Yora
2014-01-22, 04:05 PM
I've been reading quite a bit about the sci-fi horor movies from the late 70s and early 80s the last couple of days, and it got me a couple of ideas that I think would be interesting in a pen and paper adventure as well.
- A monster with regenerating ability that makes hit and run attacks and then gets back to safety to heal back to full strength. Usually you can expect monsters to be killed in the fight that they appear, or they escape so badly injured that they leave the area for good and don't come back. But with some decent regeneration, they can be back in a hour or two. The players have to come up with a plan to trap it in a corner and kill it for good, before they run out of healing resources themselves. That means either setting a trap, or tracking it back to its lair.
- The PCs are on a monster hunt, but in the place they are hunting in there's not just one but actually two different enemies.
Like in Alien, where they are trying to hunt the Alien for half of the movie, but nobody realizes until close to the end that one of them is an android who tries to make sure it's kept alive, even at the expense of the crew.
- The PCs get to spot a reasonably (but not too) powerful enemy a couple of times and fight it a bit on a few occasions. But only considerably later do they learn that it's actually more than just one of these creatures around.
I always think it's such a waste in the movie when the first ringwraith is first joined by three more at the ferry. It hadn't really been neccessary to show all nine riding out of their castle and having Gandalf say that there are "The Nine" out and looking for the ring. It would have been so much better if it looks like only one really powerful enemy, but as he turns his horse around to race for the bridge, there's suddenly three more coming out of the woods behind him and join him.
- The PCs hunt a monster and there's a lot of hints that indicate a certain type of classic monster, but only after they have already planned how to kill that monster using traditional methods, they find more clues that completely overthrew their theory and leave them completely clueless about what they should do. It could of course also happen even just at the moment they spring their trap and it turns out to be completely useless.
People getting found mauled by a giant beast during the full moon doesn't have to make it a werewolf. Even when the full moon is over, the attacks might continue. And all the stuff you can do with vampires.
- A monster with regenerating ability that makes hit and run attacks and then gets back to safety to heal back to full strength. Usually you can expect monsters to be killed in the fight that they appear, or they escape so badly injured that they leave the area for good and don't come back. But with some decent regeneration, they can be back in a hour or two. The players have to come up with a plan to trap it in a corner and kill it for good, before they run out of healing resources themselves. That means either setting a trap, or tracking it back to its lair.
- The PCs are on a monster hunt, but in the place they are hunting in there's not just one but actually two different enemies.
Like in Alien, where they are trying to hunt the Alien for half of the movie, but nobody realizes until close to the end that one of them is an android who tries to make sure it's kept alive, even at the expense of the crew.
- The PCs get to spot a reasonably (but not too) powerful enemy a couple of times and fight it a bit on a few occasions. But only considerably later do they learn that it's actually more than just one of these creatures around.
I always think it's such a waste in the movie when the first ringwraith is first joined by three more at the ferry. It hadn't really been neccessary to show all nine riding out of their castle and having Gandalf say that there are "The Nine" out and looking for the ring. It would have been so much better if it looks like only one really powerful enemy, but as he turns his horse around to race for the bridge, there's suddenly three more coming out of the woods behind him and join him.
- The PCs hunt a monster and there's a lot of hints that indicate a certain type of classic monster, but only after they have already planned how to kill that monster using traditional methods, they find more clues that completely overthrew their theory and leave them completely clueless about what they should do. It could of course also happen even just at the moment they spring their trap and it turns out to be completely useless.
People getting found mauled by a giant beast during the full moon doesn't have to make it a werewolf. Even when the full moon is over, the attacks might continue. And all the stuff you can do with vampires.