Re: GURPS Horror Fantasy, fun or unfun?
 

When your only examples are dying on a carnival ride, OR losing your legs, that definition didn't become very clear...

Yes, because it is entirely possible to read "Horror exists when you can see something terrible and abnormal happening and find yourself unable to take action to prevent it.", in very clear letters, when you state "If on the other hand you see the coaster coming apart ahead of you...and then you plunge to your deaths...or you wake up and the doctors tell you you'll never walk again...that's horror." Sure.

In Other Words: Your metaphor was not a good one for conveying your overall point. Maybe if you followed up with a clear definition, or had a clear definition beforehand, your metaphor could have made a good example. But as it was, you left your own definition clearly not well defined.

And you still miss my examples. "Unable to take action to prevent it"? So you still think that the werewolf, or the vampire, or the Frankenstein's monster, are not examples of horror monsters? You can take actions to prevent *them*. Yet they are some of the most core creatures to the horror fiction.

And you also ignore my examples where you can survive to the end, and get a "happy ending"; and potentially fail and die. By definition, you are doing something about it if you get to the happy ending. You may not be curing the entire problem, but there is still something you are able to do about it. There may be some of the monster that survives to fight later, or it may have a method for "coming back"; but you still did something to it earlier.

Re: GURPS Horror Fantasy, fun or unfun?
 

They are monsters who have been in horror stories, certainly. But not every story that has them is a horror story. These days, not even most.

Re: GURPS Horror Fantasy, fun or unfun?
 

So...

I guess you're going to say that in any story where the main character can and does kill the werewolf or vampire, it's not horror?

That's a very narrow definition. I'm not sure if I'd want to restrict all my horror-watching into your (very narrow) definition. I'd end up just watching slasher flicks with invulnerable creatures. As if the only horror that exists is Friday 13th or Halloween.

Re: GURPS Horror Fantasy, fun or unfun?
 

File all complaints about "Strahd didn't act as cleverly as he was supposed to" with Wizards of the Coast. Our DM was only doing what the adventure said Strahd was doing.

It was all sort of petty harassment anyway. Strahd just wasn't powerful enough to defeat our group and we couldn't kill him (permanently) until we methodically went through first the countryside and then the Castle and eliminated all of his "specials".

There just wasn't that much to it in terms of D&D. So Strahd's a vampire? Big deal, none of us were wimpering peasants. My character was a Rogue Dragon Shaman. He drank blood, I breathed fire. <shrug>

That's why horror and dungeon fantasy don't really work together. The Big Bad of true horror (and not just things with some horror elements) has to be much Bigger and Badder than the PCs and there can't really be a climactic battle scene. He'd win.

Instead, in horror the Big Bad has to have some weakness or achilles heel written into his story for the PCs to exploit. It's actually rather predictable and the sort of reason I find horror boring.

Playing CoC? just ignore the SAN loss and read everything you stumble across until you've picked up all the bread crumbs the GM has scattered.

Re: GURPS Horror Fantasy, fun or unfun?
 

I've belatedly moved this thread because, except for the title, there's virtually no GURPS content.

BTW, some of the posts are getting a bit testy. Dial it back a few notches, peeps. (My use of "peeps" is your Easter present. Enjoy!)

Re: GURPS Horror Fantasy, fun or unfun?
 

I'd happily play in a Horror/Fantasy crossover GURPS campaign.


I'm a big fan of Ravenloft. I personally think it would run better with a non-D&D rules set, even though I currently run it using 3.5 [in an online game]. GURPS would probably work wonderfully. As it is, I run my Ravenloft games with low magic, low treasure, and limited options for PCs.

I find CoC 100% playable with the rules as written. The SAN rules are great! I wouldn't want to play without them, in fact.

Re: GURPS Horror Fantasy, fun or unfun?
 

Ugh... It might qualify as topical content also ;P

"Peeps" *brr*

Re: GURPS Horror Fantasy, fun or unfun?
 

I think the best insanity/fear rules I've ever seen exist in the game Unknown Armies.......

Which, among other things, happens to be better at Teh Horrerz than CoC, IMNSHO.

Re: GURPS Horror Fantasy, fun or unfun?
 

How do they work?

Re: GURPS Horror Fantasy, fun or unfun?
 

Horror/Fantasy is one reason I like the Warhammer setting so much. It blends the two perfectly for my (and my players) tastes. I also tend to infuse a bit of horror into other games that I run. For instance, I usually do Shadowrun very dark and gritty with a lot of horror elements thrown in.

I also really like the sanity blasting horror. It adds a nice roleplaying challenge and I've always compared it to "Shellshock" or "Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome" from the real world. While it might not be "heroic" for a character to gradually go insane, it certainly is realistic.