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View Full Version : Would a Slasher Movie type of game work?



Perch
2017-08-06, 11:06 AM
So my idea for my next game is that of a Slasher Movie, one nearly indestructible creature hunting the group down, rather than face it in combat directly they have to run and try to outsmart it.

Do you guys think that could be fun?

Would you play this kind of game?

NecroDancer
2017-08-06, 12:34 PM
It depends on the type of system you use. Trail of Cthulhu could portray this quite nicely.

Thrudd
2017-08-06, 12:41 PM
There's a game called "Dread" that is exactly for simulating a horror movie.

Vitruviansquid
2017-08-06, 01:10 PM
You're gonna have to get a lot more specific than that if you want us to be able to tell you about this game's prospects.

Inspector Valin
2017-08-06, 02:33 PM
Is Dread that game that's basically RP Jenga?

It can be done for sure. There's an RPG I know of that's very explicitly this, Slasher Flick (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/82728/Slasher-Flick-The-Directors-Cut). I haven't seen it played, but in theory it's got legs.

Max_Killjoy
2017-08-06, 05:07 PM
Takes player buy-in.

Slasher movies heavily rely on certain character behavior tropes that not all players will be willing to indulge.

Thrudd
2017-08-06, 05:57 PM
Is Dread that game that's basically RP Jenga?

It can be done for sure. There's an RPG I know of that's very explicitly this, Slasher Flick (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/82728/Slasher-Flick-The-Directors-Cut). I haven't seen it played, but in theory it's got legs.

Yes, Dread is the one where you use Jenga. As far as horror stories, you want anticipation and tension to build up - like watching a movie where you know something is going to happen soon, you just don't know when exactly or to whom it is going to happen. I think the Jenga tower is a really clever way to give players that sensation and feel afraid for their characters. It is also assured, like in a horror movie, that most everyone will not survive to the end. You jut don't know who, and you can never be sure when or why it will happen.

goto124
2017-08-06, 07:21 PM
Trail of Cthulhu could portray this quite nicely.

Is it the 5e to Call of Cthulhu?

Callos_DeTerran
2017-08-06, 10:43 PM
Yes, they can work and in a variety of systems too.

Ashes
2017-08-07, 01:57 AM
World of Darkness has a pretty good supplement called Slasher for this kind of thing.

TheCountAlucard
2017-08-07, 02:23 AM
World of Darkness has a pretty good supplement called Slasher for this kind of thing.I ran a game with a Slasher as the bad guy for Halloween one year! It's pretty sweet.

Blymurkla
2017-08-07, 02:40 AM
I'd suggest Fear Itself (http://site.pelgranepress.com/index.php/category/products/fear-itself/) by Pelgrane Press. It strives to give that horror movie feel, with discussions on the archetypical characters that are preyed upon among other things.


Is it the 5e to Call of Cthulhu? Trail of Cthulhu is a standalone game by Pelgrane Press, using the same core rules (Gumshoe) as Fear Itself. Compared with CoC, ToC is more contemporary and focuses more on actually helping to facilitate investigations. You can find it here (http://site.pelgranepress.com/index.php/category/products/trail-of-cthulhu/).

Frozen_Feet
2017-08-07, 05:02 AM
Yes and yes.

For Lamentations of the Flame Princess, Death Love Doom and God That Crawls do precisely this. Both have been well-received by my players.

In Basic D&D, Vampires and Doppelgangers have traditionally filled the role of the monster for low level characters.

Few things to remember, though: a lot of Slasher movies are stupid because they rely on their characters being stupid. You can just do away with that. Play the monster smart, and the players can play smart too. Don't try to replicate tropes which hinge on stupid.

Second, some players lean on their GM to keep their characters alive and don't really grok that they're supposed to NOT fight some things in the game. Keep your eyes open for these players. Your slasher might rapidly end with all the characters dead if you don't telegraph the threat to these people.

daniel_ream
2017-08-07, 05:13 AM
Few things to remember, though: a lot of Slasher movies are stupid because they rely on their characters being stupid.

