Party Possessed by Ghosts

[Alexander Fitzhugh]

Almost my entire party has been possessed by Ghosts. The only person who made their save had been tied up by orcs earlier. Now the ghosts have made off with their bodies.

What do you think I should do? How do I make next session fun for everyone? Has anything like this happened in one of your campaigns?

 

[Voort]

Where did the party encounter these ghosts? Were they immediately hostile? Why is this location haunted?

 

[Sadras]

Maybe the ghosts want/desire something that only the PCs (or in physical form) can obtain, so allow the players to play the ghosted PCs for a session and if they achieve their goal (revenge, release from this world...etc) then the PCs are freed from possession. So it is in players' best interests to have the ghosts succeed. Therefore the players play the ghosts and the characters are NPCs (under DM control) just for the session.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

Have the ghosts go on an off-screen adventure with the PCs bodies. Start the next session in the middle of some sticky situation where the ghosts have left the PCs and gone back to their haunt.

 

[ad_hoc]

That sounds like TPK.

It is part of the game.

Make new characters!

 

[Alexander Fitzhugh]

I like the idea of having the ghosts force them on a quest. I'd prefer to avoid a TPK. Maybe the ghosts aren't actually evil, just traumatized.

If the entire party had been possessed I could have them wake up days, months, or years later, but a few players either made it out or weren't there that day.

 

[200orcs]

Each ghost should fix the thing that got them stuck in the physical world as the adventure. When their quest is completed they leave this world, freeing the players.

Maybe have a common goal for all the ghosts and when they do it they are free.

You can even role-play it. With their characters, give them a new personality coming from the ghost, and the ghosts goal. And have them be the ghosts.

 

[Oofta]

As others have stated, have the players run their PCs with ghost motivations.

Come up with stories for the ghosts with motivations, goals and secrets. Make it so that the ghosts don't actually want to harm their hosts for some reason (don't risk death more than usual for your campaign) but give them differing tasks and goals.

Maybe try to make it something akin to a murder mystery where the ghosts have until the next dawn to find out who murdered them. Hand each player a short write-up (less than a page) with who they were. Have one of the ghosts be the murderer who will try to stop the others, short of killing the hosts since that won't harm the ghost anyway.

So make it a one-shot where they just happen to be running their own PCs.

 

[Quartz]

One thing you could do is twist things: make it so that the ghost who possesses the fighter is a mage, the ghost who possesses the mage is a rogue, and so on. The combined character has the ghost's mental characteristics and the host's physical characteristics.

Alternatively you could use this to give the PCs a taste of being really high level by having them possessed by high-level members of their classes.

Or you could mix and match. "Yes, your fighter is possessed by Arimagnus, an 18th level sorcerer."