Sorry, Last time i donned the vestment of a local cultural pastime, I was almost executed by firing squad.

Oh, alright OP.

Creepy art dump for inspiration for GMs and players? Sign me up!

>>16433336
Creepy time?

The sky is dark. The fire burns. You strive in vain as Fate's wheel turns!

Boys and girls of every age

Wouldn't you like to see something strange

come with us and you will see

this our town of halloween

I fucking love Halloween, at least conceptually. Fuck Thanksgiving, if you love the whole colonial America motif halloween does it best.

this is halloween
.
This is halloween

sharing all radojavor's pics cause theyre awesome

>never take part in any halloween actitives due to distance, location and circumstance
>not even acquiring free items as a child
>mfw

This thread is great.

real skull, supposedly

This time of year again? Last year there was an awesome thread on the same subject wherein someone posted up an entire halloween-based adventure/setting that they run for their players every year. I managed to copy it down, and will share if people want to see it. Anybody interested?

>>16433610
Please do.

>>16433610
Very much want!

>>16433670
aye, post it

>>16433622
Alright then. I'm copying from a .doc so it'll take a few posts, but here goes. And as I said, this is not my work, just something I'm sharing for the good of everyone.


>Well, I’ve mentioned this campaign idea I cooked up a few times in past threads, and it got a positive response, so I thought I’d post some more about it, given the season.

>It’s a Halloween themed-campaign inspired pretty heavily by movies like “The Goonies” and “Monster Squad” among others, and it’s designed to be played annually each October. Basically, the players are a small group of teenagers. It’s Halloween in their Midwestern town, but said town has a bit of a problem. Long ago, people in the town made a pact with dark powers. As such, every Halloween, evil creatures and spirits have free run of the town.

>The goal of the players is to survive the night, escape the town, or break the town’s curse.

>I’ll be posting assorted fluff and gameplay ideas. Feel free to critique or suggest additions. This thread is also about Halloween-themed campaigns in general.

>>16433695
Switching away from greentext, because it's a pain to read.

The Town
To start with, there's the town itself.

It's a Mid-Western town, located in an unspecified state. Despite the economic hardships of the region around it, the Town thrives. This is because, nearly a hundred years ago, when the town was founded, a deal was struck with certain Dark Powers from The Old Country. As such, the town is under the Curse of Sustainability. This may sound like a lame name for a curse, but it has its reasons. The town continues to expand, and in fact is now quite large. But despite having a population to rival some cities, the whole place still seems like a small Midwestern rural town, with no particularly large buildings, lots of trees and wooden houses, and a thriving and extensive (yet quaint) downtown business district. In short, the Curse of Sustainability traps the town in a certain level of unchanging stasis, while at the same time allowing it to grow. In fact, the town doesn’t actually have enough jobs to support all its citizens, yet funds pour in anyway. It’s basically a money sinkhole, yet the Curse keeps investors (or the townspeople) from ever actually noticing.
The larger population allows for the dark side of the founder’s deal to go mostly unnoticed; each Halloween, monsters roam the streets of the town, abducting and killing. The town has a skyrocketing missing persons list, yet the Curse of Sustainability prevents anyone from really noticing this.

>>16433693
>dem parrot pauldrons

>>16433713
The Characters
Up next there's the basic player character types. These are only broad overviews. To begin with, there's The Fat Kid.

Think of Horace from “Monster Squad,” or Chunk from “The Goonies.” The Fat Kid is a bit of a social pariah (not as bad as The Nerd, though, who we'll get to in a moment), and he’s got low health and the slowest movement speed. The Fat Kid, however, is also one of the most important members of the team. Why? Because he’s a powder keg. He’s used to being picked on for his weight, and has been for years, and he’s finally had enough. When the chips are low, he rises to the occasion.

If the party (or the Fat Kid himself) is cornered and cannot retreat any further, the Fat Kid gets a phenomenal boost to his stats and is suddenly able to use any weapon in the game, even if he doesn’t know how to operate it. He’s not rendered strong enough to solo the threat, but he is rendered strong enough to do (and take) serious damage. In terms of party mechanics, he’s a bit of a wildcard.

Next player "class" is The Jock.

