A video of this review is available here.

Edit: The rating should be a 10, but i made an error when posting the thread and now cannot fix the rating.

Greetings from... your house while you are away. I took this opportunity to sneak in and do evil things...

This is October and October is the season of Halloween and pumpkin pies. Few role-playing games involve pie, unless an orc is guarding the pie, but many games involve horror in some capacity. It might be the biggest single genre of RPGs after general fantasy.

This week we are discussing 10 horror themed role-playing games and the list is divided into three categories; revulsion, horror and terror. According to Stephen King, in his book Dance Macabre, these are the three levels of general horror. King compares "revulsion" to a gag-reflex, a cheap gimmick existing at the bottom level of the genre. "Horror" is the point at which people see the monster that is causing all the fear - it is the shock value. Terror, according to King, is "the finest element" and it is the moment of dread before the monster actually appears, like a tense musical note drawn out as far as possible. Terror is what the best games aspire to, horror is the level at which many work and revulsion is the level at which many games settle.

The first three on the list exist at the level of revulsion.

10. All Flesh Must Be Eaten: A multiple Origins Award winning survival horror role-playing game all about zombies, fighting zombies, running away from zombies, being eaten by zombies who chew with their mouths open because they have no goddamned manners. To the credit of Eden Studios, All Flesh is a comprehensive and thorough game about zombies, covering any type of zombie you might need in any situation you might wish. However, it is about zombie... its gonna be gross.

9. Chill: A game from the 1980s, Chill seeks to capture the feel of 20th-century horror films. Horror movies are how most people know and define horror – for many a horror movie serves as their introduction to the genre. A game seeking to emulate the feel of horror movies has a lot of rich material to employ. However, it probably lends itself to a gonzo tone that probably results in lots of gore in the games. Chill is unfortunately currently out of print.

8. Lamentations of the Flame Princess: This game, by James Edward Raggi part four, is nominally based on an early rules set of Dungeons and Dragons and is both one of the most competent and darkly disturbing products from the Old School Renaissance in the hobby. To paraphrase TV Tropes, "Think D&D characters dropped into a Clark Ashton Smith, as sung by Cannibal Corpse." In any other hands this kind of work would be juvenile but Raggi's execution of the material wails like an awesome death-metal riff. This is appropriate because death-metal influenced the setting. However, Lamentations is also very gory, operating mostly in the repulsion level of horror.

The next six exist at the level of horror.

7. Ravenloft: This is the TSR setting dedicated to Gothic horror and is arguably the most distinct TSR setting in terms of flavor and tone because the Ravenloft books were also home to excellent NPCs, settings and rules for running a horror game. White Wolf Publishing produced the most recent Ravenloft was produced by in the early 2000s for Third Edition. If you want a D&D horror game this is where to go, even if it shows its age.

6. GURPS Horror: Kenneth Hite wrote the revised and reworked Third Edition of GURPS Horror, which now focuses on horror themed brand-new campaign frames. The focus of the new work includes supernatural, psychological, cosmic, conspiratorial and other subgenres of horror. Further, the monster types possess racial templates so they are usable as player-characters.

5. Two games share a spot here because this is my list and I will fucking handle it how I please. In any case, these two games are "Don't Rest Your Head" and "Kult."  In Don't Rest Your Head Don't Rest the players run characters who, owing to prolonged insomnia, have their perceptions altered to the point they can exit reality and enter the Mad City, a place on the other side of reality. Kult, a Swedish game, also involves characters exiting normal reality to a truer and more dangerous and rapacious reality most people cannot see. As such, both games deal with secret knowledge, secret monsters and the lunatic who deal with both – namely the player characters. Kult is the darker of the two and is openly Gnostic in is settings and themes.

4. Another two games share this spot because again, my fucking list. Again, both games deal with secret knowledge, secret monsters and the lunatic who deal with both – namely the player characters. With these two games, it is more a case of the blood hits the walls and body hits the floor. These two games are the Call o f Cthulhu and Delta Green. Call of Cthulhu is the game based upon the works of H.P. Lovecraft while Delta Green is the same setting updated to a modern period, with characters who are addicted to antidepressants. Joking aside, these two games wonderfully complement each other and serve as bookends to this type of horror.

3. World of Darkness: Onyx Path are the force behind the new World of Darkness, a grim take on the modern world, with a tone that is a mix of bitter urban fantasy and horror movies. Onyx Path also produces a grab bag of supplementary materials and entire games lines for monsters such as vampires, werewolves and baby-stealing pixies. However, if you are not already familiar with it the best place to start is with the World of Darkness book itself, or the blue book.

The final entries on the list ideally exist at the level of terror.

2. Here is another pair of games, ones that may elicit terror... at least if the player is a parent. In Little Fears players run little children were the monsters in the closet are very real and very hungry. In Monsters and Other Childish Things, the little children have monster best friends – think of Calvin and Hobbes, if Hobbes occasional mauled and ate people. Both games do interesting things with player-character power, responsibility and especially peril – and remember you are playing a small child.

1. Described as a game of hope and horror, Dread's mechanics are unique – players pull blocks from a jenga tower to accomplish task, stacking the tower higher as the game goes and increasing the peril. If someone collapses the tower, then their character dies. This does require all the participants to be on their A Game so to speak, but if they are a good game of Dread is sublime horror rpg experience.

