The Ocean Is Calling Us Edition Tell us about your horror settings, games, etc. Share inspirational art, prompts, etc.>List of games:Call of Cthulhu, Chill, Cold and Dark, Degenesis, Delta Green, Don't Rest Your Head, Dread, Esoterrorists/Fear Itself+Book of Unremitting Horror, Fall of Delta Green, GORE, Into The Shadows, KULT, Little Fears, Mothership RPG, Nemesis (free on Arc Dream's website), Nights Black Agents, Silent Legions (Mostly for the tables), Stalker: The SciFi RPG, Symbaroum, Ten Candles, Trail of Cthulhu, Unisystem (All Flesh Must Be Eaten, Witchcraft, Conspiracy X, etc.), Unknown Armies, The Whispering Vault, Vaesen>Inspirational stuff:Caitlin R Kiernan, Castlevania, Carnacki the Ghost-Finder, Doom Watch, Fear & Hunger, George Romero, Ghostwatch, House of Leaves, I Am In Eskew, John Carpenter, Kolchak the Nightstalker, Laird Barron, John Langan, M.R. James, Nick Cutter, Old Gods of Appalachia, Quatermass, Ramsey Campbell, Remedy Series (Alan Wake, Control), SCP Foundation, Scarfolk Council, Shaun Hutson, Silent Hill, Stand Still Stay Silent, The Evil Dead, The Magnus Archives, The Secret World, The Stone Tapes, Anatomy, Thomas Ligotti, Twin Peaks, Vault of Evil forums, toomuchhorrorfictionOther News:Cthulhu by Gaslight Investigators Guide to be released in Decemberhttps://www.chaosium.com/blogreleasing-in-december-cthulhu-by-gaslight-investigators-guide/Current Book Club Topic:The Horror at Martin's Beachhttps://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/hmb.aspxQuestions for the thread:>What sort of ocean horrors do you use?>How do you create a fitting tone for ocean-based horror?>Have you ever used fishing villages as locations before?Questions for Horrorverse refugees:>What do you think of Innsmouth?>Are Deep Ones effective monsters?Previous thread: >>93847331Please try to keep arguing to a minimum. Don't respond to bait/drama posts.And as usual, try and keep it alive, or at least undead
Book Club starter questions:>What works?>What's cool about it?>Why is it so effective?>What is the best part of it in your opinion?>Thoughts on the characters?>Is the villain effective?>If you had to pick a moment that really scared you, which would it be?>Is there anything you feel could have been expanded upon?>What would you change?>Would you use it as inspiration for a game?Fuck, forgot to change the book club topic AAAAAAAAAAAA
>>93922381>What sort of ocean horrors do you use?I like the idea of seaside raiders. Things that come out of the water, kidnap people, and return to the depths. Bonus points if they have some way to obscure their presence, like a strong mist proceeding them. >How do you create a fitting tone for ocean-based horror?The key to good ocean horror is making the players feel they could be attacked from anywhere. It’s like an airborne threat. It has a ton of movement and positioning opportunities and, what’s worse, you can’t see it very clearly until it’s closer to the surface. >Have you ever used fishing villages as locations before?Not as of yet. The problem with Innsmouth existing and being so famous is that once you start using its tropes, people immediately think of Innsmouth and know to be wary.
>>93923499what other kinds of settings could you do an undersea kidnappers thing?>beach resort townfeels a little too "jaws" imo>arctic coastal research stationi think this could be good, you could do the "trapped under centuries of ice" thing as a red herring and then it turns out the problem was fishmen all along>private islandplayers are sent to investigate disappearance of beffery bepstein, turns out he got eaten by the horror from martin's beach>san francisco homeless people are disappearing, a major break in the case comes when a fishman is found on ocean beach who apparently ate the wrong hobo and died of a fent overdose. final scene set at alcatraz
>>93925395A massive undersea dome city could be a great idea if done well. It was not made by human hands.
Sorry if this is moe of a /lit/ question but which stories are best for King in Yellow stuff, I've read Chambers and Dream Quest.
So what was the score with Degenesis now it's dead? The mutantwizards were trying to build a superpower nexus each, the time mutants succeeded, the anubians were afrosupremacists turning/regressing into gigawizards, an advertising executive from the old world was trying to turn his brainwashing machine back on to take command of the entire species. And everything but europe and north africa was gone.Is that it?
>>93927160Impossible Landscapes is a TTRPG campaign, but it's easily some of the best King in Ywllow stuff around.
>>93927160 https://books.google.com/books?id=Sxhiog7Y8EAC&pg=PA54&lpg=PA54&dq=the+river+of+night%27s+dreaming+wagner&source=bl&ots=wxkyP0Lh4M&sig=-wIYj3lL0wcdZMXnVJjhJFpAwhM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ilxDUZL6D_XG4APGiIHACQ&ved=0CDwQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=the%20river%20of%20night's%20dreaming%20wagner&f=falseTry this. The River of Nights Dreaming by Wagner is a pretty good KiY tale You can also scroll further down and read More Light by Blish which is an attempt to Actually write out the entire play which I feel sort of eh on but some like it.
please give me advice to running AFMBEany system-specific tips or known pot holes to avoid would be greatcurrently own the revised core book and the atlas of the dead, so I'm also interested in any other must-haves and favorite books too, please
>>93927806I think that just about sums it up, yeah.
>>93922381Talking about the ocean, do we have any idea about when The Ocean Game is getting out?
>>93933694Found answer to my own question, I assume this is the better answer we'll get until next year
>>93933759Why are they like this.
>>93929638If you're going to do a lot of combat, consider making parry rolls into flat penalties to hit (speeds play). Remember that guns are very, very dangerous to humans. 30 LP are all the average person can take before being incapacitated. Charging down a hallway at someone holding a 9mm will result in two to four hits of d6*4*2, i.e. about fifty total damage. Worse if the gunman is able to take advantage of hit locations. Get good at assigning penalties on the fly. Run zombies as dumb as you can unless you improve their intelligence. It's too easy for a GM to take away the players' main chance at survival by accident. The best fan community for AFMBE is on Facebook. Lots of good files there. >Must havesOne of the Living. The sci fi, martial art and pirate splats are all good but situational. The norm generator, zombie town cut ups and Texas zombie free adventures are all good (free files from FB)Any specific questions?
Hopefully I'm gonna be able to gather a group together for some spooky gaming hopefully for delta green for Halloween. If not I will cry
>>93938084Good luck, anon. God speed.>>93925395>beffery bepsteinPlease make the twist that Bepstein did kill himself.
>>93929638Oi bumboy, what deadworld you running?
Apparently this is getting a second edition.
>>93941171FUCK YES
>>93941171That's the one where the players are monsters under the bed, right?Was it any good?
>>93933694Can someone explain to be what's the hype around it?
>>93922381>inspirationalany good gothic horror comics to recommend? western, no manga.
Anybody need an extra player for coc/pulp? Available after 3-4 pm GMT-7
>What do you think of Innsmouth?>Are Deep Ones effective monsters?I feel like CoC is in this weird loop where everyone willing to play knows the gist of the stories and has to play along with the setting. EG, my GM ran The Lightless Beacon and we all had to act like we didn't all know the fishpeople were from Innsmouth. If you really wanted to scare people with cosmic horror and fear of the unknown, you'd have to file the serial numbers off and feature monsters/deities that aren't such an entrenched part of nerd culture.
>>93947144You can play on the assumptions, the deep ones are very smart and while innsmouth is where some were found it’s not the only small coastal town in the world. They possess science that makes the 21st century look like the Bronze Age and can easily go from highly intelligent threats to brutes of insane strength at the drop of a hat.
Played my first game of Delta Green last night. Did Last Thing Last. I had listen to a podcast playing it so I was acting as an assistant to the Keeper and the sacrifice to show how the monster works. I fumbled the san for seeing the monster and started shooting. She knocked me unconscious but the party was able to win. Our firefighter was mvp in the combat. Being able to light the monster on fire with the gas and getting lucky fighting back with his axe. Overall, a lot of fun and we are planning to continue with our characters. One question, is there any way to gain unnatural besides gaining it by going temporary insane seeing the unnatural and doing the study the unnatural between missions activity?
>>93944860The Sixth Gun by Cullen Bunn
>>93948137I really need to finally play Delta Green. I've had the book forever, but always gravitate to CoC.
>>93948137some official missions I think have you gain some during your investigationsbut I may be wrongUnnatural shouldn't be a skill players have more than 15-20% as the 90's era Alphonse has like 28%
>>93949409I agree with you but I wanted to make sure I was correct in how players gain unnatural. Keeper was just using the quick start guide and Roll20's module while I have everything and was looking through the Agent's Handbook to help him on things not mentioned in the guide.
>>93947144It’s the recurring example that no one uses Cthulhu in Call of Cthulhu because he’s the only Mythos entity that’s widely known in pop culture. I’ve been running CoC for 10 years and I’ve used Shub-Niggurath, Gla’aki, Bokrug, Ithaqua and Nyarlathotep, but never Cthulhu.
