Game summary for November 1, 2025, Maniac Mansion campaign, Dread Roleplaying Game, for Phoenix Gaming Club. Session included: Ambrose Smyth (Goth Kid played by Paul Potter), Arthur “Art” Pendelton (Drama Club Kid played by Colby Westerfield), Ben “Bender” Johnson (Wild Child played by John Edmonds), Bernard Bernoulli (Brainiac played by Parker Harmon), Caleb Mercer (Conspiracy Buff played by Josh Jenkins), Dante Graves (Goth Kid played by Shane Bradley), Eleanor “Ellie” DeVries (Conspiracy Buff played by Katy Jenkins), Randall Huxley (Conspiracy Buff played by Peyton Harmon), Ryan Baker (Goth Kid played by Ted Rinehart), Travis “T.J.” McAllister (Jock with a Heart played by Casey Scruggs), and Walt Kowalski (Conspiracy Buff played by Preston Harmon). Game Master for this session was Charles Plemons.
The young adults gathered at the end of the driveway leading to the old manor house to search for their missing friend, Sandy Pantz. They approached and tried to peek in windows (covered by curtains) and rummaged around outside a bit. They found a solid grate covering an entrance to the crawl space and discovered the key under the mat. Ellie found a roll of undeveloped film. Bender said something offensive to Art about his mother, but Art ignored him and knocked loudly at the door. No one answered. Using the key, the group went inside and found a large hallway with a grand staircase and a grandfather clock. They spent some time examining the clock. Really examining it. It was a clock.
Bender led a group up the stairs while Walt led a group to investigate the garage. Ellie continued to examine the clock. Upstairs they found really weird portraits, heard music, and Bender’s group found a room with a Victrola playing a classical record. Dante walked over to the piano and played two keys rapidly claiming spirits hate that. Ambrose looked at record labeled “Tentacle Mating Calls”. They put on the record and shattered the vase on the piano and cracked the TV screen. They put the other record back on, and Ambrose took the mating calls record. They turned on the TV and watched an ad from a man named Mark Eteer claiming his company will publish anything. They discovered a cassette tape recorder in a cabinet.
They went back downstairs as Walt’s group returned. They failed to get in the garage but had peaked through the fence and saw the pool is full of steaming glowing water. The group went through a doorway and found themselves in the kitchen. Many knives and cleavers were oddly secured to the wall, and they found a chainsaw that had been used to saw through several ketchup bottles. Inside the fridge they found a head of lettuce, a wedge of cheese, a can of Pepsi (which Ellie took). Continuing on, they found a long dining room with old rotting food upon it. Past that, they found a storage room with a locked door and a shelf of items. Ellie accidentally knocked a bottle of film developer off, which broke and ran down the drain. They found an empty jar and fruit juice bags, which they left. They did take a box labeled “Tentacle Chow.” Unable to go out the locked door, they went back to the ground floor hallway.
Some of the group explored the second floor a bit. They found a strange metal door, almost like a blast door. They discovered a medical exam room with a real skeleton hanging from a hook. Beside that room, they discovered an arcade, but none of the machines had power. This group went up a flight of stairs and were confronted by the most bizarre sight! A seven-foot-tall tentacle hopped (as if on a mollusk-like foot) across the floor and demanded food to let them pass. They ran back downstairs and told the others this strange development.
The group decided to look around more on the first floor and found the living room. It had a couch, and a cabinet upon which sat an old radio. In the cabinet, they found a cassette player. Moving through, they found a dark library. Some lamps allowed them to see, and they found a grand staircase labeled “Out of Order.” Try as they might, the stairs were certainly out of order. Nothing they did allowed them to ascend the stairs. They discovered a black phone that did indeed work. A plant on a shelf, labeled Chuck, proved irresistible to Ellie, and she took it with her. In one of the storage bins, they found a blank cassette tape.
On the second floor, they found an art studio with a crate covered in purple slime and a partially completed painting. They took a paint brush and can of paint remover but left some wax fruit.
