Planning ahead a little here - what are some of your favorite halloween-themed runs?
It used to be I'd run a one-shot on Halloween Night - a short scenario where the players are newbie gangers being inducted into the Halloweeners, but as the flames ring high something goes wrong...
Full Version: Halloween Runs
Thriller... Thriller Night...
That sounds awesome AH. WE've had a few memorable ones. One was based off of Rose Red, up to and including the name, since, ya' knwo, it's in Seattle.
Turned out that it was Tanamous using the house/legend as a cover for really nasty stuff, fetus farming and all that. The spirits were a couple of real spectres from their victims, old ghosts from the area attracted to the background count, and spirits summoned by a blood mage working with them. The ghouls really should have been a hint. It was a neat game.
We also played one in Glamis castle, trying out the Will bequest. There was much bumping in the night.....err... the bad kind of 'bumping'.
Turned out that it was Tanamous using the house/legend as a cover for really nasty stuff, fetus farming and all that. The spirits were a couple of real spectres from their victims, old ghosts from the area attracted to the background count, and spirits summoned by a blood mage working with them. The ghouls really should have been a hint. It was a neat game.
We also played one in Glamis castle, trying out the Will bequest. There was much bumping in the night.....err... the bad kind of 'bumping'.
ZOMBIES!!!
Halloween Night:
A giant Corp. green house lab/small scale production facility where said corp has gene twisted pumpkins to grow pharma-chemicals on the inside with the filaments.
Bound guardian spirits. Harvesting drones with some nasty security features to supplement the sites defenses that look a lot like scarecrows in the moonlight. And in the basement, a lab where they keep the subjects on whom they test the drugs that they are "growing" (including anti-rejection drugs for cyberware and implantation facilitation drugs for bioware), who just might escape during a security laps at the big Halloween party just a short while before the runners arrive.
Add a party of runners sent in to collect the pumpkins to the spirts, war-golem-scarecrows, and escaped (cyber)lunatics, and enjoy a night of fun and mayhem in the pumpkin patch.
Early Happy Halloween,
AFE
A giant Corp. green house lab/small scale production facility where said corp has gene twisted pumpkins to grow pharma-chemicals on the inside with the filaments.
Bound guardian spirits. Harvesting drones with some nasty security features to supplement the sites defenses that look a lot like scarecrows in the moonlight. And in the basement, a lab where they keep the subjects on whom they test the drugs that they are "growing" (including anti-rejection drugs for cyberware and implantation facilitation drugs for bioware), who just might escape during a security laps at the big Halloween party just a short while before the runners arrive.
Add a party of runners sent in to collect the pumpkins to the spirts, war-golem-scarecrows, and escaped (cyber)lunatics, and enjoy a night of fun and mayhem in the pumpkin patch.
Early Happy Halloween,
AFE
One Halloween, I gave all bound spirits a new test to break free. Since we were playing SR2 at the time, that pretty much just meant elementals. That caused some serious trouble for the team's resident spellboy (and ended up with him requiring his first new set of skin), as well as chaos all across the 'plex (and the world) as something like 1/4 of all bound elementals went free at once.
No one ever figured out why it happened.
No one ever figured out why it happened.
We've had a few of these threads in the past few years:
Here's some stuff I've saved in txt. I didn't think to copy down the poster's names, so apologies if you find yourself reading your own words.
THIS STUFF IS NOT MINE.
Here's some stuff I've saved in txt. I didn't think to copy down the poster's names, so apologies if you find yourself reading your own words.
THIS STUFF IS NOT MINE.
| QUOTE |
| ------------------------------------------------ Use my personal favorite, Small Children =) Hire the runners to extract a "kidnap victim" in a sublevel of a biological/paranatural lab that has an unusual level of security, kept in cell C. Have the runners break in to find automated defenses active (have a few sentry guns shoot at them), and the entire place on alert but not a single person present in the entire complex at all. Noone, even down through security checkpoints, and runners cracking maglocks, not a single person, not even a trace, full coffee cups (still steaming), half eaten donuts. a computer screen beeping away with the E key on a keyboard filling half a screen (and moving pretty rapidly). Give the impression that all of it happened very recently. let them ride downstairs in the secure elevator of doom (ballistic walls, magloc 12 on the door, but unlocked for some reason) to the research floor. the paranoia level should be pretty high by now. Make it a LONG. SLOW ride in the elevator, let someone with a math skill or a math SPU figure them to be 500 meters under bedrock. No corp would ever build this lab and blow this much cash if not absolutely necessary. Make sure they know this, but be subtle. The lab is a Gym sized 2 story floor with misc machinery, vats, computers (spitting paper printouts all over the floor) again completely empty. There are 4 cells or holding rooms in the center of the floor, with about 10 meters of completely empty space on all 4 sides. cell c faces away from the party as they exit the elevator. all 4 cells are solid, homogeneous slabs of steel alloy, about a meter thick, each with a single reinforced bank vault style door, and a window of hideously ballistic material also about a meter thick, warded on the inside at force 14 or so. As the party looks into a cell they see it is about 3meters on a side, square on the inside. they see a and b, and round the corner to c they notice the the Outside of the glass is frosted over at the corners, and ice crystals are clinging to the glass. (the temp in the room is 80 or so, but the ice shows no signs of melting) the walls of this ONE cell are ice cold, even through through the meter of steel alloy. Cold enough to cause severe discomfort. Unnaturally cold. The lock on this vault door, unlike the others, is not digital in any way shape or form, it's analog, an old fashioned wheel mechanism. A party member will have to wear gloves to open it or resist damage. Also let the party know theere are NO electronics or wires coming from the cell. the cold is not being caused by technical means. If the party looks in the cell they see a cherubic 6 year old blond girl in the cell wearing a plain white nightgown, and