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  SPOOKY STUFF It's October, which for many goons means it's time to celebrate scary stories. It's also a great excuse for a horror game night! Please recommend your favourite Halloween games in this thread, so fellow goons considering a spooky game can get some ideas. This includes:  Board games, card games, and other tabletop games that would be great for a Halloween game night Tabletop RPGs that make good Halloween one-shots Adventure modules and other things that can be inserted in longer-running campaigns Good props, music (Lustmord), and other tips for spicing up games Scary stories that make great games Anything else you can think of!(Posts about things that have worked for you in the past are fine, if you keep it short and to the point. If you want to tell some spooky stories, try the experience thread!)
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Oct 3, 2016 11:29
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 11:14 |
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https://mynoise.net Have some spooky ambience for this spooky thread.
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Oct 3, 2016 11:48
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The very first thing that I ought to recommend is an Halloween special of a really great RPG: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/139509/The-Chuubos-Marvelous-WishGranting-Engine-RPG-Halloween-Special
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Oct 3, 2016 12:50
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Infra Arcana http://oryxdesignlab.com/infra-arcana/ quote:Infra Arcana is a Roguelike set in the early 20th century. The goal is to explore the lair of a dreaded cult called The Church of Starry Wisdom. Buried deep beneath their hallowed grounds lies an artifact called The Shining Trapezohedron - a window to all secrets of the universe. Your ultimate goal is to unearth this artifact. The tileset and sounds are appropriately spooky. Along with managing your health, you also have a spirit stat that functions as an integrated mana/second health bar. Casting spells costs spirit. Some monsters can strictly attack spirit. If your spirit reaches zero, you die. Instead of a hunger mechanic there is an sanity mechanic. Sanity is broken down into two meters: Shock and Insanity, each on a 0-100% scale. Enter a darkened room without a light source or see a cosmic being, you gain shock. Wait too long around a level and you will begin to accrue shock as well. Once shock reaches 100% you have a minor mental breakdown that can be anything from making noise because you are gibbering to having shadows appear and stalk you. Upon reaching 100% shock resets to 0% and Insanity increases by a certain amount. If insanity reaches 100%, you die. Reach the stairs for the next level however and your shock meter is set to zero, encouraging you to explore efficiently. Currently you can be a War Veteran, Rogue, Ghoul, or Occultist. I recommend Rogue for your first few times since you start with a cloaking spell to escape enemies. In my second game I got cursed for kicking open the slab to an ancient tomb, grabbed a Tommy gun and unloaded drum after drum into Keziah Mason until the foul witch fell, found out that chopping apart reanimated corpses with an axe is a great way to gain shock way too quickly, drank an insight potion and identified an eldrich artifact that scattered my opponents around the level, threw knives at gun wielding cultists with varying success, watched an infected wound become diseased because I couldn't treat the wound in time oh god oh god the zombies beat down the door I spiked, and threw a bunch of dynamite at Major Clapham-Lee and his undead hoard only to eventually fall to their clutches. Also, it's free.
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Oct 3, 2016 15:15
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Mansions of Madness 2nd Edition. In particular, I think the first scenario where you're exploring a spoopy house is good Halloween fodder, and a great way to introduce yourself to the game. Alternatively, you can run Call of Cthulhu's legendary one-shot adventure The Haunting, where you are also exploring a haunted house with potentially fatal consequences. I prefer the 6th edition's version to previous ones. You can also insert it into ongoing campaigns if you haven't played it already.
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Oct 6, 2016 15:28
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I enjoyed Camp Grizzly the few times I've played it. Not going to spoil any of the endings, but it really plays the Slasher Movie/Friday 13th tropes pretty well. A decent amount of strategy with the different characters and random card and item draws, too.
