>>34808644
Tentacle rape.

>>34808644

Some ideas I've had so far include:

>The doors open out onto a starry void, venting all the elevator's air and filling the car with an intense cold for the few moments before the doors shut again and the elevator proceeds on its way.

>There is a grinding, squealing noise, and the elevator jerks awkwardly to a stop a foot or so above the next floor, only one door opening, the light inside flickering. An elegantly lettered signboard outside apologizes for the inconvenience and gives directions via arrowed signage through a dimly-lit floor half under-construction and haunted by lurking shadows, to an alternate elevator.

>The doors do not open and an annoying error alarm sounds. Water starts slowly filling the car, seeping in from between the doors.

>The elevator's lights flicker, once, twice, three times, before going out entirely. It stops on the next floor and the doors open, but that floor appears to be pitch dark as well. People or things can be heard and felt entering and leaving the car. What will they find once the lights come back on?

>>34808644
> Elevator stops at a floor
> Doors open, floor is pitch black
> Then suddenly A SCARY SKELETON JUMPS OUT BOO!

>>34808713
this but before they realise its tentacle rape tell them to roll for anal circumference that will send there minds into overdrive trying to work out what is going to analy rape them

>>34808761
>>34808792
i like all these ideas

>>34808644
> Elevator suddenly comes to a halt
> Voice comes on the loudspeaker
> 'We are currently experiencing a minor engineering difficulty, please remain calm'
> Banging can be heard on the walls of the elevator, scratching on the roof, lights flickering on and off etc.
> Starts subtly but ramps up until the elevator is practically swinging from side to side
> Intercom voice repeatedly says 'Remain calm, do not open the doors, remain calm, do not open the doors'
> Noises suddenly stops, lights come back on
> Voice says 'thank you for your patience, have a nice day'

>>34808644
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyoZG5LegVM

>>34808644
It has an old fashioned rotational clicking floor counter.

When they first get in, they go up in it. As it rotates, they notice that there's no way all the floor numbers could fit on it.

On arriving at the top floor, they see a skull flicker as the 'number' to the floor, before it keeps clicking and the elevator keeps going up, more and more eldritch numbers appearing in sequence. Sometimes it'll go to the negatives. Sometimes it'll be measured in lb or cm or even light years. It makes no sense, but correlates to what's outside.

>>34809007
> Sometimes it'll be measured in lb or cm or even light years.

I finally have an excuse to link to this page

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_humorous_units_of_measurement

>>34808644
>The elevator doors open
>Seated in a chair is a bloody corpse wearing a santa hat
>Written on his shirt, written in blood
>"Now I have a machine gun. Ho Ho Ho."

>>34808644

- The bell dings but the doors in front of the players don't open. Instead, they hear a noise behind them, and turn to see another pair of doors that weren't here before open.

- The doors close and the elevator proceeds to rise between floors at a normal speed. Then faster. And faster. And faster. The rate of acceleration is such that the players are plastered to the floor. And then it stops.

- The elevator doesn't just move upwards. It moves downwards, frontwards, backwards and sideways too.

- The elevator doors open onto a large, elegant ballroom that appears to be filled with people in the midst of a 1950s gala celebration. However, the tableau presented is completely still and completely silent, and if any of the players should choose to investigate, they would discover that all the "partygoers" are carefully dressed and posed mannequins, all the food and drink is fake, and everything is covered in a layer of dust and cobwebs.

Great ideas so far folks! I think I can even adapt the tentacle one.

>Elevator stops and the doors open
>Long, long hallway with another elevator at the end and the doors to apartments or hotel suites on either side.
>Everything is completely carnage. Doors left open, luggage and personal items scattered everywhere, holes knocked through walls, bodies and lots of blood in pools, trails and handprints.

>Furniture barricades force you to work your way through a maze of ruined suites and corpses to get to the other elevator.

>Something is on the floor with you.

>>34809148
>On returning to the elevator, you find that one or more of the mannequins have boarded as passengers.

>If you're really unlucky, on of them has its arms outstretched and is pushing the door-close button.

>>34809051
congrats anon you linked a page its a great feeling when you get to link a page you have been waiting ages to link

>>34809115
i get that reference i cant decide if its better if the players do or dont get it

>>34809198
what do you mean adapt it will you take out the sexual aspects because thats no fun

>>34808801
in fact you dont even have to use the anal circumference just telling them to roll for its enough.

but make sure you do it later in the game if you do it at the start they will think its magical realm

>>34808644
> Door opens onto a short corridor with another elevator at the other end.
> Other elevator door opens
> Inside the other elevator are a bunch of people who look exactly like the party
> A few differences, some have bandages on their heads or arms, the elevator's light is detached and hanging by it's cables etc.
> One of the other party yells over 'Hey, how many floors have you stopped on?'
> Party member: 'I dunno, about X?'
> 'Oh man, only X? You guys are in for some shit'
> Doors close and elevator carries on it's way.

You get in the Elevator.

After getting in you notice Richard Nixon is also in the elevator.

He is glaring at you but taking no action.

doors open

party sees themselves in another elevator, facing away

the other parties door opens, they are all horridly dragged out and killed one by one by something

real elevator closes and keeps moving.

The problem with a lot of these is that there is no reason to ever get out of the elevator. And if you just say it doesn't move then be prepared accusations of railroading.
I'm not sure how to fix it though. Perhaps the PCs are trying to find someone and have to do a floor by floor search?

>>34809520
>dehydrate in elevator
>wait around in spooky elevator to die

ok

>>34809520
If you have it that the lift stops on certain, more interesting floors for long periods of time (other floors can be just quick filler), then the PC's will probably venture out of their own volition due to boredom/curiosity. If they're too scared and refuse to leave the lift, then you're running the horror game right.

Below the push-button panel is a little access door, behind which is a cubby usually meant to house the elevator's emergency telephone. Inside this one however is:

>A revolver with just enough bullets for each of the riders, each one inscribed with one of their names.

>A tiny shrine to some sort of mysterious deity.

>A severed hand, withered and mummified. Depending on how far along the night has processed, it may or may not be animate.

>Several Molotov cocktails and an old, well-loved Zippo lighter.

>A long, long length of rope.

>>34809590

>a revolver with enough bullets for the party minus one

>>34809590
>The elevator manual. A thick, read book, with only blank page save for the first. Here, there is only one sentence written in red ink. "I'm sorry".

Honestly, I kinda want to see a /tg/ homebrewed lite-RPG of this concept now, kinda like what we did with Night Shift. It'd be even simpler too.

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>>34809520

My plan, as >>34809583 says, is to have a bunch of "adventure floors" that the group will either be tempted to get out and explore or NOPE out on, interspersed with "event floors" that are self-contained to the elevator like getting spaced or having to fight off a wall of tentacles once the doors open.

In think my group won't mind a little bit of railroading of the broken-elevator variety, seeing as this is a horror one-shot, but I'm all for thinking up more open-ended encouragement to have them explore, and any overarching plots or stories that these base ideas can be fit into.

