Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > GURPS

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 12-05-2019, 06:28 AM   #31
AlexanderHowl
 
Join Date: Feb 2016
Default Re: Best Fictional Settings for GURPS Horror [Horror]

Oh, I agree, I saw a lot of that a couple of decades ago (and there is an even greater tendency for that with the 5th edition). In the games that I ran, the PCs always faced three constant threats: organized mortals, uncaring elders, and homicidal Garou (with the occasional threat from other factors like Changelings, Mages, or Wraiths). Of course, one way that I set the tone of horror was having an introductory one-shot session where the players played pregenerated Kindred who existed only to die horribly.
AlexanderHowl is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-05-2019, 07:06 AM   #32
ericthered
Hero of Democracy
 
ericthered's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: far from the ocean
Default Re: Best Fictional Settings for GURPS Horror [Horror]

Back to the "What would I play with Horror", I have two situations I keep returning to.

The first is the isolated village, usually in the mountains. You know everyone who lives there, and while you pay taxes or tribute to the local lord, you mostly manage your own affairs. Right of Travel is very limited and anyone who leaves or comes is assumed to be trouble anyways. Then the killing start. The villager need to solve this themselves, but odds are one of them is doing the killing...

The second is a monster on a spaceship. You're all alone in a very small place with something. The monster on the spaceship could be ANYTHING. Bizarre biology, twisted technology, Psionics, and conspiracy are all on the table. You can't run and you can't call in help.

Most of my horror scenarios fit one of those two situations.

Games with horror elements don't have to be horror, of course. Monster Hunters is a fabulous genre, and its much larger than the Gurps:Monster Hunters series. You can also angle a Monster Hunters game into being less urban fantasy / paranormal supers and more into a suspenseful and creepy game of cat and mouse. I'm not sure what to call the latter, but I think it probably a form of horror that's more gameable.
__________________
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!
ericthered is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 12-05-2019, 07:18 AM   #33
Kromm
GURPS Line Editor
 
Kromm's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
Default Re: Best Fictional Settings for GURPS Horror [Horror]

Quote:
Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl View Post

Of course, one way that I set the tone of horror was having an introductory one-shot session where the players played pregenerated Kindred who existed only to die horribly.
I've used that method several times in campaigns that were intended to be horrific for high-powered characters.

One was a horror-cyberpunk mini-campaign (hey, it was the 80s) in which the players got to play pre-generated Übermenschen with every kind of cybernetic implant and genetic enhancement, sent to investigate a secure corporate facility believed to be doing things too horrible to accept even by those ready to turn humans into Frankenstein monsters . . . for one brief prelude game session that saw these characters chewed up and spat out. Then their extremely competent but less powerful PCs got to tackle exactly the same mission using more subtlety and less firepower. They found what amounted to a freakshow crossed with a lunatic asylum, all run remotely and by AI (no human guards to beat up), and soon ended up trapped in the place while the inhuman digital intelligence started opening the cell doors.

Another was a fantasy campaign where the pre-gens were the previous delving party, captured, stripped of gear, and sacrificed to horrors. That made things a lot scarier for the powerful heroes going in to rescue the long-dead prisoners. They were never sure how the other adventurers ended up caught – every trap and unfamiliar monster inspired caution, circling-up, and hesitation. Of course, once the party had succeeded, the campaign stopped being horror. That was just the genre chosen for one adventure.

I think "mini-campaign" and "one adventure among many" offer the best horror.
__________________
Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch <kromm@sjgames.com>
GURPS Line Editor, Steve Jackson Games
My DreamWidth [Just GURPS News]
Kromm is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-05-2019, 07:21 AM   #34
Flyndaran
Untagged
 
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
Default Re: Best Fictional Settings for GURPS Horror [Horror]

Quote:
Originally Posted by ericthered View Post
Back to the "What would I play with Horror", I have two situations I keep returning to.