Is there a good source of CoC pregen characters?Running Amidst the Ancient trees as a one shot and the default characters from I-forgot-where don't fit that well
>>93953104Dhole's House has a database full of characters made by the community
>>93925395>>san francisco >homeless people are disappearing, a major break in the case comes when a fishman is found on ocean beach who apparently ate the wrong hobo and died of a fent overdose. final scene set at alcatraz>homeless people are disappearing>someone is willing to investigate disappearances of homeless people in SFAnon, you need to keep it at least somewhat realistic/grounded, or the horror element will not work.>ate the wrong hobo and died of a fent overdosealso kek
>>93954155Make the overdosed fishman the inciting event, it works as a good intro especially for Delta green.
>>93954216>Be Delta green cell>SF police department report flagged because of inhuman entity overdosing on fent>After agency scrubbed evidence of inhuman entities, cell is dispatched>Infiltrate local DEA branch and try to leverage their resource to uncover truth>Players wrongly assumed that fent is main clue, completely ignoring the missing homeless cases>Fishmans + drug... that looks like drug smuggling submarine issue>Join raid on local MS-13 hideout, since DEA is pointing that way>After raid, find out lot proofs about CIA's clandestine operation to use drug trafficking as funding for their black ops>This surely must be influence of some eldritch monster corrupting government officials>Cell is promptly disbanded and surviving members are sent to Guantanamo Bay>Fishmen keep snacking on fent spiked homelessI can already see this as one of my party's game.>t. Verification not required.
Best Chtulhu urban horror game coming thru
Planning out a campaign using either CoC or BRP for an occult (less Lovecraft, more witchcraft) 1920's setting. Could anyone give pointers as to how to handle spells? I want them to be...1) Discoverable by the players by experimenting with specific occult knowladge they get (I'd have separate skills for different magics)2) Not a replacement for mundane weapons, but something that could only be used ocasionally and in "oh shit" moments3) Some to be impactful for confrontations with human foes (eg making someone's blood boil) and some more utilitarian (summoning weather, commanding animals, infusing water)Any existing settings or rulesets that I could borrow something like this from?
>>93954967Honestly sounds like Call of Cthulhu's spells will work fine. If you get the Grand Grimoir they have an entire category of occult spells which aren't from the Mythos but other mythologies.
>>93954967>Not a replacement for mundane weaponsOne way would be to require some kind of sigil drawing, prolonged chanting, etc. Too time consuming for a fight, but perfect if you're locked up somewhere, or hidden, or the target is unaware.
>>93925395>san francisco>homeless people are disappearingA Cell wants you to get down there and make whatever's happening speed up.
I need your help.I signed up for two meme month things, one in an open table and one on a relatively big discord. I was hyped for a horror one shot but now that I have to decide I'm not sure what the fuck I want, so I need ideas and options,Atfirst I was all in with Luka Rejec's Let Us In but when the online option poped up I felt it was better there, more experienced players and I don't have to color print the illustrations. I was thinking of doing Monster of the Week, but I'm not feeling action horror at all. Maybe Delta Green? I using the open table to try new systems so I'm skipping Mothership and OSR-like stuff.I'm open to sugestions of anything weird and interesting but it has to be something I can fully explain in 20 mins (or as we play)
Can I run Call of Cthulu’s The Haunting for one on one play? Will I need to adjust the module at all?
>>93957978Yeah I've done it before and it works. Just be a little lenient on your player with the flying knife. In my case, when he got stabbed, I had him go unconscious by the shock and wake up strapped to an altar in Corbitt's room with Corbitt set to sacrifice him.He then proceeded to grab defeat from the jaws of victory and I still give him shit over it to this day.
I'm gearing up to GM a small Mothership campaign. This is my very first horror game of any type as player or GM. I was looking for some recommendations for books, articles, and videos with good advice on running horror games.
>>93942596It's the big Esoterrorist/Fear Itself expansion that's been teased for years. You can read the playtest copy unless they forgot to add it to the trove.
>>93942596It's the definitive Esoterrorists/Fear Itself camapign and setting framework that's been teased for a little over a decade.
>>93949571Yup it’s mainly through experiencing unnatural events, though the odd book and artifact can give you a tiny bit. I play unnatural skill as a bit of a dearly earned trump card and rarely have my Agents roll against it - it’s more like “you saw this symbol carved into a knife the cult that kidnapped you had, you remember them talking about…” type thing.
>>93959804Adventures in Lollygaging has a pretty decent Gradient Descent campaign if you want to hear an actual play.I think it'll work well if you take some time to discuss what the classes mean in this setting. Like how androids are viewed, that space marines mainly kill other space marines, the types of jobs a teamster would take and so on. Ask them questions about their trinkets, who gave it to them, why do they keep it, what it means for them. I also like asking them what their rooms in their ship look like or if they have a base somewhere. Give them a solid hour of being normal people before anything weird happens, make them workshop their characters so they really hate losing them.
>>93954689why do they need a trail to him if he's just sitting right there
After enough trial and error I think I got how to make a 3d map for my delta green game. I still have to make the second floor but I'm happy with it for a first attempt at making a map. Any more I make will be less painful unless I make them bigger.Lot of things I could improve on but I just want this project done so I can use it.
>>93947144it's sad when the horror of Lovecraftian creatures departs because the mystery is revealed and everyone's memorized the stories and stat blocks. A partial solution is to just add power armor.
Went to an horror convention and got Chill 3rd Edition for 25$ CAD. The guy told me it was made to be like a Supernatural type of game where you can make a Monster of the week type of scenario?How true is that? Character creation does seem pretty weird, but I could always run pre constructed stuff at first.
>>93974110Never heard of it, but sounds interesting. What is the system like?
>>93954322>It turns out the feds are selling fent to ultimately wipe out monsters by using hobos as bait
>>93974870It's a % style, where if your result is over the minimum, you fail. So if a test is set at 70, if you roll over 70 on your % roll, you fail, if you get really low, like 30, you get a high success. 30-70 would be a low success.Like they said, people are humans, some are gifted with some powers, but they are just humans who know the Unknown exist because they had experiences with a Werewolf or a Ghost or a Old Lady who kidnap kids to mind control them. Players are from SAVE, which is an agency who send Envoys to take care of Unknown stuff, think Xfiles, Supernatural or SCP. Didnt play it yet, but it seem great for one shots once in a while, especially with the fact that Players dont create their sheets for most games. The DM(or CM, Chill Master) give them sheets based on what they want as Backstore or goals. The Book comes with like 20 Pregen characters if you want to just go straight in the game.
>>93971906This looks like a map for a Neverwinter Nights porn module. Good job, anon.
>>93975408As I said first attempt and it nearly fried my computer. I need to find a less ugly way of doing the lighting to make it look less... Cheap porn gamey
Autumn has started. What are you guys reading now that horror is particularly in season?
>>93975486It was an honest compliment. I have fond memories of NWN porn modules. I should reinstall it.
>>93975744I’m finishing up my copy of Horror in the Museum and Other Revisions, and then I’m going to be reading Ringu for October.
https://www.uncannymagazine.com/article/where-oaken-hearts-do-gather/I don't know if it's book club material but this was an interesting read. Its told as if you're reading a long forum thread, and the idea of uncovering the meaning of a song and what's really in there is quite interesting. I can see some ideas being pried from it
>>93975796Lmao I'm sorry I'm very used to being insulted when I post anything I work on on 4chan. Thank you though. I just hope my players enjoy it
>>93979601No problem. Trust me, it's a lot more effort than a lot of GMs go through. I think they'll appreciate it.
>>93967391it's a typo, it's about taking him to a trial. Ace Attorney style.
Have you tried Into the Odd for a horror adventure? Did it work out? Did you use some existing material?
>>93981395I don't generally use those types of systems for horror games sadly.
>>93982125I wanted to both do a horror game and try out ito, but it's okay, I'll just use liminal horror.
I NEED Call of Cthulhu scenarios taking place in Colonial America.
>>93987591VVitch...more like BITCH haha am I right?I hope Nosferatu is good
>>93987691It looks great, and The Lighthouse was fantastic.Eggers so far is the only director to come out of A24 that I like.
>had a dream i was inside a call of cthulhu game>was a detective characters who had gotten cursed by Tsathoggua>was in an escape sequence running away from formless spawn>was constantly shouting and refusing to do sain toad's bidding and that i wasnt evil or something like that>and then a booming deep voice sounds in my head and says "but you too want to see the world burn">wake upWhat did my brain mean by this
>>93987761It does look great and I think The Northman might be the most masculine movie ever made. I loved the lighthouse as well. Eggers is the only director currently alive whose movies I genuinely enjoy and look forward to.
>>93975341That sounds like just a shittier Delta Green.
