I’ve been running a horroresque adventure in my campaign, but I feel like some of the scenes are falling flat. I was wondering if you guys pre wrote dialogue or just have a strategy for making it more special and spooky for players.

Horrific Fantasy tends to rely on expected tropes and conventions of the genres, which are very much about mood and atmosphere, the mundane aspects, and the sharp, squishy deviance from the mundane that creates the sense of horror.

Mood & Atmosphere are mostly already pre-written, with the use of the usual stuff like rain, fog, smoke, darkness, and even creepy "appearing out of the shadows" stuff being a go to if the moment will support it. That is, if it is a planned encounter (being something I can plan for).

The mundane stuff is always a good go-to for unplanned stuff. THe sheer normalcy of it, the humdrum everyday stuff is always good for pushing out because it adds contrast to the flavor of the rest, and sets up that "unreal" sense.  But that also depends on knowing your setting, and the particulars of your kind of horror. 

For feel, you may note I use a lot of adjectives and adverbs that have the fleshy feel of eldritch horrors to them. Moist, squishy, fleshy, thick, sticky, oozing, clinging, gummy, -- sensory terms for tactile sensations and are words people within my language group often think of in a certain way. It wouldn't work across languages quite as well.

The sensation I always go for is the "sticking your hands in the goo" stuff from halloween when I was a kid.

Because jump scares are hard to do during a role play session in-game, I tend to lean on the build up of stuff, and my descriptions do get a biit purple as I go -- but I am also more likely to do lovecraftian horror or suggestive horror than I am outright boogyeman type things.

Most of my horror is the sheer strangeness of it compared to what is normal -- demons for me possess people, and there are behavioral changes, little skitterin sounds around corners, strangely moving shadows. The deep darks hold secrets, and those secrets like being unknown.

I only ever write “dialogue” if the PCs are sposta hear two or more NPCs speaking to each other. After all, I can’t script what the players will have their PCs say, so I can’t really pre-write the other half of the conversation. I typically just know my NPCs characters well enough to know what they would say in response to whatever and wing it.

If you want to up the horror feel in a campaign then AEDorsay has given you some pretty good advice. I will add though that if you can challenge the players’ sense of “reality” in terms of what their PCs perceive as “real,” then that also goes a long way toward making things feel spooky.

It is required for all bad guys to fully explain themselves to the good guys before they try to kill them.

And its required that all good guys let them finish their long winded speeches before killing them.

Write all the speeches you need and have fun with them.

Quote from TheGnome5786 >>

It is required for all bad guys to fully explain themselves to the good guys before they try to kill them.

And its required that all good guys let them finish their long winded speeches before killing them.

Write all the speeches you need and have fun with them.

 
I was not monologuing!

I was distracting them while my trap was set!

and it would have worked, too, if it weren’t for those meddling kids!

Quote from AEDorsay >>

Quote from TheGnome5786 >>

It is required for all bad guys to fully explain themselves to the good guys before they try to kill them.

And its required that all good guys let them finish their long winded speeches before killing them.

Write all the speeches you need and have fun with them.

 
I was not monologuing!

I was distracting them while my trap was set!

and it would have worked, too, if it weren’t for those meddling kids!

 
And their dog…!