Yessss! I've been doing 31 nights of horror movies each October with friends for many years now! Always a fun time programming a lil horror film festival with the pals.
@@StephaniePlaysGames I'd never be able to run a horror game as well as you. I didn't see my first horror movie until I was 18. I'm 30 now lol it was pet cemetery the original lol
Oh I very much doubt that! The thing I love most about horror is that it's soooo subjective and personal! Also Pet Semetary is TERRIFYING to me, especially the book version - it always gives me nightmares 😂
Great video!! Ran the free Delta Green operation Last Things Last for my friend this weekend. So good! Reading through all the shotgun scenarios people have written over the years makes me so excited to run them ☺️☺️
Yesss Alien and Symbaroum are definitely up there as well for me! I actually haven't heard of Trophy Dark so I'm excited to check that out! 😊 And Kult is such a weird one because for the right groups it's SO COOL, but I can easily see where it would just be bad and weird for the wrong ones 😂
@@StephaniePlaysGames trophy dark and trophy gold are pretty new I think and a very rules light dark fantasy thing where you set out to plunder ruins for treasures. Trophy dark is even rules-lighter than trophy gold, and your treasure hunter isn't really supposed to return either... 😀 I'm GMing Kult since the 90s, and mostly play with close friends, so I know where to draw the line. You really need people who are in for the horror _because_ it hurts I think and be very clear about the themes with new players. I love that Kult is absolutely uncensored (apart from the artwork in the non-kickstarter edition).
Our VtM game has definitely become one part Sopranos to one part Kiss of the Vampire. I'm sure very focused one-shots are fine, but it seems like the game plays better as a sandbox-y, player-driven experience where pressure builds as they make more enemies and keep doing terrible things. I think it also takes some time to realize the impact of the players' actions and pause to acknowledge it, otherwise it's sort of a dark comedy following criminals.
Omg I love that 😂 I agree that VtM is much better for full campaigns - I think you nailed it because I totally agree that it's the long term consequences that really make the game shine!
Also! I can't explain exactly why, but both player-in and running CoC, The Haunting hasn't quite done it for me. It's not perfect, but I like Edge of Darkness for more of a horror genre feel. (I couldn't help drawing on Evil Dead series ideas), and it's short enough to actually complete as a one shot.
Great list of spooky suggestions! I like to have “The Lost Boys” playing in the background during a Vampire: The Masquerade night. Also, great video! Thanks for sharing!
I agree - modern settings can feel really fun and refreshing to throw into the mix! I still haven't had the chance to run Liminal Horror 🫣but I've heard soooo many good things!
I'm running Vaesen at my local game shop for a group of people that have never played it before and they're loving it. Vaesen and Dragon Bane are the two primary games I'm running right now and they always go over great.
Yesss! Those are two of my favorites too! 😊 They're so easy to pick up and have really fun lore and worldbuilding - I'd be confused if I met someone who hated them! 😂
I'm keeping this video in a playlist for later! The Haunting was our first Call of Cthulhu module and it was fantastic. For D&D players looking for something light-hearted and maybe family-friendly, A Night of Fright! by Steven Pankotai is a Scooby Doo parody module for 5e. It's not perfect, the map could be consolidated a bit, but with the right group, it's a lot of fun.
Eclipse Phase is a personal favorite game. Its primary focus is post-apoclyptic sci-fi horror with heavy transhumanism and cosmic horror themes. In the aftermath of the singularity influenced by an alien technological-biological virus the remains of humanity enhabit the solar system sans a heavily quarantined Earth. Swapping bodies to travel between habitats is common, as is getting a new body after death. Also, there are deeply messed up alien stargates in multiple locations in the system. Mechanically it includes several features to support campaign play despite Call of Cthulhu style body counts and insanity. Even if you never run the system the lore is top notch and worth a look.
I am planning on trying to do a couple of sessions of Kids On Bikes this year(recently got the book). Keep the horror aspect but can allow the players to goof off a bit I feel.
Another really good one is "Dark Places & Demogorgons" which is a kinda-sorta retroclone of BX D&D (from the 80s) but the whole thing about it is it is set in the 1980s in Kentucky (or California, there is an expansion book for that) in a small town where creepy scary things are going on (ghosts, vampires, werewolves, bigfoot, mothman, lizard people, aliens, masked chainsaw murderers, cults, etc).