>>93989020It sounds like a less horribly depressing Delta Green, anon, which is fine. Not everyone wants their horror game to be a misery simulator.
>>93989123This.
Looking for some music help.I'm starting a Horror on the Orient Express game, and I like having music in my games. Normally just ambience stuff, nothing serious, but I do like giving specific villains or characters their own themes.I've got one for most everyone, but I'm struggling with one for when the Skinless One manifests at the end. I'm trying to get something grand and intimidating, while not sounding like a boss fight music.Right now I'm between using:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BihcP_GduOkorhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8lI9LSyyiEBut neither is quite hitting what I'm looking for. So any advice?tl;dr What are some good theme music to use for an Outer God showing up?
Any drawfags here that have done stuff for their games? Recently did this for our group's icon>>93996123Cryo Chamber has a lot of good dark ambient stuff, they have a series of mythos inspired tracks so you could probably check those out. I dont know much about ambient so i cant really think of other stuff rn
They Feed on Fear 2e is available as of today.https://www.exaltedfuneral.com/products/they-feed-on-fear
>>93997034Yippee!
>>93996207I've drawn some stuff, but mostly for personal use.
Been wanting to make my own take on a CoC tarot deck, i know there are some already but i'd love to make a custom one. Only planning to do the major arcana for now, any suggestions for what deities/creatures to assign?
Mi-Go UFOs Delta Green > Russian Child Molesters Delta Green
Did cowboys have it easy at monster killing?>Find incomprehensible horror>Shoot it with an elephant gun>Chuck few sticks of dynamite at it>Yeehaw, we got it boys! I've got a new critter bodypart to hang on m' wall!>Zero questions from "law"
>>94004843Man i really need to try Down Darker Trails someday
>>94004843They did, at least comparatively.
>>93997034>>93997224The players are monsters that spook people? How does it work? Are they like a team of spookers that work together? PVP never works out in my experience.
>>94004843>can always ask friendly injuns for help with monster hunting loreYeah cowboys are easy mode
Didn't read the thread(s) yet, but I've been interested in running spooky games for a while now. Every time I've actually tried, I learned I was trying too hard and it ended up flopping.However, in a scifi game I run, I had my wife as my playtester for the intro, and I nailed it when I wasn't even trying. She played as a general engineer in a team sent to an ice moon which had a research facility on it that went dark. Turns out the eggheads discovered some ancient aliens ruins containing nanotech reminiscent of ferrofluid that was capable of overriding control of both technology and flesh alike. However, it's platforms needed biofuel, so then I have cyber vampires in the walls, hunting the players. They're immune to the cold weather on the moon, while the players drop down and find out a deathblizzard follows them that traps them there until it passes.The monsters are in the walls.When the armed security guy got pulled into the ceiling kicking and screaming, that's when my players learned shit was gnarly. He later showed up animated by the hivemind nanotech, trying to stop them from leaving the moon after the storm passed. Unknown to them, the nanotech was already onboard.My wife got particularly emotional over how a second NPC blew her brains out after speaking in tongues when she got infected. Thankfully, she was an AI controlling a remote platform and knew to sever the connection then and there, but the missus thought she was a real living person the entire time.Fun game, never tried to make it scary, but it fucked with my wife enough that now she shivers at the very concept of grey goo and ferrofluid.
>>93949341Just have a crack at the initial scenario from the starter kit called "Last Things Last". I found it really enjoyable to run as a keeper/handler and it's a nice intro for new players. Pretty sure you can get it free. Actually, here you go.
always wanted to run a game where the players are technicians sent to a undersea lab to find that it's koral food suppy was tainted by a unknown eldritch creature,making the crew fucked up zombies. What systems sounds best for this?
>>93997034What are the differences between the two editions?
>>94008723Ask in the PDF Share thread this upcoming week, chances are someone will own it by then.
>>93922381what are the best gothic horror scenarios/adventures/modules you guys know? regardless of system and setting Just the awesome plot.
>>94004843>>Find incomprehensible horror>>Shoot it with an elephant gun>>Chuck few sticks of dynamite at itassuming they don't freeze or flee or attack with no focus or go insaneassuming they are in an era where the guns are very deadly, as early firearms would have trouble with some big bears etc as in you needed more shots to take one down. Of course with elephant guns its easier, if you can handle the firearm.assuming they are well equipped and know how to use explosives tactically assuming the monsters will not shrug off certain bullets due to overpenetration or other characteristics of the gun or the monster
>>94008444Players are the titular "Fear Eaters", eldritch creatures who harvest the fear and terror of people. You design your Fear Eater, then you come up with a motive for why said Fear Eater is devouring Fear or 'essence' - whether that be to simply feed then go into hibernation, devour certain powerful children or individuals, acquire essence to mutate into a more dangerous entity, or gain enough power to transcend into something worse. Each Fear Eater has their own motivations and are trying to acquire the same resource. This relationship isn't necessarily a rivalry since it's expected they'll help each other to feast on the town whilst the town fights against them, but a Fear Eater 'wins' by attaining their respective goal first.The game both encourages working together (because the Prey and NPC's can and will work together to fuck you over and it's incredibly easy to potentially lose everything and die) and trying to get ahead as soon as possible since a Fear Eater wins by acquiring the most Essence to attain their endgoal. But there's no real 'PVP' since you're all ultimately working for the same general cause.
>>94008650Probably Mothership or Alien if you want a dedicated horror system.
>>94010000I'm talking cowboys, not greenhorns like you
>its been over a week>No forced bump limit What the fuck, did they secretly undo that shitty rule when I wasn't looking?Did they finally get a fucking clue?Hell yeah
>>94012776Don't jinx it.
>>94010416Thanks. That sounds fun, but I'm not sure about the one clear winner part. Intraparty competitive aspects can ruin a group. I'll check it out at least.
>>93987591I just need horror content to put in my Colonial campaign to. but my game is D&D cause its easy to teach and I'm playing with teenagers.>>94008483getting horror right always feels good.
I've been asked to run a spooky one shot for October, and we've lit upon a classic zombie survival type deal. I feel pretty confident about that. The twist is that one player in particular has asked for it to be "not too gruesome" and I'd like to honour their request. Having spoken to them, I think we're definitely heading towards "Tim Burton" over "John Carpenter". Do you guys have any tips for keeping things PG13 and keeping players from getting too graphic in a tactful way? Yes, "talk to them" but anything more concrete?
>>94018046That can be tricky. Once you have zombies (standard, or runners) as individuals, players are keen to take them out or explore areas that were overwhelmed by zombie hordes. Both of those actions will definitely lead to some gore.On other hand, if you present zombies as singular horde, instead of individuals, that is either pursuing, or blocking player party from progressing further, and you rise that contact with horde is basically death sentence, you could focus campaign more into survival and planning aspect (like finding optimal way how to escape from city, where most of the population is infected). Basically, instead of coaching players to NOT make it a gore show, you try to coerce them to either completely outmaneuver the zombies, or destruction of horde should be so severe, that players are just distant observers.
anyone know what became of that one horror rpg where it's kids in evil disneyland? From what I heard it wasn't good, ruleswise. I just need its name.
>>94018046Have the zombies stop at a single bite. They don’t eat the bodies after that, they’re just looking to infect.
>>94020488Are you thinking of this one? Its ruleset is PbtA which is pretty bad, yeah.
>>94018046I mean, the gruesomeness is all in the descriptions, right? You don't have to do anything different other than replace "the zombie's skull splits like a ripe melon, splattering the wall with thick black brainsoup" with "you whack it in the head, and it falls down motionless."
>>94024273That's sensible. I suppose what I'm worried about is that if I keep things Disney it might cause the players to succeed by escalation as it were. The murder hobo problem.
>>94022760I like the aesthetic and lore behind it at least.
I'm contemplating changing the ending to a campaign, but wanted some feedback. Would it feel cheap to have the villain succeed in their goals, only to reveal it was never going to work out in the first place?The villainous cult is trying to summon an avatar of Nyarlathotep. What's supposed to happen is they succeed in the summoning, but the players can disrupt the process to get the god angry at the cult leader, killing him and leaving without ending the world. The problem is that the chapter beforehand is already a much better, imo, climactic showdown with the cult leader. He literally comes back to life to complete the ritual at the end, and the final battle would basically be the six PCs trying to hold him down while figuring out the admittedly obscure way to ruin the summoning.My idea instead was to have the Avatar get summoned, look up at the sky and go "You're thousands of years too early," and ferry the cult leader off to the Court of Azathoth for wasting his time, while telling the PCs to spread word because he "wants his followers to get it right next time."I thought it would be a wonderful piece of cosmic horror to reveal even the evil cult doesn't fully understand what they're messing with, and they truly understand only a fraction of the cosmic truth. But on the other hand, I could see players feeling cheapened out by having an NPC effectively beat the big bad, and reveal that the villain was never going to succeed.What do you guys think? Any way I could rework it for better results?Yes, this is Horror on the Orient Express... I should really share how the first session went sometime.