>>34809713
Do you have some elevator music for ambience?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcCHRW8G9yY

>>34809642
I'd like to see this too, honestly. Give the old skyscraper a bit of a sordid, eldritch backstory, establish the starting scene and character creation parameters and a basic rules set, and a loooooong roll table for elevator characteristics, NPCs and floors, and there you go.

>>34809765

I don't, but I was thinking of getting some, thank you.

>The doors open all the way out to the exterior of the building, presenting an immediate fall hazard to anyone standing too close to the doors when they open. For a challenge, the players need to traverse the outside of the skyscraper by means of the fire escapes, neon sign supports and decorative architectural elements.

>The doors open into a perfectly normal hallway, but for the fact that it seems to be constructed upside down. Gravity will become inverted in the elevator within a moment, presaged by the players' hair, effects, and elevator detritus falling to the ceiling first.

>The doors open into a dilapidated hallway lit by lamps that twist and flicker in a phantom wind that blows old newspapers across the scarred linoleum tiles. The lights blink off and then on, and the holey walls are covered in insane scrawls and graffiti. The lights blink off and on, and the walls are covered in framed portraits that look like they're frightened. The lights blink off and then on, and the walls are covered in bloody hand prints.

>>34810067
Definitely play some elevator music, but layer in or play at the same time ambient sound effects to represent the elevator's movement, and have a bell or chime ready to strike and startle your friends once you hit a floor.

Also, have some inexplicable sounds to play softly in the background, under the elevator music and elevator noise: 40s swing music, screams, heavy breathing, etc.

I like the idea of having two sets of doors on the elevator. The second set basically never opens, it's there to create a sense of dread.

Have them arrive at a floor. The doors don't open. There's a frequent and loud banging on the front set of doors, along with a scraping sound, like something metal being dragged against brick. The doors behind them open onto a dimly lit corridor. The banging stops and the scraping fades away, like something is coming around the corner. The doors close and the lift starts moving again just before it does.

>>34810579

That works especially well if the players are forced to take the beat up old service elevator.

>>34810638
Elevator has to make the 'bing' sound when the doors open as well. If you play your cards right, you can make that sound scare the shit out of your players.

>>34810638
>>34809511
>>34809465
>>34809287

Having your players change elevators periodically throughout the session could be a good move to throw them off their game and keep them nervous:

>Starts off in the posh, art deco main elevator.
>Transition to warmer, beat up metal, glass and Formica elevator from the 70s.
>Forced into an old service elevator with doors on two sides.
>Back into the main elevator, but with everything mirrored, even numbers and text.

>Etc. etc. etc.

>>34810798
What if the players get out to explore an 'adventure level' and then either can't find the elevator to get back and have to get a different one or they do get back and it's completely changed inside?

>>34810834
>>34810798

Liking both of these angles. If the group can't even trust the elevator to stay the same, then they can't trust anything.

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>Players need to go to a lower level so they take the elevator.
>Elevator starts going down, like elevators do, until they hear a loud snap!
>It starts falling faster and faster, the metal screeching, floor trembling, etc..
>Suddenly it returns to go down slowly.
>Finally, the doors open, showing a hallway just like the one they were in when they took the elevator.
>But it looks like pic related.

if you want to be subtler, it can look exactly like a normal hallway, but left and right are inverted.

If this is for a Halloween game, thirteen floors, thirteen events seems like an appropriate number.

>>34808644
OP you really need a hook to pull players out of the elevator and give them something to do on each floor. I like the club idea but it doesn't really incentivize. I would say make the building's first couple floors be a former bank. A wealthy one at that. But some twilight zone shit happened a long time ago and the banks fortune is now hoarded on one of the floors, but strange happenings has kept anybody from ever getting it. This way, the players all have a definite goal (lods of emone) and it gives them a reason to get out and look. They don't know which floor, and they may not even know the place is haunted at first, but at least its a way to get them pushed out and to actually roleplay in an environment other than the 10x10 foot box.

>>34808644
Can we know who are gonna be the PCs, OP?
Maybe we can try getting some tailored 2spooky events?

>>34811489

I can really agree with everything you're saying about giving my players an incentive to leave the elevator and experience the horrors or oddities beyond its doors beyond the meta-plot of this being a game and it is expected that they explore. I like the idea that there might be some sort of hidden treasure on one of the floors, and really like the notion of tying things more closely to the Twilight Zone.

>>34811580

The PCs who are gong to be playing this ice its finished are:

Mr. One:
Roleplay over roll-play always, loves characters who do what they think is the Right Thing in morally ambiguous situations, deeply affected by feels and suffering.

Mrs. One:
Wife of the above, likes games a bit more crunchy but still a solid roleplayer. Likes cute things but very pragmatically, pretty sure she's claustrophobic in real life.

Ms. Two:
Sister of the above, but even more pragmatic with a bit of a problem sometimes staying in character. Most likely to get spooked in real life, however.

Mr. Three:
Equal to Mr. One's level of roleplay, prefers neutral characters with self-serving or investigative bents, seems hard to scare but gets invested in atmospheric settings.

>>34812411
I've had an idea floating around in my head for a while that might be good for Mr One. Adapted for the elevator scenario it would go something like this;

> Elevator stops but doors do not open
> Voice over elevator loudspeaker assures them that nothing is wrong and this is only a temporary delay, they should remains calm and above all else refrain from opening the elevator doors
> After a while Mr One's character begins to hear a noise from outside
> Noise should be something like a child or woman crying and calling for help, begging to be let in
> Other party members may hear the same thing or something else entirely, at your discretion
> Loudspeaker message repeatedly instructs the Mr One to not open the door
> The closer he gets to opening the door, the more insistent the loudspeaker voice gets and the more frantic the pleading sounds
> Of course, if he finally does open the door... what happens is up to you.

>>34809448
Did he imply he was going to remove sexuality and not improve it?

>>34811489
>Though little remembered today, the owner and architect of the Voynich Building was as wealthy as he was eccentric, and had a great distrust of banks and economists in general.
>It is said that when he built his masterpiece at 1313 Park Avenue, he included amongst all its other strange and esoteric architectural choices a vault in which to store all his wealth in art, precious metals and currency, secreted away somewhere deep within the building.

>Your party is comprised of remodelers who have just discovered an elevator hidden behind a false wall, with doors embossed with the mad architect's strange personal seal. You're positive that this elevator will lead you to his riches, if you can only navigate the eerie, almost non-Euclidean floors it services and find his vault.

Ran something similar once, as part of a larger event!

One trick that seemed to really fuck with my players was my "mistakes."

>All five of you manage to make it back into the elevator just as the doors close behind you.

>Five?

>Sorry, all *four* of you. My mistake.

Keep mixing up how many there are of them. Eventually, one mistake will slip past them, and the metahorror will have begun.

>>34812411
You need to set up a Temptation Event for Mr Three.

He's offered a chance to get off of Mr Bones' Wild Ride, but must "sacrifice" one of the other party members to do it. The surviving pair will be trapped in the elevator/building forever.

>>34812579
>>34812781
The voice occassionally heard over the old speakers inside the elevator is the Mr. Housey/Howard Hughesy voice of the owner/architect.

