Scarlet King Edition

Tell us about your horror settings, games, etc. Share inspirational art, prompts, etc.

>List of games:
Call of Cthulhu, Chill, Cold and Dark, Degenesis, Delta Green, Don't Rest Your Head, Dread, Esoterrorists/Fear Itself+Book of Unremitting Horror, Fall of Delta Green, GORE, Into The Shadows, KULT, Little Fears, Mothership RPG, Nemesis (free on Arc Dream's website), Nights Black Agents, Silent Legions (Mostly for the tables), Stalker: The SciFi RPG, Symbaroum, Ten Candles, Trail of Cthulhu, Unisystem (All Flesh Must Be Eaten, Witchcraft, Conspiracy X, etc.), Unknown Armies, The Whispering Vault, Vaesen

>Inspirational stuff:
Caitlin R Kiernan, Castlevania, Carnacki the Ghost-Finder, Doom Watch, Fear & Hunger, George Romero, Ghostwatch, House of Leaves, I Am In Eskew, John Carpenter, Kolchak the Nightstalker, Laird Barron, John Langan, M.R. James, Nick Cutter, Old Gods of Appalachia, Quatermass, Ramsey Campbell, Remedy Series (Alan Wake, Control), SCP Foundation, Scarfolk Council, Shaun Hutson, Silent Hill, Stand Still Stay Silent, The Evil Dead, The Magnus Archives, The Secret World, The Stone Tapes, Anatomy, Thomas Ligotti, Twin Peaks, Vault of Evil forums, toomuchhorrorfiction

Other News:
"The Sutra of Pale Leaves: Carcosa Manifest" coming later this year
https://www.chaosium.com/blogcoming-in-2025-for-call-of-cthulhu-the-sutra-of-pale-leaves-carcosa-manifest/

Current Book Club Topic:
"The Salem Horror" by Henry Kuttner
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76108

Questions for the thread:
>Have you ever run a zombie apocalypse/survival game?
>What system did you use?
>How'd it go?

Previous thread:
>>95958319

Please try to keep arguing to a minimum. Don't respond to bait/drama/politics posts.

And as usual, try and keep it alive. It is part of the special containment procedures.

Thanks for the fresh bake.
Ran a zombie apoc game using All Flesh Must Be Eaten. Went pretty well. The system was easy to use and the players liked it. Started off as a bunch of normal college kids coming back from a party when they ran into a traffic jam and then the outbreak happened. Several session later, they made it back to their dorms, hooked up with a few locals who had cabins in the woods and went out to secure the location and fortify it. Ended there but was fun over all.

>>96133537 (OP)
How's the End of the World RPG series?

...this scenario is pretty much just Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum from 2018

>>96133537 (OP)
You need to change the thread questions whenever you make a new thread. Usually something in line with the theme.

>>96134802
Well tell the class about it for those that haven't heard of it.

>>96134970
Hush now, they made a new thread when no one else did. Be grateful.

>>96135696
No one else likes Asian horror? It’s a Korean horror film with basically an identical premise. A YouTube paranormal investigation channel spends the night at an abandoned mental hospital to try and reach 1,000,000 viewers for a big payday. The module even has a scheduled ouija board ritual where the movie has a planned exorcism. It’s weirdly, specifically close (even the fake psychic character, kind of?). I get being inspired but they published and started selling Viral within 4 years of the movie coming out.

>>96135812
Well I will check it out then anon. I love Kingdom, another Korean horror film as well as few others from the same director such as Monstrom.

>>96135822
>>96135812
Sorry, Monstrum. Cause I can't spell.

>>96135812
yeah its basically that plus a touch of fulci

>>96135812
I generated a bunch of junjislop

>>96134970
Fuck. I forgot to change it. Sorry about that.

>>96134970
>>96135700
I would have made it but I fell asleep.

Book Club starter questions:
>What works?
>What's cool about it?
>Why is it so effective?
>What is the best part of it in your opinion?
>Thoughts on the characters?
>Is the villain effective?
>If you had to pick a moment that really scared you, which would it be?
>Is there anything you feel could have been expanded upon?
>What would you change?
>Would you use it as inspiration for a game?

