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After digging through my pile of Mage: The Awakening Mage:The Assention, White Dwarves, Random old Codex's and D&D books, I find a d20 version of Call of Cthulhu of all things.

So it got me thinking, I bet it would make a good one shot game for Halloween this year!

Any tips, hints, and things for some one wanting to bring some Horror to a night of witches, vampires, were wolves, and knock off Twilight costumes?


*note - the group is experienced in most versions of D&D

Pick up the Call of Cthulhu books, a much better system in my opinion.

Roll with it i have always just stuck by a horrible horrible thing crawling in a basement taken care of by a crazy old care taker of a sea side resort muwhahahha friends always enjoyed

Catyrpelius wrote:Pick up the Call of Cthulhu books, a much better system in my opinion.

Thing is, I would have to buy multiple copies so they can learn everything, but with my D&D friends, we've been experienced in playing 3.0 and up, and the d20 version of Call of Cthulhu is based off the 3.0 version, so they'd have related rules that they are already use too.

I wouldn't want them to learn an entire system for a one shot (though it might end up turning into a full blown campaign if they take it well).

The Call of Cthulhu line is much more story and Role Playing driven then the D20 version is. In the perfect game of Call of Cthulhu the investigators avoid combat completly.

If your looking to have more fun than you can shake a stick at, you should get a holloween Cthulhu Live LARP going.

Stick with the rules that your players know, in order to keep things simple.

Use candles for light to play by.

Serve odd snacks like Calamari but act like its not unusual.

A well timed power failure or loud thump from the basement can add a good scare into your game session. An accomplice is not out of the question here, but best if it is NOT one of your players.

The old lost cat routine is a win here.

Catyr and Snurl both have great points. I've played the D20 and it doesn't have the punch the regular version does but you as the GM can pick up the slack. Make sure to stress to your players that min-maxing is not important, as everything they would get in combat with is extra-dimensional and mostly unkillable anyway. And having someone cut the power is a great move. Just make sure you go to "Check it out" and don't come back.

I've run a little CoC in my day. Both versions actually. I prefer the d% version, but story and RP don't come from the system. They come from the players and the GM. As long as you do a good job of getting the players in the mood the game should be good.

One thing that I've found always works well in a one shot for any system is to trap the party in a location. It limits time wasted to travel and exploration and allows you to get to the part where bad stuff starts happening a lot faster. So I say just pick a suitable location, find a way to keep the party from leaving, and give them some mystery to investigate.