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Oct 6, 2016 16:22
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P S Y C H O R A I D E R S asymmetrical hex wargame/grueling slasher horror simulation with some stealth elements in a cool throwback magazine format. $20 bucks dude! I've gotten a lot of people to dig on other hobbyist/niche games by sitting them down and busting this out and letting them chase me through the woods with a blowtorch. There is a dice roll table for random events that happen at the beginning of each turn. Lynyrd Skynyrd playing on the stereo in the raiders' van invigorates them 'n helps em murder teens
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Oct 6, 2016 19:11
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Skelettin posted:
It's funny you should mention Lustmord,  he's one half of the duo that did one of my favourite RPG session ambience tracks: (I play background music during most games I run to help set the mood)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxmho0RLZ24 Also, Serenade for the Dead by Leaether Strip is an excellent instrumental album for capturing those horror movie vibes for a gaming session: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGjv84B7kKc&list=PL3z278_DbkKp2hgS0PZRqgMu_fG-HuTbv
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Oct 8, 2016 06:54
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hell yes rock salt! posted:P S Y C H O R A I D E R S I am sad that this is unavailable right now, because I really wanted it.
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Oct 9, 2016 20:17
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LuiCypher posted:I am sad that this is unavailable right now, because I really wanted it. Aw hell, I had no idea it was sold out on the Cave Evil site. peep FEROX instead, another asymmetrical game based on a deckbuilding/card drafting system with a nasty cannibal exploitation vibe from the golden years of Italian gore cinema: 
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Oct 10, 2016 06:41
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LuiCypher posted:I am sad that this is unavailable right now, because I really wanted it. Same here.
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Oct 11, 2016 03:02
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Hey, I need some help with deciding on a game/system for this year's Halloween game. I first suggested a simple Draculas punching Wolfmans punching Frankensteins monster mash using Strike! or something, but that didn't get much traction with my friends because they'd rather play something more grounded, probably themed around survival horror or investigation. What would be a good system for running a horror themed scenario, based either around survival (think being hunted by a serial killer) or investigation, or maybe even both (being hunted by a serial killer while investigating said serial killer)? For the record, I recently purchased Bubblegumshoe, but given its focus on teenage sleuthing I'm not sure if I want to run a horror scenario using it. Other systems I'm already familiar with that could work along these lines include Unknown Armies (I don't have the latest edition but the one before that) and NEMESIS (although I'm a bit lukewarm towards the system). Comedy option: run an old-school D&D level 1 adventure as basically a horror adventure, because level 1 characters are so fragile in older editions of the game.
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Oct 11, 2016 09:17
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I think Trail of Cthulhu or Night's Black Agents would tick both the "horror" and "investigation" boxes, no? You could also set your comedy option in Ravenloft.
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Oct 11, 2016 09:28
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Agreed with above (except Ravenloft. What the Christ. The horror is coming from INSIDE the game). There is a system called Slasher Flick iirc. For example you can run away/die from Jason V. Alternatively you can have players be mooks in an action movie like John Wick where the "slasher" is the protagonist. RPPR ran both types of games. Also there is Delta Green for government conspiracy horror in your Lovecraft.
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Oct 11, 2016 09:37
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Siivola posted:I think Trail of Cthulhu or Night's Black Agents would tick both the "horror" and "investigation" boxes, no? Neither of those is a bad idea, but I'm saddened by the fact that my FLGS doesn't have Night's Black Agents available, since I'm not all that into the Cthulhu Mythos. They do, however, have Fear Itself, with the 2nd edition supposed to hit their shelves later this month, so that might be something to look into? Helical Nightmares posted:Also there is Delta Green for government conspiracy horror in your Lovecraft. I do love Delta Green (as I said, I'm no huge fan of Lovecraft, but Delta Green is the closest to a game that I feel does it right), so this might be something to consider. I probably won't have the time to prepare an adventure fully my own, so if anyone knows of a good free adventure for Delta Green that'd be appreciated as well.
