Are you planning a spookier Halloween session?

[BookTenTiger]

Question for the DMs and GMs out there:

Do you run any special games around October that are spookier than normal? Do you run a horror one-shot, or inject a few more scares into your weekly session, to celebrate the "spooky season?"

 

[AlexJ]

I'm running a two-shot that ends this week and I'm trying to make it spookier than usual. It's hard because fantasy characters already live spooky lives where they fight monsters and the undead. I find that it helps to use really scary pictures of monsters, and I love the ones from Peterson's Field Guide to Lovecraftian Horrors. (Another thing: there was another thread a week ago where I posted a link to the adventure I'm running, in case that helps.)

 

[MGibster]

Unfortunately, no. When I picked up Alien earlier this year I planned on running it for Halloween, but due to our present circumstances, I am not gaming face-to-face. My current D&D campaign involves the PCs stopping an outer god from manifesting on the prime material plane, maybe that's Halloweeny enough?

 

[Retreater]

Well, my timing wasn't perfect and they had the climactic showdown with Strahd last week, after bypassing a few traps and other encounters. So we'll be starting a fresh campaign this week. But I hope it's suitably creepy. I know a few of my players have a spider phobia, so I've created a new monster called a puppeteer spider, which takes a corpse and animates it like a zombie ("Weekend at Bernies" style). And it talks through the corpse and everything. Hopefully it will also get a PC if its first corpse-shield is destroyed.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Definitely! I always try to make things a little creepier this time of year (not that I generally need a reason to use more undead in my games!). Both of the sessions for my group that plays twice a month were spooky - the one had a Scooby-Doo-style haunted house (that was actually the result of a giant owlbear with glowing eyes based on the Great Owl in The Secret of Nimh) and the other was built around a hag named Baba Pustinayaa. Both featured in-game Halloween-equivalent holiday activities, too).

My weekly group is going to get to play through this year's AL Liars Night pumpkin carving contest encounter. We're currently in the middle of a serious battle, so I want something a little lighter after we get through that.