>>34812860

This. Give him the chance to get off. Give him the chance to leave. Give him the blueprints to the floors-between-floors or the diary of the mad-builder. Give him choices the other characters don't have and let him agonize over them.

>The "floor" appears to consist of a small room, almost a closet really, little bigger than the elevator itself, undecorated, just bare concrete, brick and steel. Set up in the center if the room under a hanging lamp is an old metal reporter's desk and chair, on which are stacks of paper a typewriter, and an overflowing ash tray. The sheet in the typewriter details the players' trial up until that very moment. The handwritten papers on the desk present alternate futures from that point onward.

>>34809639
>>34809612
>>34809590

>A gem-encrusted skull.
>The old emergency telephone, through which an older man berates you and speaks madness.
>A marble chess piece, around which a cryptic note has been wrapped.
>A rare autographed baseball from the beginning of the sport.
>A bottle of good brandy with glasses enough for all.
>A bottle of deadly poison with glasses enough for all.
>A roman dagger.
>Something that bites your fingers and then slams the little door shut again.
>A highly annotated and much folded copy of the building's blueprints.
>A fossil fern.
>A goldfish in a glass bowl.
>A wadded up white handkerchief on which an agonized and heartfelt farewell has been written by a dying man.

I just watched Danger 5, so the only thing I can think of is "B? What's B?" "Basement of course." "Or Baboons!"

>>34812781
There you go that is perfect.
Anon here put exactly what I had brewing in my head with >>34811489 into words.

I think that the eccentric millionaire architect from the 1920s and modern day heist idea is good way to go. You can build a skeleton plot around the central idea of an Eldritch elevator and skyscraper using these ideas.

>>34809765
>>34810067
Let me help you with that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFbKKsEoQNg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rt7SPm7N6D8

>>34810289
I'm assuming these reverse gravity effects reach its climax with the elevator creaking and then falling upwards, to their death, unless they realize something's wrong and jump out of the elevator.

OP, still here, loving all the suggestions that have been made. They're really making me rethink my approach, and take this idea all he way to a fuller, more polished final product. I really, really like the idea this eldritch skyscraper having been constructed around a treasure vault by a paranoid and eccentric builder and owner. My inclination now is to make him 3/4 Howard Hughes, as suggested, 1/4 occult obsessed Cave Johnson, and give him a minor and indirect but antagonistic role in things.

Personally I like the original OP idea. Just a normal elevator ride to go to a party. Simple, easy to get into character. It also lets the OP have the players reach the goal, arriving to the party.

All the food is warm and drinks still have ice in them, the instruments the band was to play are sitting in opened cases, as if they were about to start. The clock says the time is three minutes before the party starts. The clock is un-ticking and nothing happens in the room.

When they try and return to the elevator, they find it has a sign hanging on it...

"Out of Order, please use stairs."

Looking just feet next to the elevator, you find a door with a straight stairway, that (after a long walk that would have taken them out of the building) takes the players back to the first floor. The hotel staff greats them as normal, and says good bye.

>If they turn to look at the stairs, they only find a wall where the stairs were

>>34810289
I like the first one. For added spooky, if the party tries to call for help from outside, have them notice that things outside don't really line up with what they remember from the ground. And you know, those people really DO look like ants from up here...

>>34808644
I really like this idea/the stuff in this thread so far, OP do you have any contact info (Skype or steam or something) that you'd wanna share and we could bounce some ideas off of each other as far as number crunching/statting stuff up? I'd really love to run something like this for my group who also consists of 4 people

>The doors open, and a great, black, twisted claw wrapped with stained canvas and dripping ichor lunges out of the darkness, attempting to grab one of the elevator's passengers.

>The doors open onto a brick wall, reinforced with metal bracing, that seems to have been hastily constructed. There is a porthole of some kind built into the center of the wall, but its window has been spray painted over, and warnings not to look in the same paint have been graffitied across the wall.

>The rear doors if the elevator open to reveal a hole, roughly knocked through the concrete back wall of the elevator shaft. Looking through, nothingcan be seen but an impossibly vast gridwork of steel girders stretching out into the darkness, makeshift catwalks and staircases made of wood with rope railings going every which way, lit by bare bulbs in mismatched sconces connected by suspended electrical wiring.

>The doors open into part of the building engulfed in a raging inferno. The heat is nearly unbearable. Out of the flames steps the scorched and crispy remains of a woman, who then enters the elevator and politely steps to the back, standing here quietly and smokily until the elevator reaches her floor. Awkward small talk can be made with her, but her responses are incomprehensible, if seeming pleasant.

>>34808869
I hope you don't mind anon, but I'm stealing this idea for a short story

>>34813755
>>34814778
I can dig both these points of view, as some folks need a setting with a bit of lore to give their horror a history, while others just want strange spookiness without any hows or whys.

>>34809642
>>34810010
I would also like this idea to grow some legs and get the Night Shift treatment, but what we need honestly are a LOT more events for a table, and some basic rules to play by.

>>34815442
Neat, steal away.

>>34816285
If we got a table of 100 floors, you could just roll d% to pick a floor.

>>34816285
> what we need honestly are a LOT more events for a table, and some basic rules to play by.

More events shouldn't be too hard, we just need someone to compile a list. As for rules we could just do another *World hack like Night Shift was. It's gonna be mainly narrative anyway so more complex rules aren't really necessary

>>34816430
I think it should just be Unknown Armies with prebuilt archetypical characters.

>>34816798
What sorts of archetypal characters?

>>34816798
>>34817059
I'm almost imagining the characters from Clue as the archetypes.

>The doors open onto a sun baked Old Western town. A gunslinger stands in the middle of the street, hand on his holster
>The doors open onto a normal hotel hallway, a SWAT squad is about to break down one of the doors
>The doors open onto a square room, every wall covered with identical elevators, all the doors are open
[spolier]The last one actually happened to me once[/spoiler]

>>34817075
That could work. If they're still going to a party, they should probably all be tied to the host somehow

>>34816798
>>34817059
>>34817075
>>34817198
Archetypes could work nicely, but I'd still like the option to come up with your own characters as well.

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>>34817075
Clue archetypes work pretty well but lots of players are probably going to want to play somthing a little more exaggerated.
Pic related.

>>34817347

If that's the case, just have them get in the elevator after the game's started. The Gmod game the OP references has lots of strange characters get on the elevator and join the players over the course of the night. It also depends on when you want to set a session of (GAME NAME HERE).

Seriously, what do we call this? Thirteen Floors?

Horror's good, but throw in some relatively harmless curveballs.

>Lift door opens to reveal an identical lift interior, containing equally confused alternate versions of the PCs - tiny differences, like if one of the PCs was debating a pink or blue dress to wear, and chose pink, this one's wearing the blue.
>Door opens. Lift is suspended, by nothing, slightly below cloud layer over a patchwork countryside. A small bird enters the car and stays there.
>Lift's speaker audibly shorts out and fails. A stoic woman and three jazz musicians enter the lift on the next floor. They do not respond, but begin to play the music; the woman makes all further announcements.
>Lift smoothly leans back at a 45* angle. Doors open to reveal that it's somehow moving along a roller coaster track, towards the drop.
>Lift opens to reveal large, stuffy, fur coat-filled walk-in wardrobe, smelling of mothballs.
>Lift opens to reveal a mirror covering the entirety of the visible area. Nothing more.
>Lift open to reveal an intricately carved jade monkey idol on a lit pedestal. If taken, boulder rolls towards lift.