>>94027680Just remove the "you're too early" thing and you're golden, leaves an air of mystery and doubt and leaves room for a followup campaign if your players are up to it. Part of the appeal of Lovecraftian horror is the doubt and inhability to understand what's happening, so leaving the players with questions would work best. If you want to make things more impactful:>As soon as the avatar is done with the cult, they look back at the group, but instead of killing them, they say something in an unknown language, yet something they can clearly understand, as if their soul had understood the message>"Not yet">The avatar leaves
>>94027738That is a good idea, though I wanted Nyarlathotep to taunt them with his classic "Pray you never meet me in my thousand other forms" line before leaving. I can probably work that in. Since you can really never figure out it's Nyarlathotep otherwise.
>>94030462Meh
any good starting adventures to use for CoC after the haunting?
>>94009974>>93944860>>93922381why is are these thread like a mausoleum or an empty supermarket when horro rpgs are so fucking amazing? There are threads on all sort of bullshit non-stop but here its like a fucking mummy with nothing but an arm left to pull it along the stone floor.what is this dullness?
>>94033908We’ve discussed this a few times and there’s a couple of factors at play:1.) No meta discussion. DnD can live off of talks of builds. What’s the best spell? What’s the best class? What are some really strong combat tactics? Etc. You don’t get that in most horror games, because it’s impossible to optimize yourself into a place of power. No matter how well your skills are calculated, Cthulhu still eats 1d3 investigators per turn. 2.) The prevalence of one-shots in horror RPGs means you often don’t get really amazing character stories. Characters are easily killed and replaced, and most of what they’re doing isn’t exciting to talk about (let me tell the story of my lawyer spending 4 hours in a library).3.) People mostly play the same modules. So same stories would just get repeated4.) We may have to accept horror games aren’t especially popular on /tg/, just as a culture thing. I notice the World of Darkness threads move quickly on here, but CoC across the industry is more popular than WoD. Might just be a local culture thing.
>>94034764yeah you are right
>>94034764>3.) People mostly play the same modules. So same stories would just get repeatedwell, which are truly excellent?
>>94035146To be honest, the only module I’ve had a bad experience with was Skitter-Scratch, but considering even the creator admitted it was a last-minute convention rush job, I understand why. As for truly excellent, The Haunting has never failed to get people into Call of Cthulhu, in my experience. I’m also a huge fan of Dead Light just for how immediately it becomes a horror scenario. Feels like a movie or good Kolchak/X-Files episode.
>>94027680There's a French kids show, Wakfu, that does that. The bad guy absolutely wins, but he doesn't get what he wants. Good show, too. If you do it right, like what that other anon mentioned, it can be a good reveal. Just keep it in the horror theme and keep it uncertain if the players doing what they did actually contributed or not.
>>94035507Yeah I’m familiar with that ending and it’s sort of the vibe I’m going for. I just don’t want my players to feel cheated but, again, I feel the chapter beforehand has a much better final battle with the cult leader.
>>94027680I think this is actually pretty good, wasn't the player's goal to stop shit from happening? If they find out nothing would happen anyway, they should feel relieved.Lot's of things must've happened along the way and it was all for nothing, but if they haven't done a single thing or given up at some point, it might've been much worse for the characters. Living with guilt, regret and paranoia.Now all they'll have to deal with is this weird mix of relief and bitterness. They didn't have to suffer, but how would they know?I like when things turns out like this, they were the protagonists of their own story but not destined heroes. They're alive, that's a good enough ending.
>>94033908To add to what the other anons said, there isn't enough outrage bait, which is what drives culture on this board. You can see that because the only time these generals hit autosage fast is when Detwilerfag shows up.
>>94033908Horror is hard. /hsg/ is basically unholy amalgamation of>story/world building general, but horror>horror themed system/board game general, but no one really needs to talk about it that much outside of system XYZ good/bad, try/ignore module ABC>plot/story device tester, but horror>occasional shitpostingAnd with pretty low post cadence, discussions tends to fizzle out. Gods bless anons, who keep remaking this general, because once in blue moon, you can find some interesting exchange here. Maybe next one should be focused more on experiences and less on story devices?>>94034764>4.) We may have to accept horror games aren’t especially popular on /tg/, just as a culture thing. I notice the World of Darkness threads move quickly on here, but CoC across the industry is more popular than WoD. Might just be a local culture thing.Maybe it's because CoC players are actually playing their games, while WoDers are here for outrage bait as >>94037604 mentioned?
>>94038015>Maybe it's because CoC players are actually playing their games, while WoDers are here for outrage bait Honestly you may have a point. Whenever I check in there, I see people bitching about mages being too powerful, certain clans being too powerful, optimal builds, etc.I feel like we should be able to claim Hunter from /wod/, but I do NOT want the rest of that thread.
Alright, gonna do a write-up of my first Horror on the Orient Express session. Might keep it up as we go through the campaign to help liven up discussion around here:>Professor Julius Smith, a languages professor who has now taken to studying (and debunking) the supernatural, has invited a group of his closest friends to attend the Challenger Lecture, a kind of 1920s TED Talk, in London.>Those friends are:>Abraham Greenwood, an occultist charlatan who has nonetheless made some amazing discoveries of possibly real supernatural phenomenon. (Character previously completed The Haunting, Blackwater Creek and Edge of Darkness)>Digby Winthrop Reginald Gates, a recently graduated college student dilettante. Previously kind of a snooty asshole, Digby had his life turned around by an encounter with things beyond his understanding, and now uses his family's wealth to fund discoveries of the unknown. (Character previously completed Blackwater Creek)>Dr. Daniel Murry, an esteemed medical professional who, unknown to the wider public, makes a pretty penny by offering his services to mobsters. (Character previously completed Edge of Darkness and a custom investigation called The Ice God Cometh)>Joseph Grumann, a pulp magazine writer specializing in historical horror who has recently become unemployed and is seeking to break out into serious literature. (New character)>Jacques, a French explorer who has delved into many ancient tombs and jungles in search of fame and profit. (New character)>And finally Marion Knaggs, a funeral home director who previously assisted Dr. Smith in debunking a so-called spiritualist
>>94040760>The session began with the party attending an exhibition at the British Museum a few days before the lecture.>While some previously knew each other, the majority were strangers and, in fact, had arrived in London separately. However, Professor Smith quickly found his friends and introduced them to one another, leading them to agree to explore London together on their off-days before and after the lecture.>At the lecture itself, the group hears Professor Smith's theory that hauntings are in fact people or objects that have been displaced from conventional reality and are briefly interacting with the standard material plane. Reactions vary, ranging from disbelief from Marion to optimism over a potential discovery from Dr. Murry to thinking Smith didn't go far enough from Greenwood.>During the reception afterwards, the party (with the exception of Jacques) notice a mysterious Middle Eastern man looking intensely at them and Smith before disappearing into the crowd, unnerving them.>Matters take a turn for the worst when, a few days later (and after Greenwood decided to adopt a Turkish child from a local orphanage) news came that Smith's house had burned to the ground, with his butler Beddows wanted for questioning.>Also of note in the newspaper was a report of a triple murder of the same man. A local antique store owner, Memhet Makryat, was apparently killed in three different places, with three bodies all bearing his appearance and passport.>The group decided to go to Smith's house, discovering broken bottles in the rubble leading them to think it had been fire bombed.>In addition, they intercepted a postman who was attempting to deliver a package to Smith's house, agreeing to take the parcel, which had an old journal within detailing a previous encounter Smith had with some cult.
>>94040866>Attempts to question Smith's neighbors turned up no new information. The group returned to their hotel only to have a cab driver deliver a message to them, apparently from Smith, asking them to meet him at a home in a rundown part of town later that night>The party went to the meeting not knowing what to expect, only to encounter Beddows at the door with bandage hands. He bade them to enter and took them to a back room, where the party was sickened to find a horrifically burned up Smith>Smith told the party he was attacked by madmen seeking the Sedefkar Simulacrum, an occult object of horrendous power that Smith had been intending to seek out and destroy. The Simulacrum, he detailed, had been broken into multiple pieces and scattered across Europe... conveniently on stops of the Orient Express>Smith told the party they must complete the task, and offered them funds for the expedition. However, Digby said he would pay for the investigation and told Smith to keep his money, much to Abraham's chagrin>The group left, assured of their mission. However, the next day, the morning newspaper detailed a report of an apparent case of spontaneous combustion by a model train collector who had, a few days prior, purchased a model train from Mr. Makryat, the triple-murdered man.>Believing it worthwhile to investigate this Makryat further (especially after Abraham glanced through that journal delivered to Smith's place and found mention of a Selim Makryat, the investigators decided to slightly delay their boarding of the Orient Express in order to look into the matterAnd that's where we left off, completing Chapter 1. Next session we'll be doing the optional Chapter 2: The Doom Train.
