Best Haunted House Adventures?

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Ender
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Best Haunted House Adventures?

Post by Ender »

What are you favorite adventures that take place in a haunted house/museum/tower/building and why? What makes for a fun haunted house encounter in your eyes?
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Re: Best Haunted House Adventures?

Post by Hamiclar »

Bleak house but I modified it a lot. I like howls in the night spooky with dogs. Tales of Darkness the story of Ashington Manor, which stood out to me and one about the family of killers! I plan on running the Ashington one in my campaign but later on.
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Re: Best Haunted House Adventures?

Post by Gonzoron of the FoS »

Hamiclar wrote: Tales of Darkness the story of Ashington Manor,
minor correction: that's in Dark Tales and Disturbing Legends.

I like Bane of the Shadowborn and the Ghosts of Mistmoor, both from Dungeon Magazine, and Seepage from Children of the Night: The Created (I like that the latter is not exactly a "haunted" house. a nice change of pace.)
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Re: Best Haunted House Adventures?

Post by Joël of the FoS »

Ashington manor is a lot of fun, you'll see.

I DMed Howls in the Night, and it was fun too. But it's not a hunted house as much as a hunted person ;)

One great haunted house with a macabre backstory is Foxglove Manor from Pathfinder #2 (skinsaw murders). You can download it at Paizoo. I also had a lot of fun DMing it.

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Re: Best Haunted House Adventures?

Post by El Gambito »

The Ghost of Mistmoor is my all-time favourite. Also, Pathfinder's Haunting of Harrowstone is lots of fun even though it is set in a prison, not a house.
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Re: Best Haunted House Adventures?

Post by Ender »

Thanks, guys! So what about these adventures makes them memorable to you? What would convince you to run them over another haunted house adventure?
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Re: Best Haunted House Adventures?

Post by Dark Angel »

Ender wrote:Thanks, guys! So what about these adventures makes them memorable to you? What would convince you to run them over another haunted house adventure?
Without commentating on the above adventures, I always like ghost/haunted house adventures because the players cannot usually succeed in defeating the monster as they usually will resume haunting. I have had a player accidentally kill an NPC (errant fireball) and then the ghost demanded they take his body back home (to Borca from Lamordia). When they didn't do that right away, and at one point not quickly enough, the ghost got really pissed (hot coals on bare skin while they slept, sprayed with lamp oil while studying for spells, etc). It really motivated them, but not out of horror. A haunted house is great as reality is bending and warping around them as they now have to contend with terrifying things and hope they can eventually escape.

Good examples of this concept is the movie 1408 and a more lighthearted example is the X-Files episode 'How the Ghosts Stole Christmas' (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0751138/?re ... lmg_act_31) which has a more light hearted approach to the theme.
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Re: Best Haunted House Adventures?

Post by alhoon »

Loved "Death House" from 5e.
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Re: Best Haunted House Adventures?

Post by Ender »

alhoon wrote:Loved "Death House" from 5e.
Can you tell me why? (In general, I'm looking for reasons why people enjoy different haunted house adventures to find more fundamental reasons people like haunted house adventures on the whole. But more specifically I hated Death House and would love to understand why people seem to like it so much.)
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Re: Best Haunted House Adventures?

Post by El Gambito »

For me, the best haunted house adventures have a good backstory which the players gradually uncover through written notes and ghostly flashbacks. I think ghosts are scarier if the players are given some idea of what kind of people they were in life, especially if they were villains of the sort you wouldn't want to encounter even if they were living, breathing beings.

I also like the gradual build up of strangeness as the characters explore further into the house; minor occurrences (such as seeing a strange reflection in an old mirror, or an unfamiliar shadow on the wall) increase player paranoia and leave them expecting to be attacked at any time. In spite of this, haunted house adventures can still be run without any actual combat, since more often than not the objective is to lay the ghost to rest rather than chop it into pieces.

However, when I ran Bleak House my players didn't enjoy it; they actually wanted more combat encounters. So I rewrote it and put a kraken in there (don't ask) and they loved it. I had a strange group of players. :roll:
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Re: Best Haunted House Adventures?

Post by Gonzoron of the FoS »

El Gambito wrote:For me, the best haunted house adventures have a good backstory which the players gradually uncover through written notes and ghostly flashbacks. I think ghosts are scarier if the players are given some idea of what kind of people they were in life, especially if they were villains of the sort you wouldn't want to encounter even if they were living, breathing beings.
I agree on this 100%. The ghosts need a reason to be there AND the reason needs to become slowly clearer as the PCs investigate. Every good haunted house is really a mystery.

Also, I like a good twist, like I mentioned Seepage. (the Automatic Man adventure). It's a haunted house that isn't haunted by a ghost, exactly. Same with Bane of the Shadowborn. While there are ghosts there, the big bad is a sword (sword-demon-thing, yeah, yeah).

Another thing I look for is the individual "haunts" or ghostly encounters should be something special. Anyone can have a ghost shake the table or moan and rattle chains, but stuff like finding a hand emerging from your own hair in the shower (See The Grudge) ... that sort of thing will suck me right in.
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Re: Best Haunted House Adventures?

Post by Lord Loren Soth »

Hello All. Long time not seen.

I am a little surprised that no one mentioned Castles Forlorn, since it can be quite grim and dark. Having lived in the UK for a few years now, I can also relate with a lot of stuff that this boxed set has to give, and tune it up a notch (or two) where the need arises (also, reading English history for some time now I can make it way more gory and realistic to the players). I might have dropped the goblyns though, I haven't tried them to be honest, but I don't know how good they would tie in with the whole pagan/druidic theme Castles Forlorn gives out. Looks like I will have to try it.

P.S.: Also, I love the backstory of the Azenwrath, from The Created supplement/accessory, that ties in with Forlorn, and given the fact of the time period skipping that takes place in the castle, one could work around it and make a nice sidequest of bringing down the original tree the Azenwrath came from.
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Re: Best Haunted House Adventures?

Post by Strahdsbuddy »

Ghosts of Mistmoor is easily my favorite adventure ever run, and I try to run it once a year. The personalities of each sister make for a good deal of confusion, in addition the timing of bumping into the mortal thieves can have players even doubting what they see. I've had it shake out as a bit of a Scooby Doo with the mortals taking main focus, to a slasher with Regine gong ballistic. For 25 years, tho, I've been trying to recapture the frightened jump my players made when a door was unexpectedly slammed closed in another part of the house we were playing in, letting me know I actually had their attention!

I've used the characters of this module in my fan fic exercises many times, and feel as close to them as to any other characters in gaming. Cannot recommend enough.
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Re: Best Haunted House Adventures?

Post by Brandi »

Maybe it's just me, but I could easily see playing the Automatic Man adventure as a kind of dark farce. I think I've seen too many of those old cartoons involving a "house of the future" going berserk...
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