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Bartmanhomer
2023-01-25, 01:35 AM
Is there any horror genre RPG out there beside D&D and Masquerade Vampires? If so, what is the name of the horror genre RPG? :smile:

Batcathat
2023-01-25, 01:58 AM
Not to derail the thread with the very first reply, but would you really consider D&D a horror game?

More on topic, the first one I thought of was Call of Cthulhu, but I'm sure there are plenty of others.

Bartmanhomer
2023-01-25, 02:03 AM
Not to derail the thread with the very first reply, but would you really consider D&D a horror game?

More on topic, the first one I thought of was Call of Cthulhu, but I'm sure there are plenty of others.

D&D has some aspects of a horror game.

SpanielBear
2023-01-25, 02:21 AM
Call of Cthulhu is excellent. If nothing else, transferring the sanity rules it uses into other systems as a trackable resource is really easy, and helps a lot in creating a horror vibe- I’ve been using a version of them in my d&d campaign and it’s worked pretty well.

Other than that, it’s often more about crafting a setting than the specific rule set. Nearly any game can be adapted into horror. The most important thing, always, is player buy-in. And I don’t just mean that they need to want to play a game with horror themes (although that is important). For the horror beats to work: the scares, the tension, the dread, the “oh what have we done!?” feeling- the players need to be invested in the setting and their characters. You can’t build tension if they just don’t care. So player involvement in character creation I’ve found is really important, as is going the extra effort to tie the characters into the setting so there’s links between their backstory and what’s going on.

That’s my 2 cents!

Eldan
2023-01-25, 02:30 AM
Hundreds...

caden_varn
2023-01-25, 02:46 AM
As Eldan says, there are hundreds. I'm not really a horror guy, but the specfically horror themed RPGs I have:

Call of Cthulthu
Trail of Cthulhu
GURPS Horror (excellent read for a horror GM IMO)
Kult
Obsidian
Monster of the Week
Deadlands (a Savage Worlds setting)
Various of the White Wolf games (you can look at them all as horror, but some work better than others)
honourable mention to the Orrorsh & Tharkold cosms in Torg/Torg Eternity (although the other cosms aren;t horror, that is kinda the point of Torg).

Other RPGs lean better to horror than D&D which is kinda a poor match to horror in my opinion - Warhammer for exmaple in the fantasy genre. Low magic/high lethality settings tend to work better for it that high fantasy

Razade
2023-01-25, 02:54 AM
Slayers by Gila RPGs, FEAST by Chris Bissette, Ironsworn can be Horror and it's by Shawn Tomkin, FIST by Claymore. Vast in the Dark by Feral Indie Studios.

Bunny Commando
2023-01-25, 02:56 AM
As others have already pointed out, there are many horror RPGs out there.
Would be useful to know what kind of game you're looking for since some do certain stuff better than others.

Eldan
2023-01-25, 05:43 AM
To expand on my earlier point, there's hundreds, and there are many, many subgenres.

Horror Games that I know enough about that I could at least give you a synopsis (Haven't played most of them):

Dread
Ten Candles
All Flesh Must Be Eaten
Don't Rest your Head
Little Fears
KULT
Monster of the Week
Dead of Night
Last Night on Earth
Unknown Armies
Degenesis
Lacuna
Unhallowed Metropolis
Call of Cthulhu
Delta Green
Trail of Cthulhu
Cthulhu Confidential
Fate of Cthulhu
Alien, not to be confused with Alien or Alien
Mothership
Eclipse Phase
Dark Heresy
World of Darkness
Chronicle of Darkness
In Nomine
Ravenloft
Bluebeard's Brides
The Machine

sithlordnergal
2023-01-25, 05:54 AM
Call of Cthulhu is excellent. If nothing else, transferring the sanity rules it uses into other systems as a trackable resource is really easy, and helps a lot in creating a horror vibe- I’ve been using a version of them in my d&d campaign and it’s worked pretty well.