>>94040760>>94040866>>94040915Forgot to mention, Marion Knaggs is also a new character. Aaaaaaand just as I finished typing this up, the player for Jacques finally got back to me to remind me his character's last name is Nungesser.
>>94040915Do your players lurk here? I have questions about your game but I don't want to spoil them if they do.
>>93949341Find N@TO Discord
>>94003303Yeah, I heard God's Teeth took them into a wrong direction.
how unlikely would it be to use the BAR rather than the tommy gun in the 1920s?
>>94042500No they don’t. And if they do, they should recognize the campaign and shouldn’t read any further.
>>94043180 are you running it straight from the book? I always thought that the twist that Smith wasn't really Smith was kind of an unnecessary twist that didn't add anything. Also, you're running The Doom Train, are you going to try and include all the extras? It seems like a beast already.
>>94003303I think that >Compromised but well funded Program vs. Desperate Outlaws vs. Privatized remnants of MJ-12is a lot more interesting than the the really black and white and sometimes overly pulpy 90s stuff. But, I do think that they really haven't done much to play into that dynamic.
>>94043201I am including the twist that Smith isn't Smith. Mainly because I think the chapter where you have to figure out who Makryat is before the train reaches London again is one of the best parts of the campaign. That and the fight with Fenalik are the two chapters I'm most looking forward to. As to The Doom Train, I told my players up front that I was going to have all optional chapters included, but be missable. I told them they could leave for France, or look into the spontaneous combustion, and they chose the latter. While I admittedly thought about skipping The Doom Train, I wanted to give my players all the possibilities, but not necessarily force any of them. Except for Dreamlands Express, that is. Fucking love Dreamlands stuff.
>>93927160I need a yellow king omnibus where he's more prevalent than two verses in a short story alluding to him.
>>94037604how do they know its him?
>>93922381Not quite horror but definitely visceral and gothic. I've a whole thing of "night lands meets cozy mysteries" where the key idea is that hobbit-esque minor indulgence and good cheer is the best defence against the denizens of the dark. Every hearth is a great bonfire daring evil to snuff it out, every satisfied belch or peal of laughter a war cry against the forces of misery.Anyway, the ex-whalers live closer to the edge than most and are benign Deep Ones of a sort. As their forefathers flensed the last whale it sang a song which for the first time the humans heard: the devilfish had been culling horrors of the deep which yearned to make a drowned hell of benthic muck of the whole world. The whale cursed it's slayers with a dreadful mercy, arcane verses that'd let them fight in their slain guardians' stead.Rorqualoons and Blennish are two main branches of that people named for the twin boats which heard the Last Song. Both see landlubberly life as a prelude to the duty of Elderhood (a transformation inflicted within specialised surgical theatre drydock cathedrals) and war unto death against the devils of the deep. All economy is about securing the calories and reagents needed for the aged to swell to an Elder's cetacean proportions as well as industrial quantities of creature comforts. Whales fought the deep war beside their kin and were born of and for the waters, for all their zeal Elders fight out of guilt and for dimly remembered homes against creatures made from misery. A clipper's shipment of baccy (with hollow bowsprit to make a pipe of the whole ship) is as vital for restoring morale as keelhauling the Elder to rid them of parasites is.As I say it's not straight horror as the focus is still meant to be "who stole the scones?" but with the dread always lurking in the background. They're absurd little mysteries but then it's even more absurd that humanity's survival depends on that kind of benign myopia.
>>93947144>>93923499Ah, the eternal mythos paradox! tbf certain things are cliche for a reason and in any case you could always knock them off-balance by having a fishing village suffer from a non-marine threat (real or false scare) before moving in with the usual Innsmouth experience.I feel like aside from depth there's a lot you can do with the sheer scale of that wide open horizon. Where's the GPS? Why are the clouds whirling? What are those concentric waves about? Will anyone ever believe us?>>93925395Innsmouth via Baywatch, the "Look" is looking gooood. Notice how they don't swim without lathering on "sunscreen" though (saltwater erodes the glamour).Also drydocks (navy-related or otherwise), canals (disused after being supplanted by rail transport), subsea fibre optic shore maintenance facilities...>>93926275>humaboo Others read some utopian spiel and decided that just because it was beyond our meagre capabilities doesn't mean we shouldn't get to try! "Rapture" is welcoming in an unsettling way, how much so is down to the Other's inhumanity, their mistreating of human fiction or the actual insanity of the utopian which they took for sensible is up to the GMImagine EPCOT built by hyperevolved octopi who stumbled across blueprints and though they were neat. Who hasn't wanted a human ant farm? They're so cute when they scream!>>93954322Noice >>93974998Sounds too sensible, the fent is spice to Deep One biology. They're just making a quick buck and wiping out the underclass while they do it.
>>93922381My unfinished homebrew of UA adept school, Necroscopes - the adepts of the paradox of watching death for the entertainment. I still needs some ideas for spells that aren't about learning about causes of death and making others take stress checks, so I'm open for the suggestions.
>>94044792>the devilfish had been culling horrors of the deep which yearned to make a drowned hell of benthic muck of the whole world. This line goes hard as fuck.
>>94045068Cheers. I'm prone to purple prosecco but then so was Lovecraft so it's not so out of place.>>94044792Anyway, it'd be a balance between "things seem unsettling but things are alright", "horror is happening but in the background" and "shit's going down". All preferably with a social / mystery element. Here are some that come to mind:>The end of an Elder is a tragic thing, most who feel their minds or bodies failing opt for a final death-dive to die with their teeth sunk into the enemy and offering up their carcass for harvest respectively. This one did neither and instead through disorientation has beaches itself by the village again and again.>Tensions are flaring over what is to be done, dragging the Elder back to sea again and again is wearing thin while a mercy killing would be a dangerous challenge. Warped by mutation and dementia nobody's exactly sure which Elder it is and there are those who claim that lying there rotting as it wails and mutters dark omens isn't the sort of thing any whaler would do. It's a trick of the abyss, sent to sow discord by exploiting on the sympathy of soft hearts.>Resolving the schism in the community before bonds break down enough to allow an incursion of the Darkness is a quest in its own right but through delirium the Elder may also have clues to share relating to other mysteries. While a privilege Elderhood is first and foremost a duty, and one born of penance at that. A key theme is that all that's good stands in opposition to and under siege by the foul. Standing firm takes its toll.
>>94045088*prose...Man, fuck autocorrect!
>>94038856Not sure about that, it always came with all the string attached and my personal experience with WoD players can be broken down into:>Edge, just edge with all murderhobo knobs turn to eleven>Rule lawyers mostly bitching and moaning, little to no Ackchyually>Drama kidsThe last one ain't so bad, if you understand how to drive them in game, but all players, that I have ever respected tried WoD games, but in some point disengaged, while those, who I would consider to be bad players/gamemasters stuck to WoD like it was their own private source of vitae.>>94044792>They're absurd little mysteries but then it's even more absurd that humanity's survival depends on that kind of benign myopia.Don't know why, but what you have described sounds like something straight out of Mignola's Hellboy, all the devilish, eldritch monstrosities lurking just a moment/width of shade away, yet your story meanders between those dark spots. I like it.
>>94035441>fan of Dead Light just for how immediately it becomes a horror scenarioMore scenarios should do this.I don't want to do Season 1 Scully for ninety minutes at the start of every game.
>>94043123I think they over-corrected in trying to distance themselves from the X-Files comparisons. Dennis always seemed butthurt about it.
>>94043220They really need to use more of this for the books, its my favorite part of the new era.Still no Great Race book yet as well.
>>94047190Got a preview tho!
>>93981344>judaic exegesis as legal analysis except it's not of an ostensibly benevolent god>and/or reality is "on trial" with the sheer boredom of it all being what lulls Azathoth the judge, jury and executioner to sleep>Nyar is Satan, the devil's advocate for every position in existence simultaneously, may or may not be trying to keep things as "interesting" as they can be while keeping the big A asleep>the best humanity can hope for in this cosmic face is jury duty with minimal coercion necessary, summons are pidgin echoes of astral legal code which the summonees can't afford to ignore in case it's legit (or to build a relationship with potential witnesses/jurors in ways that can be brushed off as "and honest mistake" at a later date).>>93987591You'll like this, I'll definitely be using the Beast elsewhere.https://imgur.com/a/26bVA4x>>94008483Well done Anon, sounds ace! Managed to botch my own attempt at space horror but oh well. Knowing where I went wrong and not forcing it next time will hopefully help.