The toughest, best all around fighter on the team. Usually forced into hanging out with these other “losers” due to circumstances set up by the GM before the game starts, but he may be a genuine friend. When rolling the Jock, the player has to pick which sport he specializes in. Football makes him tougher. Baseball improves his upper body strength and makes him do more damage with melee weapons. Soccer makes him faster. The Jock tends to not get along with the Bad Boy. In terms of party mechanics, he’s the warrior.

>>16433740
he Bad Boy

Leather jacket. Probably smokes. Juvenile delinquent. Has a way with the ladies. The Bad Boy is everything you’d expect from an 80s kid adventure stereotype. He’s useful, because he’s got skills and access to items the other players don’t. He knows how to make pipe bombs. He knows how to drive a car. He’s also the only player who knows how to use a gun. The Bad Boy may sometimes cause some friction within the group (he's a bit of a cynical dick), but he’s damn handy to have in a tight spot and is a good guy deep down. A decent fighter, fast but not very tough. In terms of party mechanics, he’s the rogue.

This team wouldn't be complete without The Nerd.

The frailest of the team. The Nerd has asthma and can’t run as long as the other players, although his speed is fairly average. He’s useless with a weapon. Why keep him around? On the one hand, the Nerd tends to read a lot, so he knows more about the weird goings on around the town. When the players encounter something strange, or a new type of monster, the Nerd is allowed to ask the DM for a hint as to the monster’s weakness, or about the circumstances of the weirdness. If they players choose to try and break the curse over the town, this skill will be instrumental for their investigation. On the other hand, the Nerd also knows Science, especially chemistry. Need to make a smoke bomb out of household chemicals? Or homemade napalm? He’s your man. In terms of party mechanics, think of him as the mage.

>>16433746
Last of Character Creation
Parents
During character creation, the players have to roll for Parental Occupation. This might sound like silly fluff, but it has a couple of very useful gameplay attributes. One is resources. Let’s say one player gets the Sheriff as his dad. Well, that means there’s probably a gun somewhere in the house. Or maybe the player’s mom is a nurse. That means there’s probably a well stocked first aid supply kit in the house. Or maybe the dad is the school sports coach, and he left his keys to the sporting equipment shed at home. The other aspect is for a bit of roleplaying and plot-building. For example, say the Bad Boy rolls the coach dad. Well, then obviously he’s a Bad Boy because he’s rebelling against his square, ex-military, rules-and-discipline dad, which allows for potential roleplaying friction. Or maybe your dad is the sheriff, and you want to try and convince him you’re being chased by monsters and get some help (good luck with convincing any of the adults of this, by the way).

Before the game begins, the GM should roll up a few character templates for the parents. They players are merely rolling to see which ones they should get. It might seem easy to just make everybody a single parent, but that’s a bit of a cheap shot. You could combine them, though, making two of the players siblings. In most cases, maybe only one parent is really important, but even if dad is the sheriff, maybe mom has a collection of prized silverware that can be stuffed inside a pipebomb for a werewolf.

>>16433746
Respect the Nerd.

>>16433759
The Monsters
Now onto the monsters. The monsters are all "classic" Halloween monsters, spiced up a bit.

First, of course, there's the Vampires.

The vampires are very Nosferatu-ish in appearance. Dress in big, ancient black overcoats, possibly with some grave mould still clinging to them. They’re not AS powerful as some vampires; they’ve got no psychic or spell-casting abilities, they can only shapeshift into bats, their reflexes aren’t much better than a human’s and they can’t control the weather. However, they are super strong, can create more vampires by biting and draining another person of their blood, and can hypnotize others. Their hypnotic power is not truly psychic. Rather, it’s all about the odd qualities of their eyes; this power requires them to maintain eye contact with their chosen victim the whole time. If eye contact is broken for any reason, the hypnosis is canceled, though the victim won’t blink once hypnotized. Generally, this power is used to lead a victim away docilely, so they can be drained out of sight. These vampires also cannot change into a bat very subtlety. Instead, their body dissolves into a plume of white fog, before reforming into a large, ugly bat.