wearing no shoes. she doesnt smile, but she looks the character looking in the glass straight in the eyes. Have that player roll willpower, note results, nod and say okay, then make a note. She has deep ice blue innocent eyes, there is something odd about the eyes, no matter how high the player rolls on a perception test, thats it, just odd. The character cant quite place it. It is imperitave that she does not look menacing in any way, just innocent, and WAY out of place (and the only living thing within 600 yards =)) and behind WAY too much security. <<bonus karma for the party having the balls to continue>> when opening the cell the wheel turns freely, and they can hear bolds sliding out of place and the door swings open and the air inside is not cold at all, but the walls are freezing. the little girl doesnt move at all until the party crosses inside the cell, then she holds her arms up or holds a hand out like she wants to hold hands or to be picked up. <<bonus karma to the runner with the balls to hold her hand/pick her up>> she feels and acts from this point exactly like a little girl. she wont say a word. make odd things happen around the party, way odd, unexplainable things. have them all roll willpower a couple of times for no good reason, note the results and nod and go hmmmmmm and think for a bit, make some bogus notes. All dogs stare at the vehicle on the way past. the drop off is at sea-tac airport. an old german guy meets her there and thanks the runners, pays them, and holds her hand as they get on a plane. the little girl looks back, waves and whispers goodbye to one of the runners, the one that looked her in the eye through a window and also whispers "its not over" , by their REAL name. Give the party a smackload of karma for no good reason, and make the little girl appear in crowds, then vanish. in reflections in windows, in bodies of water, and most importantly in dreams. Then take it wherever you want it, just remember NOTHING should ever be explained to the party about it, dont even explain it to yourself just let it happen. it works better that way. fear isnt in what they see and hear, its in what they DONT =) ---------------------------------------------- This run truly scared the sh't out of my players. In my game I added some more paranoia: When one of my players went back to investigate the place he found that instead of the facility there was only a an old grassy field, and before it stood a rusty fence with a notice saying "No Trespassing, Private Property" the date on the notice was 2029... And their fixer didn't remember giving them any job of that kind either, in fact he had been in Detroit for the past two months... no one could remember anything about that job, no one except the runners... I suggest you play some ambiant music in the background, any spooky one could go, but I strongly recommend "Cityscape 2056" (you should be able to find it on Kazaa). Today my players still get the chills when they hear it. ________________________________________________________________________________ Good old brainwashing clinic. They are sent there to retrieve some scientist. Everything looks normal at first, and in fact could proceed normally if they don't set off any alarms. But as everyone knows, that doesn't happen. As soon as they trip off one alarm, have the cells open and all the mental patients start walking to a specified point. No matter what the runners do, they won't stop walking there, a varitable human tide. The patients will be constantly oming out of doors and there are no windows for escape, so the PC's are force where you want them to go. If they try to resist and force their way through (without opening fire or letting of any blood) apply L stun. Automatically. If they resist hard then have the tide sweep over them with 8S stun. About now they should be trying to stop the tide and save themselves, by killing the mindless drones. When that happens release the REALLY crazies, the ones that lost it and are now psycho/sociopaths. Cannabals, self muilators, anything that you can think of that would just disgust the players at the very idea of it. you can even have them come into combat with a few if you like. And throught it all they are slowly pressed toward the gathering point. And of course what happens next is up to you One is the Oldy-but-Goody, a monster on a train. Basically runners are on train with goods. They hear screams. They investigate. Everywhere they find blood and carnage, but no bodies, just a toe or two. They then find some guards who shoot at them cos they are scared S***less. They then find a lady who is petrified of a little girl in the corner who is crying. Which ever one they trust will be the monster. Its invulnerable to anything but silver, it wants to kill them, it can go mist from and shapeshift, and they can't stop or get off the train. The other was the players trying to extract an AZT mage on a cruise ship who has a heavily cybered guy with a metal head(Iron Head) , a blood mage with blood spirit, and a few leopard guardsmen watching him. Play up life on a luxury ship and get them to talk to the passengers. They will of course be passengers themselves. Then they go to sleep. When they wake up, everyone is gone, and the ship is surrounded by mist. The Blood Spirit is free and has put its hidden life in Iron Head who has gone nuts. The pools are now full of blood, and have creatures swimming in them. Every now and then they come accross strange patterns drawn in blood. They will eventually find the Leopard Guardsmen who will blame them for everything and try and kill them. They will find other guards on the ship who shoot everything, including innocents like women and children that are still around. Then have creatures attack them that can move through walls and can move in and out of astral instantly. Once they have fought these creatures a few times, have them notice that they look vaguely human, infact some of them will be people they met, who recognise them and want to kill them. In the centre of the ship the Blood Mage is doing some wierd ritual with their target. They will have to get past Iron Head and the spirit to get to him. They kill the blood mage, freeing the target who casts a wierd spell as Iron Head and the Free Blood Spirit attack. They now do a Metaplanar quest on the Plane of Unwilling Sacrifice. When they get back the two nasties are gone, as is their target,the ship is now in New York Harbour and everyone is still gone. This was run as the start of a champaign. The Target was actually Mr Darke, and he caused all this to set the Blood spirit free. The Blood Mage was actually trying to reverse it (But don't tell the players that). When they went on the quest they learnt the spirits true name, but Darke dosed them with Laes (sp?) so they don't remember it. Besides the little girl thingie I posted earlier, there's another old Halloween run I thought it'd be great to talk about. This one is longer though, as its a collection of posts from some player (I don't remember who). If you take the time to read it you will be glimpsing at possibly one of the greatest SR experience ever. Just read on, its worth it. This is four posts that I copy-pasted, everything's there. Post One-------------------------------------------------- Another good way to spook the PCs is to set the mood for the players themselves, the people rolling the dice. I remember our First Annual Halloween Run; we showed up at the GMs house, it was completely dark except for six or seven candles in the playing area, he was dressed up like the Grim Reaper, with the black mask you can't see through, and there was not a sound in the house. At all. The run itself was an extremely freaky Arcology run, standard stuff, go in, get the data, and get the hell out, but the GM had worked some stuff up to scare the crap out of us. At one point there was this little girl with yellow eyes, very slightly yellow skin, and she was simply staring at us. We stared back; one or two people made jokes. All of a sudden, this huge frickin' demon - later revealed to be a Toxic Avatar - burts into the room, and this thing was huge, and fast, and we had a hell of a time taking it down. When we finally did, the girl - yep, still there - looked at us, confused, and our GM triggered a recording he had of his little sister screaming at the top of her lungs "Why did you kill my faaaaatheeeeeeeeer!?!" at approximately 67 decibles - he'd tested it beforehand - in this incredibly shrill voice. I remember screaming a very bad word and kicking my chair back so hard that it tipped over backward. Scary crap. He'd also figured out that the ambient stuff in Dungeon Keeper was standard CD tracks, pulled the best stuff, which included a distorted woman's voice saying "Don't you love me?" and had it play in background. It was a tense game. Later, right at the end, we'd gotten the stuff and were on the way out, our mage and decker dead, running like hell for the door to get to our ride, and the airlock door slams shut with a thud. The door behind us slams shut as well. Pitch black. We hear this voice, and all it said was "We're lonely." And the GM told us we saw a shadow - don't ask me how we could see a shadow with litterally no light, but we could - and it moves, and suddenly our rigger, our frickin' ticket out of this hellhole, is suspended from the ceiling, and then the GM killed the candles, I'm not exactly sure how; one of our PCs was a Catholic, and he started muttering things in Latin, and our GM triggers another little soundclip of about ten or fifteen different female voices screaming various things; I distinctly remember one of them being "No, no, Stop, No, NOO, NOOOO!, STOP!!", probably because it was my girlfriend's voice, which was just incredibly wrong, I still owe the bastard one for that, and then the door swung open, and the soundclip increased in volume for about a fourth of a second and then just went dead and our decker was released and we got the hell out. Another good thing you can do is find out each of the player's biggest phobias, and have them face them. ------ "I don't think you understand me. I'm faster, stronger, smarter, older, more chromed, and better than you are. Put your head between your knees, punk, and kiss your ass goodbye." - Deathwish, Street Samurai. Post Two-------------------------------------------------- Unfortunatly, he moved. One other important note that I forgot to point out about that run is that none of the enemies - none - had a thermo signature. Also, the way he described the Arco... Remember Aliens, where the marines break into the colony, and everyone's gone and stuff's shot to hell? If you are smart enough to have seen the DC, rmember the part where Hudson and Vasquez break into the room and see the hamsters running in their wheels? The inside of the arcology was that. I can't believe I forgot to put this in, but the girl with the yellow eyes and the Toxic Avatar for a father turned into one of the main NPCs on the run. She'd pop up, look at us, say something like "Coming, Father," at which point we'd all draw weapons and roll initative for no reason, and then she'd disappear. She eventually led us to the data we needed, and we got to sit and watch as she fought her brother, which was just too extremely cool - eventually, she cast Holy, an obvious FF import, and killed all the undead-type things on the floor, including herself. Another seriously wrong thing was the image of a bunch of people in Medlab sitting around this disected infant, then one of the nurses looks at the camera and it goes dead. There's a lot of really screwed up stuff that he threw in that I didn't mention because I was beginning to freak myself out writing that. One room was covered with cobwebs, and we got into the room, door slams shut, and spiders pour out of the air ducts, literally knee-high. I, personally, am extremely arachnophobic, and the GM looked at me and told me that I was the only person that could do anything, and I just froze. I think I eventually told our mage to cast Acid Stream and wipe these things out, and I grabbed the industrial-sized can of bug spray that our Sammy always carried - tape a firecracker to it and it makes a big boom - and just went nuts with it; when we couldn't kill them all, we were forced to crawl through the airshafts. To give you an idea as to how badly these things were webbed up, we had a +4 TN modifier to all tests because of the damn stuff. When we got to the command deck, there was blood just everywhere, and the captain had a wooden rod that went in where stuff's supposed to go out, which ran all the way up his body through his mouth, causing him to look like a perpetually screaming, agonized person. The rod was placed in the middle of a pentagram; the circle was created by honest-to-god fire, which was really freaky, because there were no gas lines anywhere on command deck. This fire was unearthly, unholy; when our Mage assensed it and got four successes, he died. Instantly. Too bad, so sad, it's evil and destroyed your soul, he was a new character anyway. Did I mention how much Karma we got out of this run? The character I was playing at the time was Elvish, which gain Karma die once every 20 points; I got two after that run. The GM then asked us what we were going to do on our downtime; the afforementioned Catholic PC said that he would go to confession, which got him another 10; I pitched all of my horror movies, which got me 5; two went home and held their spouses/significant others/kids and cried, which got them an amount that still