>>94032745If you want player driven investigation?Try Dead Man's Stomp or Crack'd and Crook'd ManseIf you want some 0 to 90 crazy Mythos bullshit play Dead Light If you want to throw crazy resident evil type puzzles and crazy shit look at Saturnine Chalice
>>94047190I agree. It bums me out because i feel like the new era has so much potential, but they really give you dick all as far as tools to run that kind of game. It also kind of sucks that the "campaign books" that they have are either hyper specific and conceptual (IL and Gods Teeth) or kind of vague and toolboxy like the labyrinth. I don't totally love what Chaosium is currently doing with CoC but they've done a good job of publishing shorter campaigns that give a new keeper an idea of what a reasonable campaign looks like in between the extremes of "just string a bunch of one shots together," and Masks or oriental express.And the amount of time they've spent just updating old scenarios is pretty shitty as well.
>>94046243Yeah, but the X-Files are over and DG is not. They were the best candidate we had to carry the legacy - or Conspiracy X.
>>94049010>If you want some 0 to 90 crazy Mythos bullshit play Dead Lightgonna check this one out, thankslooks like its a direct sequel to the haunting, which will be interesting
>>94049579conspiracyX is a better X files expy. DG tends to have a less curious worldview (sometimes ignorance is bliss) and is still enslaved by the Lovecraft mythos.
Ocean Game when
Gonna run a one shot for six people I barely know tomorrow. Bless me with dark incantations bros, I'm gonna need all the luck I can get.
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>>94059652
>>94059671
>>94059686
>>94059695
>>94054580>DG is still enslaved by the Lovecraft mythos.This is truth.How does The Laundry stack up here?
>>94059641What from?
>>94003303I like both desu.delta green was always a grab bag mix of anything you really wanted to link to the mythos. I personally put off God's teeth forever for no real reason but jumping into the book I like it almost as much as impossible landscapes, despite being nowhere near as deep and lengthy.
>>94060133Belong NowhereA depressing russian game still being made.
>>94060133Siberian Russia slice of life
>>94058372Good luck and dark tidings upon you. Are you doing a premade or your own adventure?
>>94060322Major rewrite of a premade I've run before. I'll try to come back with a report, if I live.
>>94052239>>94049010definitely gonna do deadlight nowreading through it and it seems perfect for my investigatorssince its really sanbox-y, when is a good time to reveal the deadlight?was thinking of having it appear at the cafe, and foreshadow its weakness to electricity when it is warded off by the electrical wiring
>>94061682When I ran it, I first had it appear as the party was making their way to the house in the woods. I had it kill an NPC and then initiated a chase a scene. Part way through, I had a lightning bolt his near the Dead Light, which caused it to retreat and foreshadowing its weakness. Since this is an overt horror scenario, I would hold back on having it show up in full. Maybe have an NPC go outside of the cafe to go to the bathroom and never return. The party could even see a sudden bright flash of light and when they go to check it out, all they find is a pile of ash. Or see what they think are car headlights shining through the trees, until they realize there is no road in the direction they’re looking.
>>94060133Belong Nowhere aka Life in ass-nowhere Russia simulator.
>>94060040The Laundry is doing its own thing, especially with the Cold Ones lore.
>>94059652>>94059686Can you beat these things? They're kinda big and your guy looks like a couch potato.
>>94060322It worked out, anon. Thanks for the depraved energies. Ran a modified version of Coffee Break of the Living Dead, in Mini Six. Was nerve wracking doing it for a big group, and overshot the time alloted by 30 mins, but we had a good time, one player got their girl, and nobody died (by the skin of their teeth). The big change was running it with non-gross zombies. Took inspiration from Control and went with floating psychic radio zombies. Might have to write them up!
>>94067175Yes, there's this modly, rotten piece of fruit you occasionally stumble upon that causes to either flee or violently disintegrate upon direct contact.
>>94067487Damn that's anticlimactic
>>94067521It's a pretty rare item. Most direct encounters with monsters (those you don't manage to outrun or hide from) end like pic rel
>>94067175As anon said, there are moldy rotten pieces of fruit (themselves immature/larval/parasitic demons) that cause the other demons immense discomfort and revulsion, making them either leave the area or disintegrate. Matvei (the protag) has also been teased to be getting weapons and the ability to fight back more directly.But in general, Matvei is not taking on the bigger monsters like those in pic. They rip him apart like cheap lettuce if he even gets close.
>>94067593>>94068399Thanks. Looking forward to the game being finished (hopefully). The art is really good.
>>94035441>Skitter-Scratch,The Haunting + Dead Lightyou mean this?https://www.chaosium.com/dead-light-and-other-dark-turns/where is the Haunting from? is it chaosium or other?Skitter-Scratchhttps://www.chaosium.com/scritch-scratch-pdf/any others, or did i miss any other on the thread via the "glasses are on my head but i am looking all around the house for them?"thanks fellas, we need a list of excellent and almost excellent scenarios list. Writing you own is great but sometimes its rejuvenating to use a good one a friend wrote, or a good writer.
>>94071055>Hauntingfound it, was right in front of me...
>>94059707What was her problem.
I backed Chainsaw, a Mork Borg system game. Kickstarter just finished, with 666% backed. Looking forward to hopefully running it next year for Halloween.
>>94073763I saw that. Semi-interested but never played Mork Borg.
>>94075837I also haven't played it, and it sounds like it's pretty divisive but might be the sort of game that I'd like. The Mork Borg book itself sounds like a nightmare though, apparently it was intentionally laid out in such a way that you have a hard time figuring out the rules and coherently navigating the book (the table of contents is the last page, for example). Seems like a lot of cool settings are making use of the system though.
Watched the new V/H/S Beyond tonight. It was kino. The first segment, The Stork, gave me heavy Con-X and Delta Green vibes. Is there potential with W.A.R.D.E.N's? What does it stand for?
>>93922381what games are based on hammer horror films? Other than ravenloft.
>>94073293Just your run-of-the-mill Russian babushka
im thinking of trying to do a halloween-themed cthulhu thing for my table. we play cthulhu regularly already, so i feel like I need to up the horror.but at the same time I kind of want to add a more game-style approach to the investigation section. I want to figure out a way to have a neighborhood, maybe like 3 streets interconnected with each other that is the 'investigation area' and the challenge of like "find the house of the killer" while trick-or-treating is going on. I'm thinking very much like a hitman level almost, kind of like the marti gras level, where the streets are flooded. and you have to look for the things that dont fit, or stuff happening just behind the scenes.I am thinking of doing a clock, like every 'action' each party member does takes 15 minutes, and they have until midnight to find the house or whatever.and I would have pre-determined events happening in different locations at preset times which would give hints, and ultimately let the investigators figure out what house is the correct one.once they find the house, maybe a bit of house exploration, find the secret rooms full of bone alters and blood sacrifices to satan or whatever to explain the killings.does this sound like a terrible idea? I can't even think of a game that work in a similar vein. blades in the dark, maybe?
>>94079820Nights Black Agents can be ran like that.
>>93952643My current homebrew campaign has Cthulhu has a the big bad. I'm relying heavily on treating the existing default Cthulhu lore as being metaphorical dream-stuff that doesn't reflect his actual nature. He's starting to drive people to violence by leaking into their dreams, but there's nothing literally aquatic about him.Also, the Agents are absolutely not going to be able to stop him by ramming a boat into his side. Reskinning mythos threats is a must when playing with genre-savvy players.
>>94075862Lookup Barebones edition
I signed up to run liminal horror in a couple weeks. Any tips?I'm running The Bureau, I was thinking of making the pregens all civilans taking advantage of the incident to recover something/investigate the building. I think I have time to change my mind if it's not the best option for new players with little to no experience.
>>94045972Thanks, found the thread where I stole the concept from btw, certainly leans more into the horror aspect than what I was thinking...https://archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/77633149/#77633149A key addition for me would be making daylight as deadly as darkness for the inverse reason. If anything might lurk under the eaves of Night then in the sight of the Bleak Sun those possibilities vanish. It's not just half-imagined terrors that evaporate though, other more benign lies like "curiosity" and "the self" are bleached and shrivelled by those pitiless rays. If to be consumed by the night is to drown within one's own soul then to be stranded in the day is to be hollowed out. (has the nice side effects of removing most unpleasantness from livestock butchery, the brute beasts have been made p-zombies from birth so there's no attachment and guilt at play)
>>94085518>The BureauI am not sure, if I understand. Do you plan to run Bureau as present faction in the game, but your party will be random collection of civilians caught in Bureau's attempt to contain paranormal situation?>>94086403>The Bleak SunI had similar mechanic in my The Siren inspired game for spooky one-shot. Day/Night cycles had large impact on how the encounters were resolved and exploration outcomes. There was no concept of Bleak Sun, since I have used mist/fog as method to control how far can players venture/scout, before they encounter something, but nighttime was always more dynamic/rewarding, consisting of short, chained sections driven by first night encounter, while daytime forced players to be more cautious and overall more likely to retread in orderly fashion.But it seems, that you are really committing more into trope inversion, than just adapting world to day/night cycle.
>>94082207That could be fun, I like the idea of a Hitman-esque level. I would recommend checking out the Kidthulhu rules from pic related. It works especially well for one-shots as many skills get combined, making characters a little more competent while not going into Pulp territory.