Unsure what else to do, they returned to the third floor to speak with the tentacle. They tried to feed it the Tentacle Chow, but it firmly rejected it. They offered several things, but it wouldn’t eat them. Finally, Ellie offered it wax fruit, which it loved! Then it wanted something to drink. Finally, they placated it with fruit juice, and it plopped up the stairs and left them alone.
Exploring, they found a dark room. If only they hadn’t dropped that developer! Going upstairs they found a long obnoxiously orange hallway. Inside the first door they found a bedroom with a radio, a poster about some kind of “Meteor Police”, and a ladder leading up. Ascending the ladder, they found Green Tentacle and his music room! After talking for a while, they joined his band, GT and the Suction Cups! They dragged the cassette recorder up and laid down several tracks! They would have been so-so except T.J. brought his kazoo. Wow! They jammed like no one has ever jammed before. At least not on this planet. GT warned them to avoid Dr. Fred and Nurse Edna and especially his violent brother, Purple Tentacle. He told them that the son, Weird Ed, was not as dangerous as his parents but Cousin Ted had never hurt anyone. He told them he spends lots of time in the bathroom toward the end of the hall.
The group went down the hall and found a room containing a sarcophagus, a Hunk-O-Matic, and Tupperware filled with preserved organs. Through another door they discovered a bathroom. Looking around, they found Cousin Ted in the tub! Dead Cousin Ted, mummified long ago. They picked up a sponge and found a message “For a good time call Edna at 876-5309” behind the mummy.
At the end of the hall, they found a room with a fireplace and a snapping plant yelling to be fed. They gave it water, and it grew to enormous size and attacked them. They could tell there was hatch over the plant and a strange paint splotch on the wall. Lots of debate and effort later, and they fed the plant the Pepsi. Its belching fit allowed Ambrose to climb up it and through the hatch. He found an observatory above, but the telescope was coin-operated. Bender used the paint remover to expose a door, and they found a room with wiring chewed through by rodents. They suspected it was the wiring for the arcade.
The group went downstairs and kicked open the back door. They examined the glowing pool and went into the garage. They found a faucet handle, a toolbox, and the Weird Edsel vehicle. They fished out a floating chair from the pool and pulled some batteries out of a radio sitting on it.
They went and repaired the wiring and investigated the arcade and found some code on the high score of Meteor Mess. They went to the phone and called Edna. Dante seduced her and said he would be at the front door in ten minutes. Ambrose met her at the door while Bender searched her room and found a small key. Meanwhile, Ambrose made Edna angry and got thrown into the dungeon.
The group ended up moving the gargoyle GT told them about and discovered Ambrose unconscious on the other side! They learned they could not get into the lab with a key. They decided to go meet Weird Ed. They found him in his room and gave him some cheese for his hamster. They convinced him they are traveling Velveeta representatives looking for their door-to-door sales rep, Sandy. He recounted how his father had changed since the coming of the meteor. They ended up getting a purple key card from him.
They crawled under the house and used the faucet handle to shut off the water to the pool. At the bottom they found Ed’s keys to the lab. They turned the water back on and soaked up some developer fluid from the drain above using the sponge. Ellie rushed upstairs to develop the photos, pictures taken by Sandy, that showed some disdain from Edna toward Purple Tentacle. Walt picked up a radio signal from the Meteor Police seeking coordinates to arrest a rogue meteor. Walt took a chance and told them where they were.
Back downstairs they were attacked by Purple Tentacle but distracted him with tentacle chow. They rushed through the dungeon and unlocked the padlocks to the secret lab. Bender hit a bunch of buttons and set off a failure in the nuclear reactor! They moved into the next room and found Dr. Fred and Sandy Pantz next to a Pepsi machine. She was attached to the Zom-B-Matic. Dr. Fred pulled out a scalpel as Purple Tentacle came charging in from behind. Ambrose hurled a hammer and knocked out Dr. Fred! They then showed Purple Tentacle the pictures of Edna, and he hopped off to confront her. They opened the last door and found the vicious meteor! It would have destroyed them too, except a warp field opened and the Meteor Police arrived! They arrested the meteor for horrible crimes, and Bernard figured out how to shut off the reactor emergency. With Sandy in tow, the group escaped Maniac Mansion!