Other than that, it’s often more about crafting a setting than the specific rule set. Nearly any game can be adapted into horror. The most important thing, always, is player buy-in. And I don’t just mean that they need to want to play a game with horror themes (although that is important). For the horror beats to work: the scares, the tension, the dread, the “oh what have we done!?” feeling- the players need to be invested in the setting and their characters. You can’t build tension if they just don’t care. So player involvement in character creation I’ve found is really important, as is going the extra effort to tie the characters into the setting so there’s links between their backstory and what’s going on.

That’s my 2 cents!

Player buy in is extremely important...and so is player seriousness. Personally, I'd love to play a horror themed TTRPG...but I also know I'd never be able to last in one. Not because I lack buy in, or would be creeped out...but because I know I would eventually go for the absurd. Instead of Frankenstein or Dracula, I'd eventually end up going into Young Frankenstein or What We Do in the Shadows territory, which would ruin the atmosphere. Not maliciously mind you, but because I'd relax and do something wacky for the fun of it.

EggKookoo
2023-01-25, 06:35 AM
I just got my grubby hands on the Alien game. Looking forward to trying it out when my current 5e session ends.

I can't praise Call of Cthulhu enough. I've spent more time playing that than anything else (mostly pre-2000).

stoutstien
2023-01-25, 07:40 AM
Mork Borg is a lite option. It's almost dark enough to the point it's funny.

ahyangyi
2023-01-25, 08:00 AM
Pathfinder has Horror rules (https://www.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?Name=Sanity&Category=Horror%20Rules) as well. If one is looking forward to bake in a sanity system in a D&D-like game, might as well look at this. I have not actually tried it, but I love how they organized various horror subgenres (https://aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?Name=Horror%20Subgenres&Category=Running%20Horror%20Adventures).

That said, I think the big draw about Call of Cthulhu isn't sanity, but Cthulhu mythos. Basically, lost sanity could be recovered just like lost Wisdom score, but Cthulhu mythos is both your character advancement and a reduction to your maximum sanity. That puts a very different spin on character advancement. In D&D-like games, you are going on a heroic adventure, you might be poisoned, diseased, cursed, level-drained, haunted, or dead, but most of these are at least reversible if you could wish. But in a Call of Cthulhu adventure, there is either failure, or a pyhhric victory that makes you closer to failure. That is something D&D by default does not do.

SpanielBear
2023-01-25, 09:05 AM
Player buy in is extremely important...and so is player seriousness. Personally, I'd love to play a horror themed TTRPG...but I also know I'd never be able to last in one. Not because I lack buy in, or would be creeped out...but because I know I would eventually go for the absurd. Instead of Frankenstein or Dracula, I'd eventually end up going into Young Frankenstein or What We Do in the Shadows territory, which would ruin the atmosphere. Not maliciously mind you, but because I'd relax and do something wacky for the fun of it.

I think you have a point, certainly you need players who want to be in a horror game and will respect those narrative beats (for want of a better description). But I’ve also found that you aren’t going to have a game that’s all horror all the time. Like a horror film will have moments of comic relief, you’ll have those moments in game where players relax and start joking around, blowing off steam after killing a ghoul or surviving the chase…

And that’s the moment to get them to count how many people are in the safe-house with them, and roll a sanity check.

KorvinStarmast
2023-01-25, 09:11 AM
Not to derail the thread with the very first reply, but would you really consider D&D a horror game? If you played the original game, there was a strong element of horror and death in the dungeon crawls. (Particularly if you played pre-Greyhawk supplement). (The various oozes and the Mind Flayer are but two examples). But it wasn't built specifically as a 'horror' themed game. Once the cleaned up version of the game hit the game stores (Basic after Holmes in boxes that looked like other games) you can argue that it went a few steps deliberately away from that theme.