>>34808792
The skeleton then proceeds to push a button for a floor a few below your destination. It does nothing but make idle small talk until it reaches its floor and leaves.

>>34817495
All of these are wonderful and you should feel wonderful.

>>34817450
That seems like a fine working name, but I think it's usually better to wait until you've actually nailed down some of the games aspects before you go naming it.
Also Thirteen Floors implies a fairly limited scale.

>>34817450
What about 'Going Down?'

Ideas that may help:
-If the game is of the 'going to a party' type, have the hotel atrium have a few levels above the ground floor where the elevator-goers can see what's going on down there.

Have the creepy start when, after the players get on (amid the normal hustle and bustle of a hotel), the doors open on one of the upper floors... and there's no one visible outside the elevator. Not one sound of life or anything, either.

-If you don't have a bell, take a coffee cup and a cheap pen, hold it lightly between two fingers (so it rotates freely between them) and bounce it off the cup's rim.

-If things have been going well for the party, have the doors open on the site of a massacre. Bodies littered about the floor, flies and other insects flying everywhere, and the kind of stench that makes men gag. Have the doors close fairly quickly, but with a few flies still in the elevator. (Who were they? How did they die? You'll never know.)

-Have the elevator doors face downward, staring down the side of the skyscraper the elevator is in, from near the top floor. Gravity is, to the inside of the elevator, unchanged, but if they try to step or reach out...

So so far we have:
-A list of various rooms/floors for the players to arrive at, to be decided by dice roll. It might be nice to add a second stat to this to make it more likely that the players arrive at progressively weirder floors as the game goes on.
-A list of archetypes for player characters to work off of, based around the archetypes from Clue and by extension classic murder mysteries.
-Suggestion: a list of npc encounters/artifacts that the GM can deploy at their own discretion independent of floor.

>>34817696
> Also Thirteen Floors implies a fairly limited scale.

For a nice, compact one-shot game (the kind this would be perfect for) 13 floors seems like a good number, especially considering a good chunk of those will be adventure floors which players can take some time to explore

>>34808644
As the elevator goes up, the speakers play more than just generic muzak. They play

>Several well loved songs backwards
>Radio reports about strange events happening around the building they are in
>Tomorrows news with the top story being the death of 'x number of players' worth of people dying in an elevator
>Dark secrets from the characters' pasts
>Muzak
>And so on

Something I just realized: How will the adventure end?

If it's the "treasure hunting" scenario, the players will reach the gold, probably engage in one final battle, and end up with the gold... and the elevator.

On the other hand, if it's the "halloween party" scenario, the players will eventually reach the party... with whatever costumes they wore shredded by their adventures. (I hope the party host doesn't mind a bit of blood dripping.)

(That is, assuming they reach the end point.)

>>34818378
The first is actually handleable by making a list of encounters, progressively weirder, rolling a d#(decided by GM), and using the die roll to choose the #th-topmost element of the table, marking off each scenario as it happens. (This implies that the last 'encounter' is the actual goal.)

>>34818435
> Cheery weather report jingle
> 'Today's weather is apocalyptic with a high probability of hellfire and highs of 200 degrees. Listeners are advised to stay indoors - you won't be saved but at least you'll die at home amongst your family.
> Cheery weather report jingle

>everytime it stops there is an old anfry woman holding a pen and a bunch of papers, she doesnt move, she doesnt say anything, s he just stares at you with anger
>every floor she is there, you dont know if there are many of her or she is inhumanly fast
>everytime she looks angrier and angrier at you, the pen looks sharper and sharper
>finally the elevator stops, it opens, the old woman is no longer in front of you, the elevator doesnt move or respond when you press the buttons
>you have to go into the building knowing that the old woman is out there looking for you
>you better run

>>All these spooky sound effects

D...does anyone want to record some of these sayings/announcements so it's not just the dm being awkward and saying them/prerecording them and having the player recognize them?

Someone should probably archive this thread eventually, some good shit in here.

>>34818649
Once we've got a good, fleshed-out list then sure.

>>34818378
>>34818499
So a list of possible end states/win conditions and the prerequisites the GM will need to work into the campaign will also need to be constructed.

-The players reach what appears to be, at first glance, the Halloween party they're going to. It's a costume party, naturally, and as ritzy as the place is, every costume but theirs is magnificent; vampires, werewolves, space aliens, mad scientists' creations, fae...

And slowly, the players realize that the 'party' is actually NOT a costume party, as the partygoers realize the players are... well, human. How this plays out? Aggression? Mutual fear? "Meh, close enough"? That's the GM's call, just so long as the players GET IN THE FREAKY LIFT!

>>34818952
> SPIES! THERE ARE SPIES IN OUR MIDST! EVERYONE GRAB YOUR SHIT AND SCATTER, THIS MEETING IS CANCELLED!

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>>34819053
Alternatively;

> SHIT! THE JIG'S UP, GUYS!
> CHEESE IT!

How about this
>players descending the building
>progressively hear noises and distant echoes, like people chanting and getting closer
>no stops until to the ground floor, but the elevator keeps going down even after that
>even if there's no other floor beyond that
>the elevator sounds like it's actually being maneuvered by ropes and people
>distinct "heave-ho" sounds and whips cracking outside
>the elevator has traveled for too long now, the players should be deep beneath the earth now
>ancient words in chants outside, now the elevator is clearly being operated through human workforce
>doors open
>ancient civilization appears and pulls out the players to sacrifice them to their dark subterranean gods
>>34818952
Did you read Books of Magic?

Here's a few stops for the elevator:

>Ding! As the doors open, wind rushes in and swirls around. In front of the party is the onrushing ground, approaching fast! Just before the moment of impact, <Ding!> the doors begin to slide shut, and the elevator continues on its way.

>Ding! It's pitch black outside, except for one light, straight ahead. It seems to be getting brighter. It's brightness increases steadily, until you make out a shape around it: an oncoming train! It doesn't seem to <Ding!> be slowing down. The doors slide closed, coming together just as the coupler gets past. The coupler is chopped off, and falls to the floor with a heavy thud.

>Ding! The doors don't open. The party hears an awful, metallic grating noise. The floor rumbles, and slowly begins to slide towards the wall, revealing the yawning elevator shaft below, inch by inch...

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>>34818779

I've thought out a pair of win and lose conditions based on the "Eldritch Architect's Inheritance" storyline several Anons had made earlier in the thread:

>Win Scenario: Reach the Vault and Crack It

>The more clues the party gathers and the more history they learn about the building, the higher their chance is to reach the Vault as the thirteenth and final floor they visit.