The first is the isolated village, usually in the mountains. You know everyone who lives there, and while you pay taxes or tribute to the local lord, you mostly manage your own affairs. Right of Travel is very limited and anyone who leaves or comes is assumed to be trouble anyways. Then the killing start. The villager need to solve this themselves, but odds are one of them is doing the killing...

The second is a monster on a spaceship. You're all alone in a very small place with something. The monster on the spaceship could be ANYTHING. Bizarre biology, twisted technology, Psionics, and conspiracy are all on the table. You can't run and you can't call in help.

Most of my horror scenarios fit one of those two situations.

....
Those sound like an Agatha Christie murder mystery and the game Werewolf aka Mafia. I've never played it, but it sounds like an interesting dinner party type game.
The forced together group unable to leave in which someone kills them off one by one is a trope for a reason.
__________________
Beware, poor communication skills. No offense intended. If offended, it just means that I failed my writing skill check.
Flyndaran is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-05-2019, 07:39 AM   #35
Flyndaran
Untagged
 
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
Default Re: Best Fictional Settings for GURPS Horror [Horror]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kromm View Post
...
Another was a fantasy campaign where the pre-gens were the previous delving party, captured, stripped of gear, and sacrificed to horrors. That made things a lot scarier for the powerful heroes going in to rescue the long-dead prisoners. They were never sure how the other adventurers ended up caught – every trap and unfamiliar monster inspired caution, circling-up, and hesitation. Of course, once the party had succeeded, the campaign stopped being horror. That was just the genre chosen for one adventure.

I think "mini-campaign" and "one adventure among many" offer the best horror.
I've only GM-ed twice in my life. Once was in the 90s using a pre-made adventure that had that "gimmick". It was the only time my brother ever thought before he acted in game. So I'd say it worked better than expected to create some sense of foreboding.

Maintaining a true horror campaign for more than a few sessions at a time sounds stressful. But I admit my experience with player type and game themes is limited.
__________________
Beware, poor communication skills. No offense intended. If offended, it just means that I failed my writing skill check.
Flyndaran is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-05-2019, 08:47 AM   #36
AlexanderHowl
 
Join Date: Feb 2016
Default Re: Best Fictional Settings for GURPS Horror [Horror]

It really depends on the right group of players and the right setting, just like with Mystery games. In one of my settings, I had a drug that produced Euphoria for (20-HT) hours and, as a side effect, activated the telepathic centers of the brain, causing people to manifest Terror (Will; Active, +0%; Telepathy, Psionic, -10%; Uncontrollable, -30%; Unconscious Only, -20%), for the same amount of time. The horror of the setting was the anyone could be on the drug and anyone on the drug could rip apart the psyche of another person without any malice.
AlexanderHowl is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-05-2019, 09:32 AM   #37
Kromm
GURPS Line Editor
 
Kromm's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
Default Re: Best Fictional Settings for GURPS Horror [Horror]

Quote:
Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl View Post

In one of my settings, I had a drug that produced Euphoria for (20-HT) hours and, as a side effect, activated the telepathic centers of the brain, causing people to manifest Terror (Will; Active, +0%; Telepathy, Psionic, -10%; Uncontrollable, -30%; Unconscious Only, -20%), for the same amount of time. The horror of the setting was the anyone could be on the drug and anyone on the drug could rip apart the psyche of another person without any malice.
The tricky bit with Terror and Fright Checks resembles the problem with Sanity in Call of Cthulhu or Humanity in Vampire: It's a game mechanic that represents horror for a character, but it does less – and sometimes nothing – to induce horror in that character's player. For me, a necessary feature of horror gaming is that the players experience a visceral reaction: they huddle closer together, they turn up the lights, they startle when the pizza guy rings, they're stunned into speechlessness when something awful happens in the game world. If it's all abstract, then to me it's just "My turn? My guy does X." gaming, which I struggle to call roleplaying.

