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Doing a Halloween / Dia de Muertes "special"


Sam On Maui

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(Also posted at RPG.net)

 

Last year I ran a Christmas "special" for our supers group involving Krumpus. This year I'm doing a Halloween / Dia De Muertos special.

The basic premise is that a representative of each have come together to promote both events. Why? Because the year has been so crappy, people are stressed with all the horrors of real life, they're so busy they're not remembering friends and family, etc. Kind of a Hallmark movie type of thing. The world is doom and gloom and paranoia, and people need reminding that the metaphorical monsters in their lives are beatable!

“Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.” ~G.K. Chesterton

Additionally - and this is stealing from "The Book of Life" animated movie plus "Grim Fandango" (classic adventure game) with a touch of "Lanterns" (a wonderful board game) - there are people who need remembering to help them on their path to the afterlife.

The solution the two came up with? Giant monsters will "attack" on Halloween night, and will explode into candy when defeated. Some of the candy is the standard stuff, but some of it will also be nostalgic, reminding kids and parents of happy times with passed on loved ones and more, and hopefully getting them to spend time as a family reminiscing about it.

That's where the heroes come in.

The heroes beat the "monsters," candy goes everywhere, and by dedicating each defeat to some of the souls in limbo? They get extra help on their journey out of there. And therein lies the "how should I do this?" part.

I was initially thinking of players sacrificing dice to make the dedication, but that favors folks with large dice attacks. I'm now leaning towards them making Presence attacks with modifiers to wow the crowd as it were, with the results basically building up into a pool to see how many souls they help out.

Thoughts? Anything else to consider?

Side note: one of the PCs just *nuked* an army of something (I wasn't there for it), so when the main story comes up he's going to be sanctioned/under investigation/etc. I was debating his actions either counting against their total (foreshadowed with "Oh hell no, I ain't taking no dedications from THAT guy!") or maybe helping people go to hell :P

 

I was also thinking of adding a twist where all the negativity made the candy monsters go crazy, but am unsure about it so far.

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“Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.” ~G.K. Chesterton

 

 

Great quote! I looked it up.

 

The actual G.K. Chesterton quote is:

"Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon."

"Fairy tales are more than true – not because they tell us dragons exist, but because they tell us dragons can be beaten" is a paraphrase of the original quote.

 

It's earliest known attribution of the quote is by Neil Gaiman in Coraline.

 

Gaiman credits it to G.K. Chesterton.

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In Deadlands there is a mechanic where monsters are tougher when the fear level is high.  

 

Players influence the fear level by going round telling tales of how they defeated monsters, positive feedback as the lower fear level means that previously undefeatable monsters begin to become managable...

 

This sounds like something similar - get some good use out of those conversation and oratory skills - have them giving interviews and getting out with contacts etc.  The combat attributes help in defeating things - the social attributes convert those victories into something more broadly substantial.

 

Doc

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