>The elevator comes to a stop and the doors open out onto >>34815230's vast, gridwork of steel columns, girders, catwalks and elevators at the center of the building. Following the lit catwalks to the very heart of the tangle, the party discovers the Architect's Vault suspended over the void. Using the clues gleaned from the other adventure floors the party has had to survive, they complete some sort of combination lock style puzzle, gaining access to vault, the treasure, and the express elevator or service stairway to the lobby inside.

>Lose Scenario: Find the Penthouse and Enrage the Architect

>The fewer clues the party gathers and the more they destroy or deface parts of the building, the higher their chance is to stumble across the Achitect's Penthouse as the thirteenth and final floor they visit.

>The elevator comes to a stop and opens out onto a large penthouse apartment that was once the picture of Art Deco luxury, but is now the very mind of a building gone completely and utterly mad. Blueprints, sketches, newspapers and architectural photographs have been glued, tacked and taped over every available wall, drafting tables with half-completed plans crowd the floorspace and every shelf and flat surface is home to some sort of model room, book of arcana or mysterious artifact. At the very center of it all, under a dirty glass dome, is the Architect himself, shriveled and withered and clearly unliving, but unable to die within the domain he has built. The party must then fight him to survive.

>>34817748
I like it, it's got a nice ring to it.

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>>34817495

Having a few surreal "breather" floors definitely would not be amiss, especially if your standard one-shot for this thing is going to be 13 floors long.

- The doors open and you see a man sitting alone in the middle of an empty, rundown apartment, a few beer bottles around on the floor, playing a sad song on a guitar. This man can be invited to board the elevator.

- The doors open and you find a small, cramped room filled with filing cabinets filled with your personal information and bulletin boards covered with maps of the areas in which you live and picture of you, your friends and relations, all articulated with pin-and-string arrays.

- The doors open out onto a beautiful, sunlit meadow in the midst of a minor meteor storm.

- The doors open onto a standard looking hospital hallway, bustling with doctors, nurses and patients. A rather average looking dog wearing bandages around its middle weaves its way through the crowd and boards the elevator before the doors shut again.

- The doors open out onto a tent city of hobos located beneath a large steel-girder bridge. There is a bum-fight in progress, in which you can place bets. The happy, upbeat winner of the battle will collect his winnings and join you aboard the elevator.

- The doors open onto the building's "secret gift shop," in which you may resupply yourself with deli sandwiches, drinks and candy that haven't been manufactured in years, purchase a variety of clues like building blueprints, commemorative photos and snow globes, and experience radio or television broadcasts from the past or future. Aside from taking your money and giving you your merchandise, the woman behind the counter doesn't seem to care for you.

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I just realized how you have to start this.

Give an intro speech of the type Rod Stirling used to do for "Twilight Zone", or like the Cryptkeeper did for "Tales from the Crypt".

Establishes the one-shot nature, gives the exposition, and sets the mood in one neat package. A closing speech might take a while to improvise, or a list of speeches for endings might get involved, but could be good to close out the session with.

The only advice I can give is: Keep it short.

>>34821097

This seems pretty necessary. Also, it seems like someone has archived this thread already:

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html?searchall=Surreal+Elevator+Horror

>>34816394
I like this. The floors could also vary in size, and some might have something of a theme to them.

elevator: source

>>34821097

I think that short Rod Serling monologues at the start and conclusion of this game are definitely what the OP needs to do to set the mood. It adds such a great touch.

The elevator wants to go sideways.
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/30311207/

Breather episode leading to shenanigans:
-The elevator stops, bell dings, doors open. It's a hall in the Star Ship Enterprise.
-Suddenly, something breaks open in the top of the current elevator, and the ceiling breaks a piece free... from that hole, tribbles start pouring in. And multiplying.
-The players are forced to run for their lives from the tribble wave, to another (anachronistic?) elevator at the OTHER end of the hall.
-Naturally, the next event is worse.

>The elevator abruptly stops, but the doors do not open. The players hear a train go by above them.
>At some point something crashes into the side of the elevator, it is undamaged but the impact is very loud and jarring
>Suddenly the elevator slows down and the sound of it moving up the shaft becomes muted. Salt water begins dripping from a crack in the ceiling.

Meta dick mode:
As you're playing, get some other friends to build a mock elevator attached to the outside of your front door. As your players end the session, they open the door to the waiting lift.

kek

Bump for interest.

>The doors open onto the inside of a large walk-in freezer of the sort found in a hotel kitchen or cold-storage warehouse, filled with anomalous frozen goods: igloos/Inuit inhabitants, mammoths/cavemen in ice, exotic/extinct animals, etc.

>The doors open onto an old-fashioned gymnasium with an indoor swimming pool that appears to have a large number of human bodies and debris floating at the surface.

>The doors open onto a scene from the building's past: the floor is under construction, and you witness one riveter push another one off the side of the building, presumably killing him. He turns toward the elevator and grins before the doors shut again.

>The doors open onto some sort of caged aviary in the midst of a tangled, overgrown garden, from which a peacock enters the elevator.

>The doors open out onto a cramped catwalk snaking its way through a plumber's nightmare of hissing, steaming, pipework. The catwalk twists and turns and goes up and down ladders numerous times, offering the occasional vent opening or porthole into other parts of the building, some of which may have been visited already. Turning valves and pulling levers here at random have effects on subsequent floors.

>The doors open onto what appears to be an old Hollywood film set from the 1930s, complete with painted flats, extensive costume wardrobe, lighting, director's chair and cameras.

>The doors open onto nothingness. A black emptiness so profound that in instills a sense of terrible dread in those riding the elevator.

So, here's some more minddickery events:

When party tries to discuss something, a previously unmentioned guy named Jack(or some other common name) says something.
No one knows who the hell he is, since there was absolutely no mention of him before, but the guy acts like he was in that elevator from the very start of the ride. If party's paranoia leads to his death, Jack shows up again in similar circumstances and has no memory of his death.

Ding! Doors open and one of party members walk in.
The catch is that the original person is still there.

On one of the floors absolutely normal guy with a briefcase walks in. Soon he starts to notice weird things about characters - like how they are a bunch of paranoidal freaks, possibly covered in blood or holding some stuff like weapons, weird artifacts, bottles of poison...

>>34808644
As you are standing in the elevator, you hear the other passenger rip a huge, smelly fart. Like, seriously, it smells like someone took a shit and then fucking died in it. You turn around to give the culprit a dirty look, but no one else is in the elevator.

The girl you like gets on at the next stop and thinks it was you.

As soon as one of characters says that he's hungry, lift stops and - DING! - doors open.
There's a little booth with animatronic waitress, menu with typical fastfood crap - but all prices are just numbers, no currency signs - and a little hole.
Characters can order something from the list or ask questions. The animatronic is overly friendly, but when it's time to pay for the food...
>FRENCH FRIES, BIG COLA AND BURGER. THATS FIVE DIGITS.
>I'm sorry, five what?
>FIVE DIGITS. FINGERS, IF YOU PREFER THAT WORD. PUT THE PAYMENT IN THE HOLE.

And replace fingers with anything you need to make it creepier - teeth, nails, drops of blood, family photos, bullets from that treasured gun...

