12-03-2019, 07:54 PM | #11 |
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: The deep dark haunted woods
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Re: Best Fictional Settings for GURPS Horror [Horror]
Obviously anything based on My Little Pony.
Why? Because it already is! I didn't know how horrid it was until I talked to a fan and he told me about Nightmare Moon and Discord. And it's made worse by the pastel colors and the "Friendship is Magic" meme! (The fan described it as a "cinnamon bun" - underneath the sweet glaze is a twisted mass.) That should be a factor in any horror setting - the veneer of pleasant peace and normalcy that hides underneath it a seething pit of insanity and terror.
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"When you talk about damage radius, even atomic weapons pale before that of an unfettered idiot in a position of power." - Sam Starfall from the webcomic Freefall Last edited by Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2; 12-03-2019 at 07:58 PM. |
12-03-2019, 08:19 PM | #12 |
Join Date: Dec 2012
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Re: Best Fictional Settings for GURPS Horror [Horror]
"Welcome to Sunnydale. We'd love to have you for dinner."
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Warning, I have the Distractible and Imaginative quirks in real life. "The more corrupt a government, the more it legislates." -- Tacitus Five Earths, All in a Row. Updated 12/17/2022: Apocrypha: Bridges out of Time, Part I has been posted. |
12-03-2019, 10:18 PM | #13 |
Join Date: Feb 2016
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Re: Best Fictional Settings for GURPS Horror [Horror]
Unfortunately, every locality has a dark side. If you get on the wrong side of corrupt officials and/or organized crime, life can get pretty horrific real quickly. Even a normal seeming family could have secrets that one or more members are willing to kill over (the husband and wife are siblings, the daughters were kidnapped from their birth families while infants, etc).
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12-03-2019, 10:29 PM | #14 |
Hero of Democracy
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: far from the ocean
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Re: Best Fictional Settings for GURPS Horror [Horror]
I don't go for horror games often, but when I do I think in terms of scenarios rather than settings. When characters deal with more than one horror scenario it stops being a horror game and becomes monster hunters, mysteries, urban fantasy, or something else.
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Be helpful, not pedantic Worlds Beyond Earth -- my blog Check out the PbP forum! If you don't see a game you'd like, ask me about making one! |
12-04-2019, 04:49 AM | #15 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: U.K.
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Re: Best Fictional Settings for GURPS Horror [Horror]
Quote:
Mind you, that situation could arise in a Madness Dossier game easily enough, and almost any horror game can develop elements of black comedy easily enough. Incidentally, I'll recommend both settings. Madness Dossier is a brilliant creation, stepping the idea of the Technocracy from Mage: The Ascension back down to something a little less goofy (but still with elements of cosmic horror), while at their best, the Laundry Files stories are a clever concatenation of horror, spy fiction, and bureaucratic comedy; the scenario books for the licensed RPG have some great ideas, and I really do want to run them sometime.
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12-04-2019, 08:51 AM | #16 | |
GURPS Line Editor
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
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Re: Best Fictional Settings for GURPS Horror [Horror]
Quote:
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Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch <kromm@sjgames.com> GURPS Line Editor, Steve Jackson Games My DreamWidth [Just GURPS News] |
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12-04-2019, 09:07 AM | #17 | |
GURPS Line Editor
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
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Re: Best Fictional Settings for GURPS Horror [Horror]
Quote:
There are words for people who repeatedly run into curses, demons, evil clowns, mad slashers, Men In Black, mutants, UFOs, werewolves, zombie plagues, and possessed children's toys and don't become hardened, equipped, and capable. One is "stupid." Another is "unbelievable." As most gamers don't like playing idiots who stumble from horror to horror without ever learning – because that strikes them as not-fun and highly implausible, and because being a victim with no agency is suited to one-shots, not campaigns – they soon end up playing badasses who are armed to the teeth and buy every fear-resisting ability, investigative skill, and combat option the GM allows. At which point the campaign is GURPS Monster Hunters, which is fun but "GURPS Action with the occult" or "GURPS Dungeon Fantasy in modern times," and nothing to do with GURPS Horror. I take great exception to the description of a story as "horror" merely because it features the occult or psychological tension. Successful horror requires an ongoing lack of control on the protagonists' part. That's easy to arrange for a one-shot, or as one adventure tossed into a campaign without warning, but hard to manage as an ongoing campaign. Ongoing horror is a huge challenge because it demands a setting as well as a scenario, and very few settings really work for it. Yes, ongoing horror works fine in TV and film series. That's because the writers control the plot and the characters, who always go along with the story. They don't have to deal with free-willed players who refuse to portray their characters as being ignorant of the weird and supernatural, and who want to dynamite Chthulhu or get turned into vampires who fight for good.
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Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch <kromm@sjgames.com> GURPS Line Editor, Steve Jackson Games My DreamWidth [Just GURPS News] |
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12-04-2019, 10:28 AM | #18 |
Join Date: Oct 2006
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Re: Best Fictional Settings for GURPS Horror [Horror]
I've talked with my brother a good deal about playing in a "Supernatural" (TV show)-style setting (think monster of the week), except it's sort of an inverse of 'horror' due to our imagined campaign premise being that the PC's are assisting benevolent 'monsters' with what is basically witness protection/relocation; dodging and subverting NPC monster hunters all the while (and occasionally having to deal with bad monsters, themselves).
So, it would have some fairly obvious comedic undertones.
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- Danny |
12-04-2019, 03:11 PM | #19 |
Untagged
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
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Re: Best Fictional Settings for GURPS Horror [Horror]
You could go all the way to a reverse Scooby Doo. You find and relocate monsters while creating a mundane explanation for all the supernatural facets.
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12-04-2019, 03:20 PM | #20 |
Join Date: Oct 2006
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Re: Best Fictional Settings for GURPS Horror [Horror]
Ha, that's good idea!
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- Danny |
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