Happy Halloween Boils and Ghouls and
this time lets take a look at some of the Classic styles of Horror
and the games that fit them.
The most classic style of Horror is
the Passive Victims or “Idiots in a cabin” horror. Usually it is
a group of very pretty but very stupid teens who think a good idea is
spending the weekend in that creepy old cabin in the woods. This
never ends well for them.
While many movies follow this story,
few of the Horror games do. Most Horror RPG's use the second method.
Reactive Investigators This is the
X-files stile of Horror. The heroes are members of a underfunded
under prepared nebulous organization who go out and investigate
something spooky after the fact. Spooky old Pirate ghost, lets go
check it out.
Most horror games use the Investigator
style of play. The heroes work for “Some government agency” or
Privet agency and find out about something horrible and go invigilate
it.
And I would have got away with it to
if not for you meddling kids.
his style of RPG is reflected in most
of the Horror Games. Resident Evil, Silent hill, X-files, Ghost
busters, Hijinks,Chill, Call of Cathulu, beyond the supernatural,M20
Horror,Hunter, MIB, Zombi Hunters, Bruise 13, Stalking the night
fantastic, The list goes on.
In games like COC you really have no
chance to Win, you just survive and do your best to slow the eventual
awful stuff. While in more active participation games like Chill or
Burrow 13 you actually have the ability to beat the monsters and
win.
But for how long, how long.
The third style of Horror RPG is still
relatively new and that is the World Of darkness,Supernatural,
Vampire Diaries games where not only are you in conflict with Horror
you are actually members of the Spooky population. From sexy soulful
vampires to conflicted werwolf’s and pouty angels. This style of
game was made famous by the World Of darkness/Vampire the masquerade
games.
The creations of Ann rice and the
Urban fantasy movement of the late 80's would have had us embracing
the dark rather then fearing it.
No longer were the monsters the bad
guys, now they were the heroes. With there own morals,back story and
reasons to adventure.
The world of darkness/vampire the
masquerade games and there many clones portrayed our Nightmares as
heroes, things to be proud of not afraid of. LARP became a word,
story telling diceles role playing became a thing. These games
flooded the market, though most of them did not survive past the
early 2000's.
Even today people still argue Team
Jacob or Team Edward Well all you children of the night, I'm sorry
but I am and will always be TEAM BUFFY! Horrible evil monsters are
not something to be embraced, there are to be hunted down and staked.
Except for SPIKE, because he was cool.
Speaking of Buffy, that brings us to
the nest type of Horror RPG. Lets hunt them down and kill them.
Games like DELTA GREEN and BUFFY would
have us play thew roles of active hunters of the dark. No longer were
investigators underfunded and under prepared Now the Players knew the
dark existed,where they were hiding and had the skills and weaponry
to hand those meddiling vampires there candy ass.
Thankfully no RPG's have yet to
embrace the SAW style of Torture Porn horror films and most of
today’s Spooky Movies are variations of the Hunted cabin/Idiots in
the woods story. As for Horror RPG's on the market today>
They are all Zombie related Everywhere
you look the Zombies have invaded our RPG's At least once every 3
months a new Zombi Survival RPG arrives-only to quickly vanish.
Despite our love of being scared, we
tend to not like being in a Scarey Role Playing games As of today
only a few RPG's of the Horror type have any staying power. The never
ending juggernaut of Storytelling RPG's that is the World of darkness
Line and call of Cthulhu style games. We see a new Zombie game but
they seem to not have the staying power, maybe Zombies are overdone
and its time to move on.
Personally I think the next big wave
of Horror will be a throw back to the 1950's. Science gone wrong
horror (planet of the apes) and Kiju horror (Godzilla).
That said SHARKANEDO IS THE BEST MOVI
EVER! And I can not wait to play the SHARKANADO RPG!
So Kids, what type of scarey story
will you dust off this week for your Halloween RPG?
Whatever it is, stay safe-stay sane.
Have fun this Halloween and above all
Unpleasant dremes-MUWHAHHAHAH
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