While not as dangerous as vampires in other settings, these are one of the more dangerous monsters in this setting, and should be used sparingly, usually with only one appearing in the whole campaign. Assume the others are busy elsewhere. They live in their coffins in several large, ornate tombs in the town graveyard, and spend most of the year in a state of deep hibernation. All the traditional weapons work on them; stakes, holy water, and crosses. Unfortunately, since the whole campaign takes place at night, it’s unlikely you’ll catch one sleeping. They rarely talk, except to threaten.

>>16433778
Werewolves
Werewolves in this setting do not transform under a full moon, and they’re not tragic victims. They’re completely aware of what they are, and they’re not nice. They spend most of the year as rather hirsute, anti-social recluses, only leaving their homes to find food, or just living as bums. During Halloween, however, they turn into hulking, four-legged monsters. They’re fast and strong, and want to eat people. They’re not as smart in wolf form, but they will mostly still try to take victims who are alone, as opposed to attacking crowds. If you piss one off, though, it will come after you no matter what.

Destroying a werewolf can garner experience, but it won’t kill the monster; it can regenerate ever from blowing it to pieces. Only damage dealt with silver will finish it off. However, the period where it regenerates offers plenty of time to run for it. Along with the vampires, they’re one of the more dangerous monsters, and should be used sparingly. The players should never face more than one (maybe two) at a time.

>>16433792
Ghouls
A colony of ghouls lives in series of tunnels and catacombs (connected to the sewers) under the town’s graveyard. They look like extremely emaciated humans, are a sickly green in color, and ropes of semi-translucent green slime hang from their bony frames, with only a few rotten (but sharp) teeth in their mouths. They tend to be naked, aside from a few rags. They’re actually quite weak; a good, solid hit from a baseball bat would shatter most of their ribs or cave in their skull. That said, they do have an extremely strong grip in their hands and toes. They prefer to sneak up behind your, throttle you silently, and then drag you back to their lair, where they’ll let you rot for a while to soften the flesh before eating you. Because of their strong grip, they’re also expert climbers, and can even crawl along ceilings and walls.

Ghouls rarely use any weapons, preferring to attack undetected. If pressed, they might try and grab a sharp rock and hit you in the head with it, or bash you with a discarded femur. If their silent approach is foiled, they might press the attack anyway if they have superior numbers. Stiff resistance will send them scuttling back to their tunnels, though they’ll try to drag the dead or wounded with them, and will probably come back later to try again. During the year, they live in their catacombs, pilfering the graves above for food. During Halloween, they start picking off fresher meat, usually using the sewer system to move about the town. They favor weak-looking targets, and it’s easiest for them to pick off children.

Fa-lah-lah-lah

lah lah lah

>>16433800
Goblins
The goblins live in the hills just outside of town. They look more or less like the Green Goblin from Spider-Man with gangly limbs, and they’re not green. They’re normal flesh colors, but very wrinkly. The goblins spend most of the year watching the town, and going about their own affairs. On Halloween proper, they engage in various dark humor, Gremlins-esque pranks. Some of these can be lethal. For example, say they fill a Jack O’Lantern with kerosene, so that when the wick burns down enough it ignites. That’s a mild one by their standards.

Their other main goal is to kidnap young children and drag them back to the hills, where they will poke, prod, pinch, torment the child, all while rubbing ointments of a mysterious nature on them. By the next Halloween, the child will just be another goblin. Goblins are fairly weak physically, and are more of a nuisance then a true threat. If their lives are seriously endangered, they’ll probably flee, but if they think there’s fun to be had, they’ll come back later to provoke the one who threatened them. Goblins can’t leave well enough alone, and have poor impulse control.

>>16433809
Ghosts
Look like transparent white people wrapped in raggedy, hooded, flowing robes, with no legs hanging out the bottom. Their eyes glow red. Ghosts can move through any solid object. They don’t really attack the player, but they do impede his progress.

For example, the player is walking up stairway in a dark house. At the top of the stairs, a ghost shoots out of the wall, shrieking at him. He is startled and has to roll. If he fails the roll, he falls down the stairs and takes damage. If he succeeds, he manages to catch his footing before he falls. Ghosts can also hinder vision and slow the players down in large numbers. Say they’re running from a werewolf. Dozens of ghosts swirl around their heads, feeling like cobwebs as they push through them. They distract and blind the players, slowing them down. Ghosts are primarily an environmental hazard, because they can’t physically attack or be attacked.