>>34833499
This is like Goosebumps level of stupid.

>>34833499
Why do you mix office-y building with some freddy fazzbear shit?

>>34809642
Wait, did /tg/ got shit done with Night Shift or is it still just a bunch of googledocs?

>>34833402
plot twist
it was

>>34808644
>Enter the elevator
>There is a tall, dark man in a red porter's uniform standing there.
>"Greetings" he says in a deep voice, "Where will we be going this evening?"
>Player character obviously says to the top as the GM's background makes it clear the top floor is where to go.
>Porter throws the giant lever to a floor location.
>"The only certainty is oblivion."
>Elevator falls downward for a moment than stops.
>Elevator dings and a voice over the loudspeaker calls:
>"Welcome to the Mysterious Stranger."

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replace the elevator buttons with a map of the human body. The main organs are the buttons.

Since the elevator isn't moving, someone pushes a random organ (heart).

The elevator moves upward, but doesn't open its doors. The person who pushed it collapses. It was a heart attack.

After panicking and watching the body map, they found that the highest floor, the "brain" is where the main control panel of the elevator is.

Now,....should the remaining survivors go up or go down?

TWIST SPOILER
>>34808644
there's two secret floors: The soul (rooftop/penthouse) and Hell (basement)

And another thing, OP: Don't forget your Muzak for creepy atmosphere:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5PvBzDlZGs

>>34827085
You. I like you

>>34809765
>>34814146
>>34809713
If you want to go all the way, go and play inside an actual elevator.

>>34810798
What if the main elevator just changes the way it looks occasionally?

>>34835199
It could really be either way, or both ways.

>>34836102
Every time the elevator is reentered it matches the current floor.

So if OP still wants some examples of elevator floors to use, I could supply a few.

>The elevator doors open partially, just wide enough for one person to pass through at a time, revealing a very normal looking floor lobby. However, the elevator now completely refuses to respond to any command given to it - none of the buttons function, the elevator doesn't tell the passengers to keep calm or what have you, and all signs indicate that the elevator has simply lost power partway through opening the doors. The second the first person steps through the doorway, the doors slam shut, and the elevator moves at a highly accelerated pace from then on.
>The elevator stops, and the walls abruptly begin closing in on the passengers. The doors open partway through the process, to reveal an apparently safe corridor that is only lit out to a short distance. Players must decide whether they want to stay in the closing-in elevator, or risk heading into the corridor. If at least one player stays in the elevator, the elevator continues to compress itself until there is just slightly less room available to the occupants than would be considered comfortable, before slamming the doors shut and returning to normal size; if everyone enters the corridor, the elevator immediately contracts to a point, and then to nothing. What lies through the corridor is up to the GM; needless to say, if everyone leaves the elevator, there should be another one accessible somewhere in the darkness.

>>34836438
>The elevator slowly turns over in random directions as it travels, forcing the players to walk along the walls and ceiling in the process. Which players are forced to move in which directions differs for each player, and there's no guarantee that the players will be the right way up again before the next floor.
>The elevator doors open on to stairs with various limbs, organs, and other viscerae flung about, the type of creature apparently differing on each step, ranging from human to insects to birds to non-Earth-based creatures. A voice sounds from the elevator's loudspeaker system, insisting that everyone get out of the elevator and continue walking up the stairs (which apparently keep going straight with no turns, and no breaks other than the various floors available on the stairs), but warning that whatever they do, they must not stop moving on any floor without an elevator, must not enter any elevators before floor 25, and *must never ever take a step back down.*
>At some point, the elevator doors open to reveal the same lobby from before, aged what appears to be several thousand years... and the unfortunate trapped outside the elevator twisted into a deranged, hyper-elderly _thing_, which the players must kill to move on. The main threat is the number of large holes scattered throughout the lobby's floor and walls, and whilst they all seem to show blue sky through them, falling or being pushed out of the floor is... bad. The mutant itself is strong enough to give a good distance shove, but is pitifully weak otherwise, and can be killed easily with just their fists, or thrown out of the floor regardless. Once all remaining players return to the elevator, the elevator continues upwards at normal speed, and opens on the next floor to reveal a small room, in which both the trapped player and every player that fell on the previous floor are contained, all much meeker than they were before, but otherwise unharmed.

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>>34809148
>- The elevator doors open onto a large, elegant ballroom that appears to be filled with people in the midst of a 1950s gala celebration. However, the tableau presented is completely still and completely silent, and if any of the players should choose to investigate, they would discover that all the "partygoers" are carefully dressed and posed mannequins, all the food and drink is fake, and everything is covered in a layer of dust and cobwebs.

This idea of mannequins posed in various 1950s scenes has a lot of spooky appeal, for some reason. There could be a whole series of rooms or floors featuring them, like the party ballroom, a swimming pool, a theater, a bar, an office, all with lifelike little scenes set up between these posed and poised mannequins, covered in dust and cobwebs and forgotten.

Until they get onto the elevator with you.

-I think that the elevator doors should be opened and closed manually, using open/close door keys. This may give players an opportunity to listen/smell what's outside
- On one of the floors, after the door opens, a corpse of an obese man, who has been leaning against the door, falls inside. At the same time, something deep in the corridors alerted by the sound starts running towards the players, who have to decide if they can manage push/pull the corpse out of the way and close doors or try to fight the thing
- One of the floors is a demolished lobby upside down. If players decide to enter, they will be walking on the celling, having shards of glass and pieces of wood laying on the floor above their heads. Same effect could be made by entering a room in which there is suspended in time gunfight
-On one of the floors, players will experience a freezing cold, strong enough to freeze the elavator and forbid it from going in any direction. Moreover, they will see ground completely freezing closer and closer to them, reaching from an aztec-like sacrificial altar. At the same time, they will notice wounded, exhausted and terrified copies of themselves trying to anxiously decide on who to sacrifice as you enter the room. Obviously, altar will not be content with just one sacrifice... Same thing could be done with antidotes/just one set of keys to the safe, etc.

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This thread could use more inspirational pictures that I unfortunately do not have. Have instead another art deco skyscraper in which this game could possibly be set.

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>>34839157

I think this one is probably quirky enough to make a good choice for the setting.

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>>34839329

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>>34839370
Any skyscraper this one shot is set in should look distinctive: asymmetric, jumbled, off-kilter.

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>>34839407

>>34817559
The skeleton only talks about soccer in the most annoying accent present in your language.

Stealing all of this to run a Dread game on Halloween. Totally goes well with the mechanic. Maybe each level the tower goes up could represent a completed floor, but let the players figure that out during the game. Season the pacing of the story accordingly.

>>34843397

i too am planning on running this using Dread during halloween. Great minds think alike and all that jazz

>>34843490
Should be easy enough to achieve 13 extra levels (39 pulls.) May actually encourage a panicked sort of risk-taking to get to that level, should someone in the group figure that out.

Bumping this thread.

Also working on the Dread one-shot. Feel free to check it out and comment as I work on it.

(Spoilered since 4chan hates the short URLs.)
http://goo.gl/kw6RLW

>>34846364
This is looking great so far!

