dream for the PCs at times, you know how dreams are, everything is 'off' or 'wrong' in some way but it feels normal, until you think about it and go, "Wait a second," And all of a sudden you wake up? (God I'm so bad with words XD)

I might do something like the following:

DM: So you walk into the tavern. There's a male elf sitting in the corner. He beckons to you.

Player: I walk up to him and introduce myself.

DM: She greets you and tells you her name is Lidiara. She needs your assistance in defeating a great foe.

Player: Wait, I thought she was...

DM: A voice calls out from behind you. "What is it you want?"

Player: I turn around.

DM: Standing in the kitchen is a man with a white apron. He says to you, "What are you doing in here?"

Player: Wait, how did I...

DM: The man shouts at you, "Go back to the bar!"

And I would just do stuff like that. Change the setting, the gender of characters, have characters randomly disappear and reappear. If the players go searching for someone, I might describe the surrounding geography very differently than I had before and add landmarks that don't exist.

I might drop in other hints that it's a dream, like making it very difficult to read a book, calculate up a simple sum, understand what someone is saying, or even speak. This is because the language centers of the brain are less active when you're dreaming, so it's much more difficult to perform tasks like these when you're dreaming (if you can perform them at all). It's also why a lot of times people in your dreams say things that just sound really random. (He hands you a ball and tells you, "This is my mind. Keep it away from the upstairs window.")

There are other things that can happen in dreams that are more or less common and there's not a real great explanation for them. Things like running and feeling like you can't move very fast. It might be that you feel like you can't fight as well as you could in real life. You might look at your player character's flaws and see if there's anything you can play up on them symbolically. For example, someone who has a terrible secret about their past might encounter someone who knows the secret and is threatening to tell people. That's how I would handle it.

For paranoia - feeling like there is something after them, or watching them, that sort of thing:

• Ask for their passive perceptions. Pass the player with the highest score a piece of paper saying "You don't think you see anything".
• Clarify things that don't need clarifying, EG "You enter the tavern, and see a table and chairs. What's everyone's passive perception? Ok, the table isn't moving."
• Pass certain people notes. Good ones include "You feel normal", or more explicitly, "You have not been replaced with a doppleganger". You can also go straight to paranoia with "You feel like you're being watched", "It feels like there is someone behind you", and so on.

oooh ok!

thanks!

You can also have them make random rolls and then respond with something noncommittal like "noted" or "ok, thank you". 

Quote from Rathkryn >>

You can also have them make random rolls and then respond with something noncommittal like "noted" or "ok, thank you". 

 I know my DM in a homebrew campaign likes to do this and it makes us so worried XD

thanks!

Also (Can't believe I forgot these!)

1: Ask for clarification on things:

PC: "I open the door."
DM: "So you're touching the door?"
PC: "Um... with gloves! I have gloves on! Actually I push it with my stick!"

2: Roll dice when they do stuff, even if it doesn't mean anything.

DM: "Ok, you push the door with your stick..."
*sound of three rounds of dice rolling*
PC: "Stealthily! I do it stealthily!!!!"

Another good mechanic, as a side note, is the Tension Dice. They are something I think was invented by the Angry GM, but it might have been done before. Basically, every time the party does something slow or time consuming, you add a D6 to a ceramic or glass bowl in the middle of the table - so it makes a noise. When a PC does something reckless, or when there are 6 dice, you roll them to see whether something bad happens. Good for adding a sense of urgency, but could be just as good for paranoia.

PC: "I want to pursuade the guard to let us past"
DM: "Ok, roll for pursuasion"
PC: Picks up dice, hears the DM drop a dice into the ominous bowl in the middle.
PC: "And if he refuses, I will leave it there!"

I want to say, while some of the suggestions here about making responses to rolls and actions are fun (and you should totally do them, because it's hilarious to see the players' responses), they're not making the characters paranoid. They're making the players paranoid.

If you want to make the characters paranoid using game mechanics, it's better to focus on the environment and the NPCs they interact with. For example, let's say they touch a poisoned doorknob.

The players might say, "We had heroes' feast this morning. We're immune to poison."

You can then say, "Oh... well you take damage anyway."