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Oct 11, 2016 09:58
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Ratpick posted:I do love Delta Green (as I said, I'm no huge fan of Lovecraft, but Delta Green is the closest to a game that I feel does it right), so this might be something to consider. I probably won't have the time to prepare an adventure fully my own, so if anyone knows of a good free adventure for Delta Green that'd be appreciated as well.  http://fairfieldproject.wikidot.com/scenarios Fan made Shotgun scenarios. Burner is a great way to jump your characters into Delta Green. Sort of an inverted haunted house. Lots of really good adventures here. http://fairfieldproject.wikidot.com/shotgun-scenarios Clockwork Joe ran Burner in Fear Itself but this should give you an example of play for the new DG rules anyway. http://actualplay.roleplayingpublicradio.com/2016/01/genre/horror/fear-itself-burner-a-delta-green-shotgun-scenario/ Caleb's Lover in the Ice is $5. I've been listening to a recent lets play of it and while I love the original version of the adventure on the RPPR podcast, the changes made for the published adventure make the transition between clues significantly smoother and increases the rate of progression in the adventure. http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/184098/Delta-Green-Lover-in-the-Ice Helical Nightmares fucked around with this message at 14:05 on Oct 11, 2016 |
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Oct 11, 2016 14:02
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I dunno if this is any good, but it's free.  http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/175760/Delta-Green-Need-to-Know
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Oct 11, 2016 20:00
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I'm getting more and more convinved that Fear Itself is the way to go, although I might adapt a Delta Green scenario for it. Does anyone have experience with the Fear Itself scenario The Seventh Circle? The premise sounds like exactly the sort of thing that my friends would enjoy and my FLGS has it available.
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Oct 12, 2016 08:47
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Siivola posted:I dunno if this is any good, but it's free. There's pretty much only good things to say about old DG, and the guys working on the new standalone version are desperate and able to rise to the high bar they set when they first wrote up the setting. I'm going to reach for low hanging fruit and bring up....  Dread Dread is a horror rpg with super simple rules, fast and interesting character creation and an interesting game mechanic; making it well suited to one-shots. The key feature of Dread is the use of a Jenga Tower for task resolution. Any time a player character attempts to do a thing where failure would be interesting and/or may mean death, the player takes a pull from the tower. If the tower is still standing, the character succeeds. If the tower falls you die. This puts the tension of a Jenga pull into a story context. You're not pulling a block, you're... ...cutting the red wire. ...hiding in a foot-locker while Machete-guy searches the room. ...extracting an alien parasite from someone's spine. If the tower falls... ...it was the blue wire. ...you hear locker's padlock click shut, and a low, mean laugh as the blade slides between the boards. ...it crawls into your eye socket much faster than you were expecting. The tower also creates a natural difficulty escalation that fits with the horror theme. As more pulls are made, things get harder, until someone dies, the tower goes back up and some (but not all) of the pressure is taken off the players. Character creation is similarly simple and engaging. There is no math to be done. The GM writes up a questionaire for each character and the players fill them out. A few leading questions and unstated premises allow the GM to ensure that the character and background traits he needs are in the story; while giving the players plenty of leeway to give each character their own flavor. For example: The Pilot
Dread is available on RPGNow.com and Amazon.com For some Actual Play goodness, our very own Clockwork Joe has played with varying results and Wil Wheaton's Tabletop has a two part episode. (videos below) Roleplaying Public Radio: Moonbase Red (clickthrough to dowload podcast) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNz8msJronE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0loSZFsyoQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQ1C-yqfC6I
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Oct 14, 2016 04:01
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Delta Green is definitely my spooky recommendation. It works great at what it's trying to do, which is modern horror tinged with the Cthulhu mythos. If you're not familiar with DG, True Detective season 1 is the sort of thing that Delta Green can do.Siivola posted:I dunno if this is any good, but it's free. It's really good. It's got pre-gens and basic rules for the new Delta Green, which runs fast and mean. But mean in the right ways for a horror game. Guns are extremely dangerous, characters are fragile but competent, and sanity's a bit less fiddly than CoC. Ratpick posted:
