The GM's stance

Atmosphere and staging

Setup

• Minimal lighting: flashlight or candle. The brain panics and produces far more when it's in the dark.
• Creepy soundtrack: a good oppressive drone, a tense ambient pad, a few isolated sounds.
• Timed screamers: audio files with 5-10 seconds of silence at the start. You hit play, you keep narrating, and BAM, it interrupts you. If you're devious, do it WHILE the players are pulling a block.
• 2-3 unsettling images, just enough to feed the imagination without showing everything.

GM positioning

Position yourself so you're not directly visible (in a circle around the table with the tower, GM set back). It freaks the players out. Take notes on a notepad of everything the players say -- it writes bits of scenario for you.

Half-descriptions

Never tell everything. Let the imagination do the work.

"You see a silhouette. It seems to be walking toward you." "What does it look like?" "What does?" "The silhouette!" "You don't see it anymore..."

When players resist

If the players don't want X, several solutions:

• a) You give them EVEN MORE X.
• b) You replace X with Y and try again.
• c) You find a reason Z why X was preferable in the first place.
• d) You ramp up the tension until X becomes desirable.

Concrete examples:

• They barricade themselves in a room? OK. Then noises, creaking, a door that shakes.
• They refuse to separate for an examination? Call for pulls, insist, use the concussion as a pretext. "Are you sure you're feeling alright?"

Golden rule: don't say anything that could help or guide them. The players hand you everything on a silver platter. They'll give you scenario ideas far better than your own.

The GM's right to lie

In Dread, the usual rule of "don't lie to the detriment of the players" transforms:

"I have the right to lie and to pull ad hoc solutions out of thin air with no explanation other than one the players will accept in their panic, AS LONG AS it serves the atmosphere, the fiction, and brings tension and the smooth flow of the scenario."

Example: "You hear a click. You have the impression the lock is sliding back into place." You don't care why the lock works that way. In the players' minds: "Kraus has a remote-controlled lock?!" "The Dollface is picking the door?!" They hand you everything on a silver platter.