That's because it's not actually poison damage. It's psychic damage. Everything is psychic damage because it's a dream. That will clue them in real quick something is wrong and it will make them a lot more paranoid about everything until they figure out why they're taking full damage to everything they're normally resistant or immune to.

Quote from DoveArrow >>

I want to say, while some of the suggestions here about making responses to rolls and actions are fun (and you should totally do them, because it's hilarious to see the players' responses), they're not making the characters paranoid. They're making the players paranoid.

If you want to make the characters paranoid using game mechanics, it's better to focus on the environment and the NPCs they interact with. For example, let's say they touch a poisoned doorknob.

The players might say, "We had heroes' feast this morning. We're immune to poison."

You can then say, "Oh... well you take damage anyway."

That's because it's not actually poison damage. It's psychic damage. Everything is psychic damage because it's a dream. That will clue them in real quick something is wrong and it will make them a lot more paranoid about everything until they figure out why they're taking full damage to everything they're normally resistant or immune to.

 oh alright, thanks for explaining!

You could use Changelings or Dopplegangers. Have a party of them that are masquarading as/replacing towns folk. The PC's catch glimpses of them in their true forms, maybe they wait for the party to split up and then take the forms of one group and go meet up with the other to try and get information, or maybe the dopplegangers just take the PC's forms and perform a variety of criminal acts to get the PC's into trouble. The PC's can start to notice the merchants that were friendly to them now act aloof and distant, they can overhear conversation from townsfolk about how strange people are acting recently or even "did you notice Archie has bright blue eyes? I always thought he had brown", have some pickpocketing take place by rolling against the party passive perception and then just take a character sheet and erase/delete something from their inventory etc.

Add slow but unnerving pieces of information. Tidbits that the players do not know about each but that may not be real on their backstories. Add in background noises and eyes watching in places where there shouldn't be. A great way to picture paranoia is watching an episode of Scooby Doo. That show perfectly encapsulates all versions of paranoia from real, to imagined, to supernatural, and more. 

Hey! - Four years DM (2000+ HOURS experience).

I do something unconventional to create tension, urgency, and vulnerable feelings in the parties I look after.

I use music.

Typically I arrange an assortment of music that fits the theme of the campaign. The good, the bad, the ugly, the serene... You name it.

If the song I find fits the campaign -- I add it to the master playlist (on Spotify) and let it be shuffled in. 

As songs end, and a new song is introduced... I will improvise an anecdote or dryly place something on the board that fits the feel of the situation.

If the song that plays, warrants an ominous tone, I could say out loud, "Your presence has been felt for some time now, and rooms nearby appear to be stirring."

EVEN if you choose to say something contrary to the ominous musical tone of the situation, like : "There is nothing stirring in the rooms nearby..." --

People will wonder, if the lack of living presence in the rooms nearby is an uncanny or indication of a greater threat.

I highly recommend giving this a try.

(music with no lyrics generally serves the situations best)

Let me know if you need a playlist on Spotify or clarification!

Right now I have two beautiful 'Icewind Dale' ambient playlists created.

One for tense/combat based encounters, and one for the world-building during roleplay/travel.

- Felix

Quote from SecretariatII >>

Hey! - Four years DM (2000+ HOURS experience).

I do something unconventional to create tension, urgency, and vulnerable feelings in the parties I look after.

 

I use music.

 

Typically I arrange an assortment of music that fits the theme of the campaign. The good, the bad, the ugly, the serene... You name it.

If the song I find fits the campaign -- I add it to the master playlist (on Spotify) and let it be shuffled in. 

As songs end, and a new song is introduced... I will improvise an anecdote or dryly place something on the board that fits the feel of the situation.

If the song that plays, warrants an ominous tone, I could say out loud, "Your presence has been felt for some time now, and rooms nearby appear to be stirring."

EVEN if you choose to say something contrary to the ominous musical tone of the situation, like : "There is nothing stirring in the rooms nearby..." --

People will wonder, if the lack of living presence in the rooms nearby is an uncanny or indication of a greater threat.

I highly recommend giving this a try.

 

(music with no lyrics generally serves the situations best)

 

Let me know if you need a playlist on Spotify or clarification!

Right now I have two beautiful 'Icewind Dale' ambient playlists created.