Horror themed games require, IME, player buy-in to set the tone at the table. I can only remember two DMs I have had over the years who were able to both set that tone and get buy-in during OD&D or AD&D play.
Otherwise, as noted in other posts above mine, any of the horror games can be defused by digressions into the absurd at the wrong time.

More on topic, the first one I thought of was Call of Cthulhu, but I'm sure there are plenty of others. First one I thought of as well. :smallsmile:

EggKookoo
2023-01-25, 09:26 AM
Once the cleaned up version of the game hit the game stores (Basic after Holmes in boxes that looked like other games) you can argue that it went a few steps deliberately away from that theme.

Vanilla D&D struggles with horror because the basic gameplay is centered around a continual increase in personal power for the PC, which is the opposite of a typical horror experience.

I wonder if you could get mileage out of a D&D campaign where you start at ~10th level and lose XP when you would normally gain it, but you have to do the things that burn XP in order to stop some larger evil...

Mutazoia
2023-01-25, 10:30 AM
Player buy in is extremely important...and so is player seriousness. Personally, I'd love to play a horror themed TTRPG...but I also know I'd never be able to last in one. Not because I lack buy in, or would be creeped out...but because I know I would eventually go for the absurd. Instead of Frankenstein or Dracula, I'd eventually end up going into Young Frankenstein or What We Do in the Shadows territory, which would ruin the atmosphere. Not maliciously mind you, but because I'd relax and do something wacky for the fun of it.

Then "Ghostbusters" would probably be the best "horror" system for you....

purepolarpanzer
2023-01-25, 11:46 AM
I'm just getting into Vaesen and the Forbidden Lands from Free League Publishing, both of which contain some horror elements (more so in Vaesen that TFL). Vaesen seems to be a 19th century supernatural setting that is closer to fairy tales and classic folklore than eldritch horror like Call of Cthulu. I'm reading through it right now, but it seems quite good (24 pages in ;) .

KorvinStarmast
2023-01-25, 11:58 AM
I wonder if you could get mileage out of a D&D campaign where you start at ~10th level and lose XP when you would normally gain it, but you have to do the things that burn XP in order to stop some larger evil... Back in the auld days, if a wight or wraith hit you, you lost a level. If a vampire or Specter did, you lost two levels.

SPECTRES...drain two life energy levels when they score a hit. Mentypes killed by Spectres become Spectres under the control of the one who made them...Vampires drain two life energy levels as do Spectres when they hit an opponent in combat. They regenerate during combat as do Trolls, but they do so immediately upon being hit at the rate of three hit points per turn. Turn undead was a very important skill to have. Just sayin'.

ahyangyi
2023-01-25, 12:24 PM
Again, I think talking about "which horror subgenre do you want" might help.

Like, Call of Cthulhu and Vampire the Masquerade are two distinctly different subgenres.

And Tomb of Horrors (that D&D module) is completely different from the two above, but is also horror in a way.

Eldan
2023-01-25, 12:44 PM
Again, I think talking about "which horror subgenre do you want" might help.

Like, Call of Cthulhu and Vampire the Masquerade are two distinctly different subgenres.

And Tomb of Horrors (that D&D module) is completely different from the two above, but is also horror in a way.

That. Basically, before we can recommend a Horror Game, we need to know whether the story you want to tell is Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Alien, The Wicker Man, The Exorcist or The Road.

Khedrac
2023-01-25, 01:24 PM
Also, be aware that in my experience there is usually more mirth around a Call of Cthulhu table than a D&D table - a horror setting does not usually imply that the game is creepy...

EggKookoo
2023-01-25, 02:05 PM
Also, be aware that in my experience there is usually more mirth around a Call of Cthulhu table than a D&D table - a horror setting does not usually imply that the game is creepy...

In my experience, the sense of dread and fragility of PCs makes for a lot of nervous tension. D&D, at my tables, often lacks that emotional core.