A comment, based on several years working in incident response: the clarity of thought, foresight and calm consideration of alternatives you possess when seated comfortably in a warm, darkened theatre, amply sated with salty and/or sugary snacks and beverages, bears no resemblance whatsoever to the kind of bat**** insane random things people will do when under extreme stress and time pressure. And that's merely for crises where at worst, one's job is on the line; throw in actual mortal danger and a hostile or unfamiliar environment and yes, just about everyone will do mind-numbingly stupid things. That's normal.

goto124
2017-08-07, 05:46 AM
the clarity of thought, foresight and calm consideration of alternatives you possess when seated comfortably in a warm, darkened theatre, amply sated with salty and/or sugary snacks and beverages,

Which brings to another point: To fully give the slasher horror feel, the players need to get the feeling of fear in spite of sitting at a warm, possibily darkened table, amply sated with salty and/or sugary snacks and beverages.

I'm sure there are many threads in these forums discussing how to achieve horror in TRPGs.

Frozen_Feet
2017-08-07, 07:41 AM
@daniel_ream: doing crazy things in panic it is indeed normal. Like goto124 suggets, it's also normal if the players feel even mildly intimidated by what's happening in the game.

It's still not a good idea to build your scenario with the expectation of it happening. Also, movie stupid is different from RPG stupid. Some of the worst RPG stupid in fact happens when the players are trying to be smart and then start to trip on their own cleverness. Then they panic. Classic examples are paranoia and overplanning caused by shapeshifters and traps.

Max_Killjoy
2017-08-07, 09:07 AM
"People go completely stupid and ignorant as soon as they feel even a bit of fear" is also something of an exaggeration that is, in a bit of circular reasoning, played up by the very sorts of movies that tend to rely on that reaction by characters in order to make their otherwise boneheaded plots semi-functional.

For every example IRL of people going full "scared animal" in an extreme situation, there's an IRL example of someone keeping their head and doing "the smart thing".

Blymurkla
2017-08-07, 09:16 AM
Few things to remember, though: a lot of Slasher movies are stupid because they rely on their characters being stupid. You can just do away with that. Play the monster smart, and the players can play smart too. Don't try to replicate tropes which hinge on stupid ... unless your players are in on it.

Some people (though certainly not me) watch slasher movies for the laughs, rather than the fear. Horror is a genre, not a feeling.

It's entirely possible (someone has probably already written a game to help you with it) to play a slasher rpg with the PCs being scared senseless while the players are having a blast replicating stupid tropes. I'm thinking meta-currency or something like Nature from Mouse Guard RPG - every time 'the jock' bullies any other PC, he gets a token. Every time the party splits up, everyone gets a token. That sort of stuff.

EccentricCircle
2017-08-07, 09:19 AM
There's also a game called Dead of Night for this sort of thing. We had fun playing it, although we did a zombie scenario, where each PC to die came back as a zombie to help the GM hunt down the others. I ended up as the last man standing somehow, and blew up the space ship we were on in order to take the zombies with me.

JellyPooga
2017-08-07, 09:36 AM
The biggest problem with running a slasher movie (in particular) style game, is that it relies, to a certain extent, on characters actually dying over the course of the movie to enable the "big showdown" between the "lone survivor" and the bad guy. Being one of those sacrificial characters is, in general, not much fun because you end up watching others play instead of playing yourself. Making NPCs those sacrificial characters removes the threat from the PCs and defeats the purpose of the deaths as reinforcing the threat as an actual threat.

One way of relieving this problem is to introduce some kind of narrative power for the players that is somewhat divorced from the actions of the characters themselves. That way, players can continue to play even after the inevitable deaths of their characters. This could be the ability to interject elements into a scene that are related to their departed character, such as objects or terrain manipulation that you can introduce retroactively ("yeah, I totally left a fireaxe in that room before I died; I got it from the hall and was using it to chop up the wardrobe for planks when we were barricading the front door"), or it could be the ability to introduce incidental/minor characters which they then play for the duration of a scene ("the deputy shows up, kicking in the door and firing off a few rounds from his .44, distracting the <foo> from mauling Jim and letting him escape! The blood-curdling scream and the gristly, wet sound of bones being torn apart as the heroes flee leave no doubt of the fate of the brave, if foolish, officer").

