Happy first day of Halloween! Have a free Halloween-themed one shot adventure you can run this month, built for use with a Lasers & Feelings hack called Tricks & Treats, created by Octava Oculta (Reddit username u/shardsofcrystal). It's an ultra-lite system fit for all ages or experience levels, and I made a kick-ass adventure for it last year during lockdown. Just follow that link, make a copy of the folder and its contents, and use the materials within to play a fun session of spooky adventure.
Here's the pitch: play as middle schoolers going trick or treating in your typical North American suburban neighborhood, encounter a big horrifying monster that the grown-ups are helpless to stop, use your noggin to save the day. Stranger Things is a really useful touchstone here, because it's the perfect balance of family-friendly adventure and supernatural horror. Basically, I aimed for "more tense and easy to take seriously than The Goonies" but "less violent and mature than Stephen King's It." When the monster is present, it should feel legitimately threatening, but at the same time, you won't see it tear a 9 year old in two pieces and spray blood everywhere.
At least, that's how I run it. It's your table, do whatever you like. Maybe you and your group would prefer a game where the monsters violently massacre the neighborhood, but you also decide that you don't want your players to get called a homophobic slur by a shitty 12 year old. Use your grown up judgment on what's best for your group and what you want out of the game.
A note on audience: hypothetically, you could run this adventure for a group of kids about the same age as the protagonists. Pretty easily, in fact, since it's such a simple rule system and the scenario is easy to grasp. However, I personally feel like the ideal audience is actually a group of adults, since much of the appeal of the adventure is 1) nostalgia, and 2) being able to laugh at the cringiness of middle schoolers.
In a couple weeks I'll be releasing my sequel to this adventure, so if you enjoy this one then stay tuned so you can run another one before the end of the month.
-Dwiz
I ran this adventure this year and had a blast. Party lost one character (eaten by a mutant) but otherwise used their wits to defeat the queen. They stopped trick-or-treating after spotting the first jack-o-mutant, and at first focused on a plan to bring video proof to the police (recruiting Charles Cromwell as cameraman with a VHS camcorder). Rodney was eaten by a mutant before he could see the video and be unimpressed.
ReplyDeleteThey discovered the mutants' weakness with some lucky TRICKER TREATED rolls, and loaded up some supersoakers from the Pharmacy with vinegar, and salt water balloon bombs, then went into the Lighthouse like colonial marines from Aliens. Honestly a blast, at about 4 hours table time.
Wow this sounds absolutely awesome. I'm so stoked just to hear that anyone else has tried this adventure at all, let alone that it worked out so well.
DeleteThis is an older version of the adventure, which I've revised a fair amount. Likewise with the other scenario I posted. I'll upload new versions of both (plus the other completed scenarios) once I feel like I'm far enough along in the project. Hopefully by next September/October.
It was honestly the best session of the year, and I'm planning to make it an annual event! Thanks for the great adventure.
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