Sunday night was Halloween. Every Halloween one of us runs a one-shot roleplaying game with a little bit of a horror theme to it. We started this tradition a few years back when I ran a zombie-pocolypse game where everyone played themselves as a Call of Cthulhu character, found out about the rise of zombies when I, the humble GM, turned into a zombie at a dinner party with them and they all had to escape Northern Virginia. The second year, Brian ran a game where we were all captured on a college/private school campus as stereotypical students and subjected to a twisted game of hide and seek by a vicious murderer. He had us play outside in the dark and had set up a bunch of special effects and sound effects that he’d trigger at opportune times. The third year, Dan ran us through a session where we all woke up, strangers to each other, and found ourselves in a big labyrinth run by an evil vampire who wanted to see us all killed off in interesting fashion.
This year, the game cycled back to me to run. I opted for running a one-shot of a game I’ve always wanted to try: Grimm. The seven characters were each third graders who would be transported into an evil twisted fairy tale world. I created the characters for them to speed things up and we launched off.
First, the characters. The players decided to assign them to each other based only on the names of each one.
First, there was Buster Rock who was assigned to Eric. Buster was the school bully. He constantly stole money from people, picked on them, and actually thought people liked him. But they didn’t. For the most part. He had some cherry bombs on him, a candy bar, and a bunch of loose change from his fees.
Second was August Geode. Jay was given this one, and he turned out to be the mild mannered nerd. August was the oldest kid in the class having just celebrated his birthday, but was afraid that Buster would steal anything he had from him, so generally kept it hidden. He liked chemistry a lot, enjoying his new chemistry set and book he got for his birthday. He also liked conducting experiments.
Third was Chrystal Summers, who was given to Tanya. She was the popular girl in the group, and everyone loved her. The Summers family owned all the oil fields in the region, and were well known for essentially building this town from nothing (back in the day, anyway). She’s rich, and deservedly so. She has also starred in her own television commercial. She actually didn’t have much of a problem with Buster, mostly because she could tell him what to do and he’d do it. She figured he had a crush on her. Of course, from Buster’s point of view, he liked the attention she gave him (when she was ordering him around) so he figured she had a crush on him. Turned out pretty funny when the two of them kept trying to pretend they liked each other when in reality they only thought the other one liked them.
Fourth up was Chase Jackson, the jock, and this one went to Dan. Chase (a girl) had a single mother who worked two jobs. It was Chase’s mother’s dream that Chase would be the first in her family to go to college. To afford that, she encouraged Chase to participate in every sport she could, in hopes of eventually landing a scholarship. Chase was really good at sports, liking softball the most. She was a team player most times but did accept that she was better than everyone else. She liked Buster too, mostly because he would actually put up a challenge physically. The two of them liked the competition. Chrystal was okay, she guessed, especially since her slumber parties always had the best snacks.
Fifth came Joe Smith, who Brian took. Joe was the normal kid. Joe was never the best at anything, but he wasn’t bad either. He wasn’t the best at sports, that was Chase, but he gave it a good try on the court. He liked playing his X-Box, participated in Boy Scouts, and had a stable family and a twin sister. He wasn’t overly fond of Buster, but tended to fall under Buster’s notice when others were around. August was okay, but he didn’t really want to associate with him in case that nerdness rubbed off. Chrystal was pretty cute, but above him. Chase and he got along because they often played on the same teams.
Sixth was Morgana Dusk and Ellen grabbed her. Morgana was an outcast, a troubled student who had just transferred to the school. She dressed in all black, never smiled, and thought life sucked. People tended to ignore her, or avoid her because she was just off-putting. Buster had tried to beat her up once but she twisted his arm and nearly broke it, so he never bothered her again. Joe had actually gone out of his way to say “hello” to her when she transferred in, which was more than anyone else had done, and she developed an instant crush on him. Of course, he didn’t realize it and figured he was just doing the polite thing that his parents had taught him, and never really talked to her much again. To Morgana, though, Joe was her best friend at the school.
