For those GM's and Keepers who have trouble creating scenarios and need some inspiration, the following techniques may help.

THE CLASSIC MOMENT

Sandy covered this very well in his seminar.  Take a classic moment from a book, movie or real life.  Some examples are the pod discovery from "Invasion of the Body Snatchers", the scratching on the window from hundreds of books and movies or the giving of a speech or presentation in front of a group that you don't know.  This moment of psychological terror may be built into a scenario.

To explain, I will choose the feeling of deja vu (the feeling that something experienced has been experienced previously in the past). Now, to build a scenario.  I choose a member of the group.  If no one's character is suitable, make up an interesting NPC.  I then decide that when the group enters certain houses the character will feel deja vu.  The plot then leads the party to discover why the character feels deja vu.

Another example could be that a character's next door neighbor confides that for some unknown reason she feels terror every time she sees a van marked Kadath Catering.  The classic moment then is experienced when you look in your car's mirror and see the same vehicle following you.  You might know that in a few minutes a knock will be heard from the door, though no one is there, or you could find that the children who have died from SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) had the same crib toy.  Hitchcock movies are excellent for this type of drama.

The Technique:

1. create a moment of suspense (speaking to a room full of people and realizing that they are all wearing red ties)
2. create activities that lead to the suspense (being booked on a speaker  tour, and hearing in the papers of a serial killer who wears a red tie)
3. create resolution of the suspense (tracking down and confronting the killer)

THE CARNIVAL MIRROR APPROACH

Take something harmless and amusing and warp it.  Stephen King is the master of this technique.  This  technique has been used repeatedly with clowns.  Something is first chosen that is harmless and amusing, such as a fast food restraunt a pair of funny glasses and a rubber nose, or a slinky (tm , I believe).  Then, add a little spin.  You might go through the drive-through and realize that the static voice sound like evil demonic laughter, or spot someone spying at you from a building with binoculars, wearing the funny nose and glasses or the slinky could start to move when strange bad things happen.  Thus, the element of suspense appears.

The Technique:

1. choose something harmless or amusing (a plastic banana)
2. link it with something eerie or strange (a ghost)
3. determine the circumstances causing the combination and how to deal with them (the ghost of a pet ape plays with an old plastic banana at night)

THE GROUP ACTIVITY APPROACH

The classic example of this is the teen slasher movie.  A group of people go  bowling/ skiing/ hiking/ canoeing/ bungie jumping in a remote area.  Strange and bad things start to occur.  You've seen it at the movies hundreds of times.  The main problem is getting a group to go on a cruise/exploring caves/bird watching.  The classic Hollywood lead-in is for a couple to go off together to procreate and get attacked.  Let's start with a group activity that the whole adventuring group will do.  Riding the subway and having a picnic seem like standard things to do.  While riding the subway, the group spots strange lights, or at the picnic, the ants form strange designs on the ground.  These serve as harbringers of bad things coming.

The Technique:

1. strange omens occur or people start to disappear or show up in pieces ("Where's Lenny and Candy?  It's time for the marshmallow roast")
2. group learns of horrific secret that they have stumbled onto ("It's a creature of marshmallow and it's roasting Lenny and Candy, impaled on a stick")
3. players escape, survive and end horror ("It's a good thing I always practice safe sex and carry a flare gun")

B MOVIE UPGRADE

You can laugh but it is important to use a bad movie for this technique.  For my example, I will use the old movie "Curse of the Black Widow".  The creature involved is a were-spider.  This curse is passed down every two generations to one with an hourglass birthmark. The movie was not so hot, but if I take the monster and make it a little smarter, keep some of the good points (such as victims being webbed up while friends frantically search for the lair) and add a little misdirection ("the lab reports show the victims were drained of lood and had strange puncture marks on their necks"), I have a good dventure.  You use Grade B movies because fewer people see them and they usually only need a little work to become Grade A material. Grade A movies have been seen a lot, need to be reworked more in order to be usable and create higher expectations among players. It might seem strange to use "Valley of the Gwangi" instead of "Dracula" for material, but it works.

The Technique:

• steal the plot from an old 2 am horror flick (plastic monsters from under Golden Gate Bridge that are vulnerable to water attack teens)
• Remove the stuff that made you think it was dumb or won't fit (monsters under bridge attack teens)
• change things to confuse those who have seen the movie and add your own touch (monsters under bridge summoned by teens attack rival gang)

Feel free to combine techniques, but avoid overkill.  Hundreds of monsters attacking people becomes boring.  Hundreds of monsters using non-violent protest against investigators is darkly humorous.  One scratching noise on the windowsill at night is just as scary as the hundred monsters.