>>16433817
Witches
The witches are all ancient crones of various sizes and shapes, and while then tend to dress in black dresses, have twisted, unpleasant features with long stringy hair, nothing else indicates they are witches. They all live together on the far side of town, in a row of large, stately Victorian houses surrounded by spiky iron fences and overgrown with ivy. They never leave their homes except on Halloween. On Halloween night, they go out into the night seeking unguarded babies. If they find one, they will suck out its breath, asphyxiating it. The breath of children is what sustains them, keeping them alive over the centuries, though it never restores their youth. The witches can fly, on broomsticks, yes, but also on any other object they choose to so enchant, including benches, cauldrons, tree branches, etc.

Their powers are limited; each witch has a familiar, which serves as their eyes and ears. These include snakes, toads, black cats, and crows. Often, the familiars will scout out a house before the witches come in to kill a baby. During the rest of the year, the familiars have the run of the town, so the witches are kept up to date on things despite never leaving their houses. The witches are so old that they remember the town being founded, and they remember the pact that was made. They are a potential source of information if the players want to try to investigate the truth behind the town’s curse, but they will either have to be forced to provide that information, or they might part with it for a price.

I've toyed with the idea of each witch having one specific power of her own, like say, one has a glass eye and if you look into it you'll see your own death, which will make you run in fear. Something like that, but I couldn't come up with enough different powers.

INNISTRAD, WHOO.

>>16433827
Devils
Red skin. Pitchfork. Goat legs. Arrow-headed tail tip. High, Dracula-esque collar on his red robe/cape. The works. There’s never more than one devil in the game (and he’s not THE Devil) and the GM only brings him out when the chips are down. Really, really down. Maybe a player has died, maybe the players are cornered. Then the devil is waiting for them in the next room they enter.

He can’t be hurt, and he’s not there to attack. Instead, he’ll offer to get the players out of their immediate bind (though he won’t take them out of the town or kill the things chasing them), in exchange for a trade. This price will be unpleasant and steep, but the players may decide to pay it if they're in dire enough straits. This price could be as severe as asking the players to sacrifice one of their number, or surrendering some choice gear. In short, the devil is a player get-out-off-jail card, but it should be morally compromising in a way that might make them think twice about paying it.

>>16433829
Fuck yeah! Are you ready? I'm fucking ready. Some friends of mine and I are trying to throw together a draft the weekend it hits.

>>16433832
Zombies
Zombies in this setting don’t want to eat your flesh or your brains, and they’re not the recently dead. Instead, they’re people who were unpleasant in life who, on Halloween, claw their way out of the grave. They’re slow, shambling, and rotting. Hitting one hard enough can knock off an arm or something, but they’re impossible to kill; you can only disable them. Even then, their various bits will still crawl after you. Zombies never retreat and always attack in numbers (though usually not more then five), and their goal is to grab a player, drag them back to the graveyard, and bury them alive.

The other players can attempt to rescue a captured player, but that means going to the graveyard, or intercepting the zombies en route. Some of the zombies are quite old, and may include people who remember the time when the town’s dark pact was first made, and therefore can be disabled and interrogated by the players, if they’re interested in solving the mystery of the town. The zombies are a surly bunch, but they’re not particularly loyal to the dark powers that have made them into walking corpses, and some of them have had a long, long time to think about their lives.

>>16433846
Skeletons
The Skeletons are not particularly dangerous in this game. They seem to have minds of their own, though they never talk, and no obvious goal. They frequently engage in rather crazy behavior. Something makes the skeletons think it’s hilarious to hide in a barrel, cackling intermittently for some three hundred years until a victim happens by who they can jump out at and grab onto . Sometimes during Halloween they just dance down the streets. Think of the Graveyard scene in “Army of Darkness” and you’ll get an idea of their slapstick hijinks.

Skeletons are easy to destroy, and are therefore cheap experience, though they may lead the players on a merry chase. What’s more, a group of skeletons will start putting themselves back together during combat. The whole bunch has to be smashed up or divided before they count as defeated.

