Evil One Shot: Eliminate the Town

[blackjack50]

So a friend wants to do a Halloween game. Not sure who is DM, but I’d like to be ready if it is me. I was going to go with an evil one shot idea. Do something like a horror movie where the players have the objective of killing the town. But I’m not too sure how to run it. Any ideas would be helpful.

1) What I was thinking of doing was have a group of adventurers (based on a trope) be the “BBEGs.” Or maybe just one? So I need advice there.


2) And then they have to run around the town committing the acts. Does this sound viable?


3) I have a plot hook concept (they will basically be lords of this land according to their king, but they must eliminate the folks on the land so they can harvest their souls...or something like that). And they have a deadline as well. If you think I need to expand there please advise.

4) Any other bad guys or traps I should make sure to add for this?

[zinycor]

The main question is: What will the opposition be? Cause farmers and the like will get old very quick.

And of course, for every evil game the most important thing is to have consent from your players

[firelistener]

Yeah, fighting peasants will get old super quick. My recommendation is figure out how your players can fight some actual monsters. Maybe a flesh golem, some skeletons, various other undead, or devils for that spooky vibe.

They can still be evil, but having them slaughter commoners will feel super lame. Maybe they need to perform a ritual in some town shrine/temple/mansion and doing that is what sucks up all the peasant souls. This can give you a setting for a real dungeon with level-appropriate enemies, which is where D&D really shines as a game system.

[Guy Lombard-O]

How about making the players all be goblinoids?

You need an evil goal for them that's more interesting than just "kill everybody". They could be sent into town to kidnap victims for ritual sacrifice to their goblinoid gods? And/or they might need to retrieve/steal certain important items from various locations in the town. They could need to take holy relics from the town's temple for desecration, which will give them some fun clerics to fight. They could need to take the lord's signet ring (now with finger!) to appease Maglubiet's pride, which will let them fight guards and veterans. Maybe there's a wizard known to be staying in the inn, and the shaman wishes to light the sacrificial fire with the pages of the wizard's spell book to help channel the sacrifical, magical blessing for the tribe?

Get creative, and have fun robbing/slaughtering the townsfolk on this hallows eve!

[Tawmis]

As others said - if you're fighting peasants, that's going to get old. If they're fighting city guards, they should get wiped out.

I would do it the other way. The players have to save the town from odd things happening.

Scarecrows are coming to life.
The graveyard has a restless spirit - find out who murdered them and bring their ring back.
Plants are attacking people.

These are the things I'd do. I did a Halloween themed adventure for my players - basically an event called "The Hollowing" - where demons enter the world to steal the souls of newborns. The party needed to find the magic pumpkin that protected the town.

http://tawmis.com/kneurth/adventure-notes/adventure-notes-the-arrival/adventure-notes-the-arrival-01-10/the-arrival-adventure-notes-03
http://tawmis.com/kneurth/the-legend-of-the-ivory-coast/religion-history/the-hollowing-holy-day

[zinycor]

So a friend wants to do a Halloween game. Not sure who is DM, but I’d like to be ready if it is me. I was going to go with an evil one shot idea. Do something like a horror movie where the players have the objective of killing the town. But I’m not too sure how to run it. Any ideas would be helpful.

1) What I was thinking of doing was have a group of adventurers (based on a trope) be the “BBEGs.” Or maybe just one? So I need advice there.


2) And then they have to run around the town committing the acts. Does this sound viable?


3) I have a plot hook concept (they will basically be lords of this land according to their king, but they must eliminate the folks on the land so they can harvest their souls...or something like that). And they have a deadline as well. If you think I need to expand there please advise.

4) Any other bad guys or traps I should make sure to add for this?

As others have said, the most halloween themed adventure will involve skeletons, ghosts and the like. To make sure those appear you have to either maje them antagonists or hand the players premade characters. Both can be fun.

As for your actual idea... Maybe fight celestials, metallic dragons and paladins? Since it would be a one-shot with experimented players you can start at whatever level you want.

[MrStabby]

As others said - if you're fighting peasants, that's going to get old. If they're fighting city guards, they should get wiped out.


I could see this being the point though - the PCs are the bad guys, but the premise is that they need to be sneaky. Sureptitiously killing, casting rituals, summoning allies... its a game of cat and mouse and the PCs are the mouse... until their plan comes together and they turn it around.

[Tawmis]

I could see this being the point though - the PCs are the bad guys, but the premise is that they need to be sneaky. Sureptitiously killing, casting rituals, summoning allies... its a game of cat and mouse and the PCs are the mouse... until their plan comes together and they turn it around.

I can definitely see that. But when I think of Halloween I think of "spooky" things (not necessarily evil - despite growing up on the Halloween movies!) :smallbiggrin:

And the Monster Manual is chalk full of monsters that you can use (and even modify to make it all the same level) - that would create a "spooky" vibe. Throw down some music from tabletopaudio.com on top of that and you're in for a fun, Halloween infested spooky time!