boggles the mind. One went to see a therapist. If Wraith sees a little girl in a plaid dress he immediatly gets the hell away from her, other stuff. The best thing about this run is that it really develops your character. The really freaky thing about this whole run was a)The ambient music - Gregorian Chant, the ambient music from Dungeon Keeper, Moonlight Sonata, other just weird stuff; b) our GM was masked, and very, very quiet, by comparison to his normal self. That's another thing that scares people, being silent, forcing them to act on their own. C)The kids that knocked on his door to Trick or Treat - remember, this was Halloween Run - and promptly ran away screaming; I ws later told that he'd gotten his best friend to dress up like a zombie, randomly grab one of the kids, pick him/her up, and say, in this deep, bass voice, "Go Away." D)The ways he'd tied our real life in with the run; I already mentioned the spiders and my girlfriend screaming on that final clip; he'd found out similar things about each player and made sure we all faced them. Oh, there was the clown room, a room which appeared to have no floor, a room made entirely out of bones and skulls, lots of strobing light rooms, rooms where things appearedto move just out of the corner of your eye, no matter what you rolled on Perception... the list is endless. The GM really was a genius. The run itself -the run, not talking to Johnsons and contacts and buying extra gear lasted five hours. Five. I got home at about four in the morning, turned on every light in my house, much to the confusion of my parents, and lay wide-awake in bed, staring at my closet door. ------ "I don't think you understand me. I'm faster, stronger, smarter, older, more chromed, and better than you are. Put your head between your knees, punk, and kiss your ass goodbye." - Deathwish, Street Samurai. Post Three------------------------------------------------ quote: Originally posted by Armitage: Be fortunate that you've experienced what sounded like one of the best RPG-ing experiences known to man. Trust me, I am. That night was just frickin' incredible. I'm currently writing myself up a detailed adventure in the same style as what went down on Halloween Run, it's essentially the same thing; when it's finished, I'll offer it to anyone who wants it. Thus far, the highlight is the chapel - anyone who's Catholic - myself included - will know just how sick I am when they read this. quote: I wonder how long that GM took to plan everything for that night. Months. Litterally. He talked to our families and friends to learn the few phobias that we had that he didn't know about, got his girlfriend's sorority to record a bunch of the screams, played with audio recordings of himself and others until they were no longer reasonable and very, very scary, conned his sister into doing voice for the little girl, drew maps for every floor of the Arco that we'd be on, and did maps for a good deal of the rooms, scripted the whole damn thing, and then virtually memorized it; another scary thing about that run is that he had very few notes (unless they were taped on the inside of his mask, which is possible.) That was my first Halloween Run, and while none have been of that caliber since, we give notice to the person who'll be GMing in JULY. I just hope to God it's not me this year. quote: My hat's off to your whole group; players who actually role-played like that (although I think it'd be tough finding someone who wouldn't, in that situation) and a GM who took the whole thing to that level... it blows my mind. Track him down, and follow him! Heh. Just kidding. I do talk to him a lot. His response to your responses was to chuckle. That's just the kind of guy Ben is. I mean, he's an honest-to-God genius; IQ of 168, score of 1547 on the SATs, currently majoring in Journalism so that he can write books. Great guy. ------ "I don't think you understand me. I'm faster, stronger, smarter, older, more chromed, and better than you are. Put your head between your knees, punk, and kiss your ass goodbye." - Deathwish, Street Samurai. [This message has been edited by Hard Eyes (edited 25-06-2000).] Post Four------------------------------------------------- I recently received an e-mail from Eddy Munster asking me if I had the write up of my Halloween Run (waaay back on the Scaring the Players thread) done yet, and if I did, if I could send it to him. (Everything I'm going to post here I sent you in e-mail, Eddy, so if you've already received it you don't need to read this.) Well, I wasn't going to type up the same run, but one based very heavily on it and in the same spirit. Had the thing all typed up. Very nice and pretty. Included optional stuff for multiple ways out. Read like a Stephen King book. Scared the living crap out of one of my groupmates who's joined since Ben left when he read it. Yeah, I had maps and suggestions and all-new baddies and a kick-ass storyline based on a kick-ass DSF idea (Paladins; check out the Magic's Children thread.) And then my harddrives crashed, and I'm left with a very old first draft that I'd scrapped a month ago. So I'll give you an overview. Draco Foundation was doing some hush-hush research on a recently unearthed magical artifact, dubbed the Ring of the Archangel. In game terms it was a level 20 power focus. One of the researcher's kids was magicaly able (he hadn't really figured out how to use his power yet, and barely new that he had it, just that he sensed that he was different from others), a happy little Free-Spirit Wraith finds the kid, helps him bond the focus, and things go more or less straight to hell as Very Bad Spirits - we're talking Blood Spirits and Toxics and a little house creation called Daemon Spirits here - flock to this young child with the incredible amount of power. There are also rumors of increased Ghoul activity. Draco gets concerned when all transmitions from their very expensive, self-sufficient research station are disrupted simultaneuosly. They send in some Company Men, and the last transmission they have from that team is the group leader screaming insanely before being cut off mid-transmission. So they hire some runners to find out just what the hell happened. Runners get there, find everything running on emergency power. They enter at the managerial level, and after dealing with a few dog-brained sentry guns are given a choice: go up to Residential, or down to Research. (Half of the complex is underground; the runners enter at ground level.) Residential is exceedingly creepy. There is no sign of anything wrong, except that there is no one there. Plates with half-eaten food remain on the tables, as if someone had just gotten up and walked away. The only sign of any kind of trouble is a young (think mid-twenties) aged woman, a