It seems that every year right around this time, we always get an influx of people saying "I want to do a horror game! What are some ideas!" with a handful of threads that kind of wuss out. I say, lets nip that pattern in the bud and start brainstorming ideas.

"But Angry Penguin", I hear you cry, "it's only Mid-September!" Phooey on you - planning a good, scary game takes some time, especially if you want to start setting up things in your own game to foreshadow.

So I'm thinking of stealing a couple of ideas. One is Event Horizon, where Doctor Weir (played by the always awesome Sam Neil) invents a FTL drive best explained by folding a piece of paper together and pushing a pen through it: His ship, the Event Horizon (the pen), folds the paper (space) and then passes through it to get from one point in the universe to another. Unfortunately, his scientific expertise fails to account for that area that occurs between the folded paper, and wouldn't you know it: it's **** .

The other idea is Screamers. Imagine if Tremors, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Thing, and Terminator all had one hot, sweaty, oily orgy. Screamers is the bastard child of their forbidden love.

So, thoughts?

***EDIT***

Adding a link to the awesome adaption of Event Horizon to the original post so everyone can find it easily!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5ytBajSy3DbbFg4Y1E3UV9yc2c/view

Pfft, you're only preparing for Halloween now ? I've already started planning for my Christmas game, "Santa vs. the Sith Lords."

Besides, I heard that Event Horizon is a prequel to Warhammer 40K.

An Anzati Sith and his army of zombiefied minions hunt down PC's on a broken down space station?

There was a new space horror film set on a space station I think but I can't recall the name of it

Your move, everyone else.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Death_Troopers

Rakghouls

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CB8QFjAAahUKEwiArZeTtfjHAhUOK4gKHQnfCrY&url=http%3A%2F%2Fstarwars.wikia.com%2Fwiki%2FRakghoul_plague&usg=AFQjCNEo3usQWRoEclvqOzXrbBF6Q3O5xg&sig2=VlYh-s_qaIm9RD6XNQVNtg

http://d20radio.com/backerzone/Ice%20Station%20Zulu/

The Emperor was a lightweight. Now, Cthul

Infini is a sci-fi horror movie that just came to netflix though I did enjoy the blurb about the movie more so than the actual film. An interstellar rescue squad must rescue the sole survivor from a biological disaster on a distance space station near a black hole. (Rakghoul would have made that so much better)

Also, strange Rakatan artifacts with nightmarish Dark Side powers is good fodder for a Halloween game.

Though, on the subject of other holiday games, I do run a pretty mean Star Wars Fourth of July game. All players get what I call a "Kaboom Token." At any point, a player may cash in a "Kaboom Token" while performing an action and guarantee that something will hilariously explode. Trying to bluff your way past the spaceport guards? Cash in the Kaboom and while you are making something up a TIE bomber has an accident on take off showering the area with fire and debris! The only rule is the Kaboom tokens do not transfer to sessions beyond the 4th of July game, so you may as well use them.

Pumpkins. Every halloween adventure needs pumpkins.

Though, on the subject of other holiday games, I do run a pretty mean Star Wars Fourth of July game. All players get what I call a "Kaboom Token." At any point, a player may cash in a "Kaboom Token" while performing an action and guarantee that something will hilariously explode. Trying to bluff your way past the spaceport guards? Cash in the Kaboom and while you are making something up a TIE bomber has an accident on take off showering the area with fire and debris! The only rule is the Kaboom tokens do not transfer to sessions beyond the 4th of July game, so you may as well use them.

So do you actually make up coupons? That would be boss!

So do you actually make up coupons? That would be boss!

When doing this in face to face gaming, I use poker chips that have had some home made stickers of explosions applied to them. The images of early nuclear tests are a favorite. Of late, however, most of the games I have been running have been online, so props like that are less than ideal. Though, now that you mention coupons... If you'll excuse me, I think I need to go cook one up in illustrator. I'm thinking about 3" x 1" so you could print a couple out of a 3" x 5" card.

I am such an Arts and Crafts GM.

** Editing Scoundrel **

So, here I am minding my own business when one of my players IMs me.

"Here I was about to link the star wars ffg Halloween planning thread and lo and behold who do I see... but our fearless gm already posting in it."

An assassin droid has gone rogue, obsessed with the thought of living as an organic. How does it do it? By harvesting flesh to create a second skin, of course....

An assassin droid has gone rogue, obsessed with the thought of living as an organic. How does it do it? By harvesting flesh to create a second skin, of course....

It puts the lubricant on it skin!

An assassin droid has gone rogue, obsessed with the thought of living as an organic. How does it do it? By harvesting flesh to create a second skin, of course....