Last was Astrid Heavens, and this one went to Laura. Astrid was a dreamer, living her life in fantasy worlds and reading books, writing, or drawing. She hated Buster with a passion because he had stolen her diary once and read it aloud. Buster was hoping there was something about him in it, since he had a crush on the weird, eccentric girl, but was disappointed to find he was not featured at all. Astrid since got a new diary, this one with a lock on it. She talked to August a lot, usually nerd-talk, and the nerd had also developed a crush on her. Joe was her twin brother, so she hated/loved him like any sibling does.
So everyone got their background sheet and read it over, laughing and trying to figure out who hated who and who liked who and who to not talk to under pain of social-ostracation. Then we jumped into the game.
It went fairly well. The plot was straight forward – the group was on a field trip to see an arboretum, blacked out, and came to in a new place. Slowly the kids realized they were somewhere else when they found a huge shoe that was run down. They were hustled in to the shoe by Old Mother Hubbard. Old Mother Hubbard explained that children were all outlaws in this land, and that the seven dwarves would come and take them away. On cue, three of the seven dwarves came over the hill with their nightmare steeds. They banged on Old Mother Hubbard’s door while the kids hid away. The dwarves spotted them when they came in, captured Old Mother Hubbard, and tried to catch the kids. They children quickly realized they were outmatched and fled, learning that working together was far better than working alone.
The kids fled to a forest where the dwarves refused to head in. They were cold and miserable, and saw many green eyes out in the black distance as they were settling in for the night. Astrid drew a picture of a ghostly knight who would watch over them and imagined it into being, and soon the knight, dubbed Sir Lancelot, was there. Of course, the knight was imagined by Astrid so knew only things she would know, and tended to take his task of defending the kids against the spiders very seriously, even threatening to cut off the legs of any children who tried to go see the spiders. Better a legless man than a dead one, he supposed.
By morning, Lancelot disappeared, having completed his task of protecting them from the spiders. They traveled deeper into the woods and the forest succeeded in separating them one at a time, and keeping them hidden from each other. A pale pre-teen girl, Snow White, as it turned out, found them and reunited them. They talked to her, found out that the stories they knew from home were just a little different. The evil Step Mother did exist, but she had captured the Seven Dwarves’ souls, having casted a spell that showed the Seven Dwarves would be her downfall. Snow White (who did not remember her name at all) told the story of how she had been taken to the forest by a woodcutter who had been charged with killing her, but as she was so beautiful as a babe, the woodcutter left her in the woods and could not swing the axe. He instead took the entrails of an animal back to prove Snow White was dead. Snow White said the dwarves could always sense children, except in this forest, and that the children were taken by the evil Queen and distilled into innocence and used to fuel her spells. All the children in this realm were gone, and the Queen had taken to capturing children from other realms and bringing them here for her spells. There was a big mirror that the Queen used for her spells, and maybe it could be used to get them home.
The kids headed to the castle to try to stop the Queen and get home. The dwarves found the kids, chased them to the castle, and they got in before the dwarves could. They climbed the tower, leaving Chrystal behind to distract the dwarves with her tales and stories. The kids reached the top of the tower and found the evil Queen there. She lured them in and began enthralling Joe before the others jumped up and tried to break the mirror. Astrid asked how to free the dwarven souls, which they saw in the mirror, and how to get home. To free the dwarves, they had to break the mirror. To go home, they needed the mirror intact. They broke the mirror instead, freeing the dwarves and stranding themselves here. Except for Chrystal, who fled the castle with the dwarves, the other six were all captured by the evil Queen and imprisoned, ending the game.
Overall, great fun. I had a blast running again – it’s been a little while – and I’ve gotten great feedback from other players. It was a lot of work to put together that one session, though. I think I’ve spent more time on that simple session than I did on any three other sessions from most of my other campaigns. Building easy-to-play characters with involved back-stories and a fast one-shot that would finish in about 3 hours while still maintaining three decent acts was a bit of work. I might change my mind down the road, but right now I’ll gladly pass on trying another one-shot next Halloween. Fortunately, Brian and then Dan have first crack at the next one since it’s been longer since they ran one.
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