If the point is to play evil characters - then, yes - the cat and mouse game might be fun. But that's what normal players often have to do anyway! :D

[blackjack50]

I think a big idea I’m liking and pulling is to throw something better than townsfolk at them. I would probably have just thrown town guards in there and upped their level. But I think I can change that now. Thanks y’all. I’d love more advice. I’m reading the thread slowly :)

[Lvl 2 Expert]

So a friend wants to do a Halloween game. Not sure who is DM, but I’d like to be ready if it is me.
If you don't know who the DM is within the first 3 sessions, it's you.

[Zaltman]

This could be an annual event and the towns people have finally hired some adventures to protect them from the evil party. Not really Halloween themed, but it could be fun. You could also flip it where every year the evil BBG and his Halloween themed minions take tribute from the town, but this year the town has hired the party to protect them. Fortifying the town will be fun. Think Halloween themed 7 samurai.

[Grim Portent]

Well the obvious route would be to have them go through some standard townsfolk fights. Encounters against the town's graveyard keeper, some night watchmen, the town priest plus a mob of stirred up townsfolk, the guard leader and their men, and the mayor and his private guards.

Have them wake as fiends/undead or similar in a graveyard at midnight on a suitably mystical night, they have until dawn to wreak revenge on the town for lynching/executing* them years, possibly even generations, prior. The targets they need to get are the guard captain, the local priest, the mayor, the magistrate, maybe the town gossip who spread word of the things that got them killed in the past, that sort of thing.

*Could have been for legitimate reasons or wrongful killings depending on tone. Being hanged as a result of false accusations of witchcraft is always a good one to get revenge for.

[cutlery]

The party runs the town, rather than kills it, and the evil overlords of the next town over come by to take your peasants. FIGHT!

[Nhorianscum]

So a friend wants to do a Halloween game. Not sure who is DM, but I’d like to be ready if it is me. I was going to go with an evil one shot idea. Do something like a horror movie where the players have the objective of killing the town. But I’m not too sure how to run it. Any ideas would be helpful.

1) What I was thinking of doing was have a group of adventurers (based on a trope) be the “BBEGs.” Or maybe just one? So I need advice there.


2) And then they have to run around the town committing the acts. Does this sound viable?


3) I have a plot hook concept (they will basically be lords of this land according to their king, but they must eliminate the folks on the land so they can harvest their souls...or something like that). And they have a deadline as well. If you think I need to expand there please advise.

4) Any other bad guys or traps I should make sure to add for this?

I'd go with a very "cabin in the woods" concept for this one.

A good aligned party of "worthless scum" has blundered around and ruined a perfectly acceptable sacrificial facility located within a town of expendable folk and now the *allegedly evil* party has been called in to contain the situation. By this I mean troubleshoot, by troubleshoot I mean shoot everything to death that refuses capture or containment in the area.

The difficulty of the enemies, objectives, social aspect, traps, and bizarro magical nonsense is pretty easy to adjust to your preferred range.

[Samayu]

The party runs the town, rather than kills it, and the evil overlords of the next town over come by to take your peasants. FIGHT!

I was going to say something like this. Save the townspeople - because they're your source for souls. If you really want to make the players feel like they're the bad guys, have the bad guys be good guys.

[Tawmis]

If you DM another game for them - do a double whammy.

Have the characters from the other game, come across the town that's been attacked - and hired to hunt down the (evil) characters they just played.

[Lunali]

Halloween is the day ghosts and goblins wander the world looking for people to possess/eat/etc so we dress up as them to hide from them. Make this actually the way it works in your world.

Have the players play low end monsters that are trying to find targets in town, but at least some of the monsters wandering around in town aren't in costume. Attacking someone that isn't in costume would likely end badly for the weaker monster.

[Satori01]

Is the horrific element for the Halloween game, the setup of being forced to participate in a war crime?

[cutlery]

I was going to say something like this. Save the townspeople - because they're your source for souls. If you really want to make the players feel like they're the bad guys, have the bad guys be good guys.

Hell, they're also your source for wheat and pork!

[jojosskul]

The prophesised child has been born, thing is there's a couple of cults that have a bit of a disagreement on what that prophesy MEANS. The child is very powerful, and warping the town around them and making weird stuff happen. Your party is sent by one cult to retrieve the child to sacrifice/destroy/make your new leader, but one or more rival cults are doing the same while weird stuff keeps popping up everywhere because of the child bending reality around them, raising undead unconsciously, potentially opening portals to the far realms etc.

Lets you tear through powerless innocent villagers and still have plenty of fun stuff to fight from the other cults and the changes the Prophesized One is making.

EDIT: Removed a couple of mild swears that were auto bleeped, spaced on that forum rule. My bad.