This is why I’m not doing horror by itself.
Let’s look at a few of the obvious factors in this decision. First, Chaosium is sponsoring the event and Call of Cthulhu has used a version of BRP for years. Second, horror is probably the second most popular TTRPG genre, but it’s not for everyone. Last, I already have a Monster of the Week setting here in my own hometown and I’m not sure what I’d want to do.
Horror is in my TTRPG blood, so to speak.
Don’t get me wrong, horror is one of my favorite genres of TTRPGs and movies. I got to grow up on Friday the 13th, Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, Child’s Play, Evil Dead, and lots of shlocky B-movie type horror films in the 1980s. I still watch a lot of horror movies to this day with Saw and the Ouija series being among my new favorites. I used to also watch a ton of weird TV horror such as Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, Friday the 13th the Series, Tales From the Dark Side, and Tales From the Crypt.
Nightmares of Mine is by far one of my favorite TTRPG Game Master advice books. My review of that book can be found at this link. Unironically, Chaosium is one of the companies responsible for bringing us that little gem, which makes sense because, ya know, Cthulhu and all.
I ran Werewolf: the Apocalypse for a long time in college. I also have a lot of experience with the original editions of Deadlands and Vampire: the Masquerade. I also love my copies of Slasher Flick by Spectrum Games, Chill by Pacesetter games, and more recently SCP by 26 Letter Publishing. SCP as creepypasta is also fun to listen to on YouTube while I’m driving.
Crossovers and horror hybrids for everyone!
One of my absolutely favorite TTRPG authors, Kelsey Dionne of Shadowdark RPG fame, is big on grimdark horror fantasy. I’m also a huge fan of the 2E AD&D Ravenloft setting. Earthdawn, strangely enough, is an almost seamless marriage of horror and fantasy.
Deadlands in every incarnation is a loving marriage of horror and the wild west subgenre. The various zombie apocalypse games are mostly hybrids of horror and post-apocalypse settings. Warhammer 40,000 and Mutant Chronicles combine the best of space sci-fi and good old fashioned horror. There are also half a dozen Call of Cthulhu hybrids that come to mind. CthulhuTech (Cthulhu vs Mecha,) Achtung Cthulhu! (WW2 eldritch horror,) and more recently Cohors Cthulhu (Roman era Cthulhu) to name just a few. Ever since the Lovecraftian Cthulhu mythos became public domain, people have gone even crazier with the setting in novels and TTRPGs.
What is it about horror that fascinates many of us?
Think about the most basic fantasy dungeon crawl TTRPG for a moment. A group of plucky adventurers go down into a deep, dark, scary catacomb full of death traps and any number of frightening monsters all in search of coin and magic. Will they survive? Will they run into terrifying monsters that might make them poo their armor and run screaming? (I hope so.)
Monsters, fear of the unknown, things that go bump in the night fascinate us as people. Tales of mythical monsters told by the fire have been passed down for eons from one human to another in the real world. It’s only natural that folklore and telling scary stories would pass onto us in TTRPG form.
I’m not ruling out a horror hybrid game for the BRP Design Challenge.
Looking at my brainstorming notes, I’m seeing a handful of similar ideas that all have horror as a common element. However, it’s never a horror campaign by itself. I love monsters. I love “aliens” (even though I sometimes despise the term as a reference to extraterrestrial civilizations.)
I’ve always been fascinated with various invasion of Earth scenarios. It’s not always some angry group of ETs because in reality, that is highly unlikely. A truly advanced civilization with the ability to cross the galaxy at the speed of light or faster would probably wipe the human race out in minutes. But that’s not to say a lesser evolved group of beings couldn’t crash land on Earth and make a mess of things.
I’ve also had thoughts of a sub-subgenre crossover. My old TTRPG campaign setting notes include more than a few horror mecha scenarios. Maybe not Cthulhu, but some scary stuff nonetheless. Horror kinda meshes with most things the same way the anime style meshes with most things. Mash horror together with anime and giant robots and you have a TTRPG similar to Muv-Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse. (*Yeah, I’ve watched some pretty freaky anime…)
Do I think it would work as a BRP Design Challenge submission? Well, I guess we’ll find out. It’s on my final six list of contenders. Without getting too specific, it would be a TTRPG rated PG-13 and NSFW, so we might not be doing it. Not to mention art… I’ll keep pondering it. Thank you for stopping by today. I appreciate you sticking with me through what could have been a quite grim topic. Embrace the things that bring you joy, even if it happens to be fictional horror.
Jeff's Game Box 