Tales of the supernatural

[Goddess FallenAngel]

Okay, I'm going to be running a D20 Modern 1-shot for my gaming group on Halloween. And I need ideas.

So... I'd like to ask the wonderful people of ENworld to share their spooky ghost/supernatural happenings stories.

Anything unexplainable every happen to you?

 

[godawful]

Okay, I'm going to be running a D20 Modern 1-shot for my gaming group on Halloween. And I need ideas.

So... I'd like to ask the wonderful people of ENworld to share their spooky ghost/supernatural happenings stories.

Anything unexplainable every happen to you?

one time me and my GF were at some friends house for the first time. old house, wood floors, the kitchen had one of those huge square things that held pots and pans etc. that hung over a sink and counter type affair in the middle of the kitchen.
me and my GF were in college and had lived in a couple of interesting houses so we were exchanging spooky stories with our friends... then we heard a huge CRASH from the kitchen followed by the sounds of all those pots and pans falling everywhere, even the sound of the pots making that little whirl, whirl, whirl sound as they spun like a top on the floor before coming to a rest.
so we busted into the kitchen to see what had happened. but... nothing... everything was exactly in place.
i don't think we ever went back.

 

[Alzrius]

Nothing really unusual ever happened to me (except that time I actually saw a Terminator endo-skeleton, but that's neither here nor there), but for a Halloween RPG, I'm not sure if real experiences are the best things to draw off of. Real experiences tend to be somewhat eerie, but usually don't have anything actually happening to the people involved. You'll probably want your game to be more Blair Witch-like.

In this case, you're best off going with urban legends, which tend to be a little scarier (e.g. the idea that Bloody Mary really will appear in the mirror...and then come out and kill you).

 

[Terraism]

A few years back, we had a neat thread where people shared their experiences with the supernatural - you might get a bit out of that.

 

[jdrakeh]

Damn. I was just going to pimp the 12 to Midnight products at RPGNow. If you get a chance, check them out - they're really well done d20 horror plug-ins. As for supernatural experiences, I coulld tell you plenty of urban legends from the places that I've lived, but the only thing that happened to me personally took place while checking out an abandoned farmhouse on 93rd St in Topeka, KS (it's no longer there) that had a Goetic seal painted (apparently in blood) on the floor of the first story.

There was a story about said farmhouse (well, really an old urban legend, as the story made it into a few books) that if you stood in the center of the seal and mocked the devil/devils/forces of evil, you'd have a killer run of bad luck. So a few friends and I did just that ('cause we don't believe in supernatural hokum). Well, after we left, my buddy's car broke down completely (his new engine seized). When we returned later with a truck to pick it up, both of our headlights (on the truck) shorted out when we shined them on the house.

That's all, really - but it was weird.

 

[shilsen]

My grandfather walked through one door of the room, through the room, and out the other. Wouldn't have been too interesting, except that the doors were locked and that he'd died in the same room (on the bed that I was lying in) two nights ago.

The locked door of the same room used to unlock and open a few times a year, but that stopped a few years ago.

 

[genshou]

Okay, I'm going to be running a D20 Modern 1-shot for my gaming group on Halloween. And I need ideas.

So... I'd like to ask the wonderful people of ENworld to share their spooky ghost/supernatural happenings stories.

Anything unexplainable every happen to you?

When I was 9 years old, I was sitting on the carpet in my bedroom and leaned forward to reach for a David Eddings novel (I actually started Eddings novels in 2nd grade). The book was beyond my reach, but suddenly, it slid a full foot until it touched my hand (think the scene in The Empire Strikes Back when Luke pulls his lightsaber to him while he's hanging upside down, his feet encased in ice). Scared the bazeejus out of me at the time, but I've never figured out how or why it happened.

Since then I've had all sorts of impressions and premonitions. I have an uncanny ability to sense bad experiences ahead of time, and I can tell when someone I know is suffering without having any sensory input that could hint at it, even in my unconscious mind. I've also been able to make verifiably accurate judgements about the character and experiences of people I've just met.

As for meeting "ghosts" or other manifest forms of the paranormal, I've yet to have it happen, though I've had the "otherworldly presence" experiences of sleep paralysis frequently. Creepiest one was right after I'd seen The Grudge. After the paralysis wore off and the image disappeared, I realized it was because my house was making a creaking sound that my still-not-quite-awake mind was associating with a certain sound from the movie. That's not the kind of thing you want to have happen the morning after staying up late to watch a horror movie... Needless to say, I stayed in bed for a few more hours with my eyes tightly closed.

I like to throw false horrors at the characters. Make them think they encounter something supernatural, but it's just a trick of the mind. It's like crying wolf; they get desensitized and then are even more susceptible the next time, when it'll be real...