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Hi,
I want to run a Halloween-themed one-shot adventure for my players this year, but I want to do something a little different than a "spooky adventure." I'm thinking of having the players play as zombies or other monsters, but I'm not sure what the adventure would entail.
I'm also thinking of adding in some out-of-game fun as well. I have some gummi brains that I was thinking the players could earn as they kill people, and could eat to regain health.
I'm stuck as to what to actually *do* with the group though, and am looking for help with ideas. Maybe they were raised by a necromancer to wreak havoc in town and have to fight a good-aligned cleric? Maybe they have to escape from a mad scientist's laboratory? Maybe they are free-willed monsters who are fighting against their evil master?
Has anyone else run anything like this, or have any experience with evil monster parties?
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The best advice I can give is to have me come over and taste-test the gummy-brains. It's important to have that and I'm an expert, afterall.
Regarding the adventure, I'm not sure what the purpose is -- being the zombie doesn't creep anybody out. Are they gonna be zombies (or monsters) for comic relief? Cuz that's what it is; it's really funny to play mindless squishies from time to time in a one-shot; I've done that on several occassions over the years: Kobold PCs' quest to discover the mystery of fire, Goblin PCs' quest to steal the Arch-Mage's staff, stupid fun stuff. And we have a blast throwing ourselves in a TPK.
But for creepiness, monster PCs, especially zombies, likely ain't gonna work.
Unless they don't know they're gonna be zombies, maybe. If they create 1st level PCs and in the opening encounter a Necromancer turns them into zombies and (somehow) they retain a sense of individuality and try to think of ways to overthrow the Necromancer so they can be free of his yoke...., that may work. Then all you have to do is come up with the creepy encounters and setting-flavor after they become zombies . . . . But fear of bumping into the Cleric of Pelor, well, not so creepy.
A while back, some people in the Age of Worms playtest (the one ran in the office at Paizo) did some campaign journals for their characters, and this is what the following idea was inspired from.
Create a few townsfolk characters, probably with NPC classes. Keep them all roughly equal to eachother in combat ability, and hand them out to the players. Now, set the scenario up where there is a fairly high level threat (in this case a zombie) that is stalking the "party". Depending on the scenario, the characters should be somewhat seperated, but close enough to hear eachother scream, and possibly run into eachother in the insuing chaos. Now, as the party members are killed by this zombie, have the owning player control a zombie that is now helping hunt down the surviving members.
If you're really ambitious, make up some sort of prize for the final survivor, and another for the zombie with the most kills.
In the case of the Paizo playtest...there was a fort that the regular characters were going to explore, that had a single spawn of Kyuss locked in the basement. What the DM did was hand out first level warriors to everyone, and tell them they were members of the guard protecting the fort. The spawn starts hutning and killing them, and they had to lure it into the dungeon and lock it in. Sounded like it was an absolute blast.
Other scenarios...
You could have the party all make aristocrats and have them all attending a halloween style costume ball.
A party of experts built up as hunters out looking for big game who wind up becoming the prey.
A party of thieves who break into the wrong house, and must survive not only the big scary zombie, but all the traps and suprises of a mad man's funhouse. Could give out prizes for people who gather the most loot here too.
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Unless they don't know they're gonna be zombies, maybe. If they create 1st level PCs and in the opening encounter a Necromancer turns them into zombies and (somehow) they retain a sense of individuality and try to think of ways to overthrow the Necromancer so they can be free of his yoke...., that may work. Then all you have to do is come up with the creepy encounters and setting-flavor after they become zombies . . . . But fear of bumping into the Cleric of Pelor, well, not so creepy.
I like this - you can easily have them make some characters - or use some pre-made ones. Set up an impossible fight which they loose, maybe an unrecognized spell/effect which seems to knock them all out (it actually killed them) and then really start the scenario.
Maybe they can be waking up a few later days in a charnel pit with a bunch of dead bodies - they only have their armor and simple equipment as most of their gear is being stored in a nearby building and guarded by the necros henchmen till it can be sorted through and re-allocated to his men/treasury.
Over the course of getting some temp gear, and then getting their real gear back they start to realize that something is really, really wrong. They are showing the first signs of rot - they only have X amount of time to stop the necros plans that night and get their revenge.
Pre-made pcs would be better; you don't want someone making a ranger or druid only to lose part of their class benefit due to the fact that their companion is dead and nowhere to be found.
Give the PCs some limited undeath related abilities as they tear through the necs living and undead henchmen before they fall apart. They could have come back due to the nature of the charnel pit they were thrown in, or the fact that the nec is trying to pull off a plan on some holy night dedicated to the dead and they (the PCs) just came back. Sort of like Revenant PCs, a little more limited in power but out for revenge - and the PCs can still be Good! The nec needs a lot of living human cultist who scream in terror as they try to control or turn the good aligned undead before they PCs rip them to pieces.
No potions, no positive energy healing - could be a very tough mod if they don't have the undead abilities to compensate. Maybe some kind of DR and natural attacks in addition to their class abilities.
Would be good for a one-shot night of laughs - of course, it will still end badly for the PCs. All the action should be at night and it should be over the course of that night.
The horror could be played up in many different ways -it all depends on the mood. It could be just be some grim humor of falling apart/getting weaker or, seeing how they once were and what they are becoming. Depending on the play style of the group it could even be thinking and soul searching about what is going happen to them "after" everything is finally over.
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Thanks for all of the input and great ideas! I now have many more things to ponder... good thing there's a month and a half for preparation.
I was originally going to run a Halloween-themed pre-made module (Hangman's Noose, oddly enough :) ) but then some of my players professed a desire to try out playing an evil party for Halloween, and then the rest of the group, 1-by-1, started to agree. So, now I am trying to come up with an interesting Halloween-themed scenario where the party is evil.
Hangman's Noose could still be run, but the alignment of the party doesn't really seem to matter much. That's when I thought of having the players play as evil monsters. That has more of a Halloween flavour than having them just play evil PCs.
I like the idea of having them start out as living PCs and then getting them killed and raised as zombies. Much thinking to do. Thanks again for your thoughts, and keep them coming if you have more! :)
I ran an adventure (I did not design it, and have long since lost the module) at GenCon in '92 or '93 that had the characters awaken in individual cells in a creepy old castle. Unbeknownst to the characters, they were all golems. The PCs only had combat stats (to hit, to damage, etc.) but did not know their hit points. They had knowledge of who they were or what they were doing there, but only knew they needed to get out of the castle (where an angry mob of villagers awaited).
It was a fun adventure, and interesting to see the PCs slowly figure out what they were as the adventure went along. I'll have to see if I have any remnants of it stashed away.
Two thoughts:
1. The original post reminded me of a comic I used to read way back when that involved the classic movie monsters being recruited as a sort of special forces military unit to fight Nazis.
2. Pick up Expedition to Castle Ravenloft, and have the players be various monsters (zombie, werewolf, ghoul, vampire, etc.) working together to defend the castle against an angry mob led by an order of paladins, a party of adventurers, or a powerful wizard.