one of my favorite d&d podcasts is doing a one-shot based on the friday the 13th movies. except the DM hasn’t told any of the players that it’s based on friday the 13th. he has them convinced it’s based on a sex-comedy coming-of-age film they’ve never heard of (that he made up). which is so fucking genius. because the characters in a slasher flick don’t know they’re in a slasher flick, why should the players? if you’re going for genre accuracy, make your players think they’re acting out animal house or something, or else they’ll end up weirdly genre savvy. it’s perfect.
and like, throughout the whole session, to keep the players convinced that the fake not-horror movie is real, the DM keeps mentioning weird, specific details about the fake movie, like, “oh yeah, didn’t i mention? your character is played by crispin glover before he was famous” or “so in the actual movie, you got lost and had a nice scene in an orchard, but so-and-so succeeded on his navigation roll”
and this has the players lulled into a false sense of security for the most part. but over the course of the game they get more and more suspicious of all the weird, doom-harbinging horror-movie details the DM keeps sprinkling in. every once in a while a player will be like, “okay so these identical hitchhiking twins are hot, right? wait, why are they speaking in unison”
it’s so genius. the DM introduces a small child who creates and collects ultra-realistic, cinema-quality latex monster masks, and none of the players even bat an eye. they don’t clock this creepy horror movie child at all. they’re too busy trying to hit on his older sister, just like their characters would be.
at one point one of the players gets weirdly, genuinely angry, and is like, “WHY DO I CARE??? so this old couple is talking about a tragedy at the local hospital, SO WHAT????? aren’t i just supposed to want to get laid right now?! why did you put this in the story, man?!?! was this couple even in the original movie? i don’t know, because you won’t let us look it up on IMDB, even! what is going on?!” and i know it’s an auditory medium, but fuck, i could SMELL the shit-eating grin the DM must’ve had on. that’s so fucking awesome
#the DM even gave them homebrewed game mechanics based on love and sex so that they’d be distracted by their characters’ personal goals#which is so perfect for a slasher game. why else would your players be distracted by a trashy sex scene #theyre TRYING TO WIN. and to win. they have to have sex with so-and-so #and it keeps them distracted the whole time before the reveal bc a lot of their actions towards each other affect their relationship stats #it’s just. so fuckin funny. i had to pause the podcast multiple times to shout ‘YOU FUCKING LIAR’ at the ceiling. it was so funny #The Film Reroll is the name of the show btw if u wanna check it out or w/e