Batcathat
2023-01-25, 02:41 PM
In my experience, the sense of dread and fragility of PCs makes for a lot of nervous tension. D&D, at my tables, often lacks that emotional core.

Yeah, I feel like an action game like D&D is basically built around the idea of the PCs fighting their enemies on more or less equal footing, which is contrary to a lot of horror. If you put up a D&D character against vampires, you're more likely to get Blade than Nosferatu.

That's not to say that it's impossible to do horror in D&D and similar games, but it seems like more of a challenge.

Pauly
2023-01-25, 03:55 PM
Call of Cthulhu, if not the grand daddy of the horror RPG, is the standard that others have to beat.
Great game system, lots of modules, lots of setting options so you’re not locked into the default 1920s setting, lots of resources online.

Frankly if you’re running horror I think it’s the first game you should look into. The default question when looking at other systems should be ‘Can this system do what I want horror to do better than CoC?”.

I wouldn’t consider Vampire the Masquerade as horror because the PCs are the monsters in a horror game. Although if you like the system Monster of the Week is more horror appropriate.

The horror supplements in GURPS are a fantastic resource even if you never run GURPS.

D&D and Pathfinder can do horror, but aren’t good at it once the players progress past level 3 or 4. A key part of horror is the vulnerability of the PC and in D&D style games characters progress too quickly. Either you have to keep increasing the monster level exponentially or the party levels out of horror and shifts into spooky adventures.

As others have said there are plenty of options for horror. Alien and KULT have a lot of fans.

A special mention for Dread which uses a non-traditional resolution mechanic which is really really good at creating increasing tension in a session. I’ve only used it in oneshots, so I don’t have an opinion as to how it would work in a campaign.

Edit to add
Whilst technically not horror grimdark games like Warhammer FRP and Dark Heresy are horror adjacent and can easily be shifted to horror.
Also some of the old legacy RPGs such as Traveller or Shadowrun have horror themed adventures/campaigns that are well written and you could run horror in those systems for a long time before you run out of material.

sithlordnergal
2023-01-25, 06:21 PM
Again, I think talking about "which horror subgenre do you want" might help.

Like, Call of Cthulhu and Vampire the Masquerade are two distinctly different subgenres.

And Tomb of Horrors (that D&D module) is completely different from the two above, but is also horror in a way.

Heh, I enjoy Tomb of Horrors. One of the few times I actually made a table afraid...not due to the setting or the over all vibe by the way. I literally had Acererak taunt the party via a magic mouth using a 3 stooges skit. But because I made sure the traps and monsters were DEADLY. They were afraid to open a door, cause it could lead to death. Though I did my job too well...It eventually got to a point where they'd spend 20 minutes debating if they wanted to open a door or not...despite it being the only option for them. Then they'd spend another 15 trying to figure out who should go first, what should be checked, how to check it, if the carving on the door had any significance, ect.



Then "Ghostbusters" would probably be the best "horror" system for you....

I'd probably do well in that sort of game, simply because I am a chaotic sort of goof. With a bit of a love for explosions. There's a reason my favorite 5e class is the Wild Magic Sorcerer, and my two favorite items are the Wand of Wonder and the Deck of Many things.

That said, I am happy to say that I have a rep of being over the top chaotic that WILL find a way to make that lemon explode, along with being a clown in general, I always work hard to make sure my party doesn't suffer negative consequences from my actions.

Duff
2023-01-25, 08:07 PM
Another horror game I've not seen mentioned. Little Fears

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Fears

Pauly
2023-01-25, 08:18 PM
… Instead of Frankenstein or Dracula, I'd eventually end up going into Young Frankenstein or What We Do in the Shadows territory, which would ruin the atmosphere. Not maliciously mind you, but because I'd relax and do something wacky for the fun of it.

The reason why Young Frankenstein, What we do in the Shadows, Shaun of the Dead and Scream work as comedies is that they understand and respect the source material. They all could be reworked as serious horror films without any real alteration to the plot. Also having a bit of levity to break the tension a bit is a horror staple too.

