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View Full Version : Has anyone done a Friday the 13th - type session?



Jeivar
2017-01-19, 09:23 AM
I don't mean an entire campaign, because running through the forest from an angry goalie isn't material for multiple sessions. But I am running a Hunter: The Reckoning game set in the 80's, and I want to do a shout-out to Friday the 13th. I'm going to use the Hidden-type of walking dead as a template for my Jason Voorhess-expy, and probably give it a limited use teleportation power to keep things interesting.

I'm wondering if anyone has advice on how to handle stuff like atmosphere, and how to keep things interesting in that kind of situation. "Situation" meaning that the hunters will be investigating an area with several cabins, with the killer lurking in the forest. And yes, the cabins contain horny idiot teenagers. :smallsmile:

GungHo
2017-01-19, 10:05 AM
I don't mean an entire campaign, because running through the forest from an angry goalie isn't material for multiple sessions. But I am running a Hunter: The Reckoning game set in the 80's, and I want to do a shout-out to Friday the 13th. I'm going to use the Hidden-type of walking dead as a template for my Jason Voorhess-expy, and probably give it a limited use teleportation power to keep things interesting.

I'm wondering if anyone has advice on how to handle stuff like atmosphere, and how to keep things interesting in that kind of situation. "Situation" meaning that the hunters will be investigating an area with several cabins, with the killer lurking in the forest. And yes, the cabins contain horny idiot teenagers. :smallsmile:

Jason works not just because he's a ambushing juggernaut, but because the idiot teenagers are powerless to do anything but run (at least until the last teenager left gets an idea). If you want to get that same atmosphere, you're going to need to find a way to disarm your PCs or find a way to make their armament so useless that they might as well be disarmed... and make sure they know it.

Jeivar
2017-01-19, 10:12 AM
Jason works not just because he's a ambushing juggernaut, but because the idiot teenagers are powerless to do anything but run (at least until the last teenager left gets an idea). If you want to get that same atmosphere, you're going to need to find a way to disarm your PCs or find a way to make their armament so useless that they might as well be disarmed... and make sure they know it.

Well, the stats for Hidden give them fifteen health boxes, no wound penalties, and maxed-out physical abilities. So it poses a threat, even to Hunters, but yes, I should see what I can come up with.

wobner
2017-01-19, 12:43 PM
i'm unfamiliar with Hunter: the reckoning, so not sure any of this is useful. Also this may not be achieving the feel you are actually after. anyway

Their weapons and powers don't need to be useless-useless, just incapable of killing him. In atleast every movie they incapacitate him atleast once, only to have him get up after a minute. They also should not show any effect until he goes down, leaving the players wondering what is and isn't effective, and how close he is to going down. finally it should take everything they have, daily powers or spell slots as it were, to take him out, so they know the score. possibly requiring an ambush on their part for an extra edge

Atmosphere is difficult. Constant perception checks or their hunter:reckoning equivelent isn't paranoia inducing, but tedius.
I played a friday the 13th game on my brothers nintendo, so way back in the day. The entire game took place at night if iremember right(and i played it at night), and it definitely helped that i was young. The mood music was rather eerie(as i recall). and you never knew when you turned the corner in a cabin if he would be there ready to butcher you, you also knew the best you could hope for was to drive him off if you did encounter him. it worked pretty well in the game, but i'm not sure how to translate that into pen and paper. candles and cheesy friday the 13th tune?
half the suspense is hearing breathing, or boards creek, or seeing something move out of the corner of your eye. if you could find a nice creepy sound effect to que up on your phone or whatever, to play when he is near, that might help. worked wonders in another computer game, Dungeons of Daggorath. que up a darth vader breathing, or some predator chatter. alien hiss.

As i recall, and its been a while, you had a number of counselors who could be at various places in the camp, that you could control, but only one at a time. you also had a number of campers in the various cabins. You had to explore the camp to find the means to kill jason, not too mention weapons to fight him off, as he would, at random, show up in the childrens cabins and try to butcher them all, and if they all died, you lost. you would have to show up and fight him off, hopefully without dying in the process. cause you also lost the game if all your counselors died.

The goal was to find the machette and the shrine to his mother, and i forget what else, and then you could take him out, and he had a nasty habit of attacking the kiddies while you trying to find these things, which forced you to abandon the search to go save the little brats(or leave em to their fate, if you had a few to spare, he'd only butcher one cabin at a time, and you only needed one tyke left to win), also your counselors would try to take him on their own soemtimes(computer controlled)they stunk, so it was suicide for them without you at the helm. but you could jump from counselor to counselor, so you could take over the one doing the fighting(if you abandoned what the other was doing)

LibraryOgre
2017-01-19, 12:45 PM
I don't mean an entire campaign, because running through the forest from an angry goalie isn't material for multiple sessions. But I am running a Hunter: The Reckoning game set in the 80's, and I want to do a shout-out to Friday the 13th. I'm going to use the Hidden-type of walking dead as a template for my Jason Voorhess-expy, and probably give it a limited use teleportation power to keep things interesting.

I'm wondering if anyone has advice on how to handle stuff like atmosphere, and how to keep things interesting in that kind of situation. "Situation" meaning that the hunters will be investigating an area with several cabins, with the killer lurking in the forest. And yes, the cabins contain horny idiot teenagers. :smallsmile:

Palladium's Original "Beyond the Supernatural" game had a set of rules called the "victim" rules, designed for playing the "normal humans in horror situations".

You had lower stats, generally less useful skills (i.e. You were an accountant and your wife was a lawyer, not an ex-special-forces accountant whose wife was a ninja-lawyer for the Yakuza), and the idea was that you'd jump from character to character as your old character died. "Ooops, looks like my character, Idied Cuz Blackman died first. Now to switch to Suzy Sexypants, who will surely li... nope, she's dead. I guess I can play Whiny Kid, who will probably live..."

Grod_The_Giant
2017-01-19, 02:11 PM
Suggestion: Don't send the players' badass Hunters into the situation. Instead, have them play a couple small-time cops who are sent to check out the campgrounds, and who have NO IDEA what they're getting into. They should be weak enough that they have no chance against your monster, and weak enough that the players feel much more vulnerable without their lovely big dice pools and special powers. Keep visibility limited, try to divide the party, and always, always strike from the shadows. Go whole-hog with gory deaths; maybe even let the players narrate their own horrible demises when the monster catches them. THEN, when everyone is dead, they can come back with their real characters and take care of business. Having tangled with the beast before, they'll be nervous about what it can do-- because the whole time they're getting slaughtered, they'll be looking at the die rolls and thinking "man, that still would have messed up my real guy"-- in ways that narration alone can never achieve. And when they succeed, it'll be extra-cathartic.

TheCountAlucard
2017-01-20, 10:50 PM
There's actually a whole supplement for it in the nWoD - Slashers.