You can even allow this sort of non-character agency to be more "powerful" than in-character agency, giving players an actual incentive to play up to movie tropes and so forth. No-one wants to play the "dumb bimbo" until they realise that getting ganked early after a short and intense bit of character play, actually gives them more agency to manipulate the story!

Frozen_Feet
2017-08-07, 09:51 AM
It's entirely possible to play a slasher rpg with the PCs being scared senseless while the players are having a blast replicating stupid tropes.

Of course it is. You don't even need any mechanics for it, if the players are so in on the joke.

It's still not a good reason to build a scenario to rely on such tropes.

Max_Killjoy
2017-08-07, 10:01 AM
Repeating myself somewhat, but... again, it relies on player buy-in.

The sorts of setups being suggested here are going to work for some players, they'll have a blast. Other players, it's just not something they will enjoy.

Be up front about it, and let people say "no thank you" gracefully.

The worst thing that a GM can do is try to spring this sort of thing on players by surprise -- I've seen someone try that because they thought it would foster the horror-movie aesthetic for the players to be taken by surprise. It failed miserably because some of the players approached the situation as a problem to be solved, and ended up trapping the "monster" using household items and catching the GM in his own setting details/description. The GM gave up in frustration at that point and was clearly angry at the players for not "playing along". The players who bought in and the players who "broke genre" weren't happy with each other. Etc.

(I was involved in running a local con for a few years, so I got to see a lot of other people's games.)

Blymurkla
2017-08-07, 10:09 AM
Of course it is. You don't even need any mechanics for it, if the players are so in on the joke.

It's still not a good reason to build a scenario to rely on such tropes. Eh? There's heaps of rpg games built around the idea that the players are in on the joke, playing a certain way rather than 'the smart way'. InSpectres, The Supercrew, A Taste For Murder ...

... and Fiasco. Which I just remembered and is probably great for replicating slasher movies. Or how about the Camp death (http://fiascoplaysets.com/home/camp-death) play set?

It might not be what Perch initially wanted, but it certainly shows that stupid slasher behaviour isn't completely incompatible with role-playing.

goto124
2017-08-07, 10:10 AM
Some people (though certainly not me) watch slasher movies for the laughs, rather than the fear. Horror is a genre, not a feeling.

It's entirely possible (someone has probably already written a game to help you with it) to play a slasher rpg with the PCs being scared senseless while the players are having a blast replicating stupid tropes.

Oh, and clarify with your players what everyone wants out of the slasher game. Actually scary slasher, or make-fun-of-cliches slasher?

Frozen_Feet
2017-08-07, 10:52 AM
@Blymurkla: it's entirely different for a player to enact Obvious Bad Idea because they think it will lead to Happy Fun Times, than it is for a GM to design a scenario so that it requires someone to enact Obvious Bad Idea for there to be Happy Fun Times.

They also represent different levels of buy-in. The former requires buy-in to the genre; the latter requires buy-in to a script. In the former player does the stupid because they can, in the latter because they have to.

Geddy2112
2017-08-07, 10:59 AM
If you want a tongue in cheek one shot slasher style RPG, there is always Actual Cannibal Shia Labeouf (https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/35fpdj/system_actual_cannibal_shia_labeouf/), the rpg.

GungHo
2017-08-07, 01:59 PM
They also represent different levels of buy-in. The former requires buy-in to the genre; the latter requires buy-in to a script. In the former player does the stupid because they can, in the latter because they have to.
Yep. Couldn't have said it better. Would add, though, that one person not buying in might as well make you give it up, because as soon as one person decides to actively not play along, the game's over. You might as well have invited that one jerk kid who always wears soccer cleats to your jumper party.