>>94089026i ran that module last halloween, for a different set of people, but yeah it was fun.had a player fumble a balance roll in the attic, dropped 2 floors, and since he already suffered damage earlier fucking died on impact. shit was great.
>>94073763>with 666% backed. Ho fitting.
>>94088705it's a first party module. Like an office dungeon crawl during an interdimensional invasion.
>>94091795>additional pledges pushed it to 667%>canceled 1% to keep it at the meme numberThis is my headcanon
Any tips on how to run a Chaosium (CoC or homebrewed Basic Roleplaying) campaign that takes advantage of skill leveling? Here's the idea that I have:>Basically X Files, but in the 1920's>There's an overarching plot, but the campaign is mostly a series of "mystery of the week" oneshots that delve deeper into the mythos of my setting>Players should roll up to X amount of checks after an adventure to check if a specific stat they used is permanently increased by 5 during the downtime between investigations>Also there is around 10 different spell schools they can learn over time, but these work more like insight and are gained from specific story events and itemsNow, what I am unsure about is balance. How much should I allow them to learn skills, and up to what level before I impose harder and harder checks to level up. I don't have DM experiance with Chaosium, only as an investigator in CoC, so any tips would be welcome.
>>94097164Call of Cthulhu already has a skill leveling system. I assume you’ve only played one-shots, and that’s why you’re unfamiliar with it. This is how it works:>Each time you successfully use a skill (without spending Luck to do so), put a checkmark next to that skill>After moments of significant achievement (in pre-made campaigns, this is usually chapter breaks, in your case it could be after each monster of the week is beaten) the Keeper calls for an Investigator Development Phase>Players roll 1d100 for each skill they have a checkmark next to. >If you roll below the skill (i.e. the skill is 75 and you roll a 30), nothing happens >If you roll above the skill (i.e. the skill is 20 and you roll 98) you roll 1d10 and add the amount roll to the skill>As you roll for each skill, erase the checkmarks next to each skill, regardless of the resultSee, it’s balanced by the fact that the more skilled you are, the easier it is to get a checkmark, but the harder it is to roll above your skill during the Development Phase.
I figure I'll tell a story of my attempt at running a horror game.I used Silent Legions for it, because it did the job, had a familiar d20 system to what the group used with other games, and great goddamn tables.Had a friend that requested that it NOT take place on a coastal town to break up Lovecraft cliches.I was game, came up with a town in the southwest named Darby in Arizona that had a dwindling industries in clay, brick manufacturing, and glass making. Was nicknamed "Snowtown" both because I like this one edgy Warren Ellis comic at the time, and because due to a freak wind pattern in the 80s, A desert town in Arizona got hit with a snowstorm.Anyway, players were a school shop teacher, an investigator for the mayor's office, and a writer.I used tables to make gods and aliens, but ultimately I used i think Navajo mythology that was kinda like Mayan and aztec stuff, that there were previous iterations of the universe washed away by floods. In Navajo myth, the last iteration of the earth was one of darkness and ruled by insects. Used that for fertile ground with ancient worshippers and books whose words acted as portals. Had a skater kids head explode talking with a pc, only for an inky lobster centipede thing claw it's way out and disappear into industrial sprawl.Now, I admit I sucked, the game collapsed after a bunch of sessions because I ran out of steam, and it turns out Silent legions doesn't have rules for vehicles or vehicle chases.I think I'll go back to that material, maybe use Call of Cthulhu, or a generic system, but tell my players it's an urban fantasy game or something.
>>94098911You could use BRP and port over CoC’s sanity and chase mechanics. That does sound interesting about the last version of the world being ruled over by insects. I could see that being a really terrifying idea if iterated on.
>>94098911I love the idea of horrible insect abominations clawing their way back up from the darkness of prehistory to once more claim the world. Shame your game died anon.
>>94098911Do you think the system was the biggest problem? I've been curious about Silent Legions.
>>94101820well, the game kinda ended when we realized Silent Legions didn't have rules for vehicles and car chases, and I was too much of a noob to just wing it.but other than that, Silent legions was pretty good as a system.like a hallmark of Kevin Crawford's rpgs is that they are actually really fucking good tool kits for GMs.what i mean in this case, you get a cornucopia of generation tables and advice for scenario creations.names of gods and realms, aliens, cults, magic spells, magic items, getting themes across, if theres some way you want to run a horror game, silent legions has two cents on it and how to play it.and since the guy has made an rpg for almost everything under the sun, damn near everything can cross over.the system itself is like Stars Without Number, a stripped down d20 system where you try to get 20 or over iirc with some 2d6 rolls here or there. you get 4 classes, and sanity works opposite to call of cthulhu, and now that I think about it, more like Darkest Dungeon, you start at zero, see fucked up shit and roll dice to see how many points you gain up to a d20. once you hit 100, your characters fucked.I don't remember having any problems with the system, just the car chase bit threw me off, but otherwise I'm a simp for these games, so I would recommend.
>>94097591I kind of like the Delta Green version of this better. The first time you fail a check during the session, you get a check for that skill, and after the session/mission, you get to add 1d6% to the skill. I feel like it's more biased towards the player, but it's balanced by being a smaller die.
>>94103428Ehhh, that feels dumb. Like, how does failing to spot something make you better at seeing things in the future? Or not knowing biological information make you better at biology?
>>94099195I mean the beauty of lovecraftian and cosmic horror shit to me is that there's often a vast gulf between what we describe and what is. like the Navajo myth isn't what actually happened, they just happened to get close, and just because they say "age of darkness" and "insects" doesn't necessary match 1 to 1 to our understanding.there's a great dialogue from this one movie, Resolution 2013, where in the middle of trying to get a drug addict friend clean, a dude is finding weird shit in the middle of the California boonies. dude meets a French anthropologist whose colleagues disappeared and now he's just living out of a trailer getting stoned on red weed.French guy-"How does an isolated tribesman in Ecuador know the difference between an alien, an angel, and a ghost?" then takes a long boof from his jointDude- "I have no idea"French Guy - "He doesn't, but he tells a story, to make sense of the infinite."
>>94103461I think the in universe justification is that oftentimes failure is the best teacher. I don't really care about it being diagetic, it makes more sense to me than having a secondary roll.
>>94033908>>94034764There’s dedicated platforms for discussion and game organizing for the major horror games like DG and CoC, making these threads redundant unless you absolutely need to talk about it on 4chan and nowhere else.
>>94049185This is a very common sentiment amongst veteran DG players at this point.Arc dream’s failure to release material that expands upon what’s presented as the basis of the modern setting: Program schism, MarchTech and mj12 legacy with a side of GRU-SV8 infiltration, is very frustrating. Especially with how much effort is going into re releasing of old modules that end up being 95% the same with new art. I have high hopes for the final release of “Rejection” which utilizes the only good/interesting major threat organization from Labrynth, but I’d be shocked if it gets published before 2026.
>>93922388Do we have a new book club topic yet?
>>94103374Thank you for the detailed answer, anon. I don't expect to use much vehicle stuff so I think it would work well for me. I have GMed Stars Without Number for a one-shot before and everyone enjoyed it.
>>94103877I'm curious what anons would think of this book, unless someone else has something they'd like. The premise interesting to me since I've always liked portrayals of the afterlife. I just started reading it, the first person POV is jarring to me but I'll keep at it.
>>94103786It's kind of crazy that a full 60 or so percent of the handlers guide is given over to this setting that they spent so much time writing, and they do dick all with it.I think that Detwiler and Shane Ivey are kind of retards though so it doesn't surprise me.
>>94089026I bought this super cheap at a used book store, I think because they thought the faux-distressed look was actual wear and tear.
>>94088705The Siren the film or some other module? Exploration's not so much a focus (if investigators brave the outdoors it'd ideally be on the trail of clues rather than striking out at random) but there's a nice dual aspect to the Eaves of Night / Bleak Sun whereby the places that are most dangerous by daylight are havens at night and vis versa.That copse where Old Man Willow is said to be encysted among old roots? Never go there at night but by day the shade provides as much shelter from sunshine's disenchantment to you as it does the dormant dark things. What's the logic for ease of exploration by night in your case btw? Mist tends to rise from the ground in the morning but daylight usually burns it away, if it's thick enough to be a problem by noon it'd probably swamp things by night imo (absent supernatural reasoning).>>94082207Sounds awesome. BitD is a bit pulpy though the ticking clock you describe is key to the game's functioning so you're already on the right wavelength. Given it sounds like a mystery (and a pre-prepared one at that) Gumshoe in general and Trail of Cthulhu specifically might help you out.