You can watch a serious horror ‘documentary’ like Trollhunter and then a mockumentary like ‘What we do in the Shadows’ back to back and see just how closely they follow the same beats.

Come to think of it I’d really like to play a campaign set in Trollhunter, not sure what system would be best for it though.

sithlordnergal
2023-01-25, 09:29 PM
The reason why Young Frankenstein, What we do in the Shadows, Shaun of the Dead and Scream work as comedies is that they understand and respect the source material. They all could be reworked as serious horror films without any real alteration to the plot. Also having a bit of levity to break the tension a bit is a horror staple too.

You can watch a serious horror ‘documentary’ like Trollhunter and then a mockumentary like ‘What we do in the Shadows’ back to back and see just how closely they follow the same beats.

Come to think of it I’d really like to play a campaign set in Trollhunter, not sure what system would be best for it though.

Oh yeah, that's all very true, and a horror comedy game can work extremely well. They do work extremely well in fact. However, there'd still be a major clash of tones and several problems if you suddenly swapped out Dracula from Bram Stoker's Dracula for Nandor the Relentless right in the middle of the movie/story. Which is what would likely happen the second I relaxed. ^_^;;;;

SpyOne
2023-01-26, 08:22 AM
I haven't seen anybody mention Chill!, or Palladium's swing at the horror genre Beyond The Supernatural.

There's also oodles of d20 compatible one-book-wonders from the past few decades. Probably a lot of stuff on DriveThru RPG.

I used to see a game called Weird War Two in my FLGS but never picked it up. I also saw one called Blood & Relics.

There was even some horror stuff for the Fuzion system.

Horror isn't really my RPG cup of tea, but I do go looking for ideas and mechanics I can loot.

Metastachydium
2023-01-26, 08:28 AM
I wouldn’t consider Vampire the Masquerade as horror because the PCs are the monsters in a horror game.

Yeah. VtM is more like just edgy in a somewhat juvenile way.




Anyhow. How come no one mentioned Actual Cannibal Shia LaBeouff yet (or at least the similar, albeit a tad more rules-heavy Slasher Flick)? It is wonderfully simple and user friendly, with a single stat and a very intuitive d6 based resolution system and while the setup might sound silly, it's ultimately about very fragile PCs (who get mechanically more fragile in tangible ways when hurt) all on their own trying to survive being hunted for sport by a cannibalistic predator of superhuman abilities. In fact, Shia can, in theory, be substituted with just about any abnormally fast, tough and strong monster that consumes its victims (that last bit has mechanical relevance!).

Slipjig
2023-01-26, 10:20 AM
You can do horror with D&D. For an example of a very successful horror one, check out "The Haunting of Briar House" on YouTube.

That said, this definitely requires player buy-in, and horror simply will not work with certain players at the table.

Easy e
2023-01-26, 12:07 PM
Any game can be horror, if you understand the tropes of horror. I have played some successful Horror D&D one-shots, BUT the mechanics for D&D are not set-up for Horror.

The main tropes of Horror that a solid RPG should have is:

1. You are mostly helpless against the threat. You can not beat it by fighting, only delay it..... maybe.
2. You do not improve in skill and ability, you degrade over time.
3. Players lack control of the situation, there are a lot of unknowns involved and times you can not control your reactions.
4. You are not rewarded, things only get worse; there are no happy endings.

So, you can see that many of these 4 points go against what many people on this forum will tell you makes a good game. If the players are not ready for this, then this can lead to really bad games. That makes it hard to fit horror into a game that is not all ready horror focused, or that the players are not prepared for a horror focused game.

Zuras
2023-01-26, 01:41 PM
Mechanically, Call of Cthulhu supports horror the best out of the most popular systems.

Your first question really needs to be whether players will be Fearless Monster Stompers or Just Plain Folks.