Agrippa
2017-08-08, 12:19 AM
Well, you could run it in in the style of 1986's April Fool's Day (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Fool%27s_Day_(1986_film)), where no one dies and all the "victims", aside from the final girl/guy, are in on the joke. May or may not end in an character beat-down though.

Agrippa
2017-08-08, 12:49 AM
Repeating myself somewhat, but... again, it relies on player buy-in.

The sorts of setups being suggested here are going to work for some players, they'll have a blast. Other players, it's just not something they will enjoy.

Be up front about it, and let people say "no thank you" gracefully.

The worst thing that a GM can do is try to spring this sort of thing on players by surprise -- I've seen someone try that because they thought it would foster the horror-movie aesthetic for the players to be taken by surprise. It failed miserably because some of the players approached the situation as a problem to be solved, and ended up trapping the "monster" using household items and catching the GM in his own setting details/description. The GM gave up in frustration at that point and was clearly angry at the players for not "playing along". The players who bought in and the players who "broke genre" weren't happy with each other. Etc.

(I was involved in running a local con for a few years, so I got to see a lot of other people's games.)

If I were a GM running a slasher movie type adventure, and the players worked together intelligently to take out the killer I'd be rather pleased with them. Then I'd tell them congratulations, you and your characters just proved themselves smarter than the average slasher movie protagonists. Then as time goes on, if it becomes an actual campaign, their characters will transition from just slasher movie heroes/survivors to occult investigators and mystical destroyers of evil.

Max_Killjoy
2017-08-08, 08:27 AM
If I were a GM running a slasher movie type adventure, and the players worked together intelligently to take out the killer I'd be rather pleased with them. Then I'd tell them congratulations, you and your characters just proved themselves smarter than the average slasher movie protagonists. Then as time goes on, if it becomes an actual campaign, their characters will transition from just slasher movie heroes/survivors to occult investigators and mystical destroyers of evil.


I'm all for that, but I get the impression that this isn't what (some) people want when they say they want to run horror -- they want to emulate the fiction they're referring to.

goto124
2017-08-08, 09:07 AM
I'm all for that, but I get the impression that this isn't what (some) people want when they say they want to run horror -- they want to emulate the fiction they're referring to.

"I didn't say I want to play horror, I said I wanted to play slasher movie!"

But yes, that's probably the first thing to clarify when recruiting or starting a game.

Max_Killjoy
2017-08-08, 09:32 AM
"I didn't say I want to play horror, I said I wanted to play slasher movie!"

But yes, that's probably the first thing to clarify when recruiting or starting a game.

I guess I wasn't thinking of the two as that different. Sorry. Not a genre (or set of genres?) that I really get into.

Blymurkla
2017-08-08, 10:29 AM
I'm all for that, but I get the impression that this isn't what (some) people want when they say they want to run horror -- they want to emulate the fiction they're referring to. Well, if a person said »I'm gonna run a slasher movie RPG«, when it's done I'd like to be able to look back and think that that plot and those scenes would have made a pretty good slasher movie. If you set up a scenario looking like a slasher movie, and then deviate from every trope of the genre, it's not really a slasher movie RPG to me.

It would be a bit like saying »I'm gonna run a romatic comedy RPG« and the careerist, dull-on-the-outside good-looking guy going »You're sweet and all, Jennifer Aniston, but I'm gonna focus on my hedge fond management« and the game (d)evolves into players looking at spreadsheets in an effort to maximise profits.

I've played A Taste For Murder quite a lot. A few times, the participants have really shined, with true snotty British aristocrats and a puzzlingly inquisitive Inspector Chapel. Those 2 or 3 times, afterwards I've felt like the session would have made a great episode of Midsummer Murder, with the gradual reveal of ever more bizarre secrets leading up to way to complex motives and final reveal of the murderer.

Now, I've played investigations in traditional games too, in fact its among my very favourite types of games, but that has never felt like investigations in other media. Because it didn't play on the tropes. It's its own thing.

I think something like Fiasco would be great at emulating Slasher movies in this sense.