All games lend themselves to one level or another, but Game Masters and the group of players make the final determination at which level the game will operate; terror, horror or revulsion. If the group is easily bored and demands a meat and potatoes only approach, then the game will probably involve people being ass-raped by running chainsaws before it involves psychological games of cat-and-mouse. It is easy to break the tone of terror and horror and impossible to restore it once lost – a single joke will do it and are difficult to stop. So, a game master should know what the group before trying a horror game.

Now, as for the evil I will do in your house, I am going to drink all your beer and hide the remote! Mwa ha ha ha!

Unless the earlier Pacesetter edition was rather different from the Mayfair hardcover that I own (and that showed up in the video), I'm not really seeing why you'd single out Chill for gore. The GM advice for it specifically cautions against just throwing lethal critters at the PCs, and instead focuses on the mood and investigation. Several of the supernatural powers are atmospheric tricks like making doors slam shut or lights go out, and the monsters themselves tend to have very precise vulnerabilities to discover before they can be defeated. (For example, they might only be vanquished by putting a silver wedding ring in their resting place or by attacking them with a stone axe that's been blessed by an Indian medicine man.)

No Unknown Armies? WTF?

Quote from: dsivis;704624No Unknown Armies? WTF?

Any ranking that includes Monsters and Other Childish Things as an actual horror game is obviously going to be a tad on the subjective side.

LoftFP isn't a Horror RPG. It has gory artwork. Dark fantasy RPG maybe, but not horror. There is nothing in the Flaming Princess that makes it scarier than OD&D.

And Dread as #1? Please. Maybe if you are both uncoordinated and have a phobia of falling blocks. Otherwise, its just a gimmick game.

And Little Fears...wankery. The scariest thing about a Little Fears game is that one player who gets creepily into their roleplaying of a child. Maybe the game does scare parents, but parents always love to turn on the histrionics whenever kids are a topic.

Quote from: Spinachcat;704670And Dread as #1? Please. Maybe if you are both uncoordinated and have a phobia of falling blocks. Otherwise, its just a gimmick game.

Well said.

Yeah, Unknown Armies belongs for sure.
My reaction to Dread is much the same, all I ever hear about is the Jenga gimmick... what else does it have going for it?
I'd drop a couple of those and add in The Whispering Vault and Armageddon.

Wraith: The Oblivion punches above its weight in terms of horror.

I've not played all these games but I have read all these games. I've no experience with Unknown Armies, so I cannot fairly speak to its quality. This is also true for Whispering Vault and Armageddon.

Wraith is good - I am a fan - but the list had to kept manageable, and it already includes 15 or so items, and all of the new World of Darkness.

For me, LotFP is so deep into the bloodiest, maddest and most disturbing parts of weird fiction that it qualifies as horror.

I am glad to see Kult made the list.  Reading that game really blew me away, and I feel it is very under-rated.

Quote from: The Yann Waters;704600Unless the earlier Pacesetter edition was rather different from the Mayfair hardcover that I own (and that showed up in the video), I'm not really seeing why you'd single out Chill for gore. The GM advice for it specifically cautions against just throwing lethal critters at the PCs, and instead focuses on the mood and investigation. Several of the supernatural powers are atmospheric tricks like making doors slam shut or lights go out, and the monsters themselves tend to have very precise vulnerabilities to discover before they can be defeated. (For example, they might only be vanquished by putting a silver wedding ring in their resting place or by attacking them with a stone axe that's been blessed by an Indian medicine man.)

I actually agree with this statement. Plus while the original Chill is out of print. It lives on as Crypt World. Before you say it. Its kind of a lame name. But it is the same game and is compatible with all the old Chill stuff.

Quote from: Spinachcat;704670LoftFP isn't a Horror RPG. It has gory artwork. Dark fantasy RPG maybe, but not horror. There is nothing in the Flaming Princess that makes it scarier than OD&D.

And Dread as #1? Please. Maybe if you are both uncoordinated and have a phobia of falling blocks. Otherwise, its just a gimmick game.

And Little Fears...wankery. The scariest thing about a Little Fears game is that one player who gets creepily into their roleplaying of a child. Maybe the game does scare parents, but parents always love to turn on the histrionics whenever kids are a topic.

Exactly. Grumpy drop the meth and step away from the keyboard.

Oh, I'd plump for Eclipse Phase as well... that game, at least for me, was a mindfuck... very disorienting and uncomfortable and that was before we even got to the really squicky stuff.

Quote from: Spinachcat;704670LoftFP isn't a Horror RPG. It has gory artwork. Dark fantasy RPG maybe, but not horror. There is nothing in the Flaming Princess that makes it scarier than OD&D.

And Dread as #1? Please. Maybe if you are both uncoordinated and have a phobia of falling blocks. Otherwise, its just a gimmick game.

And Little Fears...wankery. The scariest thing about a Little Fears game is that one player who gets creepily into their roleplaying of a child. Maybe the game does scare parents, but parents always love to turn on the histrionics whenever kids are a topic.

I too, agree fully with Spinachat, especially regarding the overrated and pretentious silliness that is Dread.

Also, IMHO Ghostories deserves a position in the list.

Dread and Don't Rest Your Head aren't RPGs.

Suggestion: replace them with Over the Edge and either Unknown Armies or Beyond the Superntural.

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