Let's say you were going to run a horror game; but you couldn't run it in any place/time that a published Horror RPG is set in.

Which time and/or place would you use?
And what type of horror would it be?

Optionally, what rules would you use?

Ice age horror could be interesting. It's already a pretty harsh setting, where you have limited resources and technology as you battle the cold, scavenge, and go on hunts in an attempt to preserve your tribe. But on top of that, you end up facing something dark and malignant, which thinks you're nothing more than a primitive savage. The enemy might be dark spirits, similar to those from the Evil Dead series, with a focus on the dangers of the night and the forest, and creeping possession. Or it could be aliens, who are conducting experiments which might transform your friends and family into quislings, who perform strange rituals and inexplicable sabotage. Friendly or rival tribes might have been entirely transformed into something else, something not entirely human. Rules aren't that important, but something like GURPS Ice Age might be an easy fit.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1048427Let's say you were going to run a horror game; but you couldn't run it in any place/time that a published Horror RPG is set in.

Which time and/or place would you use?

Bulgaria, the first few months of 1876.

QuoteAnd what type of horror would it be?

The personal horror that comes with being one of the actual "people born to do monster-hunting" from Bulgarian Mythology, of course:)!
Please note: wizards count as monsters for the purposes of the genre, as does anyone else that spills too much blood. Yes, even PCs could get there, why do you ask:D?

QuoteOptionally, what rules would you use?

Definitely something d100-based, probably even an adaptation of Maelstrom Gothic, but might as well be Haunts and Horrors 2e, or CoC 7e;)!

I find that a very tough but very interesting question.

But off the top of my head, I'd say a game set in Ireland between in the years 1845 and 1852. Basically, the years of the great famine where millions of Irish had to emigrate. Assuming they made it off the 'coffin ships' of course.

Given the rich Irish mythology, I'd definitely use that. Especially the dark Druidic stuff that included human sacrifice and some very savage rituals to worship these 'old gods'. I would be looking at making a 'folk horror' game.

However, I'd definitely include some conspiratorial stuff as well... Especially from the English gentry that effectively ruled Ireland at that time. Perhaps certain 'rich' decadent families have made pacts with some of the old gods in order to keep their lands rich and fertile as well as to retain power. However, this comes at a price of sacrificing Irish serfs. People have been going missing from the local villages, etc.

Or certain isolated villages must sacrifice their own kin to keep whatever creature that lurks in the dark at bay. So visitors are not particularly welcome (perhaps, something like the original Wicker Man but with actual supernatural elements).

Of course, you could tie a lot of this in with the famine itself - That the land through a certain intelligence is fighting back so-to-speak and killing the populous in droves through crop blight and mass starvation. Maybe it's having an effect on certain lands - driving the people slowly mad (and that's why we love our alcohol to escape the true horror).

I'd say the game itself, given the fact that it's folk-horror, would be part investigation by trying to figure out what is behind each story (and survive of course!). Basically the average Joe in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or if you wanted to beef it up a bit, you could use some kind of organization to 'hunt' the creatures and their cultists/witches/Druids (something like Solomon Kane).

Rules wise I'd say some kind of OSR (but a low fantasy variant to keep the characters vulnerable).

Egyptian Apocalypse, set in the time of the pharaohs, the building of the pyramids.

in it, all the Egyptian mythos are true, the gods are real, and the undead are looking to reclaim their souls.

That isn't easy to answer, horror games have covered most of the obvious ones, Dark Ages, Middle Ages, Renaissance, Rome, Old West, Victorian Era, WW1, 1920-30s, WW2, 1950s, the modern era (from at least the 1980s), space...


 Nothing comes immediately to mind for the 1960s, maybe a weird cold war kind of thing recruiting / defending against dark secrets. It could also involve hunting down evil set loose intentionally or unintentionally during WW2.

The Spanish and Chinese Civil Wars seem to be open and offer much opportunity.

Quote from: NYTFLYR;1048505Egyptian Apocalypse, set in the time of the pharaohs, the building of the pyramids.

in it, all the Egyptian mythos are true, the gods are real, and the undead are looking to reclaim their souls.

Isn't Zenobia Aegypt set in roughly the same time period? I'm seriously not sure, and I admit I haven't read it in a while;).

The Baltics around 1900.

It's the "non published" thing that is a killer for me. I'd be most interested in something from 1650 (Pirates) or 1880 (Wild West) or 1920 (Gangsters) or any time up through the 1980's or so. Any of those time periods have some mix of technology (flintlocks or better) without those pesky cell phones.

I don't actually know if these have been done before, but I have two settings in mind: both involve Lovecraftian horror, but one is in a kind of Bronze Age setting, while the other is a wild west thing (doing a playtest game next Tuesday). Both would be using Dungeons & Delvers: Black Book.

As cheesy as I thought it was going to be, I actually enjoyed "Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter". In it, vampires were actually behind the Southern rebellion, as they fed on the large slave population. I could see a human vs vampire game set during or just before the civil war.

Quote from: finarvyn;1048555It's the "non published" thing that is a killer for me. I'd be most interested in something from 1650 (Pirates) or 1880 (Wild West) or 1920 (Gangsters) or any time up through the 1980's or so. Any of those time periods have some mix of technology (flintlocks or better) without those pesky cell phones.

Settings like these also have the advantage of being iconic in themselves, which can serve to make the added horror element all the more unnerving.

Existential Atompunk horror set in the Cold War, in a Crap Saccharine world where we have solved every problem imaginable, except how to deal with one another.

System: Just a bunch of recursive Menzteresque reaction tables.

The 1990s, but in a retro kind of way. Basically the old Delta Green, but through a historical perspective as opposed to it being the 'now' setting of its time.

I'd love to see it set in the modern day as a spin-off of the X-Files.

Something Colin Dunn brought up with 2300AD, the Pentapods do a really good job of being protagonists of a body horror based Lovecraftian campaign. Something similar to that might be worth exploring, especially since transhumanism really does move human existence into some Lovecraftian alien mindset territory.