A Halloween game session - Suggestions, please...

Well, I know it's not a Portuguese tradition, but several years ago my RPG group created the "Halloween RPG Night". By that time we played "Vampire, The Masquerade" so it was really easy to create an appropriate adventure for that special night. We were young, non-committed and because 1st of November is a holiday in Portugal we played all night through.

Fast Forwarding to 2000... The GM (that would be me) and the group core decided to reinstall the tradition with DD3E. It worked very well... in the beginning... than everybody got children and the quest for the convenient time to play turned impossible...

Fast Forwarding to 2008. This year, I am trying to exhume the Halloween Game Night (pardon the pun), but I have no time to create myself an adventure from the ground zero... So, I am asking for advises... What DD3.5 module do you recommend? It can be scary, spooky, funny (black humor sort of funny) but it has to be dark... Well, saccharine can be scary too, but that's not what I am looking for...

My players aren't very keen on gore, but are adult, mature, intelligent and open minded. Prefer roleplaying to roll-playing, good laughs to angst ridden plots (been there, done that... 15 years ago) and we don't mind doing cliché because of the laughs and the nostalgia...

As a GM I am looking for a dark, funny, easy to manage adventure for 4, 5 players and playable in just 4 or 5 hours.

I thank you in advance for your suggestions.

As I listed elsewhere:

Just in the paizo lines, there's Carnival of Tears, Into the Haunted Forest, Gallery of Evil, Hangman's Noose (possibly. havn't read this one in depth yet), Hook Mountain Massecre, Hungry are the dead (assuming you can get it on time. it's preorder for october), the Silent Tide Society Adventure is pretty horror themed, and there's the first adventure from AoW

They are all 3.5 and have horror elements you can play up to make into horror adventures.

And there are already a couple of threads in the 3.5 forums that debate the possibility of horror in fantasy gaming and have additional suggestions.

Well, I believe "Hook Mountain" is too long for me and too gory for my group and I am afraid I will not put my hands on "Hungry are the Dead" in time, but I will check your other suggestions and the forums.

Thank you

I would add to the list Mists of Mwangi, another PFS adventure.

It's too bad it will probably be too late because I would have gone with "Hungry Are the Dead."

Well, I believe "Hook Mountain" is too long for me and too gory for my group and I am afraid I will not put my hands on "Hungry are the Dead" in time, but I will check your other suggestions and the forums.

Thank you

You could always buy the PDF.

I have a Pathfinder Module subscription... I will get my pdf as soon as my print copy is shipped. And thanks to THE "Pathfinder Path #14 Costumer Delay", and because I asked for a monthly shipment, my October order is still pending. So, buying the pdf is a unreasonable option for me.

In top of that, Paizo is still just accepting pre-orders for the print version of the module. They are not selling the pdf yet. And we are just 10 days away from the H-Night... :)

I could see how that coud be a probem then. I stand by Mists of Mwangi. It's short, designed to be played in about three to four hours, and it's spooky and reletivly gore free. Plus you get you Pathfinder subscription discount on it. It was about $3.39 American for me when I ordered it.

I vote Hangman's Noose, myself. I put my players through it, and they were genuinely frightened of the cover-boy... though I admit, they said my croaking performance helped a lot. One of the few sessions I've ever been in with almost no OOC banter (apart from "Oh gawd, that's creepy.") came from this adventure - When trying to run a scary game, that's one of the ways you know it's working.

A warning, there is some gore...

For example:

... but it doesn't wallow in the stuff like "Hook Mountain Horror" does. The horror doesn't come from gruesome perversion, but simple, bloody-minded vengeance.

Another helpful element...

Awhile back Wotc converted the Tomb of Horrors to 3.5 as a free download. It isn't a very long module, has plenty of creepy dungeon dressings and visuals plus as a super bonus it works well as a one-shot adventure. More than likely the party will be dead or have their alignments switched before halfway through, also don't take any characters that they are attached too!

I have no idea on how to get the url thingy to work, but here is the link

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/oa/20051031a/

Totentanz from Dungeon #90. It may have been a 3.0 module, so might require a little conversion work, but it definitely has a hallowe'een feel to it.

Totentanz from Dungeon #90. It may have been a 3.0 module, so might require a little conversion work, but it definitely has a hallowe'een feel to it.

Well if you are going to go the Dungeon route, I would suggest some good recent horror themed adventures - Dungeon #132 Caverns of the Ooze Lord or "And Madness Followed" Dungeon #134 an excellent Lovecraftian themed mod.

I also like "Shut In", Dungeon #128 a good low level horror themed mod.

I figured out the url thingy, thanks to quotinq your post Charles

The Dungeon Crawl Classics adventure Legend of the Ripper is a really good gothic gaslight themed adventure for 3.5 also.

Another fun one that I just read last night is Indulgence: Still Waters from Logue's Sinister Adventures. It is also a $3 PDF download away from being used.

I'll check your suggestions. And I will post a report about the session afterwards.

Thank you all.