Topic: Vampire Hunter campaign

[Lord Garth]

I've been giving the thought of running a Vampire centered campaign a shot recently. I'm thinking Victorian-age but with lower tech weapons (i.e No firearms), with self-reloading crossbows made more commonplace and elemental professions and attacks removed completely from the game (except for them nasty vampires of course).

My current campaign is close to ending and I'm thinking of a short, 10 session or so, "campaign". Would run in RM2/C and some classes just scream "Perfect-fit" for it, such as the Witch Hunter for instance. Any tips or ideas?

[RandalThor]

I have been thinking of something similar with Halloween coming up and all that, only no vampires. Heck, I didn't even want to use any typical horror monster, but something from one of the D&D Monster Manuals, just to make it more mysterious. (Yeah, I know many of them are based on real world mythological creatures, but I would go with one of those that aren't, like the Intellect Devourer.

I would say that the biggest key to running a horror adventure, is to keep the monster a mystery for as long as possible. Keep the players (and, thusly the PCs) guessing. If that means you have to give it powers and abilities that are not common to it, then do that.

Here's an idea (I don't usually go with PC vs PC storylines, but for a short run horror it might work great): have one PC be the bad guy behind everything, they have put together the plot to destroy the other PCs - with your help, of course - and it is up to them to keep the plan moving during the game. All the while they are along with the rest of the group pretending to be their friend. You definitely need to have a player that can pull such a thing off, though.

[Suzune]

RandalThor is completely right. The idea is to keep the players guessing. My best suggestion although it would be extra work for you is to keep the entire plot fluid.

I ran a whodunit horror game before. I made it so that the characters changed the flow. Where the individual decisions they made affected the story.

If you do not want a player character to be behind it, I would suggest having three or four characters that could have become the final villain. It depended on how they respond to situations, who would be the idea candidate. My only other suggestion, is to sort of blur the lines a little, where the characters that could become the villain help you out. The double cross at the ending is more meaningful.

[markc]

 I would use the White Wolf rules to create my Vampire or Vampires for the game. The WW rules make Vampires less of a cookie cutter monster and more of a person with a condition.
MDC