Shawpelganger's page

Hey all! Sorry for the wall of text, but I just want to make sure I’m running Haunts correctly.

I’m preparing to run my 2nd session of Book 1, and am prepping for the menagerie of Haunts that the party will inevitably come across. I’m guessing they’ll attempt to cross the water to get to Northridge during the session. Should they decide to cross the lake, they will of course run into the Grasping Currents Haunt. I’m looking at its statblock and am confused at how to run it, especially compared to the stats of other Haunts.

Here are the questions that come to mind:
- Why does it read as “+20 (trained)” where say, the Locking Door Haunt says, “Stealth DC 18 to notice…”? What am I expected to do with this number?
- Am I rolling a stealth check against the PCs’ Perception DC?
- Is 20 the static DC that the players are trying to beat with their own Stealth checks?
- What does it saying (trained) imply? Can only PCs trained in Stealth engage this initial check?
- What does their success or failure mean for the resulting hazard encounter?
- What sort of DC should I use for a Recall Knowledge on this or any other Haunt?

I can’t seem to find any detailed rules on how to run Haunts. I love the idea of them though, and want to make sure I’m doing it right. Thanks for the help!

I'm gearing up to run Season of Ghosts (twice actually—two separate groups with alternating weeks), and am wondering how secretive other GMs have been about the AP's subsystems, faction reputation in particular. It feels like I should reveal to them that their interactions with the members of each faction are likely to have repercussions, but I'm not sure how forthright I should be with that information. Have y'all straight up said, "there is a reputation minigame running in the background, which will affect the game later."? I'd hate to push the players into becoming to meta-gamey with their fellow villagers, but at the same time I'm sure we'd all be bummed if we got to winter and I pointed out certain things weren't triggering because nobody made any attempt to bond with either side of the river.

Thanks!