I'm reading through the Skinsaw Murders (yeah, way behind, but I'm just getting a group together to start RotRL), and I'm really impressed with the haunted Foxglove Manor. I hope I can create a convincing enough atmosphere to pull it off, when we get that far.
One question though, for those who have already run it - how are you presenting the information to your players?
I've done "hidden information" with passing notes before, but that would lose the opportunity for drama and good descriptions - there's only so much you can write (or a player will bother to read) on a post-it.
Are you just describing both points of view to the whole group, and relying on the players being good enough with "Chinese walls" to make it work? Passing notes? (Maybe if I wrote up all the notes for the haunted players in advance they could be descriptive enough) Take the haunted player into another room?
I've searched the old posts, but most of the haunting discussion seems to be around the mechanics rather than the logistics of staging it...
Cheers,
Tim.
I prepped five separate battle maps before hand, each with the outline of one level of Foxglove Manor. Then I put the players into initiative as soon as they entered the grounds. After that I just told the player who was affected what was perceived/happening. Yes, it meant that the other players heard it even though their characters didn't, but it kept things fast and tense.
It also meant that they were puzzled, and this ramped up the tension.
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I haven't run it yet, but I'm planning to next session(assuming that my players don't distract themselves for several hours again with pickles, but thats another post).
I am planning on doing the notecard thing myself, I was just going to take some 3x5" cards and write up detailed descriptions of each haunt for the players before hand, and pass them out to people as they walk into the rooms. My group is pretty good about RP, so I'm hoping that a combination of me describing anything the others can see, and the player describing their actions as the haunt happens, it will go off pretty well.
Sadly, we are missing this weekend so it will be another week before I get to run it, but I'll let you know how it all worked out.
-Tarlane
I ended up writing notes beforehand and just passing them over, which worked pretty well. Plenty of room to type everything out for a good description.
What I had originally envisioned, and of course had no time for, were audio haunts. The plan would've been to create some awesome sound bites with RPGSoundMixer, and record them with voiceovers of the descriptions of what the PC sees, and with any other voices in there that I could impersonate.
Then, when a PC encountered a haunt, I could just hand the player a pair of headphones, and they'd experience their own private nightmare. I think that would be truly awesome, especially since then the player is insulated from the party as much as the party is insulated from the player. I could see terrified players shouting out seemingly crazy actions their PCs are taking while they listen to the terrible description they're getting, and the rest of the PCs wondering what on earth was going on.
Alas, it was not to be!
I have a pretty chronological word document with my version of most of the haunts, if you like. I threw in a few generic spooks to use as red herrings once the players got so used to the haunts that they ran from rooms as soon as something weird started to happen. Some bits are out of order, but I think you can match the descriptions to the haunts pretty easily.
You can obtain the doc here: http://www.mediafire.com/?kxrtlvjwnzl
I have a pretty chronological word document with my version of most of the haunts, if you like. I threw in a few generic spooks to use as red herrings once the players got so used to the haunts that they ran from rooms as soon as something weird started to happen. Some bits are out of order, but I think you can match the descriptions to the haunts pretty easily.You can obtain the doc here: http://www.mediafire.com/?kxrtlvjwnzl
Nicely written, thanks - I shall certainly use that as a starting point...