suicide, hanging by a shower curtain in a bathroom (and the runners might not even find that: the door's locked and barricaded and has to be broken down by something.) Eventually, the runners hear a girl crying somewhere. The sound cannot be tracked down, no matter the perception rolls, and the background count (I forget the exact number, but it was mind-numbingly high) serves as the target for a Willpower test to astrally project. The runners end up walking through hall after hall after apartment after apartment after locked door as they attempt to find the only sign of life still in this complex. (They don't have to, of course, but they are very strongly encouraged to.) What they eventually find is a small, semi-circular church, with the pews arranged in concentric semi-circles, the altar where the middle of the circle would be if it was full. They see an aged priest, muttering in Latin, sitting beneath a life-sized Crucifix. (The girl's cries vanish abruptly the second they enter the church.) After standing there for a second (giving the players a chance to bolt) the priest rises, and begins the Sacrament of Communion. [Note: this next bit has a high potential of offending the religious, especially Catholics. My only consolation to you in this matter is that I'm Catholic, too, and not a complete psycho, and I intentionally wrote this bit to see how disturbed I could be.] When the priest finishes the transsubtiation ritual (and I know I spelled that wrong), the runners are asked to take communion. The second one of them takes either their first step towards the doors or raises touches the communion chalice there is the audible -click- of mechanical locks closing on the church doors, the girl's cry becomes eardrum-rattlingly-loud, and the priest drops the mother-of-an-illusion spell that he'd been sustaining. The light level drops by about 500 lumens. In place of Christ on the crucifix is a middle-aged woman, with jet black hair, nude, tied to it, sobbing. A high Perception roll reveals that the wine is not wine at all, but a mixture of actual blood, urine, and other bodily fluids. The priest himself appears as the traditional European vision of Satan: goat's horns, red scaly skin, long snout, cloven feet, the whole nine yards. The priest is acutally a custom creature, which I'll recreate sometime soon. If a character makes a lewd comment about the woman on the cross, the priest says "If thine right eye offends thee, pluck it out," said character's right eye is physically ripped from it's socket, and floats towards the Satan-Priest; the character takes a 5D unresisted wound and makes an immediate check for magic loss (if Awakened). The victim may be stabilized, but he will not heal until he leaves the complex. (I try to keep my games at a high level of maturity.) Group kills Satan-Priest and, hypothetically, frees the woman, who becomes a rather central NPC; she's a researcher for Draco, and the Wraith Paladin is her son (although she does not know this until the group finally finds him at the bottom of the Research area), she knows the layout of the complex, and can show runners the location of security checkpoint containing some useful goodies, ammo and medpacks and slap-patches and such. Can the group survive without her? Hypothetically. I wouldn't stake my life on it, though. If the group decides to go down to Research first, they enter Hell on the first level. Unholy magical fire, messages written in blood in Latin and Greek and Hebrew on the walls, people with their eyes burned out and a large hole in the back of their skull, etc. There are also a good deal of hungry ghouls here. If the runners still want to go further down after this, the elevator decides to go up instead, thus giving them the opportunity to save the woman on the cross and making their life a whole lot easier down the line. The entire residential area is probably a crap load scarier if you go to research first, since it's so calm up until the end. There's bunches more, and the ending is epic, but I've run out of time. I'll go into deeper detail on Research later this week, and all the stats for the custom creatures and spirits will go up after that, as I have to pull new numbers out of my ass. I ran a VERY similiar run once, and have also been in one. I think i might know the person who GMed that one. I'll have to check. Tips for Halloween runs: 1) No jokes. Ask your group's prankster to stay at home. 2) Music. Something dark and twisted, make sure there are no high-cords. 3) Lighting. Comon guy's and Gal's. 4) Movement. Get your players around a nice long table. when you talk to them put your hand's on their shoulder and push slughtly, this will help make them feel scared. 5) Fear. Play on the player's fear as well as the characters. 6) Corruption of Innocence. Unless you have some very Amoral player's this work's. A little child (usually girl) corrupted but maybe still saveable can do wonders. 7) Unknown. Keep the tech and Magic low, never use names only description's, a PC can distance themself from a situation if they know what it is.  The mood. Make sure your players are willing for this kind of game. |
I made a run (practically a campaign, although the game died before I got to bring it fully to bear) based on the first one fix-it listed, getting the girl from the underground facility. Sorry for the long post, but basically it worked like this:
Mission 1 -
Synopsis - crew goes to creepy old house in NAN for a week and faces terrible illusions until they open the door in the basement and are subsequently told they've completed their mission, return home for payment.
Details -
The group is hired to meet an "eccentric Johnson" who is new to the shadowrunning scene. No background, nothing on the matrix. He meets the group at a little joint called "Ma's place", a C-zone restaurant styled after 20th century pop culture. The Johnson is dressed to match the place, he looks like he walked straight out of a musty museum of 90's culture. Astral vision will show that he is alive and he has several spells cast on him, mostly defensive ones (GM can make up the details, my mage didn't ask). He says he owns a small house in NAN territory and basically he wants people to guard it until he calls and says they're done. It's really out in the boonies, unfortunately. He'll pay for transport and associated costs. Unfortunately he can only offer mineral wealth as payment for your services, but he promises to pay extra due to the inconvenience. What he offers his gold, silver and gems, much of it virgin, and good to his word, he's happy to pay more than he's worth. Overall fairly agreeable, but it quickly becomes clear that there's some sort of business going on he doesn't want to talk about. A smart player might assume it's associated with smuggling.