Fearless Monster Stompers fits Monster of the Week shows like Buffy, X-Files or Supernatural, while Just Plain Folks is the normal setup for a horror movie.

Hellboy and Doctor Who split the difference with a couple of characters fearlessly stomping monsters but all the support NPCs having zero plot armor (and levels of success in an episode/adventure revolve more around minimizing casualties than doubt that the protagonist will survive).

Call of Cthulhu is one of the preferred systems because it does a good job of giving you characters that feel competent but are still manifestly not up for fighting a shoggoth.

If a GM knows the horror tone they want to maintain, D&D can do a fair approximation of horror as well, with basically any edition supporting a horror tone in a maze of death traps at low levels. 5e can support horror pretty well if you run it under an e6 rule set (limiting PCs to level 6 maximum) and incorporate the sanity rules. If you want a high body count without punishing players too much (re-starting at 1st level is rough in a horror campaign) you can also start new PCs at 3rd or 4th level. D&D PCs get too hard to kill and too powerful if they keep leveling up, though, so it doesn’t work for horror without some homebrew changes.

Vahnavoi
2023-01-26, 05:17 PM
Not to derail the thread with the very first reply, but would you really consider D&D a horror game?

Old versions of D&D naturally lend themselves to survival horror at low levels, and the Monster Manual has majority of famous horror monsters from several subgenres: vampires, ghosts and werevolves for gothic horror, demons, devils and angels for religious horror, chtuloid creatures like mindflayers and aboleths for Lovecraftian horror, bandits, diseases and starvation for horrors of war, so on and so forth.

It's simply a matter of how you play it.

For a game that's rulewise not much different from Basic D&D but dives head first into the weird and the horrifying, including all the gory grindhouse stuff TSR and now WotC don't want you to have in a roleplaying game, there's Lamentations of the Flame Princess. Death Love Doom and Death Frost Doom would be my recommendations from their adventure catalogue.

Zuras
2023-02-01, 01:18 PM
The main tropes of Horror that a solid RPG should have is:

1. You are mostly helpless against the threat. You can not beat it by fighting, only delay it..... maybe.
2. You do not improve in skill and ability, you degrade over time.
3. Players lack control of the situation, there are a lot of unknowns involved and times you can not control your reactions.
4. You are not rewarded, things only get worse; there are no happy endings.



These points are accurate for a cosmic horror game (Call of Cthulhu and similar) but are somewhat less grim for much other horror sub-genres.

1. Direct confrontation can work, but only after extensive preparation and research. Vampires and werewolves often don’t survive the movie.

2. Character advancement happens in tandem with degradation due to damage to body, mind and soul. An especially lucky or well-played session might allow a character to accumulate skills faster than they rack up madness points and other disabling conditions.

D&D style systems can achieve this with something like an E6 level & feat system plus lingering injuries and sanity damage. You can level and gain in power, but you should periodically be considering retiring your veteran PC for a fresh faced one with no accumulated baggage to deal with if the system is doing its job.

3. This is true across the board in a horror campaign, regardless of sub-genre. Players will fail saving throws and their characters will do stuff they’d rather not. Don’t forget to bring your safety tools.

4. You can have happy endings (again, not in cosmic horror), but only at a cost. You can seldom save everyone, and sometimes you aren’t sure if the ones you did save were worth it.

Base D&D 5e doesn’t lend itself especially well to horror because PCs are such glass cannons. Systems with more dodging and active defenses generally work better, as the players have time to figure out how the monster works before characters start dropping.

gbaji
2023-02-01, 04:42 PM
Call of Cthulhu is one of the preferred systems because it does a good job of giving you characters that feel competent but are still manifestly not up for fighting a shoggoth.