>>94092755One of my best one-shots was a similar concept. Basically the Mist in a tower block where the PCs were working shlubs scrambling higher and higher to get away from the rising horror that kept possessing their coworkers. Turned out a cheap / faulty WiFi router "upgrade" was behind being dimensionally out of synch. They called down a bolt of eldritch lightning on the roof to reset the building's power supply and catapult them back to reality.>>94103374It's nice how it extends all the way from pantheons to ayys to uncanny locals. Some of the monsters provided like Unspoken Ones are pretty neat too. Shame it fell apart Anon, I second >>94101339 especially considering the other whacky apocalypses of mesoamerican myth like rains of jaguars and wind so strong that it stretched those clinging to trees into tailed monkeys (you could get very Amigara Fault with that).
>>94105889This Siren: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siren_(video_game)I simply like small regions, populated by monsters and "mission clock" concept, where actions of players advance clock, leading for some options to disappear, some to appear and other to transform. I can only assume, that my one-shot was more into this kind of mechanics and exploration of possibilities with willing players. I took concept of paranormal happening in mundane scenery as my inspiration from Siren, by on top of that I basically depopulated the play area, so to encounter real monster was quite rare and dangerous situation. On other hand, various apparitions and phenomena were much more present.The comfy/cozy aspect was build around idea of venturing outside of safe space, into great unknowns, trying to uncover way out of this afflicted region.
>>94104114Normally it seems to be best to suggest something smaller and web hosted so it can be linked in the OP for ease of access.
>>94109589My bad. Like public domain short stories?
>>94103461>how does failing to spot something make you better at seeing things in the future?I could see that working out. Failures can be lessons learnt. >Last time you entered a spooky room, you failed to see the tweaked up hobo hiding in the trash, who ended up jumping you>you've resolved to not let that happen again, being extra certain nothing will sneak up on you againIt wouldn't be that your actual senses have improved, more that your reaction to the information from those senses "improves"
>>94104168>It's kind of crazy that a full 60 or so percent of the handlers guide is given over to this setting that they spent so much time writing, and they do dick all with it.Could it be that they're providing the resources for the Handlers to use it to create their own story with it, or more laziness on their part?Throughout the Handler's Guide, they really stress the point of "in each campaign, the Program and the Horrors will be different". I could agree with that sentiment, dealing with the Unknown and secretive organisations, but is it a cop out that they don't provide a "canon" narrative of the present and future that can be used?
>>94111020Anything that's hosted online so we can get the most people a chance to read it and respond to it is all
>>94112988Those kinds of elements got a lot of attention in the older version, so yes, it does feel like a cop when they they completely revamp the status quo then fail to develop anything.
>>94112988I don't mind that there isn't a canon narrative. Or, actually, I think there is too much of a canon. There is a bunch of history that, unless you want to do a period campaign, is just backdrop. My problem is actual, usable GM tools seem really fucking thin in the ground. I'll contrast with a book which I think does a good job of the kind of conspiracy horror that DG says it wants to be. Nights Black Agents has really, really good GM tools, and explains in a really understandable way how to build a conspiracy and how to run a conspiracy. It even has a good example conspiracy. Meanwhile, DG gives you a bunch of players, but not a really good framework for how they might interact. The one campaign frame they talk about that I remember is the Lliogor against the Great Race, but they just kind of vaguely gesture at something as opposed to anything concrete. (As a side note, what is it was Cthulhu game writers wanting to make the Lliogors work so hard?)It's a weird matter of ludonarrative dissonance for me; the book says over and over that most agents will probably only work a single unnatural OP in their lives. But the game doesn't really give you a good campaign example, and just publishes a bunch of short 1 to 4 shots, so any particular player party is likely to end up just running a monster of the week game. I want something like what Sandy talks about in og CoC, the onion-layer campaign, where the pcs are working on unraveling a single OP over a longer period of time. I think Labyrinths has *some* of what I'm talking about, but I just find most of the factions in Labyrinths pretty uninteresting.
>>94077573From director himself: Weird Anomaly Removal & Dangerous Entity Neutralization. "We take the WAR to their DEN."
>>94112910Sure, but that’s not going to work in a lot of cases. >I failed to spot the handwritten note on the desk. No one else does either. We never find it. My Spot Hidden is now better. >I find the corpse of an Elder Thing cut open. I try to use my Science (Biology) to make sense of its organs, but only have 1% and roll 95%. I have absolutely no idea where to even start figuring out this thing’s organs or circulatory system, and am completely lost. My Science (Biology) is now better. >I try to read this foreign language I’ve never seen before. I cannot figure out even what a single character means. My skill in that language is now better. Plus, I feel like that system rewards players for trying skills they have no greater amount of experience in and failing to get better at them… for some reason. That’s going to clog up characters with dozens of skills they have minor incremental improvements in because they keep failing, while the person good at those skills hardly ever sees them improve. CoC rewards you for trying skills you’re not good at, but only if you get lucky and succeed. It rewards those clutch successes, because you’re more likely to improve that skill while it’s low.
>>94115146DG rules prevent attempts to use a skill that has 0%. Therefore the incremental improvement can only occur on skills that were purposefully selected during agent creation or have a base level higher than 0 for everyone. Those latter skills are things like athletics, drive, and unarmed combat. Your second two examples will literally never occur in delta green. Also it’s a 1d4 gain at the end of the scenario. It takes many scenarios where an agent both has the opportunity to roll a specific skill and survives before it becomes a meaningful increase.True focused purposeful skill improvement in delta green occurs during post scenario home scenes. An agent who chooses to do so must roll against the selected skill. If they fail the roll they gain 3d6 points in that skill. If they pass they gain nothing. This is very strong diminishing returns on grinding a skill during home scenes, and it also costs you a bond point to reflect the time spent away from the people in your life. Bonds help keep you sane and may be able to help you get useful stuff depending on the nature of the relationship. You really don’t want to run out of bonds.
>>94115146>>I try to read this foreign language I’ve never seen before. I cannot figure out even what a single character means. My skill in that language is now better.you're describing learning japanese, there just is an out of game scene where you researched that thing to improve.
>>94115146>I feel like that system rewards players for trying skills they have no greater amount of experience in and failing to get better at them… for some reason.I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt here, because there is a certain angle of this argument that is stupid and disingenuous. Assuming you're not doing that, I think it's a good thing that players are, to a certain degree, rewarded for not always doing the exact same thing every single time.And the CoC system makes the exact same amount of sense. The second roll during downtime that you have to fail is an entirely dissociated mechanic. You only ever going to improve skills that are in a weirdly narrow window of high enough to succeed to then low enough to fail at later, and it rewards you doing the same thing over and over again.
>>94059641>>94060210>>94059686>>94067175>>94067487>>94067593>>94069462Speaking of atmospheric post-Soviet indie horror games...
>>94115899Ah okay. That makes a little more sense. I haven’t played Delta Green so didn’t know the wider context. >>94116544I always say the second roll as checking to see how much more you have to learn in that skill. Was there something new about how you used the skill, or were you just applying old knowledge to the problem?
>>94115146>>I failed to spot the handwritten note on the desk. No one else does either. We never find it. My Spot Hidden is now better.Last time you missed something, you're not sure what but there was something. You'll have to be more diligent next time.>>I find the corpse of an Elder Thing cut open. I try to use my Science (Biology) to make sense of its organs, but only have 1% and roll 95%. I have absolutely no idea where to even start figuring out this thing’s organs or circulatory system, and am completely lost. My Science (Biology) is now better.You later are see other organs of another organism, one much more mundane, and you notice similarities between what you saw in that barrel shaped creature.>>I try to read this foreign language I’ve never seen before. I cannot figure out even what a single character means. My skill in that language is now better.You've now seen those characters and might run across similar ones in a different context again that could help you translate it at some point.
>>94117680>I always say the second roll as checking to see how much more you have to learn in that skill. Was there something new about how you used the skill, or were you just applying old knowledge to the problem?This is as much post hoc justification as anything that's been posted about the DG mechanic.
Having recently reread all of his works, R Ostermeier's 'The Moving of the Yew' is still his best, and honestly might be one of my all time favorite, works. Theres this amazing moment in there where the central characters make this realization that not only have they made such a believable blunder, but the sheer odds of correcting the mistake are astronomical. The ritual nature of trying to save an ancient tree older than any of them could ever know, and the ancient ritual some of them are drawn into through visions that draw from reality, are so damn evocative. I really need to try and take it for the inspiration of an adventure for CoC.This isn't the first thing the author has used Yews in his fiction, the idea of these irregularly shaped trees, many of which are so ancient they predate Christianity or even the Romans reaching Britain, as these sorts of stores of importance or significance in devolvement of human psychology and their souls is so damn powerful to me. There are truly ancient trees out there and despite what we may think they're living and breathing but on a scale we can never understand.
>>94116724What is this? I've seen some thumbnails on Youtube but I don't know what the game is.
>>94120443No I'm Not A Human - basically a game about checking little details to keep horrible murderous abominations disguised as people from eating you alive.
>>94121899>horrible murderous abominations disguisedThat's not a very nice way of referring to Russians, anon
>>94116724Holy kino.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OD3V3s4nkGU
