The Dead Rising From The Grave!

Not every ball the pitcher throws is a strike. Not every swing of the bat is a home run. 

By 1986 I had already been gamemastering RPGs for 8-9 years. I was a GM 'in demand' at my high school, mostly because I ran games no one else did but also because, for one reason or another, people thought I was good at it. Among the games I'd GMed that were popular were Paranoia and Toon, two comedic RPGs.

When the opportunity came up to run adventures in a Ghostbusters campaign I figured I had it in the bag. This would be both easy peasy and I would wow the group with my talents. How poorly did it go? Well...I opened this post with a sports analogy so clearly not one of my prouder moments.

 

The Case of The Unwelcomed Guest

Jane Curtain, John Belushi, and Bill Murray

Saturday Night Live, 1975

AKA: The Thing That Wouldn't Leave.

Inspiration: 'The Thing That Wouldn't Leave' was a 1978 skit on the comedy sketch variety show Saturday Night Live. It featured the talented Bill Murray (Hmm. That name sounds familiar...see below), the amazing Jane Curtain, and the late, great John Belushi. Using a mock horror movie trailer format, Belushi portrayed a guest at the home of Murray and Curtain's characters who just would not go home. 

In addition to the humor of it, I loved the idea of incorporating material that had Bill Murray in it as a wink and a nod to his role in Ghostbusters. The same is true for John Belushi, originally slated to play Peter Venkman before his untimely death. 

Gamemaster: Adam Dickstein

Synopsis: The Ghostbusters are hired to come to the suburban home of Richard and Jane Murphy in Queens, NY to deal with what at first appears to be a typical haunting. As it turns out, there is a snag to it. Richard's perpetually unemployed and loud-mouthed brother Jim had been crashing at their place when he passed away suddenly (a heart attack while trying to eat an entire bucket of fast food fried chicken and drinking an entire pitcher of beer. Yes, at the same time). Jim had already overstayed his welcome at the Murphy house but now that he was dead...well...he still wouldn't leave and had only gotten more obnoxious. To make matters worse, Dick and Jane's son Jack didn't want the Ghostbusters to blast his favorite (only) uncle and lock him in 'Ghost Prison'. 

Jim was indeed a menace though, playing the radio or TV really loud at all hours of the night, eating the family out of house and home, and generally pulling 'Fun Uncle' pranks somewhere between 'Pull my finger' and frights the likes of which Beetlejuice would be proud.

After several failed attempts and being on the receiving end of Uncle Jim's practical jokes, the boys in grey managed to drive out the freeloading spectre and get the family back to their normal routine. 

Highlights: Once they realized they couldn't use their Proton Packs and Ghost Traps for this one, the players had to get creative (Eventually. See below). Their first idea was just trying to reason with Uncle Jim but they really didn't have a convincing angle.

Their second idea was to be even more annoying than he was but he just loved it and considered the Ghostbusters his kind of people. This part was what people today would call 'cringe' I suppose but it was also pretty funny.

Finally, once Jim thought of them as his friends, one of the Ghostbusters offered him a job. Yep, someone was really thinking outside the box and told Uncle Jim they'd be happy to hire him so he could contribute to the household or maybe get his own place. Jim immediately thanked them but remembered he was late for a thing, another job offer, came in last night. Yeah, he was already running late. It'd been swell but he really needed to get moving...

'Film' Title Logo from the original SNL skit.

Notes: While very memorable and humorous, I freely admit this was not one of my best sessions. It was the first one I'd run for this campaign and I failed to follow Joe's cardinal rule; the paranormal entity is a serious threat, the characters and their situation brings the humor. This set up was too silly, too much of a gag from the get go.

I really dropped the ball on the pacing in the second act and that lead to not knowing where to go with it in the third act. The first act was very funny, as I elaborated and expanded on the original Saturday Night Live skit in a way the guys found hilarious. After that though, with the reveal that little Jack didn't want the PC's to hurt his Uncle, the PCs weren't sure what to do next and kind of meandered for a while. 

I learned a lot running this scenario and it made me a better GM going forward, especially when it comes to setting the tone and pace.

AD

Barking Alien