I think what makes Call of Cthulhu so great is that the focus is on investigation rather than combat. The system is so rigged in the bad guys favor that pretty much the only way to succeed is to figure out what's going on, figure out where/when it's going on, then show up with as much firepower, dynamite, and whatever else you have to curbstomp the bad guys before they can complete their "evil plan", all without tipping your hand that you're doing this. It really puts the focus on the "playing" in RPG, where sometimes minor decision/actions can have absolutely major consequences.

And yeah, the Cthulhu Mythos skill and the Sanity stat is the great equalizer. You can never really become as powerful magically as the bad guys, or you risk becoming the next bad guy. It's by no means a traditional heroic game. Treating a CoC scenario like you might a D&D scenario will almost always result in utter failure. And the insanity rules provide great roleplaying opportunities for the players as well, so there's plenty of opportunity for "fun"(ish) stuff along the way.

It does require players who are willing to really play along, but the reward as the various PCs become increasingly "twitchy" over the course of a scenario is super worth it IMO. And if there's one rule to follow: Never ever ever let the chanting cultists finish their ritual to "see what we have to deal with". The whole idea is to avoid any sort of "boss battle" (cause you will just plain up die).

EggKookoo
2023-02-01, 04:58 PM
It does require players who are willing to really play along, but the reward as the various PCs become increasingly "twitchy" over the course of a scenario is super worth it IMO. And if there's one rule to follow: Never ever ever let the chanting cultists finish their ritual to "see what we have to deal with". The whole idea is to avoid any sort of "boss battle" (cause you will just plain up die).

Another fun effect is that any PC that has managed to survive multiple campaigns without major loss of limb or sanity and continues to be viable takes on an aura of respect and authority that is genuine. Most adventurer PCs can boast long adventuring histories. There are very very few "old" Cthulhu investigators.

Duff
2023-02-01, 05:26 PM
Another fun effect is that any PC that has managed to survive multiple campaigns without major loss of limb or sanity and continues to be viable takes on an aura of respect and authority that is genuine. Most adventurer PCs can boast long adventuring histories. There are very very few "old" Cthulhu investigators.

There are old Cthulhu characters, and there are bold Cthulhu characters...

Khedrac
2023-02-02, 03:17 AM
There are old Cthulhu characters, and there are bold Cthulhu characters...

Disagree - there are insane Cthulhu characters, and there are bold Cthulhu characters...

Insanity* always gets you if you manage to survive by not being stupid.

* Includes those characters retired to a sanitorium before becoming permanently insane (Sanity usually sub-20).

TeChameleon
2023-02-03, 04:33 AM
Horror is possible in any game, if you know your players and they're willing to follow the mood that you're trying to set (aka player buy-in).

I managed to run a memorable horror campaign in Shadowrun 4th Edition, which... isn't really geared for horror. I mean, it's there around the edges, but it's corporate espionage and running gun-and-spell battles with themed street gangs.

But an unknown element- especially if you manage to misdirect them as to its true nature- that is clearly hostile, even if it doesn't do any permanent damage to the PCs, is enough to make the mood very, very tense.

Frankbit
2023-02-09, 01:29 AM
I think you can try Elvira II: The Jaws of Cerberus.

DrMartin
2023-02-09, 03:51 AM
DND with its core progression "from zeros to heroes" and the general expectation that you are supposed to face the monster instead of running away from it is in general a bad fit for horror but that doesn't stop people from trying and actually having fun while at it.

But if you want something designed for horror there's a lot of games out there for it, depending on the flavor of horror you are looking for. A lot of them were already recommended upthread, but these should be mentioned:

Unknown Armies is for anthropocentric horror games at a local / global / cosmic scale, and it's great. Has a great and simple way to handle shock and insanity, and the writing is great.

Geiger Counter is a free game with many incarnations, and at its core is a GMless game for survival horror - the kind of stories where the initial cast of characters gets whittled down by the monster during the first two hours of the movie, leading to the last few survivor standing against the monster which has now gained its full power at the final showdown. It's great.

All Flesh Must Be Eaten for zombie horror.