>>16433854
The Bogeyman
The Bogeyman is the dark for the town founders make their pact with all those years ago. He laid the Curse of Sustainability upon the town (more on that in a bit). It is his power that keeps the other monsters in line, and confines them to only coming out on Halloween. The Bogeyman feeds on the fear released on that night. Luckily, most of his power is spent maintaining the unchanging nature of the town, so if the players can track him down and destroy him, they free the town and win the game. Unfortunately for them, the Bogeyman is an accomplished shapeshifter, and never brings attention to himself by killing people. He just goes around scaring them on Halloween, and drinking in their fear.

He has four basic forms: a big hairy closet monster, a purple tentacled critter that lurks under the bed, a creepy monster clown, and a bat-winged, scale covered creature. None of these forms are much bigger then a man, but each has their own special abilities. If the players defeat one form, the Bogeyman will flee to a new part of town and assume the next one. The players have to track him down. Once each form (or less, if the GM is feeling generous) is defeated, the Bogeyman can be finished off.

>>16433872

Other Notes
You may have noticed that some of the monsters seem very powerful, while others seem to attack in large numbers. That's because this is not a pure combat-intended game. Sometimes, running for their lives is a very wise decision, and the GM should make this clear before the game starts. This is why escaping the town is one of the victory parameters, although the GM should do his best to make getting out of town hard for the players.

If the players choose to stand and fight, just wading into battle will probably get them killed. Instead, the idea is to scavenge their resources, and MacGyver the shit out of things. GURPS is probably the best option for this kind of improvisational stuff. The idea is to get the players to come up with crazy/awesome ways of getting themselves out of a bind. The GM should keep the pressure on, not with the goal of overwhelming them, but with the idea of provoking that kind of crazy behavior.

>>16433882
With this in mind, the GM shouldn't have too many landmarks for the game. He should draw up some house/shop templates, maybe one for the school/police station/town hall, and that's about it. The Town is a sprawling landscape of semi-Suburban Midwestern houses and shops, most of which are pretty interchangable. Come up with what's in them (or on the streets) on the fly, altough it's a good idea to have a few events planned that can happen almost anywhere in town. For example, if they Players try to jack a car, maybe have a werewolf chase somebody into the street and they hit it or try to swerve out of the way and crash. A 400 lb werewolf will probably mess the car up pretty good, and it'll be getting to its feet again soon.

The game is designed to be played each October. If you want to run a harder game in the future, say that if the players escape the town, they can come back to it as adults in next year's game.

They can age their characters appropriately, and add some levels, becoming more standard character types, and less those of the Fat Kid/Nerd/Etc. After living on the lamb as teenage runaways for years, they return to town to finish it once and for all, and they come well prepared. In a game like that, the GM shouldn't hold back, and should hit them hard with the tougher monsters, and larger groups of the weaker ones.

Theoretical Additions, which were suggested by /tg/ in the other thread
Witch powers – mentioned in the Witch section, a few random ideas for Witch powers:

The ability to smell the blood of children.
The ability to transform a child into an animal for a short time, though the animal retains human intelligence.
The ability to bewitch a player (unless they make a saving throw). If they fail, they'll do whatever the Witch says for a set number of turns.

>>16433889
Aaaand that's everything. Not much in terms of rules, but a great groundwork for a fun Halloween one-shot. I really want to try it out with my group this year. Hope you enjoy it!

>>16433846
I'm SO ready, I went to a sealed and got fuck all! Still fun though. Scraping together money for the launch party now.

>>16433929
Excellent. I couldn't go to the local pre-release because I was sick, but I cannot fucking wait. Classic-horror themed magic makes me a haaaappy panda.

i love halloween so much

>>16433906
Perhaps adapt it to Unisystem (the core for the Buffy/ Army of Darkness/ All Flesh Must Be Eaten RPGs)?

Unisystem is piss easy to run (add Stat + Skill +1d10, check table to determine the success rating), fast to learn, and open-ended enough to fit most sett. Use WItchcraft [http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=692&it=1], refluff it with 80s kitch and we're off to the races!

Halloween has always been a big thing for me. When I was younger (and still today) I was so timid my mom even says to me now "Oh man you were the ABSOLUTE WORST KID. I couldn't take you ANYWHERE!" which is...kinda mean. But totally true. That, and, when I was 4, my babysitters kid chased me around the house in monster masks. Like literally around the entire house, I lapped it some 30 times each day.

