Cthulhu coincidences

[Brunshalthead]

Has anyone had any wierd coincidences (spelling?) when playing?

I've had one: The GM said; "A helicopter is approaching, you can hear the noise of its blades" just as he said it a helicopter flew over the house. Quite freeky really.

[a19999577]

I was playing a game set in a village in the Peruvian rainforest called 'Monobamba' which is located on the shore of a river. When one player asked me the name of the river, I handed him a map book, as I hadn't really taken notice ot its name. After checking it out, the player started laughing hysterically.

The name of the river was 'Tulumayo' (Cthluhu is commonly pronounced 'TOO-loo' in Spanish. Cthulhu River)

[wendiigo]

I was playing one night with some friends, and we had lit candles and some old-fashioned oil lamps to create a spooky atmosphere. At a crucial point in the story in which the laboratory we were raiding catches fire, the tail of one of my cats passed through a candle and ignited brilliantly. After putting out the fire, we decided to keep the cats away from the gaming area when open flames were present.

To make it worse, the cat in question is a long-haired Siamese - quite the fire hazard.

[The_Usernameless_Horror]

Has anyone tried setting this kind of thing up deliberately? I have heard of GMs arranging matters so that weird events happen to the players in real life, e.g. concealing a remote control CD player so that music or sound effects can appear to come from nowhere.

Any ideas?

[a19999577]

We were once playing a scenario by Michael LaBossiere called "I want you to kill the Ice Cream Man", in which the investigators have to hunt down some sort of medieval children-eating monster disguised as an ice cream man. In a particularly tense moment, in comes my mother and asks everyone:

"Would you like some ice-cream?"

[trevlix]

I was at a convention once and we were going through the characters available to choose who to play. Looking at one I saw it had the exact birthday and birthplace as myself. Of course, I had to play that character.

[Thorulfr]

Has anyone tried setting this kind of thing up deliberately? I have heard of GMs arranging matters so that weird events happen to the players in real life, e.g. concealing a remote control CD player so that music or sound effects can appear to come from nowhere.

Any ideas?

I've mentioned this particular game several times before, so if this is old news, skip on to the next post ;o)

I was running an expanded version of the classic "Corbitt House" adventure, and one of the players (who's character was an occultist) came up with some hair-brained scheme of trying to summon Corbitt's spirit somewhere else so that the rest of the party could attack the body without it doing things to stop them (I made Corbitt's powers pretty strong, and I must have chased the party out of the house screaming a dozen times by then).
The session ended before their plan could be sprung, so I had a week to think up my devious plan. Being in a band at the time, I had access to a microphone, a small amp, cables, and effects pedals. The game was held at a friend's house, so I packed the extra equipment in a gig bag and brought it in when everyone was in the family room watching the TV. I had to work fast and it was a big risk, but I was able to set it up in time before anyone came in. I had the mic hooked up through a flanger and a digital delay to the amp, and hid the speaker behind the sofa on the other side of the room from where I sat. The cables ran along the wall behind the other couch, and I hid the mic and power cords behind some pillows, and the bags I carried my gaming books in.
I was using background music and playing by candlelight, and the party is always painfully thorough and precise, so the buildup (along with assorted mind-screwing and creepy events) took some time, by which point one of the players was actually curled up in a fetal position on the couch moaning and begging me to turn off the music. The occultist and about half the party were in a rented warehouse across town, setting up the classic 'Key of Solomon'-style magic circle, thinking that they were going to summon Corbitt into a triangle outside of the circle. As the ritual finally got underway, I put the candles out one by one until the only one was behind the keeper's screen, lighting my face from underneath (hey, cheap shot, but it works). When the summoned spirit was to appear, the candles suddenly went out, and I blew out the candle in front on me, plunging the room into darkness. I then reached over, grabbed the mic and rasped "Well, well, well...what have we here?" into it; Corbit, not being some ghost or goetic spirit, was not constrained by their little games, and appeared behind them, so my voice, speaking as Corbitt, came from BEHIND THEM, all weirdly distorted and echoing. The reaction was well worth the trouble and risk, but the only drawback was I didn't get a chance to see the expressions on their faces. Based on the noise, though, I'm surprised the couches didn't end up wet.

I think it worked so well because of timing - I had the week to come up with the idea and set it up, but the game session leading up to it was long enough that I was able to set up the mood and wind everyone up to the breaking point as it was. The mechanics were relatively simple and foolproof, and in addition, I had never done anything like that to them before, so I caught them completely off guard. If I did it now, they would be expecting something, so it would be a lot harder to scare the piss out of them like that again.
The little touches would probably work the best, and resist the impulse to overdo them.