I also want to shout out the Alien Roleplaying Game, which like Vasen is made by Free League and uses a variant of the Year Zero Engine. It totally gets Alien as a franchise and supports horrors beyond just various flavors of Xenomorph...although the officially written modules all focus on Xenomorphs or Xenomorph-related creatures. Worth noting is that it includes TWO variants on its rules: Campaign mode to support longer-term play and movie-accurate, hyper-lethal Cinematic mode where it is expected at most one or two will survive and it is best to fully stat friendly or friendly-adjacent NPCs so dead players can take them over. Secret personal objectives are also a major part of Cinematic play. If xenomorphs aren't your cup of tea remember it is Year Zero based as mentioned above, therefore if you wanted to splice in some Vasen it should be doable.
I was actually supposed to play in a Vampire game last year but it unfortunately fell apart before it began. I've been running a horror-tinged campaign for over a year now dealing with a death cult, a lich, undead, demons and the like.
Ughhh bummer! I just had one I was playing in fall apart too 😩 I love horror elements in everything too, I haven’t gotten a chance to use liches yet but I love the flavor of them so much! Someday I’ll hopefully achieve lichdom myself 😂
@@StephaniePlaysGames This will be my time using one. She's raising the dead so she can harvest a lot more souls, gain power, and challenge the God of Death for his domain. She needs these three books and dagger in order to do so, hence the campaign.
Haha oakwood heights.. my friend who GMed it was like "I HAVE THIS CHARACTER THAT WOULD FIT YOU PERFECTLY!" and.. yea.. whoa.. that was... dark. I.. did not think she saw m that way XD It's funny how three of these games are Swedish. Guess we're really into dark shirt. Sorry but I'm going to have to bring up Skrömt again. I GMed a one-shit yesterday for our podcast (in swedish, sorry) but oh my god.. The way the system focuses on making the characters human and familiar and mostly mundane, and steers the players to work on personal psychological hooks and personal relations, then throws them into a series of events that re ALMOST as dark as KULT- Divinity Lost, and uses creatures from the same mythology as Vaesen, but, as much as I like Vaesen, the creatures in Skrömt make the ones in Vaesen look like care bears. We have GOT to push for a translated version of Skrömt.
BAHAHA omg, I love when friends do stuff like that where you just have to go "...thank...you???" 😂 And I'll die if there's never a translation! If I wasn't so shit at languages I'd probably learn swedish at this point if just to enjoy Skrömt because it sounds soooo cool!
@@StephaniePlaysGames I could... probably GM a module in english.. only the character sheets would need to be translated... the rest I could do on the fly
I usually don't play modules, but I like horror games. SLA Industries is one of those, it is a cyberpunk gone horror setting with all kinds of corporate nasties. Mothership is neat, but the Alien RPG works a little better for me. Anyway, regarding modules, I have to say that Masks of Nyarlathohep is in my opinion not that well suited for actual horror, but works much better if it is run like a crazy pulp adventure with pulp action heroes and not with the usual fragile Investigators that are more common in that game. Otherwise great list!
Ooooh I haven't heard of SLA Industries - I'll have to check it out! 😊 I also love Alien, pretty much any space/sci-fi horror is going to be a great time for me though so I'm biased!
@@StephaniePlaysGamesI bounced hard off SLA Industries when I was a teen back in the day. Nothing about the setting really made me want to play in it. Then, over two decades later, I read about the leaked "writers' bible" the creator gave to freelancers which revealed the hidden capital-t Truth behind the setting. Apparently, many of the old fans of the game hated it, but I really liked it and now I kinda want to play it in all its 80s/90s glory.
I have been banned, by my friends who care about me and my heart, from ever playing Dread again. And apparently, I'm not vicious enough to kill players in it. As for Vampire, it and its sister games (Werewolf, Mage, and Changeling, but not Wraith [every game I've played of it has fallen apart after the Preludes]) have my heart (given I changed a casual smoker into a heavy smoker after a campaign (though I do feel some remorse for that). Call of Cthulhu is fantastic in all its iterations, inculding the d20 version, Shadows, Delta Green, Trail, and BRP. And Kult, oh, Kult, the game banned in Sweden, I have not played the PbtA version yet, but my 4th Edition is a treasure and I quickly converted the creatures to Modern d20 and Vampire the Masquerade. The Jail of Night (Kult/World of Darkness) crossover is still a nice take on the game and the Online notes I've seen for a Call of Cthulhu/Kult crossover (I add a dash of Unknown armies in also) is a world I would love to run.