He arranges for the group to meet him at Seatac airport. He's chartered a small private jet. The party meets him there and he invites them on board. There's no sign of the pilot as they get comfortable. Once everything is nice and sealed, the little air vents turn on. People with a chemical analyzer will quickly realize there's a knock-out drug in the air. People with toxin filters or insanely high bod scores will get a chance to see their comrades fall unconscious before they too follow.
People wake up from their naps as the airplane comes into a landing. The airport is basically a flat piece of ground. As promised, it's out in the boonies. All technology is 90's era tech or earlier, and there aren't many people. The crew arranges transport some how, most likely through stealing a truck. Something interesting and scary happens on the way over.
The house is a Victorian style house in the mountains (I have maps if people are interested), hours away from any other signs of civilization. The house appears to be hundreds of years old and outfitted for long-term living. It is equiped with a generator, but most stuff runs without electricity or gas. There is plenty of stored food. Strangely, any wireless equipment is of limited use. Due to the weather conditions and the shape of the mountains, they cannot connect to wireless internet, cell phones, etc. EXCEPT to contact the Johnson. As the party sets up, gradually they begin to see visions or hear noises, hopefully leading them downstairs. If they get too complacent or aggressive, in the middle of the night something starts casting high level trid phantasm on THEM. Character A sees a vision of Character B being eaten by a zombie, when really the zombie is B. When C enters, he sees B as normal and A as a monster. This was really fun and ended up with the quietest character in the group narcojeting three other guys (since everyone was shooting at everyone else).
Finally I'm sure someone gets the bright idea of searching the basement. In doing so they find a big, locked trapdoor. If they open it, imagine the scene from Rats in the Walls by Lovecraft (which is required reading, BTW). There's some sort of sacrificial altar down there and signs of gore, as well as a beautiful gem embeded in the earth (which they can take if they'd like). There are several ancient, rotted cages. Within one is someone calling for help. The cage is too dark to see details beyond it being a very scrawny, starving person. He only manages to speak a little, and not anything the group can understand, before he goes quiet, and only very slight breathing can be heard. If they ignore him, he'll probably try to do something else to get their attention. If they open it up, they only find the rotting remains of someone who must have been dead for quite a while. Of course, the body will disappear as soon as they go to sleep.
Once the body has been released, the mission is over and they are called back. Until then, the Johnson will ask them to stay there and will continue paying them for their time. He can't give details about the house, he officially never visited there, however his interest is only in getting them to go down and open that box. When they return to the airport, the jet is waiting for them. Again they fall asleep on the flight over and wake up in a dark plane, no sign of the pilot, but payment and a note of thanks left for them. A bonus is also available if they did especially well. Any alteration to the groups' equipment did NOT happen. Any programming projects have made no progress since they left, no ammunition expended, no food eaten. It's like they never left the plane.
Spice to taste.
Mission 2:
Synopsis - like the vault job described previously.
Details -
The Johnson returns. In my case, I was trying to get two different groups to join, so this worked well. The Johnson really shouldn't want to hire the same group twice, to avoid anyone figuring out what's going on. However, metagame reasons may force you to use the same group anyway.
The Johnson is representing a client who has recently been fired by a geomancy corporation in the NAN. The client is very upset about being fired, but has some valuable information and was smart enough to anticipate his termination. He is now hiring 3 teams to go back to the locale and retrieve a "valuable object". The J does not know what the object is, only that it weighs less than 150 lbs. and is smaller than a coffin. Team 1 will hit the place first and remove all security. Team 2 is the party and will move after Team 1 to retrieve the item. Team 3 is purely astral. Team 2 will hit a very powerful ward on the elevator shaft that must be taken down. If Team 2 does not want to take down the ward themselves, they call in for Team 3 to do it. At no point will the 3 teams communicate directly with each other. All communication is sent through the Johnson. The runners are hired to enter the location, get to the underground lab and retrieve the object. They are assured they'll know it when they see it. Unlike the last job, they will need to arrange their own transportation.
The mission proceeds as described in the previous post. The group retrieves a quiet young girl. If things become odd, the Johnson will tell them to drop the girl off anywhere outside of the facility. Ultimately his only concern is that the girl not be killed.
Of course, with both missions, any crazy old Native Americans will recognize the house/girl/facility as being very bad magic, and the location is historically a "bad place". Crazy old Native American will not be able to explain further, at least not without using crazy words like Yenadlooshi.
The background (for GMs only)
Mission 1 -
Synopsis - crew goes to creepy old house in NAN for a week and faces terrible illusions until they open the door in the basement and are subsequently told they've completed their mission, return home for payment.
Details -
The group is hired to meet an "eccentric Johnson" who is new to the shadowrunning scene. No background, nothing on the matrix. He meets the group at a little joint called "Ma's place", a C-zone restaurant styled after 20th century pop culture. The Johnson is dressed to match the place, he looks like he walked straight out of a musty museum of 90's culture. Astral vision will show that he is alive and he has several spells cast on him, mostly defensive ones (GM can make up the details, my mage didn't ask). He says he owns a small house in NAN territory and basically he wants people to guard it until he calls and says they're done. It's really out in the boonies, unfortunately. He'll pay for transport and associated costs. Unfortunately he can only offer mineral wealth as payment for your services, but he promises to pay extra due to the inconvenience. What he offers his gold, silver and gems, much of it virgin, and good to his word, he's happy to pay more than he's worth. Overall fairly agreeable, but it quickly becomes clear that there's some sort of business going on he doesn't want to talk about. A smart player might assume it's associated with smuggling.