>>34847252
Thanks anon. Trying not to turn it too adventure-y, as I usually steer things. I want to give the players multiple win states, including escape.

Also to keep this thread going and since I'm approaching this with Dread, give me some interesting tower tumble consequences on some of these floors. Other than a smear of blood, of course.

Bumping the thread some more.

>>34848980
Okay, done with the meat of the one-shot. Now what I need is the damn questionnaire to ask the players. Other than their name and costume, I don't know if anything else is particularly necessary.

>>34851053

Occupation is a good one

>>34851053
I game with a couple of construction workers, so I'm probably going to use the "1313 Park Ave" approach, with the players each taking the role of a worker in their specialty... Plumber, Electrician, Steel worker, etc.

Each player will get an occupation, hobby, passion, and "odd education", something they know a lot about, but can't explain.

Now i just need to write up some labor nightmares...

>The doors open into a low-ceiling room the size of a gymnasium, except barely 6' tall. With walls and floor made of wood and a bare concrete ceiling. Only one light bulb illuminates the space, that being some 50' distant, and oddly hazy. Moving forward, you discover that the haze is actually a nearly impenetrable quantity of floor-to-ceiling spider webs.
+The spider webs are perfectly ordinary, and can be torn down, cut away, burnt, etc. There are no spiders. However... the webbing is actually structural in nature, and is HOLDING THE FLOOR UP.

>>34833905
Everybodies hopes were riding on TVAnon, and once he stated his intentions everyone lost interest in trying to make it as a setting. I ran several games of it and it was pretty fun but there were a lot of problems. It would take a couple of people some serious work to turn it into an actual product.

Actually... Maybe I will do that some day.

>>34851820
I hope it works out for you. I love the setting, but I've been too damn busy to work on much else. Surprised I'm banging this one-shot out myself.

>>34851609
>The spider webs are perfectly ordinary, and can be torn down, cut away, burnt, etc. There are no spiders. However... the webbing is actually structural in nature, and is HOLDING THE FLOOR UP.
That's just terrifying, especially as the floor would creak and wobble as you hack through them.

Ive got an idea for the setting: instead of a travel to the party, how about they're headed down afterwards? So the payoff is leaving the godforsaken building?

>>34851988
...Do you really want the characters to be varying states of tired, irritated, and drunk when they start the adventure? I mean, they'd be leaving for a reason, and I figure that's either due to a)being thrown out (due to being a hassle or drunkeness or sleep needs), leaving due to 'needing to work tomorrow' or the ilk, or something going wrong and the party ending prematurely.

Besides, the *Ding! Kerklatter* "Welcome to the party, guys! Great horror survivor costumes." or "Huh, someone's been partying already!" ending is, in itself, amusing. That, or enabling a proper Outer Limits twist for an ending.

One more bump for now.

>>34851988
That would be an interesting "The Hangover" sort of plot. Bonus points if the character is a day-shifter for the gas station featured in Night Shift.

>>34808644
From Silent Hill 2, contains spoilers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRjqHp9M6V8
It was derided as a goofy moment for a Silent Hill game but the macabre tincture is there.

Maybe you could hint penal secrets from the persons' past in a way that characters start to mistrust eachother?

Someone please archive this.

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>The time? October 31st. Just a few minutes shy of 9:00 pm.

>The place? The Voynich Hotel. One of the swankiest guest houses in New York City.

>The occasion? A party. Or, to be more specific, a Halloween party.

>A party hosted in the ritzy club, on the very top floor, of this very tall building.

>A party that promises to have all New York City's elite in attendance.

>A party that the four costumed characters seen here are waiting to board an elevator to reach.

>What these four don't realize, is that the Voynich Hotel is not a normal building.

>The elevator they are about to enter is not a normal elevator.

>What they will come to realize, very shortly, is that this will not be a normal October 31st.

>This will not be a normal Halloween.

>Very shortly, these four will come to realize that their elevator ride will not be taking them up to a party at all, but will instead be taking them a bit further than that, to an all together stranger place called:

>The Twilight Zone.

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>>34856695
It's already been archived:

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html?searchall=Random+Encounters+for+Surreal+Elevator+Horror

Please upvote if you like it.

>the door open to a normal-looking floor, except that everything seems upside down
>when people see the group, they run away because they think they're ghosts or the hotel is haunted
>The elevator refuse to go "up" because you're in the first floor and this elevator can't go "underground"
>the party have to find someone not scared by them and try to find where the "underground elevator" is

>>34856874
>The Voynich Hotel

How much of /tg/ reads that? Some parts of it would make a nice setting though.

>>34808644
Everythings black and white and when you look up the sky is a giant mouth. Everyone keeps talking about how hungry they are till their eyes turn into mouths and they stare at the players.

The elevator stars to vibrate and the temperature goes down until the interior is all covered in a layer of ice. Slowly gravity ceases to exist and then the door opens to the void of space. In front of them a Cold war lookalike Astronaut tries to reach the interior of the elevator desperately.

If the party looks down they will see ICBMs covering the planet with nuclear explosions. They might try to help him get safe or push the close doors button and let him out.

>>34809465
Have one party member missing from the mirror group, and have the mirror group look sadly at the person whose double is missing.

>Elevator hits a new floor
>Opens onto a cupboard sized room with just a film camera stacked on some boxes
>Begins to play a documentary about one of the pc's lives up to that floor in the elevator
>Players vision becomes darker and they become sleepier as film comes closer to the end
I'm not sure how you'd finish it but I like the idea.

>In between floors
>Ride is taking longer than it should
>Every ten seconds or so, lights flicker off for a moment
>When they come on, everyone is in slightly different positions
>Every time it happens, passengers are in increasingly changed positions, not just where they are standing but also exact placement of their limbs
>i.e. on one flicker a passenger's hand is in his pocket, on the second he's holding his pocket knife, on the third he's pressing it to his own throat
>Will he survive a fourth flicker?

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As the elevator stops, the floor-indicator or scratchy intercom announcement alerts the players to the fact that, due to maintenance in the shaft above, this is as far as their elevator goes, and that the riders will have to transfer to another on this floor. The doors open onto a long, broad hallway lined with doorways that looks completely normal and in keeping with the old, art deco design and decoration of the rest of the building. At the end of the hall, the players can see another elevator, identical to the first, waiting there for them to board.

>The wide hall and adjoining rooms look to be some sort of office space, through which it appears a tornado or some sort of rampage has recently passed. The floors are littered with photographs, loose paperwork and manila folders. Desks, filing cabinets and other pieces of office furniture are shoved against walls or overturned. Doors have been torn from their hinges and the light fixtures overhead swing in a phantom breeze.

>As the characters walk down the long hallway, the building around them begins getting demolished by wrecking balls. They must rush to the opposing elevator before they are crushed by tumbling debris, struck by a swinging wrecking ball, or fall through a hole opened in the floor.

>All the doors in the hall are left open, and close as the players pass.

>All the doors in the hall are shut, and open as the players pass.