But if you don't want that, if you (like me, actually) would want something that feels just a bit like a slasher movie, but is more about player smartness than replicating the tropes of the genre, then I think Fear Itself would be a good bet. It's not specifically geared towards slasher, but horror in general. I think it works for slasher too. It's a fairly traditional game where the survival of the PCs comes from player smartness. And since it's written for horror, it discusses these things - what elements of horror movies works with this type of RPG and what doesn't.

goto124
2017-08-08, 01:01 PM
Slasher Movie RPG where the players play the slasher(s)?

Lvl 2 Expert
2017-08-08, 03:45 PM
I think it's easier to run a bit more of a murder mystery game, where the players for instance are detectives going after Jack the Ripper, or a bit more of a supernatural or otherwise not entirely human horror story.

In a classic slasher you know the limitations of what's after you, and your only goal is not to let it get you. Even if nobody believes you there will be ways in which a group of five characters can neutralize the problem. The exception is probably if you stick them in prison, or a military academy, or a strict boarding school, or a prisoner of war camp, or as slave laborers working on a world cup stadium, or... Any circumstance where they are made to do things obstructive to their plan leaves them vulnerable. So that could be a consideration, but you will look like a dirty railroader.

If the bad guy is a robot, or an alien, or a mythological creature, or a mysterious beast, or a ghost, or the spirit of Christmas, or anything they don't know the limitations of you can give them a lot more freedom and still surprise them with your monster. It might even work if you just have several slashers working together to create the illusion of the killer not being human, like going round one corner and appearing around one opposite it.

If it's a mystery story they have to go after the guy. They can't seal themselves off in a controlled environment. You should find plenty of opportunities to force them into splitting the party or suffer some consequence for instance, say if there is a dying victim screaming for help on one end of an alley and a murderer pretending to be a dying victim screaming for help on the other.

So, TL;DR: an environment that limits their freedom (least preferred), a non-slasher horror story or a game where players are the responders rather then merely victims.

AceOfFools
2017-08-10, 06:58 PM
The biggest problem with running a slasher movie (in particular) style game, is that it relies, to a certain extent, on characters actually dying over the course of the movie to enable the "big showdown" between the "lone survivor" and the bad guy. Being one of those sacrificial characters is, in general, not much fun because you end up watching others play instead of playing yourself. Making NPCs those sacrificial characters removes the threat from the PCs and defeats the purpose of the deaths as reinforcing the threat as an actual threat.

One way of relieving this problem is to introduce some kind of narrative power for the players that is somewhat divorced from the actions of the characters themselves. That way, players can continue to play even after the inevitable deaths of their characters. This could be the ability to interject elements into a scene that are related to their departed character, such as objects or terrain manipulation that you can introduce retroactively ("yeah, I totally left a fireaxe in that room before I died; I got it from the hall and was using it to chop up the wardrobe for planks when we were barricading the front door"), or it could be the ability to introduce incidental/minor characters which they then play for the duration of a scene ("the deputy shows up, kicking in the door and firing off a few rounds from his .44, distracting the <foo> from mauling Jim and letting him escape! The blood-curdling scream and the gristly, wet sound of bones being torn apart as the heroes flee leave no doubt of the fate of the brave, if foolish, officer").

You can even allow this sort of non-character agency to be more "powerful" than in-character agency, giving players an actual incentive to play up to movie tropes and so forth. No-one wants to play the "dumb bimbo" until they realise that getting ganked early after a short and intense bit of character play, actually gives them more agency to manipulate the story!

One option to alleviate this is to have each player run multiple characters from the start, ala Dungeon Crawl Classics. That way the cast can dwindle faster than you have players transitioning to spectator/commentators.

Psikerlord
2017-08-10, 07:47 PM
So my idea for my next game is that of a Slasher Movie, one nearly indestructible creature hunting the group down, rather than face it in combat directly they have to run and try to outsmart it.

Do you guys think that could be fun?

Would you play this kind of game?

I tihnk this could work as a DCC like funnel.