One for tense/combat based encounters, and one for the world-building during roleplay/travel.

 

- Felix

 oh wow thanks so much!

Quote from SecretariatII >>

Hey! - Four years DM (2000+ HOURS experience).

I do something unconventional to create tension, urgency, and vulnerable feelings in the parties I look after.

I use music.

 

I don't always do this, but I have on occasion. I remember I was running Expedition to Castle Ravenloft and I had a spooky soundtrack playing during the game. We took a break and I paused it. When we got back, my players got the giggles and couldn't stop. I put the music on again and they were like, "Okay, that did it. I'm ready." 😅

This is so heartwarming!

-- I'm working on a REALLY interesting dungeon-crawler proof-of-concept that is STILL very much D&D.

And I'm basically just rearranging little handmade gridpaper rooms/tunnels based on rolls made when doors are opened!

This sort of has been illustrating the same effect of tension and gets players engaged!

I got the idea from "Shadows of Brimstone," tabletop play.

- Felix

Good tips above for what to do, I did want to add something though which isn't a tip for creating paranoia, more so something to bear in mind. I've done this kind of thing in my campaign before but I used mechanics and details to get the characters paranoid rather than target the players (as explained above), and it typically led to the players doing 2 things:

Questioning the details I've given them and them thinking i was drunk and forgot details or was changing things.

Players not really paying attention and completely missing cues.

For example (a bad one but it gives the gist), players ask an NPC "how many guards are there?"
NPC: "Theres 5 of them"
Players: "blah blah, talk talk, blah blah"
NPC "But how are you going to kill 7 guards?"
Players (out of roleplay to DM): "You said there were 5! you're changing stuff"
DM's thinking: "whats actually happening is he's lying, there are no guards and you've caught him out, stick to character!"

I tried to avoid answering because I don't have enough clues as to why yet. 

OneDove's point is particularly accurate. Your players should generally trust you. You should be able to do a little of both, have them do some rolls or passive perception checks, but follow them up with something they can see or do that would be unsettling or give them a bit of a pause (characters not players).

The thing is, it's hard to help without knowing the narrative you are going for overall. There's a lead up to this situation they're in, and this situation is the lead up to the next, but we don't have an idea as to what that goal of "the next scene" is, nor the last scene. 

In short, what led them to be in a dream, and why are they in a dream, and where is this dream taking them?  

Once we know that, then we can better flavor the dream they're in and the paranoia they should feel. 

The hard part about narrative is that it's not just a series of evens that just "happen" it's more like a series of events that cascade and foreshadow each other into a grander scheme that forms a narrative. 

As the DM, you're balancing freedom for the characters to act with forcing scenarios and key things to happen.

It's like movies explain time travel and the multiverse. There's a million spidermen, but they always lose uncle ben and they always lose gwen stacy because those are part of the narrative that defines them. The flash always loses his parents, regardless of how many times he may go back to try and fix it because otherwise the story/narrative gets kablooey. 

Hitler is never assassinated via time travel because it's a "fixed point" in history. 

As a DM, your players get to have control of all the variations and round about to get from A to Z, but you, the DM are there to line up B, C, D and so on as things that are "fixed" so that A leads to B, which leads to C, and so on down the chain so that they will inevitably be at Z.

You should use this time in a pseudo-dream as a way to narratively revisit what they've done, hint at where they are going, and use it as narrative epoxy to help link some of those things together. 

Quote from DoveArrow >>

I want to say, while some of the suggestions here about making responses to rolls and actions are fun (and you should totally do them, because it's hilarious to see the players' responses), they're not making the characters paranoid. They're making the players paranoid.

 To add on to this: if you want the characters to be paranoid, you can totally let the players in on it. Just straight-up tell them that something seems off, but their characters can't place it. Things seem to shift at the corners of their vision, when they look away and look back the furniture seems to be arranged slightly differently.

Players are very aware of the power a DM has and many would be quick to assume that the DM is messing with them or railroading them somehow. This pulls them out of immersion instead of drawing them in.

So just tell them that their characters feel paranoid. Give them a chance to dive into roleplaying it instead of being distracted by trying to understand what's going on in the metagame. So many DMs want to mess with their players instead of giving them a chance to tell a story with you. Don't fall into that trap.