Sci-Fi horror TTRPG?

[Slarg]

Hey all, got a question for you.

My friends and I thought it would be kinda cool to do a Alien/Deadspace/Riddik type of campaign, where the player characters are people on a space ship that gets boarded/infected/what have you via aliens/zombies/whatever and the characters must jury rig, scrounge, and improvise in order to survive and escape.

Preferably, player characters would be more mundane things (Cook, Engineer, Navigator), though military classes would work, provided whomever DMed kept the ammo count low.

Anyone know of a game like that? Or would work for that with minimal effort?

[Knaight]

Plenty of the generics could work just fine. If you want to emphasize the horror more, Dread is a good choice. If you're willing to adapt something that's more modern and less sci-fi, Nemesis would be perfect, implementing action-horror quite beautifully.

[Slarg]

Dread seems like it would be perfect for a tense night (Jenga is a tense game as it is....), though for overflowing stories (Ok, so now, the PC's who survived reach Planet X, join with new characters, and are trying to prevent the outbreak from reaching them as well) it doesn't seem like a good fit.

Nemesis would be better for that, though I'm not a fan of the character creation stats/method. We'll test it out for certain (no reason not to with the rules being free). Thanks :D


Any more suggestions?

[dream]

The Void (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/117563/The-Void-Core-PDF?src=hottest_filtered&filters=220_2140_0_0_0) & Cthulhu in Space, powered by FATE Core (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/130038/Cthulhu-in-Space-powered-by-Fate-Core?filters=220_2140_0_0_0). Check-out both. Bargain-priced and tons of fun.

Forgot the Alien RPG (http://www.aliensrpg.com/) site!

[Slarg]

Sweet, will check out the Void.

As much as I love the setting, not too keen on Cthulu in Space. A) that sounds like a bad horror movie, and B) It seems kinda.... specific. Having a Cthulu style enemy that I could use would be awesome, but having to base the entire game around it would be taxing.

[LibraryOgre]

Though it's a bit old, it wouldn't fit badly into the setting of Fading Suns. I played in a con game at the Palladium Open House a few years back that used this idea in Robotech. And you could probably use Eclipse Phase for this pretty easily, though the flexibility of morphs might get a bit odd.

[comicshorse]

Rogue Trader or Dark heresy would work for this

[Slarg]

Though it's a bit old, it wouldn't fit badly into the setting of Fading Suns. I played in a con game at the Palladium Open House a few years back that used this idea in Robotech. And you could probably use Eclipse Phase for this pretty easily, though the flexibility of morphs might get a bit odd.

Eclipse Phase sounds amazing, definitely going to have to check that out. Might have to disable the Trans-humanism revival mechanics, but I'm sold.


Rogue Trader or Dark heresy would work for this

That uses the same mechanics/system as Black Crusade, correct? Wasn't really a fan of Black Crusade.

[LibraryOgre]

Eclipse Phase sounds amazing, definitely going to have to check that out. Might have to disable the Trans-humanism revival mechanics, but I'm sold.


For a short term game, it's pretty doable. Stuck on a ship, farcaster and ego bridge disabled. Hell, for all you know, you're a bunch of forks who just woke up here.

[Anonymouswizard]

Eclipse Phase is specifically transhuman space horror. If you remove resleeving you can use the mechanics to run a sort of 'almost Call of Cthulhu' type adventure, as well as go the other way and run 'almost normal Sci-Fi' as well. But I think resleeving actually makes it better for horror. Yes you survived.

But your mind is still broken in ways the setting's psychiatrists can't fix, you know the things transman* was not meant to know, and you might only have a few hours to a few months until you become a horror. It is easier to cure death in Eclipse Phase than emotional trauma.

*no relation to any LGBT superheroes. Or the term for MtF.

[Slarg]

For a short term game, it's pretty doable. Stuck on a ship, farcaster and ego bridge disabled. Hell, for all you know, you're a bunch of forks who just woke up here.

I think something truely horrific for a Transhuman would be a virus that deletes his back up copy, causing his shell to become his last. Then if he (Like Ultron in the new Avengers) gets his ability to jump into the net destroyed, he's literally on his last leg.


I dunno, I'll have to see what the setting does and what I can change for a more long term threat.

[Mutazoia]

Chtonian Stars (https://ironbombs.wordpress.com/2011/06/06/wildfires-return-cthonian-stars-review/) is tailor made for this...

[Anonymouswizard]

I think something truely horrific for a Transhuman would be a virus that deletes his back up copy, causing his shell to become his last. Then if he (Like Ultron in the new Avengers) gets his ability to jump into the net destroyed, he's literally on his last leg.

In Eclipse Phase, it would be his backup copy being contaminated by the Exurgent Virus, because either he has to suffer final death, live knowing that there's a good chance he'll turn into a monster in a few months (only one strain doesn't at least do it mentally), or if he wants to avoid both he has to go through some mental pruning that basically leaves him as not-a-person. It has biological, digital, specialised nanoplague, and SENSORY infection vectors, meaning it can infect you no matter what morph you are in, and most work over a long enough time period that your backup may be contaminated.

Yes, the Exurgent Virus is dreaded in-setting. A normal deletion of his backup copy would probably result in his insurance providers contacting him and asking if he can upload a copy of his ego quickly, or at least make an alpha fork they can copy and store.


I dunno, I'll have to see what the setting does and what I can change for a more long term threat.

Well we have no clue as to what the TITANS are doing, or what the [redacted] are.

[LibraryOgre]

I think something truely horrific for a Transhuman would be a virus that deletes his back up copy, causing his shell to become his last. Then if he (Like Ultron in the new Avengers) gets his ability to jump into the net destroyed, he's literally on his last leg.


I dunno, I'll have to see what the setting does and what I can change for a more long term threat.

The first Takeshi Kovacs book, Altered Carbon, actually involved something like this. I won't say too much more, but Richard K. Morgan's Takeshi Kovacs books are listed as a major influence on Eclipse Phase.