@@StephaniePlaysGames for a start I prefer it's system for powerful ancient vampires - you just get more potent as you age, not because your sire was closer to Cain. It also cut all the end of the world stuff out of the lore which made the game seem more personal to me. Gehenna always felt like an imposition on Storytellers. You can have the end of the world if you want to, of course, but it's not so integral to everything. I also just generally prefer the nWoD system - difficulties vary on how many successes you need but a success is always 8+. I also liked the way they did bloodlines as branches of the main clans. Just a lot of little things which made it more like a gothic horror game and less of a trenchcoats and katanas game.
Do you like horror movies? 👀🔪
Yessss! I've been doing 31 nights of horror movies each October with friends for many years now! Always a fun time programming a lil horror film festival with the pals.
I love it! One of my friends does that too, it's one of my favorite parts of the year! 😊
The ones like Alien and Hereditary that are really scary, but I ran CoC for years
Eclipse Phase leans towards horror.
I'm really happy you posted this! The only game I had heard of was 10 candles I can't wait to check out the others
Ahhhh oh man all of them are so much fun, I can’t wait to hear about which ones personally speak to you! 😊
@@StephaniePlaysGames I'd never be able to run a horror game as well as you. I didn't see my first horror movie until I was 18. I'm 30 now lol it was pet cemetery the original lol
Oh I very much doubt that! The thing I love most about horror is that it's soooo subjective and personal! Also Pet Semetary is TERRIFYING to me, especially the book version - it always gives me nightmares 😂
Great video! The recommendations on who they might interest are a nice touch.
Thanks for the kind words! 😊
Thanks for the shout out Stephanie!!!
Of course! Thanks for timing your video so well 😉
Great video!! Ran the free Delta Green operation Last Things Last for my friend this weekend. So good! Reading through all the shotgun scenarios people have written over the years makes me so excited to run them ☺️☺️
There really are soooo many good ones! 😊
Sometimes I just watch videos like this to see if KULT is included. You did include it!
Yesss Alien and Symbaroum are definitely up there as well for me! I actually haven't heard of Trophy Dark so I'm excited to check that out! 😊 And Kult is such a weird one because for the right groups it's SO COOL, but I can easily see where it would just be bad and weird for the wrong ones 😂
@@StephaniePlaysGames trophy dark and trophy gold are pretty new I think and a very rules light dark fantasy thing where you set out to plunder ruins for treasures. Trophy dark is even rules-lighter than trophy gold, and your treasure hunter isn't really supposed to return either... 😀
I'm GMing Kult since the 90s, and mostly play with close friends, so I know where to draw the line. You really need people who are in for the horror _because_ it hurts I think and be very clear about the themes with new players. I love that Kult is absolutely uncensored (apart from the artwork in the non-kickstarter edition).
Thanks!
Our VtM game has definitely become one part Sopranos to one part Kiss of the Vampire. I'm sure very focused one-shots are fine, but it seems like the game plays better as a sandbox-y, player-driven experience where pressure builds as they make more enemies and keep doing terrible things. I think it also takes some time to realize the impact of the players' actions and pause to acknowledge it, otherwise it's sort of a dark comedy following criminals.
Omg I love that 😂 I agree that VtM is much better for full campaigns - I think you nailed it because I totally agree that it's the long term consequences that really make the game shine!
Also!
I can't explain exactly why, but both player-in and running CoC, The Haunting hasn't quite done it for me.
It's not perfect, but I like Edge of Darkness for more of a horror genre feel. (I couldn't help drawing on Evil Dead series ideas), and it's short enough to actually complete as a one shot.
Great list of spooky suggestions! I like to have “The Lost Boys” playing in the background during a Vampire: The Masquerade night. Also, great video! Thanks for sharing!
Yesss The Lost Boys is such a classic! Thanks for the kind words! 😊
I have run Liminal Horror a few times for different groups and found that to be very fun. I like playing in a modern setting every once in a while!
