How to run a slasher. 1 of 2

 I ran a summer camp slasher game not too long ago. It went pretty well.

Here's some of the stuff I used to make it happen

Plan for one or two sessions tops. 

Make a stack of pre gens, these can essentially be mechanically identical as everyone is equally helpless against a Slasher. Once a character gets killed, give the player another. I gave every character a unique motivation, which is a big part of the fun. 

If the game extends into a second session you may want to add in some more competent PCs in the form of first responders or, as in my game, a drug dealer looking for his favorite customer. 

Come up with a gimmick for the killer. I used two killers, each wore a burlap mask with the crudely painted likeness of a clown on it. One clown was sad, the other was happy. 

There's gotta be some stuff that doesn't make sense in the setting. I had an abandon carnival/circus in the middle of the island, an old power plant on the shore and a the entrance to an abandoned coal mine. much to my disappointment, we didn't get to the coal mine. 

Here's the map of my island summer camp:

Next time I'll share some of the PC profiles and talk about systems that might work.