>>96133537 (OP)
There is a SCP board game. Thought I share it here with you guys especially since this thread is dedicated to the Scarlet King.

>>96135812
I'm a fan of Asian horror, but haven't gone too indepth with them yet. Mostly The Ring/Ringu, Grudge and Dark Water so far, as well as Junji Ito's stuff. But it's something I really want to get more into.
Are there any other scenarios/games which capture Asian horror well?

>Be me
>Only person in my group who runs Call of Cthulhu
>Enjoy it (I'm not one of those people who bemoans being a forever GM) but like to use cons as chances to be a player
>Sign up for a game at anime con in my town
>Keeper running it says she's new to running it but has experience as player
>We're using pre-made characters from Doors to Darkness
>Keeper says if there's any items not listed on the character sheet that we want to ask and she'll approve them
>Notice there's no light source on mine (I'm playing the priest), which is something in my experience players always forget to bring
>Ask if I can have a lantern (We're playing in 1901 so no flashlights)
>Keeper agrees
>Turns out the scenario is entirely around monsters who can't enter light
>We're supposed to have a limited amount of glowing crystals which burn out to keep them back
>However, my having a lantern keeps us completely safe for 90% of the finale
>I even use the lantern flame to make jury-rigged torches for the other PCs
>About 75% through, Keeper admits she's never gotten this far without SOMEONE dying
>We all end up living, though only barely
Unintentionally breaking someone's con game was fucking hilarious. She did a great job and the fact things still remained scary is a testament to how well she handled the horror but MAN was she struggling to deal with the fact I brought a lantern.

>>96139994
Strange Tales of Song Ling RPG is short but great.

It's not the Asian horror of Ringu or Grudge, but the style of old Hong Kong ghost movies, or chinese movies like "A Chinese Ghost Story" and ghost C-Dramas. Those stories are like the "Ravenloft" of Asian Horror.

>>96139994
Not a scenario but an interesting starting point for exploration might be the Shadow Book of Ji Yun. It's a great repository of folklore and "true" paranormal occurrences recorded by an 18th century Chinese politician that could make for interesting inspiration.

Is there a good rpg for doing spooky cyberpunk stuff?
Apart obviously from Pondsmiths "cyberpunk" and shadowrun.

>>96139481
>SCP board game with an official Scaroet King model
I fucking kneel.

>>96144557
My Cthulhutech spiritual successor that consists of a few paragraphs at the end of my houserules notes .doc and a bunch of stuff fin my head.

And some mothership modules, I guess, if you can stand NuOSR with "figure out how combat works yourself" rules.

>>96134802
Did anyone play theee guys next module, Inversion? The premise looked interesting though I hated actually playing Viral since it boiled down to a railroad with 20 [ages of fluff that doesn't matter.

>>96134220
Fuck it, I'll bite.

The End of the World series is supposed to represent the players experiencing an apocalyptic event. It could be just when said event just started, shortly after it started, years after it started, etc. The core books setup each different flavor of apocalypse and catalogs each major milestone in them well enough to give you an idea of where to start but doesn't flesh shit out in a lot of detail.

The system works well enough and uses standard d6s. It's a rules lite narrative affair. Since you are roleplaying as a group of retards who enjoy roleplaying that got dropped into the apocalypse, your stats are gonna be middling and fucking up is fairly commonplace. As such, it's a pretty banging game for one shots where everybody winds up dead. In fact, the players should go into it fully expecting to die. Surviving the game isn't really the point so much as trying to have a memorable death. It's the End of the World after all, not Anon's Save the Universe.

Grab a particular version of Hellscape you think would make a good horror movie backdrop for a no survivor movie with 100% of the cast being sidekick tier characters and see how long you can survive a meat-grinder with whatever bullshit reason to be out in that meat-grinder you see fit.

I personally liked the little gray aliens going full Mats Attacks on our ass.

Thoughts on Memento Mori?

