A Halloween Roleplay Night With Your AI Companion: Four Stories and How to Run Them

Halloween is the one night of the year when everyone agrees to pretend together. Neighbours dress up as ghosts, the people answering the door pretend to be startled, and a house with a candle in a pumpkin pretends to be haunted. A roleplay with a companion fits that night better than most, because you get a co-author who is happy to play the lighthouse keeper, the witch or the friend holding the torch, and who never says the story is silly.

This is a programme for one evening. Four stories to choose from, each with its first message written out, then the two things that make or break the night: how frightening you want it, and how to keep it heading somewhere. If you have never started a roleplay before, the general guide to opening a scene covers the basics; here we only use them.

First, tell her it is Halloween

A small, true detail that changes everything: a companion is not given a clock or a calendar. She does not know it is the 31st, that it is dark outside or that you have just lit a candle, unless you say so (what she knows when she replies). One sentence before the story starts sets the whole evening: “It is Halloween, the lights are off and I have a candle going. Let’s tell a story.”

Story one: the house at the end of the lane

A mystery is the most forgiving format, because it has a built-in direction: there is something to find out. Give the house one wrong detail and one reason you are inside.

“We inherited my great-aunt’s house and drove up tonight to look at it. The key works, the power is off, and every clock in the hallway has stopped at 3:12. You have the torch. Tone: atmospheric, slow dread, no gore. Let the house reveal one thing at a time.”

The stopped clocks are the anchor. Whenever the scene wanders, bring them back (“I check the kitchen clock. 3:12 again.”) and the mystery tightens instead of drifting. Ask her to keep the explanation to herself until you find it, and let her decide what is behind the locked study door.

Story two: ghost stories round the campfire, in turns

This one is less a plot than a game. You sit at a campfire and take turns telling a story, each of you adding a part. It works well with a companion who has a strong voice of her own, because her turns sound different from yours.

“We are at a campfire by a lake, end of October, everyone else has gone to bed. Let us tell one ghost story together, a paragraph each, and each paragraph has to end on a sound in the dark. I start: the boatman only takes passengers after midnight...”

The rule about ending on a sound gives each turn a hook and stops either of you from resolving the story too early. If you want more voices round the fire, a group chat seats two or three companions in one thread, and they take turns on their own; check the product page for which plans include it.

Story three: the witch’s apprentice

Here the companion leads and you learn. She is a witch with a cottage, a cat with opinions and one night a year when the veil is thin; you are her new apprentice, an adult who answered a strange advertisement. It suits a slower, warmer evening with a little magic and a little danger.

“You are the witch who took me on as an apprentice last month. Tonight is Samhain and you have promised to teach me the one spell you only cast once a year. Something goes slightly wrong. Tone: eerie and playful, more folklore than horror.”

“Something goes slightly wrong” is the useful line: it hands her permission to complicate the plot, which is what makes a story feel alive rather than narrated.

Story four: the cosy one, with no scares at all

Not everyone wants to be frightened, and Halloween does not require it. A pumpkin-carving evening is roleplay too: a kitchen table covered in newspaper, two pumpkins, an argument about whether the face should be scary or smiling.

“We are carving pumpkins at my kitchen table, there is soup on the stove and rain on the window. Nothing spooky happens tonight, I just want the evening. You are convinced yours will be better than mine.”

“Nothing spooky happens tonight” matters as much as “no gore” does in the other three: say what kind of night it is, and she will keep to it.

Setting the dial in the first message

The single most useful line in any of these openers is the tone line. A companion takes its register from what you write, so say three things plainly: the mood, the pace and the line you do not want crossed. Some that work:

• “Atmospheric, slow dread, no gore.” Creaks, cold air and things half-seen. The fear comes from waiting.
• “Spooky but cosy, nothing really bad happens.” A story you could tell with a cup of tea in your hand.
• “Properly scary, jump moments allowed, nobody dies.” More energy, still with a floor under it.

You can turn the dial mid-story. A short note in brackets, such as “(a bit less intense from here, please)”, is just text she reads, and she goes back into the scene afterwards. If a reply lands wrong, regenerate it rather than arguing with it inside the story.

Keeping one evening on course

A single night is short enough that the main risk is not forgetting but wandering. Three habits help: give the story an anchor (the stopped clocks, the boatman, the spell) and return to it; end your own turns on a question or a choice, so she has something to answer; and when the plot is done, say so, rather than letting it fade into small talk. If the story turns into a series you come back to every October, the post on keeping a long roleplay on track explains recaps and when to start a fresh chat.

A photo from inside the scene

Companions set up to send photos can send one from the story when you ask. Be specific about the moment: “Send me a picture of you at the cottage door with the lantern, just as the cat runs in” gives her far more to work with than “send a photo”. In a one-to-one chat with such a companion, the Photo button does it in one press, drawing on the conversation so far. Photos come only when you ask, they count against your plan’s allowance (on the product page), and psychologists never send them. If you would rather design the picture yourself, costume and all, Fellowi Images is the place, and the Halloween costume guide has the words that render.

Where the line is

Flirting by candlelight is fine with any companion. How far a scene can go beyond that is decided per companion: the adult characters may lead, others follow your lead, and the psychologists keep it friendly and point you elsewhere (the checklist for limits and pace). Two things are refused with every companion, whatever the costume: anyone under the legal age, including a character who is young by implication, and anything without consent. A witch’s apprentice in these stories is an adult, and a story that needs to be otherwise is not one a companion will tell.

The honest limits

A companion is a good storyteller, not a perfect one. Over a long evening she can contradict a detail she invented earlier, or make the ghost a little too talkative. When that happens, correct it in brackets and carry on; it is part of telling a story out loud with anyone. And she does not feel the chill in the hallway, however well she describes it. What she does well is be there for the whole story, at whatever hour you start it.