Additionally, Need to Know has a short adventure in it called Last Things Last. I've run it twice with good results both times. It isn't hugely Cthulhu-focused; there's some plot thread clues that relate to the Cthulhu mythos, but you could easily swap those out for something else that interests you. It's really only a few scenes (set-up, investigation, and a bad thing) so it's quite possible to play through it in 2-2.5 hours. It comes with handouts, too. There are other free adventures on the Delta Green website - Dennis Detwiller's done several. "Music from a Darkened Room" and "Night Floors" are both pretty fun, but require more prep and time than Last Things Last for sure. The Last Equation is PWYW and a little shorter than the others. All links are from here: http://www.delta-green.com/games-and-fiction/ Night Floors: http://www.delta-green.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Night-Floors.pdf Future/Perfect: http://www.arcdream.com/pdf/DG_FP_1-3_3.pdf and http://www.delta-green.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Delta-Green-Future-Perfect-4.pdf A Victim of the Art: http://www.delta-green.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/A-Victim-of-the-Art.pdf Music from a Darkened Room: http://www.delta-green.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Music-from-a-Darkened-Room.pdf The Last Equation: http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=90062&affiliate_id=48458 PX Poker Night: http://www.delta-green.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/PX-Poker-Night.pdf
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Oct 14, 2016 04:38
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Chthonian Highways Alpha Playtest is out. For Free! Mad Max meets Post Apoc Cthulhu Mythos. http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/185802/Chthonian-Highways--Alpha-Playtest-Kit quote:Chthonian Highways  quote:The World of Chthonian Highways
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Oct 14, 2016 19:17
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Further Spooky Offerings for Samhain Videogames Darkwood by Acid Wizards Darkwood is something special. Set in a menacing forest in a vaguely Eastern Block nation (Russia? Ukraine? A Neverplace?) the player must explore the strange lands of possibly post-apocalyptic mutants and certainly creatures that stepped whole-cloth out of faerie tale. The trick is, explore during the day, and at night…secure your little hovel from the monsters that fear the light. Top down survival horror in a truly creative world, this has one of the best sound designs I have ever experienced. For example the silence when you are hiding in a corner of your home, trying to wait out the darkness; only enhances the vaguely-human-vaguely-porcine grunts outdoors, the banging on barricades and the most terrifying sound of a chair scraping against the floor, being moved in the middle of the night; but not by you. http://www.darkwoodgame.com/ Omri Petite, PC Gamer quote:„I gauge the scariness of horror games using my patented Curl Chance™ system, which measures how likely I am to curl into a ball of whimpering fear when I play them. I rate the new trailer for Darkwood, an upcoming top-down survival horror title from indie group Acid Wizard Studio, a “Mommy” out of 10 based on the inky shadows and surreal sense of unease.” Darkwood. It will get under your skin and into your nightmares. Playing at night in the dark recommended. Darkwood has gone through several iterations. It is now on Alpha 8.0, so look for recent Lets Plays. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLo79_ul8Nk Cosmic Horror Come join us, delicious friend: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3461819 Laird Barron Barron is one of the modern heirs to HP Lovecraft. Diverging from HPL in that Barron focuses on a “carnivorous cosmos” rather than purestrain cosmic horror of The Willows (Blackwood) or The Colour Out of Space (HPL); Barrons writing features alien gods, their servitors, hallucinogenic prose and a primal fear of the dark. List of Barron’s publications free around the internet: http://www.freesfonline.de/authors/Laird_Barron.html Swift to Chase is Laird Barron’s fourth collection, perched like a needle-point on a fictional Alaska: https://www.amazon.com/Swift-Chase-LairdBarron/dp/1945373059/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1476770652&sr=8-1&keywords=swift+to+chase Mike Minnis The exceptional modern Mythos writer whom time forgot. Sometime in the late 90s, a German gentleman by the name of Mike Minnis took pen to paper. What flowed was a heady distillate of cosmic horror in the architecture of a fictional craftsman. He published 40-odd short stories hither and yon about the burgeoning internet, mostly at small congregations of weird fiction devotees with names like “thousandyoung.net”, “netherreal.de” and “nightscapes”. He was then forgotten. I’ve collected 10 of his works here: https://www.mediafire.com/folder/t6792v35951vg/Mike_Minnis_Wayback_Machine_Archive What will you encounter therein? A range of times and fictional voices fitting the pervasive scope of Lovecraft's Mythos. I Walk the World's Black Rim is a Beowulf retelling. Knuckerhole is a story of England during the blitz and good neighbors. After all, the Whateley came from somewhere. Bones of a Toad brings the harshness of medieval life to the center stage. If you like Mike Minnis' work, just give the man $2 for the kindle edition of Your Poisoned Dreams, a collection of ten Mythos short stories. At that price it is an absurd steal. -Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Your-Poisoned-Dreams-Horror-Stories-ebook/dp/B00JPBN0DO Ruthanna Emrys What would happen if the Innsmouth Raid was real, WW2 happened and then there were internment camps? What would the world look like 20 years from that? Litany of Earth by Ruthanna Emrys. An excellent bit of fiction wrapped up in an even more intriguing world. http://www.tor.com/2014/05/14/the-litany-of-earth-ruthanna-emrys/ Charles Stross Scifi and Fantasy/Horror writer extraordinare, Charles Stross -A Colder War : http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/colderwar.htm Cthulhu in the Cold War. Which is more evil, the weapons or their wielders? -Equoid : http://www.tor.com/2013/09/24/equoid/ Unicorns can be scary. A Must read.