>The lighting in the hall appears to be on the fritz, and all the ceiling fixtures blink and flicker out of synch with each other. As the players proceed toward the other elevator, all the lights will periodically fail at once before turning back on. Each time this happens, the entire hall will have rotated around the group to a different angular orientation: 90-degrees, 35-degrees, 180-degrees in relation to the direction the party had been walking in.

>The hall really is completely normal, and exists only to prey on the players' paranoia.

So OP, how's your one-shot coming along? I want to see it!

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The doors of the elevator open up, and on the other side is a cramped but tidy apartment that looks like it's come straight out of the 1950s. A large picture window looks out over the city at sunset, painting the whole apartment in golds and oranges, beneath which sits an old black and white television set displaying a test pattern with a tone test. Somewhere in the apartment, a scratchy, low-fi radio softly plays the following song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oadae33Hlmc

All of a sudden, there is an unbearably bright flash, and through the window anyone not blinded can see an atomic bomb detonate over the city in the distance. As the blast wave rushes toward the building, you get one chance to hit the door-close button or get obliterated.

>>34835162
Why do i love the mental image of an elevator opening and inside is a small folding table with 4 people around it playing a P&P game, maybe offering Cheetos to the person who called the elevator, maybe offering them a seat at the table.
Ignore the red stain, its just Salsa

There ought to be a few more things going on inside the elevator itself:

>When the players come back from exploring an adventure floor, they find a doll or stuffed animal in the floor, popped up in one corner of the elevator. If they allow it to ride with them, it will simply "get off" at the next adventure floor they explore and be gone when they get back. If they throw it off the elevator on any floor, the doors will shut but will then keep reopening as if the call button was being pressed, the toy sitting up in front of the entrance. If the doll or stuffed animal is destroyed, the elevator will be haunted by the sounds of a child's cries and screams and a poltergeist tantrum for the rest of the game.

>The elevator's floor indicator does not light up or point out the right floors in their proper numerical or directional sequence.

>If at least one wall of the elevator is a large mirror or a glass window, the presence of the body heat of the players will begin to fog it up after a while, revealing cryptic messages written in the condensation.

>The players, should they try to escape the elevator vie the emergency hatch in the ceiling, will discover a desiccated, mummified body of a man in what was once an expensive suit and hat. He is slumped down on the roof of the elevator car, hugging the lift cable with both hands in a posture of resignation and horror. On his person may be found clues and supplies, if the players choose to loot him.

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>>34859351
The players reach a half way point where they must choose which amongst a bank of elevators which is the one hey want to take to take the rest if the way up. One can have the group that you describe, or maybe two men playing chess, or hell, a bunch of dogs playing poker.

>"Sorry chums, we're full up."

>>34859822
>The SINGLE elevator going back down to the lobby.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7N5OhNplEd4

>>34808644
I like this idea, OP. I'm gonna steal this for sure. The campaign I'm doing right now isn't supernatural, but everybody loves a halloween special.

>>34866097

Likewise. My group is going to love it.

>>34833263
>from which a peacock enters the elevator
I love this kind of thing, especially if it just wanders onto a different floor a couple of stops up and they never see it again.

>>34866097
Definitely unleashing the one-shot on my group as well. I'm gonna have a fucking rad time! Just need to get that little bell to ding with each floor.

>>34866606
I think a somewhat neglected facet of this oneshot that was present in the GMod game is the idea that NPCs and anomalous critters can board and exit the elevator on any floor, and can by themselves lighten or darken the mood of the moment.

>A peacock boards the elevator on the deserted aviary floor, rides upward a few stops before disembarking.
>There is a knocking coming from the emergency exit in the ceiling, and the desiccated body in the fine suite and hat climbs down, makes some polite, if raspy conversation, and leaves at the next stop.
>When the group returns after exploring a floor, they notice that there is one more shadow then they ought to possess in the elevator with them now.
>The short, burnt, twisted body in a charred Catholic school uniform joins the party when the elevator stops on a floor in the midst of a raging inferno.
>A trio of young women appearing to be WWII era nurses board the elevator and do nothing but gossip none too quietly amongst themselves about the PCs.

>>34851820
Yeah Anon, wow I'm glad I'm not the only one who remmebered those thrads., I remmeber people were coming up with some really interesting ideas and images for the setting, I remember one anon created some really eerie music on soundcloud or something, sounded like convenience store music but very eerily distorted, I was a little annoyed that the threads stopped happening as I think it had real promise to be an intriguing setting.

Fuck, there's a half-life 2 mod that does exactly this, though slightly tilted towards humor. Can be done in multiplayer. I seem to remember at the top there's a penthouse thing with a bunch of minigames?

Occasionally it does weird things to NPCs who get in the lift, and some of the NPCs themselves are just weird.

>>34867699

As someone who posted a lot in the original threads, I'm also really sorry to see Night Shift put on the far, far back burner as a setting. I've seen and posted in several threads that attempted to resurrect it, but I think more time was needed to let things settle, and that the new threads, if they come, will almost need to present the idea anew to /tg/.

Loving this thread though. It has a lot of the same flavor.

>>34867868
It's called Elevator Simulator and is for Garry's Mod, I think.

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>>34867868
>>34868352
It's also one of the OP's inspirations.

bump for the Horrorvator

Would anyone be interested in running this game off of skype, roll20, or something? Seems like fun

>>34833905
It's mostly just a set of google docs but the general setting was pretty well fleshed out in the old threads if I remember right. I don't think it ever wound up getting it's own system but I've been running it with Unknown Armies rules for a couple months now and my group loves it.

>>34855990
Came in here to post this.

>ATTACKED and CHOPPED into PIECES with an AXE!

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How's this for an opening narration?
>“New Year’s Eve, the year two thousand and fifteen, t-minus two and a half hours. A party of youngsters is taking place just 140 feet above this very lobby, but between here and there lie realms unknown. A fifth dimension known as…the Twilight Zone.”

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>>34874156

I'm so glad to hear this, friend. You and your group keep on being awesome.

>The elevator doors open onto a hectic scene in which a cadre of embattled attendants appear to be defending their rundown gas station convenience store from an army of shadow people swarming just outside the plate glass windows. Their leader, the pale, gangly highschool girl in the dopiest uniform, looks back over her shoulder and shouts:

>"Thanks for visiting the Stop n' Gas! We're all stocked up on crazy tonight, so you Elevator Folks can either buy something, help us out here, or get out!!!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unV3EaTXltY
Potential radio/PA feedback

>>34877042

You know, not only is this audio track perfect for spooky ambiance, but the introduction it gave to the F:NV - Dead Money storyline really does fit the atmosphere and themes present in this sort of setting perfectly.

Especially the sample storyline Anons were cooking up earlier in the thread about the insane, occult architect building a hidden vault somewhere in the non-Euclidean heart of his masterpiece.

>>34877218
That's what made me think of Dead Money

Best one of all the New Vegas expansions
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaIyoIe9U00

>>34877609

Again, fantastically eerie music perfectly suited for when the players find themselves on a non-random "adventure floor" that is thematically tied to the building itself and its history.

>>34808644
you might find this interesting
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/20707552/