Okay, take Event Horizon but instead of demons from hell, it makes all the droids insane. They harvest the crew, start wearing their skin - so bits from Event Horizon, Psycho and Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Oooh, that's good.

Infini is a sci-fi horror movie that just came to netflix though I did enjoy the blurb about the movie more so than the actual film. An interstellar rescue squad must rescue the sole survivor from a biological disaster on a distance space station near a black hole. (Rakghoul would have made that so much better)

Also, strange Rakatan artifacts with nightmarish Dark Side powers is good fodder for a Halloween game.

Though, on the subject of other holiday games, I do run a pretty mean Star Wars Fourth of July game. All players get what I call a "Kaboom Token." At any point, a player may cash in a "Kaboom Token" while performing an action and guarantee that something will hilariously explode. Trying to bluff your way past the spaceport guards? Cash in the Kaboom and while you are making something up a TIE bomber has an accident on take off showering the area with fire and debris! The only rule is the Kaboom tokens do not transfer to sessions beyond the 4th of July game, so you may as well use them.

Now I am trying to think of how to use the kaboom style coupon for holloween...What would it do? Rakghoul something??

Maybe they could be "spooky tokens". You hand them to players when their character does a classic horror trope such as going to investigate alone, or tripping while running from the monster. The PCs can then spend the token as if they were a light side destiny point or something.

Here's a Halloween adventure Peter "Maveritchell" Thompson and I collaborated on:

The Quarantine Quandary

In a nutshell, it's rakghouls vs. killer droids, with the PCs caught in the middle.

Ah... Event Horizon... the last of the good Hell Raiser movies...

I recently ran a bodysnatchers one-shot when my GM couldn't make the normal session. Turned out pretty well, I thought. The key is to ease into it and let the foreboding build.

Need to establish a baseline and then tweak a few things here and there to make the players feel that there's something a little off. Like, for example, everyone drinking the same thing at the cantina...

A crazy cyborg slasher on a derelict ship could be fun. For added camp, use Jason X for inspiration ("maybe he just wants his vibrosword back").

One word: Z-woks.

I recently ran a bodysnatchers one-shot when my GM couldn't make the normal session. Turned out pretty well, I thought. The key is to ease into it and let the foreboding build.

Need to establish a baseline and then tweak a few things here and there to make the players feel that there's something a little off. Like, for example, everyone drinking the same thing at the cantina...

It was a lot of fun, especially considering I showed up without a character...

I recently ran a bodysnatchers one-shot when my GM couldn't make the normal session. Turned out pretty well, I thought. The key is to ease into it and let the foreboding build.

Need to establish a baseline and then tweak a few things here and there to make the players feel that there's something a little off. Like, for example, everyone drinking the same thing at the cantina...

It was a lot of fun, especially considering I showed up without a character...

Oh, so it was literally bodysnatchers, eh? Like, you snatched someone else’s character and took it over?

;)

I recently ran a bodysnatchers one-shot when my GM couldn't make the normal session. Turned out pretty well, I thought. The key is to ease into it and let the foreboding build.

Need to establish a baseline and then tweak a few things here and there to make the players feel that there's something a little off. Like, for example, everyone drinking the same thing at the cantina...

It was a lot of fun, especially considering I showed up without a character...

Oh, so it was literally bodysnatchers, eh? Like, you snatched someone else’s character and took it over?

;)

Due to a misunderstanding I arrived with my regular character for the campaign we were playing in, not realizing that we were doing a one-shot with different characters since the regular GM was unable to make it. Thankfully I had my brand new laptop with OggDude's program on it. I just whipped something up on the spot. Worked out nice, too.

Now I am trying to think of how to use the kaboom style coupon for holloween...What would it do? Rakghoul something??

I was actually thinking of something along the lines of a "Spooky Token" that would be a little more adversarial than the Kaboom token. Something to the affect of "Player A notices Player B doing something that isn't very horror genre savvy. Player A spends his or her 'Spooky Token' to make sure something appropriately scary happens to player B." Some examples include:

Wandering off alone.

Opening a container (or as I like to call it POP! goes the evil!)

Not looking over your shoulder

Or basically any moment in a horror movie when you, the viewer want to scream at the screen "DON'T DO THAT!"

If the tokens are used against another player and the targeted player is a good sport about it and plays along with the terrifying nature of things, I would adjudicate that as worthy of bonus XP at the end of the session.

As an alternative to the adversarial "Spooky Token" I would offer up that the "Spooky Token" instead be considered defensive. As you are running through the broken down hallway, being chased by the evil monster you can pop your "Spooky Token" to say... have the catwalk collapse under yourself and wind up in a dark and spooky maintenance tunnel, and now you're all alone... MUAHAHAHAHAHA!