GM Tips: The Haunter From Beyond

The Haunter from the Beyond is the first in a series of adventures inspired by horror writers in the 19th and early 20th centuries. This is my first publication using the FATE game system by Evil Hat. I have been intrigued by FATE for several years, and despite being known for collaborative world-building, is ideal for One-Shot RPGs. Here are my tips. 

1. FATE often encourages having a session 0 where the GM and players build their characters and world together. If you are running this as a One-Shot, you might skip this and provide some template stats based on classic horror archetypes. The players would still choose their actors and backgrounds, but their stats are based on the archetype. 
2. As with all of my adventures, I provide a lot of NPC dialogue. My intention is not for the GM to have their head-down in the book reading the whole game session but fully integrate NPCs into the story. Read the dialogue to get an idea about how a scene will go, then make it your own.
3. I read an article the other day where the advice to new GMs was not to over-prepare and not under-prepare. I thought that was great advice for this adventure. As long as you understand the goals and motivations for Peron, Nyarlathotep and the NPCs you can adjust the story accordingly. 
4. Let the characters go where they want and do what they want. They cannot escape the final encounter because Nyarlathotep has domain over Carcosa - he can prevent them from leaving. 
5. Encourage some of the players to take the secret background - it creates a great twist at the end, and they can change their mind by spending faint points if they don't want to be one of the villains. 
6. I used this adventure to launch a mini-campaign. When I ran it, I forced everyone except the character with the aspect Grew Up in The Occult to take a secret background. I stacked the deck, so to speak, because my goal was to have the group lose to Nyarlathotep. Why? Because I wanted the character, who gets possessed by Nyarlathotep to be the main NPC villain for the rest of the campaign. The characters knew ahead of time they were only using these characters for one adventure and were then switching to occult investigators. It was a great twist, and the characters enjoyed hunting down "one of their own", for the rest of the campaign.
7. If you want to tone down combat in this adventure even more, then have the scenes where characters fight the creepers be about escaping vs. fighting. For example, when they encounter the Creeper with Ryu's arm, they can try to escape the house vs. fighting the creepers.  You can also remove the access to firearms - the crashed truck is empty, the guns on the soldier in the attic are ruined, and Peron only has enough firepower for himself. Alternatively, if your group likes action, you can increase the number of creeper encounters. 
8. I tend to include light NPC romance in most of my adventures because, at least in my group, it provides a great incentive to care about NPCs and  adds weight to the story. This is not integral, so if you don't feel comfortable or you don't think your players will be comfortable, leave it out.
9. It's an art form GMing a story where there is a high probability the character's don't succeed at the end. Done well, they can be some of the most memorable, so go for it! To off-set a loss, I always give rewards that players can use towards future characters. For example, you might give a future character a free advancement or FATE points.