So I've never felt good around Monster masks. I had to go to fucking therapy for it at age 10, which was mom's idea. Even shopping for a costume was torture, I was absolutely terrified. And come halloween, it was hard as hell to go out. And when I got older, people were always inviting me to Fright Farms and I'd have to decline each time, making me miss out on friends and they would go thinking I was a faggot. Fucking Halloween.

Every time lightning strikes, another angel falls from the Heavens above us; thunder is his roar.

An angel - a beautiful creature - but beauty set aside.
His wings are torn to pieces, peeled of his immortal hide.
His flesh is ripped and scratched and burned,
his eyes are squashed and mashed and churned.

Dancing in pain, pleading for skin to wear and eyes to see.
Laughing in terror of himself - he does not wish to be
Such horror! Our eyes deny it, we cannot comprehend.
He will, and has, an empty, lonesome stare you send.

Lonely as a writer, in agony as a poet.
He has a face so terrible, this God does not allow it!
Once he lived a life so gay -
Now, with us, he's forced to stay...

Eternity is his tomb, his grave, a single mistake it took
to take his Fathers love from him, to make him see, yet not look.
Centuries, millenia, a billion years shall turn -
Yet the lack of light within him will forever burn.

Et in vorago malo cruento,
cuius ingens est,
Cthulhu decumbet, Eheu! Hunc metuo,
Pro eo ingens est.

Vorago Hic obruat mundumque
omnem, quem ingens est.
Cthulhu indicet "Munde, te Meus est!"
Sciet Hic ingens est.

Arise, arise; all children of the night!
Gather 'neath the moon for a thrill of a fight!
Tonight we will conquer the realms of the Earth,
Drive humanity into the dirt!

Tonight I command all of you ghosts
to serve your master, your teacher; your host!
Tonight I will lead you out of your tombs
to unleash 'pon the world a shivering doom...

Throd through the mud and the gravel and grass,
wither each leaf, each straw and each hash.
Bear with you no arms, for you are immortal,
I summon you, beasts, now; Enter the portal!

Walk with a limb, crawl if you will,
make your entrance so sick and so ill!
All of mankind, down to the last child
will tremble and shiver and run and hide...

Tonight we assemble, in all of His might
to bring the apocalypse to Earth, tonight....

MORE HALLOWEEN, I'm in the mood. Let's go. Anyone ever run a Halloween campaign? With the PLAYERS as the Boogens?? That'd be wicked as fuck.

>>16434084
Don't be afraid of the monster. Become the monster.

>>16435883
When I was younger, I did use to fantasize about turning into a monster and eating villains. It was some sick shit. Someone would murder a woman and rape her dead body, and then I'd tear through the alley, grab the man, and tear him in half with my teeth. I'm not right.

>>16435925
Cool story bro. You might want to go tell your high school counselor about that, I bet he/she will be real impressed.

>>16435993
That was a long time ago. No need to be a faggot about it.

What about me HEE-HO? I want to be on the monster list too HO! I even tricked the devil HEE-HO!

>>16436241
No. Go away.

I want to play a game as a werewolf but I don't know how we'd handle it. My group and I are so new and so BAD that when one player was a Necromancer, we couldn't even figure out what spells they could use and they were forced to do fucking nothing all game. I don't think we'd figure out a werewolf.

>>16436869
also they might be pissed if I go Super Saiyan, "AAAWWWOOOOOOOooooo" and then eat our Cleric, change back the next morning "Hey where's Little Billy Cleric, our Cleric, who I adore so much?"

>>16437062
Shit I might be pissed about that too. God knows how I love little Billy Cleric, our Cleric.

Yeah I'm gonna need a bump on here. Bump, like Bump in the night, like halloween thread, like LET'S KEEP IT GOING.

Tender fa/tg.uys everywhere - life's no fun without a good scare!

That's our job, but we're not mean, in our town of Hallowe'en!


>>16434007
So far we have one anon suggesting unisystem. Is this a good idea? Or should we try and homebrew out own rules, say, using d6s?

This is now the Boogeyman's theme music for hallowe'en RPG. You cannot deny this [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1vDqgsbyhQ]