>>96133537 (OP)
Oh hey this is exactly the sort of general I was looking for. I'm thinking about running a low powered skinwalker/doppelganger game inspired by No I'm not a Human. What would be some recommendations for that?

>>96144557
There is a gurps book called Cthulhupunk that might give you some ideas, if nothing else.

>>96139481
>Scarlet King model
Cool. Does this game have his minions like Jeser and Moloch?

Speaking of human sacrifices and HPL.

The man used them very sparsely: Keziah kills children in The Dreams in the Witch-house (altough it's not exactly sure what they do, they seem useful to return in the real world) and in the Call the cultist offer them to Those with the Dark Wings (do they need to feed off on them? Actually, what are they, even?).

While this is all fine and dandy and defintely helps him stay away from the gothic/pulp novel overused tropes, I'm partial to the nips ideas of human suffering as magical fuel (Silent Hill style) and the haunted location as really a nowhere of mass murder/playground for foul shit (Corpse Party).

So... what are some ideas to make it a tiny bit more lovecraftian than "crazy hypergeometrical witch kidnaps and kill children in her pocket dimension"? Not necessarily less pulpy, but somehow more inspired.

>Never DM'ed anything
>Offer to be keeper for CoC
>8 People from the local shop sign up

Oh god I'm nervous what the fuck do I do. I can't remember every single stat on the page and people are gonna be mad oh god.

I live and breathe weird fiction/horror literature and film but I'm god damn terrified what the fuuuuuuuck.

>>96156763
The sacrifices in Call are just because it's what the cultists think works. It doesn't do shit. Cthulhu does not give the slightest shit about humanity. It's like ants leaving dead ants at your doorstep. You either wouldn't notice or just think "that's weird" before moving about your day.

You want good shit? Have a literal wizard show up throwing down fucked up spells from Shadow of the Demon Lord. Yog-Sothoth freely shares his gifts to anyone batshit enough to pay him a visit.

>>96157803
>4 players max
>run The Haunting
>keep it tight, clean, elegant
>ruthlessly crush those who defy you

>>96157803
8 is too many
especially for a first time keeper

>>96157803
As the others said, 4 should be absolute maximum of players for a new GM. I'm Gming for years and I wouldn't go near a table with more than 5 players and that is if everyone involved has the rules down to a t.
If I had to recommend a first session it would probably be something like a quick investigation followed by ONE combat encounters with human enemies. When everyone especially the GM is still getting familiar with the rules, things tend to drag on quite a bit and you don't want to be stuck in a fight that has the concluded while everyone at the table is already tired. Or something prewritten.
When I start a new game or group I always treat the first session as a one-shot.

>>96158167
>>96160107
>>96160352

I'll definitely split into two different games, The Haunting is on my list, then after those maybe some of the pre-mades that came with the game screen.

I'll just focus on the first game and see how it goes.

Thanks all.

>>96160869
I'd recommend reading The Alexandrian's articles about running a mystery to give you an idea of what the nuts and bolts of actually setting and moving through scenes looks like. It's in the GMing 101 section on his site. Seth Skorkowksy also has a good video specifically about running the Haunting that I found helpful the first time I ran it. He's also got a bunch of other really practical review/how tos of other CoC modules, including the ones included with the keepers screen, so it might be worth checking out.

>>96155094
I remember The Night Shift has some similar mechanics that could make this concept work. If you want to, I have a video about this game if you're interested to give it a watch. https://youtu.be/oGCvPCfTdIU

>>96155094
What are you looking for in a system?
Because generally what I refer people to look at in these situations is Unknown Armies 2nd Ed. Percentile dice that works great for a horror system, combat is incredibly dangerous, and the character sheets are surprisingly simple yet very effective for giving each character something to give themselves identity with things like rage impulses, fear reflexes and personal goals having mechanical use
Then there's the more granular sanity system where it's not just treated as a second HP bar which can have some fun moments here.

>>96157803
>8
Way too many like the others said. You'd need to cut that shit down heavily.

Insect monsters are the scariest.