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Oct 18, 2016 23:48
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Nightmare: The VHS board game is the game to play on a night devoted to ostentatious gimmicks. gameplay https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5BCB-mvwV8
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Oct 19, 2016 21:39
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For music, just raid foreign horror movie soundtracks until you get a good playlist going: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUEC8dNeeYE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tbuv7S9GB0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAQSPcDv40k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmm7RMl8nnU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nHV6MAA1K8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWd6_jIT3EM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If8XKo-D-ak https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIhNea7QBso https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7CtlUaMa3g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SINBDxjYjGQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8md6SwGbQw Could also sprinkle in some Carpenter scores, but Halloween or The Thing might be a little too recognizable; unless you have some hardcore horror geeks coming to your game night, this won't break their immersion any.
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Oct 20, 2016 00:33
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Is there a Saw-type tabletop RPG? Like, the good parts of Saw, I mean. Grimy secrets and hard decisions in a high-fatality setting. No torture or lengthy detours into the background of the killer required. I'm imagining a one-off where players are given characters with backgrounds containing some secret shames, a little bit of secret knowledge about each other's characters that connects them, and the characters waking up in a filthy abandoned location with some puzzles and clues about why they're there. Also a twist where I secretly conspire with one of the players beforehand and their character is acting as a cypher for the killer.
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Oct 22, 2016 06:51
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Fiasco? Sort of?
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Oct 22, 2016 07:27
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Maybe it could be accomplished with Dread.
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Oct 22, 2016 10:53
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If you're looking for a nice, spooky retro-game to feel all Halloweeny, I would suggest l'Abbaye des morts, where you play Jean Raymond, a Cathar, fleeing the Albigensian Crusade into a creepy monastery full of dark secrets. The soundtrack is eerie and usable for ambiance in its own right.
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Oct 23, 2016 04:17
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I'm stuck in delayed-mode in my Curse of Strahd campaign. They're nearing the final encounter, but not all the players are around. Is there anything I can insert that is appropriately Halloween themed that doesn't seem like it's a delaying tactic? I'd like everyone to experience the end. I was thinking of making some kind of pumpkin king battle.
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Oct 28, 2016 23:27
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Drewski posted:I'm stuck in delayed-mode in my Curse of Strahd campaign. They're nearing the final encounter, but not all the players are around. Is there anything I can insert that is appropriately Halloween themed that doesn't seem like it's a delaying tactic? I'd like everyone to experience the end. I was thinking of making some kind of pumpkin king battle. Just rip off Peanuts. A local peasant boy, against all good sense, attempts to wish upon the Dark Powers to save his mother's life (she is sick, you see). What he gets is The Great Pumpkin.
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Oct 29, 2016 21:46
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No recommendations for Betrayal at House on the Hill yet? Well, consider it listed. Live played here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MINNKyE4fjs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgbQwxQIhbw
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Oct 30, 2016 20:55
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Thanks for the thread, folks! This went well, so I'm trying another one for November with a new theme.
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Nov 9, 2016 11:08
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