> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://k0ssek-scripts.gitbook.io/docs/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://k0ssek-scripts.gitbook.io/docs/scripts/halloween/gameplay.md).

# Gameplay

What players do during the night, step by step.

## Taking part

By default every player takes part. `/halloween leave` takes a player out and `/halloween join` brings them back; the choice is remembered per character. `/halloween` shows a player's status.

Nothing in this script touches a player who does not take part. Players inside the excluded zones (a hospital and a police station are built in) and on-duty police and EMS are never given the Mark.

| `Config.Participation.mode` | Meaning                                  |
| --------------------------- | ---------------------------------------- |
| `optout` (default)          | Everyone takes part and can leave        |
| `optin`                     | Only players who join take part          |
| `everyone`                  | Everyone takes part and nobody can leave |

## The séance

Altars wake up on a schedule or when an admin calls one; everyone is told. Players light candles around the altar (E by default), one candle each. When nobody has lit one for 20 seconds, or all 12 candles burn, the player who lit the **last** candle carries the Mark and the Phantom hunts them inside the altar's zone (250 m).

The bigger the circle, the more health the Phantom has (2 per player, between 8 and 40) and the better the loot: tier 1 from 1 player, tier 2 from 4, tier 3 from 8. A circle needs 2 players; an altar with 4 vessels accepts a single player.

When an altar wakes, players within 400 m get a big message and a sound, everyone else a plain notification.

## The hunt

* **The Phantom** charges the Marked player from a road behind them. A hit knocks them down and spills 20 % of the candy they carry in piles that anyone in the event can pick up. No damage, no real explosion. Everyone else it passes through.
* **Passing the Mark**: the Marked player tackles another player (E, within 2.5 m) or a vessel. Every pass costs the Phantom one health point and pays the passer candy. The Mark cannot go straight back to the last two carriers.
* **Vessels** are props placed at an altar. A tackled vessel holds the Mark for a few seconds, then it jumps to the nearest player.
* **Running away** (leaving the zone, hiding indoors, getting into a car) moves the Mark to the nearest player after 12 seconds and costs the runaway 15 candy.
* **Winning**: at zero health the Phantom bursts. Everyone who passed the Mark gets candy, and from loot tier 2 Cursed Pumpkins; the last passer and the longest carrier get Phantom Relics. After 10 minutes a living Phantom drives off.

### The Witching Hour

Inside a running hunt's zone the city lights go out and the picture turns red, only for the players in the hunt. The weather is never changed. See [Compatibility](/docs/scripts/halloween/compatibility.md) for weather scripts.

### Driving the Phantom

With `Config.Phantom.driving.mode = 'player'` a participant in the zone is drawn and asked to drive the Phantom. The car still passes through everyone but the hunted player. H burns out and comes again from behind the hunted player, X stops driving. Admins can take the wheel from the Horror Director in any mode.

## The cursed bear

A few teddy bears sleep on graves (one per 25 players online, between 1 and 3). Whoever takes one cannot drop it:

* It turns up near its holder, only on their screen: in the passenger seat, on a bench, on a roof, then behind them.
* It gets hungry in real time (40 minutes from full to starving). The hunger does not reset when it changes hands.
* It earns cursed candy while it is held, more the hungrier it is, paid only when **another player accepts it** (G by default, after holding it 2 minutes).
* When it starves, it bites: the holder loses what it earned and half of the candy they carry (at most 100), and the bear goes back to its grave.
* Throwing it away or shooting it only makes it hungrier.
* On a quiet server (8 participants or fewer) a priest at the graves takes the bear for 30 % of what it earned.

Every grave has a **Book of the Bear** on a lectern: the bear's keepers, the longest starving hold and the bites.

## Trick or treat

349 houses of the map have a pumpkin on the doorstep. Players knock at the front door (254 houses) or wave at the letterbox where there is no door to reach.

* The first 2 knocks a day at each house are safe and give 2 to 5 candy.
* After that a knock can bring a trick instead: 30 % at first, 20 % more with each knock, at most 90 %. The prompt shows the chance.
* A trick closes the house to that character until the daily reset (06:00 server time by default).

Tricks: a taser, the world swimming, a clown bursting out, a UFO abduction (the player wakes up nearby), an exploding pumpkin (effects only), a mime who steals candy, a zombie. None of them deals damage.

## Graves

One safe dig a day at each grave (4 to 9 candy), then every dig may bring a zombie that climbs out of the ground.

## The witch's cauldron

Candy in a player's pockets can be lost. Banked candy cannot. At the cauldron players:

* **bank** candy;
* **brew** Cursed Pumpkins (40 banked candy each);
* **open** pumpkins and Relics in the roulette, from the cauldron or from the inventory;
* **trade** 15 ash for a Phantom Relic;
* **buy** from the shop with banked candy;
* **collect** milestones, the dated trophy and rewards that waited for them.

Every deposit also fills **the server's brew**, one bar for the whole server. Each stage pays every character who banked at least 25 candy, online or not, and unlocks better loot lines. The notice board by the cauldron shows the brew, the relay record and the top players.

## Fair rewards

Each source of candy (houses, hunts, piles, the bear, graves) has a daily limit with diminishing returns, so a few players cannot take most of it. Milestones are guaranteed, and ash from misses adds up to a Relic.

## Profiles and scares

The server picks a profile (`casual`, `balanced` or `serious`, see [Configuration](/docs/scripts/halloween/configuration.md)). Every player can turn jump scares and flashes off for themselves with `/halloween scares off`; sounds and the bear turning up stay.