I agree - modern settings can feel really fun and refreshing to throw into the mix! I still haven't had the chance to run Liminal Horror 🫣but I've heard soooo many good things!
I'm running Vaesen at my local game shop for a group of people that have never played it before and they're loving it. Vaesen and Dragon Bane are the two primary games I'm running right now and they always go over great.
Yesss! Those are two of my favorites too! 😊 They're so easy to pick up and have really fun lore and worldbuilding - I'd be confused if I met someone who hated them! 😂
My group used to play Vampire: The Masquerade starting at sundown and playing until sunup, all lit by black candles. It was fun.
…. Omg I love that so much!!! What a fun idea for those of us who aren’t the world’s sleepiest people 😂😂😂
I'm keeping this video in a playlist for later! The Haunting was our first Call of Cthulhu module and it was fantastic. For D&D players looking for something light-hearted and maybe family-friendly, A Night of Fright! by Steven Pankotai is a Scooby Doo parody module for 5e. It's not perfect, the map could be consolidated a bit, but with the right group, it's a lot of fun.
Ooooh thanks for the recommendation! 😊
Eclipse Phase is a personal favorite game. Its primary focus is post-apoclyptic sci-fi horror with heavy transhumanism and cosmic horror themes. In the aftermath of the singularity influenced by an alien technological-biological virus the remains of humanity enhabit the solar system sans a heavily quarantined Earth. Swapping bodies to travel between habitats is common, as is getting a new body after death. Also, there are deeply messed up alien stargates in multiple locations in the system.
Mechanically it includes several features to support campaign play despite Call of Cthulhu style body counts and insanity. Even if you never run the system the lore is top notch and worth a look.
I am planning on trying to do a couple of sessions of Kids On Bikes this year(recently got the book). Keep the horror aspect but can allow the players to goof off a bit I feel.
I love Kids on Bikes, it's always such a fun time! I agree, I love the way the vibe can switch back and forth when playing it! 😊
Another really good one is "Dark Places & Demogorgons" which is a kinda-sorta retroclone of BX D&D (from the 80s) but the whole thing about it is it is set in the 1980s in Kentucky (or California, there is an expansion book for that) in a small town where creepy scary things are going on (ghosts, vampires, werewolves, bigfoot, mothman, lizard people, aliens, masked chainsaw murderers, cults, etc).
Oh man, that sounds like so much fun, I'll definitely have to check it out! 😊
One of my groups does a Halloween one shot every year. This will be a good video to send everybody.
I love groups that do themed things, it's always have such a great time! 😊
"The Whispering Vault" is similar in form to "Vampire: The Masquerade." The characters are tasted with protecting reality Disruptive entities.
I also want to shout out the Alien Roleplaying Game, which like Vasen is made by Free League and uses a variant of the Year Zero Engine. It totally gets Alien as a franchise and supports horrors beyond just various flavors of Xenomorph...although the officially written modules all focus on Xenomorphs or Xenomorph-related creatures.
Worth noting is that it includes TWO variants on its rules: Campaign mode to support longer-term play and movie-accurate, hyper-lethal Cinematic mode where it is expected at most one or two will survive and it is best to fully stat friendly or friendly-adjacent NPCs so dead players can take them over. Secret personal objectives are also a major part of Cinematic play.
If xenomorphs aren't your cup of tea remember it is Year Zero based as mentioned above, therefore if you wanted to splice in some Vasen it should be doable.
I was actually supposed to play in a Vampire game last year but it unfortunately fell apart before it began. I've been running a horror-tinged campaign for over a year now dealing with a death cult, a lich, undead, demons and the like.
Ughhh bummer! I just had one I was playing in fall apart too 😩 I love horror elements in everything too, I haven’t gotten a chance to use liches yet but I love the flavor of them so much! Someday I’ll hopefully achieve lichdom myself 😂
@@StephaniePlaysGames This will be my time using one. She's raising the dead so she can harvest a lot more souls, gain power, and challenge the God of Death for his domain. She needs these three books and dagger in order to do so, hence the campaign.
All Flesh Must Be Eaten. Because who doesn't love zombies?
Ooooh, good choice!
But WWDitS the TTRPG is exactly what I'm looking for! 🦇
Bahaha it’s honestly so much fun when it devolves into that! I just know some people get disappointed 😂
Lots of great games!!!