He arranges for the group to meet him at Seatac airport. He's chartered a small private jet. The party meets him there and he invites them on board. There's no sign of the pilot as they get comfortable. Once everything is nice and sealed, the little air vents turn on. People with a chemical analyzer will quickly realize there's a knock-out drug in the air. People with toxin filters or insanely high bod scores will get a chance to see their comrades fall unconscious before they too follow.
People wake up from their naps as the airplane comes into a landing. The airport is basically a flat piece of ground. As promised, it's out in the boonies. All technology is 90's era tech or earlier, and there aren't many people. The crew arranges transport some how, most likely through stealing a truck. Something interesting and scary happens on the way over.
The house is a Victorian style house in the mountains (I have maps if people are interested), hours away from any other signs of civilization. The house appears to be hundreds of years old and outfitted for long-term living. It is equiped with a generator, but most stuff runs without electricity or gas. There is plenty of stored food. Strangely, any wireless equipment is of limited use. Due to the weather conditions and the shape of the mountains, they cannot connect to wireless internet, cell phones, etc. EXCEPT to contact the Johnson. As the party sets up, gradually they begin to see visions or hear noises, hopefully leading them downstairs. If they get too complacent or aggressive, in the middle of the night something starts casting high level trid phantasm on THEM. Character A sees a vision of Character B being eaten by a zombie, when really the zombie is B. When C enters, he sees B as normal and A as a monster. This was really fun and ended up with the quietest character in the group narcojeting three other guys (since everyone was shooting at everyone else).
Finally I'm sure someone gets the bright idea of searching the basement. In doing so they find a big, locked trapdoor. If they open it, imagine the scene from Rats in the Walls by Lovecraft (which is required reading, BTW). There's some sort of sacrificial altar down there and signs of gore, as well as a beautiful gem embeded in the earth (which they can take if they'd like). There are several ancient, rotted cages. Within one is someone calling for help. The cage is too dark to see details beyond it being a very scrawny, starving person. He only manages to speak a little, and not anything the group can understand, before he goes quiet, and only very slight breathing can be heard. If they ignore him, he'll probably try to do something else to get their attention. If they open it up, they only find the rotting remains of someone who must have been dead for quite a while. Of course, the body will disappear as soon as they go to sleep.
Once the body has been released, the mission is over and they are called back. Until then, the Johnson will ask them to stay there and will continue paying them for their time. He can't give details about the house, he officially never visited there, however his interest is only in getting them to go down and open that box. When they return to the airport, the jet is waiting for them. Again they fall asleep on the flight over and wake up in a dark plane, no sign of the pilot, but payment and a note of thanks left for them. A bonus is also available if they did especially well. Any alteration to the groups' equipment did NOT happen. Any programming projects have made no progress since they left, no ammunition expended, no food eaten. It's like they never left the plane.
Spice to taste.
Mission 2:
Synopsis - like the vault job described previously.
Details -
The Johnson returns. In my case, I was trying to get two different groups to join, so this worked well. The Johnson really shouldn't want to hire the same group twice, to avoid anyone figuring out what's going on. However, metagame reasons may force you to use the same group anyway.
The Johnson is representing a client who has recently been fired by a geomancy corporation in the NAN. The client is very upset about being fired, but has some valuable information and was smart enough to anticipate his termination. He is now hiring 3 teams to go back to the locale and retrieve a "valuable object". The J does not know what the object is, only that it weighs less than 150 lbs. and is smaller than a coffin. Team 1 will hit the place first and remove all security. Team 2 is the party and will move after Team 1 to retrieve the item. Team 3 is purely astral. Team 2 will hit a very powerful ward on the elevator shaft that must be taken down. If Team 2 does not want to take down the ward themselves, they call in for Team 3 to do it. At no point will the 3 teams communicate directly with each other. All communication is sent through the Johnson. The runners are hired to enter the location, get to the underground lab and retrieve the object. They are assured they'll know it when they see it. Unlike the last job, they will need to arrange their own transportation.
The mission proceeds as described in the previous post. The group retrieves a quiet young girl. If things become odd, the Johnson will tell them to drop the girl off anywhere outside of the facility. Ultimately his only concern is that the girl not be killed.
Of course, with both missions, any crazy old Native Americans will recognize the house/girl/facility as being very bad magic, and the location is historically a "bad place". Crazy old Native American will not be able to explain further, at least not without using crazy words like Yenadlooshi.
The background (for GMs only)
[ Spoiler ]
I actualy ran something based on that first one Fix-it posted a few years back, and the spooky little girl still gets brought up in conversation. She ended up as a reflection in a window when I eventually killed the PC that carried her out.
The nice thing about Halloween runs is its an excuse to pull ALL the stops out to set the mood. Props, ambiant lighting, paranoia tricks, the works. I had pre-recorded the Johnsons offer on .wav and played it for them. I recorded my commute (45 miles of smooth highway) from the floor of my car and had it on loop for the entire transportation segment. I didnt roll dice all night, because I had a string of 300 pre-rolled numbers that I crossed off. Boy, if you though random dice rolls where bad, try watching their reaction when you cross off a few numbers for no reason.
When it comes down to it there are 2 different ways to get to your players. After all, you can do anything you want to the charcters, its the PLAYERS you want to make cry. So you either end up with horror, or terror. Personally I like terror, so I shall expound. It breaks up into 2 fairly different camps on its own. On one hand you have 'Monster in a box' that pops out and makes you jump. Pretty much any slasher flick ever made. On the other, and harder to achive, you have raw ambiant creepyness. Go watch the Japan version of 'The Ring', and dont plan on sleeping for a while.