This is special, perhaps unique, to the horror genre. Most genre labels talk not about emotions or feelings, but about abilities (notably supers, but also fantasy in the sense of "magic exists"), backdrop (like fantasy again, historical drama, or war), character types (e.g., detective fiction, spy fiction, or supers again), story type (comedy, romance, etc.), or even technology (notably the techno-thriller, and much of science fiction, especially things like cyberpunk and space opera). Of course all decent fiction tries to evoke some emotional reaction from the reader, viewer, or player, but horror is remarkable in that this is its main, arguably exclusive goal. That's hard to arrange in a game where most everything is set down as stats on paper, and where the characters aren't controlled by a single author but by people accustomed to power fantasies.

I believe this is on topic because I think there are settings that make the necessary conditions of horror easier to arrange. These are ones where things will happen to the heroes regardless of the players' choices, and where power either isn't available or doesn't matter. A ripping huge war where the PCs are ordinary grunts, POWs, or even civilians interned in camps accomplishes this well. I actually feel that Reign of Steel is wonderful, too . . . humanity has already lost, robotic war machines can crush even tough human warriors with ease, and The Powers That Be are AIs vastly more intelligent than people, and utterly alien. Utter alienness is nice because it gives the GM leave not to set down firm stats on paper – there's no "monster manual" to sneak peeks at or DR and HP to overcome, just caprice and fiat.
__________________
Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch <kromm@sjgames.com>
GURPS Line Editor, Steve Jackson Games
My DreamWidth [Just GURPS News]
Kromm is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-05-2019, 12:26 PM   #38
Varyon
 
Join Date: Jun 2013
Default Re: Best Fictional Settings for GURPS Horror [Horror]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
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.
You could even have a group of teens, either in on it or unwitting catspaws, who investigate supernatural happenings to inevitably discover the mundane reason behind it. "We wouldn't have gotten away with it, if it weren't for those meddling kids."

Quote:
Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
It would almost be trivially easy to make a sci fi horror using Star Trek. Literal gods running around, mind control, transporter accidents changing your very nature and sense of self, time travel everywhere, etc.
With only some tweaking of the tone, John Scalzi's Redshirts could certainly constitute Horror. Some seemingly-otherworldly force occasionally taking over reality to create extraordinary happenstance and give people the idiot ball (inevitably resulting in the death of one Redshirt), all for the sake of "high drama," would be pretty terrifying.

I do wonder if that could translate well to a Horror campaign, however. "At any time, one of your characters could turn into an idiot and die horribly" doesn't seem like it would really frighten the players too much, at most it would probably be an annoyance.
__________________
GURPS Overhaul
Varyon is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-05-2019, 01:28 PM   #39
johndallman
Night Watchman
 
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
Default Re: Best Fictional Settings for GURPS Horror [Horror]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kromm View Post
. . . I think there are settings that make the necessary conditions of horror easier to arrange. These are ones where things will happen to the heroes regardless of the players' choices, and where power either isn't available or doesn't matter.
There's another kind of setting that works, which is one where the characters have a sense of duty that requires them to deal with horrifying things. That was how my Laundry Files campaign operated. The characters' backstories had varying degrees of choice about being recruited, but they rapidly developed a strong motivation to defend the mundane world against hidden horrors. A good scenario briefing would have the players muttering curses about the problems they needed to deal with, and embarking on the adventure in a grim and very purposeful mood.
johndallman is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 12-06-2019, 01:36 AM   #40
RogerBW
 
RogerBW's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: near London, UK
Default Re: Best Fictional Settings for GURPS Horror [Horror]

Quote:
Originally Posted by johndallman View Post
There's another kind of setting that works, which is one where the characters have a sense of duty that requires them to deal with horrifying things.
Yes… but if they tend as a result to get competent, then it's not really horror in the same way any more. (Certainly in that Laundry campaign we gradually moved up the complexity scale, from "some outsider has accidentally done something they shouldn't" to "a previous team has had problems fixing this".)
RogerBW is online now   Reply With Quote
Reply

Tags
horror

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 02:28 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.