Glad you enjoyed them! 😊
Haha oakwood heights.. my friend who GMed it was like "I HAVE THIS CHARACTER THAT WOULD FIT YOU PERFECTLY!" and.. yea.. whoa.. that was... dark. I.. did not think she saw m that way XD
It's funny how three of these games are Swedish. Guess we're really into dark shirt.
Sorry but I'm going to have to bring up Skrömt again. I GMed a one-shit yesterday for our podcast (in swedish, sorry) but oh my god.. The way the system focuses on making the characters human and familiar and mostly mundane, and steers the players to work on personal psychological hooks and personal relations, then throws them into a series of events that re ALMOST as dark as KULT- Divinity Lost, and uses creatures from the same mythology as Vaesen, but, as much as I like Vaesen, the creatures in Skrömt make the ones in Vaesen look like care bears. We have GOT to push for a translated version of Skrömt.
BAHAHA omg, I love when friends do stuff like that where you just have to go "...thank...you???" 😂 And I'll die if there's never a translation! If I wasn't so shit at languages I'd probably learn swedish at this point if just to enjoy Skrömt because it sounds soooo cool!
@@StephaniePlaysGames I could... probably GM a module in english.. only the character sheets would need to be translated... the rest I could do on the fly
I usually don't play modules, but I like horror games. SLA Industries is one of those, it is a cyberpunk gone horror setting with all kinds of corporate nasties. Mothership is neat, but the Alien RPG works a little better for me. Anyway, regarding modules, I have to say that Masks of Nyarlathohep is in my opinion not that well suited for actual horror, but works much better if it is run like a crazy pulp adventure with pulp action heroes and not with the usual fragile Investigators that are more common in that game. Otherwise great list!
Ooooh I haven't heard of SLA Industries - I'll have to check it out! 😊 I also love Alien, pretty much any space/sci-fi horror is going to be a great time for me though so I'm biased!
@@StephaniePlaysGamesI bounced hard off SLA Industries when I was a teen back in the day. Nothing about the setting really made me want to play in it. Then, over two decades later, I read about the leaked "writers' bible" the creator gave to freelancers which revealed the hidden capital-t Truth behind the setting. Apparently, many of the old fans of the game hated it, but I really liked it and now I kinda want to play it in all its 80s/90s glory.
I have been banned, by my friends who care about me and my heart, from ever playing Dread again. And apparently, I'm not vicious enough to kill players in it. As for Vampire, it and its sister games (Werewolf, Mage, and Changeling, but not Wraith [every game I've played of it has fallen apart after the Preludes]) have my heart (given I changed a casual smoker into a heavy smoker after a campaign (though I do feel some remorse for that). Call of Cthulhu is fantastic in all its iterations, inculding the d20 version, Shadows, Delta Green, Trail, and BRP. And Kult, oh, Kult, the game banned in Sweden, I have not played the PbtA version yet, but my 4th Edition is a treasure and I quickly converted the creatures to Modern d20 and Vampire the Masquerade. The Jail of Night (Kult/World of Darkness) crossover is still a nice take on the game and the Online notes I've seen for a Call of Cthulhu/Kult crossover (I add a dash of Unknown armies in also) is a world I would love to run.
Cool video. Check out the many horror themed games by Bloat Games (Bloody Appalachia, Camp Blood, What Shadows Hide & Dark Places and Demogorgons).
Controversial opinion : Vampire - The Requiem is better than Vampire - The Masquerade
I've read through parts of Requiem but haven't gotten to actually play it yet! 😩 What makes you prefer it over Masquerade?
@@StephaniePlaysGames for a start I prefer it's system for powerful ancient vampires - you just get more potent as you age, not because your sire was closer to Cain.
It also cut all the end of the world stuff out of the lore which made the game seem more personal to me. Gehenna always felt like an imposition on Storytellers. You can have the end of the world if you want to, of course, but it's not so integral to everything.
I also just generally prefer the nWoD system - difficulties vary on how many successes you need but a success is always 8+.
I also liked the way they did bloodlines as branches of the main clans.
Just a lot of little things which made it more like a gothic horror game and less of a trenchcoats and katanas game.
Vampire TM is not horror hahaha. It's about superpowers, guns and katanas