If you like, you can cross the two, horror and terror, but not often. My team poked around the facility a bit much, and stumbeled into a surgical theater (one of the ones you can see from the second level). I had a plastic lawn chair and a tub of popcorn in the corner, and the rest of the place was covered in gore and other maters of distruction. Including a hand print on the second story window.
Overall, dont be dissapointed when your players leave with a much lower energy level then normal. Infact that should be your own little moment of victory. Scar the players and scare the charcters.
The nice thing about Halloween runs is its an excuse to pull ALL the stops out to set the mood. Props, ambiant lighting, paranoia tricks, the works. I had pre-recorded the Johnsons offer on .wav and played it for them. I recorded my commute (45 miles of smooth highway) from the floor of my car and had it on loop for the entire transportation segment. I didnt roll dice all night, because I had a string of 300 pre-rolled numbers that I crossed off. Boy, if you though random dice rolls where bad, try watching their reaction when you cross off a few numbers for no reason.
When it comes down to it there are 2 different ways to get to your players. After all, you can do anything you want to the charcters, its the PLAYERS you want to make cry. So you either end up with horror, or terror. Personally I like terror, so I shall expound. It breaks up into 2 fairly different camps on its own. On one hand you have 'Monster in a box' that pops out and makes you jump. Pretty much any slasher flick ever made. On the other, and harder to achive, you have raw ambiant creepyness. Go watch the Japan version of 'The Ring', and dont plan on sleeping for a while.
If you like, you can cross the two, horror and terror, but not often. My team poked around the facility a bit much, and stumbeled into a surgical theater (one of the ones you can see from the second level). I had a plastic lawn chair and a tub of popcorn in the corner, and the rest of the place was covered in gore and other maters of distruction. Including a hand print on the second story window.
Overall, dont be dissapointed when your players leave with a much lower energy level then normal. Infact that should be your own little moment of victory. Scar the players and scare the charcters.
Many thanks Fix-it! I've tried to that old post about the particularly creepy Halloween Arcology run but it had evaded my Search-fu.
Once I did a Halloween run which was very loosely based on the Friday the 13th NES game. Basically, a supernatural serial killer was loose in a park and the runners were hired to quietly kill him/her/it. I made a map of the park and gave the players the option of going wherever they wanted in the park in search of the serial killer. Just like in the NES game, I secretly made the killer move around as well so that if and when the party encountered the serial killer was entirely a matter of luck and movement.
Actually, the serial killer was an evil spirit with its life hidden in a possessed little girl so that the spirit itself just kept having thing ding off it in essence. It was pretty funny because by judiciously using the spirit's prodigious combat pool I totally killed a PC who made a bad decision. Unfortunately, this occurred during the salad days of my GMing so I didn't realize how powerful Reach could be in melee. When the bo-staff-wielding pacifist character caught up with the girl even though the girl was supernaturally enhanced the bo staff character easily smacked her down because of reach. Finally, in a panic, one of the PCs declared he was standing over the fallen girl's body and emptying the entire magazine from his assault rifle into her. I wasn't even sure how to describe how she looked after that so IIRC I said that now she looked like so much torn meat not even resembling a human being.
Yeah, good times.
Actually, the serial killer was an evil spirit with its life hidden in a possessed little girl so that the spirit itself just kept having thing ding off it in essence. It was pretty funny because by judiciously using the spirit's prodigious combat pool I totally killed a PC who made a bad decision. Unfortunately, this occurred during the salad days of my GMing so I didn't realize how powerful Reach could be in melee. When the bo-staff-wielding pacifist character caught up with the girl even though the girl was supernaturally enhanced the bo staff character easily smacked her down because of reach. Finally, in a panic, one of the PCs declared he was standing over the fallen girl's body and emptying the entire magazine from his assault rifle into her. I wasn't even sure how to describe how she looked after that so IIRC I said that now she looked like so much torn meat not even resembling a human being.
Yeah, good times.
I'm planning to intruduce Shidem on Halloween. My game is late December and it should be early January around Halloween. Of course this is if one of players gets out of jail in time.
| QUOTE (Rajaat99) |
| Of course this is if one of players gets out of jail in time. |
One of the characters or one of the players?
Something that works well with mechanics already in the Shadowrun sources is that during events such as this, Boston gets pretty crazy. Think Salem witch hunts. Also, New Orleans normally has random magic spurts according to the books, so Possibly being the height of a religiously (evil) holiday, the spirits would really go nuts down there.
I like the Halloween based aventures where each player brings me a present, cause Halloween is my birfday 
If players do not bring me candy I become displeased. 
| QUOTE (ChuckRozool) |
| I like the Halloween based aventures where each player brings me a present, cause Halloween is my birfday |
Hey, congratulations, me too! Too bad my players don't bring me anything but strife.
Mine bring me nothing but stupid.
BTW, those who posted stuff get copied to the txtfile. It'll be in the next "Halloween Runs" thread. which will probably be a dime a dozen in a few weeks.
BTW, those who posted stuff get copied to the txtfile. It'll be in the next "Halloween Runs" thread. which will probably be a dime a dozen in a few weeks.
No problem. HW runs are something that needs to be taking somewhat seriously. Its poetic license to go pole vaulting "over the top" and hopefully are the most memerable you players have.
| QUOTE (Brahm) | ||
One of the characters or one of the players? |
Players, unfortunately. He got busted for lighting someone's car on fire. Actually, he had someone else do it, but that still doesn't make it right by the law.
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