Call of Cthulhu vs World of Darkness

[VGmaster9]

CoC and WoD, as far as I'm concerned, are the two biggest horror games in the market. They both have their very own unique sorta appeal. What is it that you like in the two games? Which one do you prefer? Do you think that they're both the best in the horror genre?

 

[Crothian]

The best horror game is Dread. CoC these days suffers from over exposure. It's hard to be scared of a great ancient evil that comes as a plushie. WoD is good for horror mortal games but I get the feeling most of the players use it for Vampires or Werewolves or other super powered creatures.

 

[Pour]

This thread comes at the perfect time because I'm running my first Dread game set in the Cthulhu mythos in a few days. It just seemed the right choice, despite having used the Chaosium 6th Edition previously, for a table of new players. Player accounts of how involved people get in front of the Jenga tower just screams at the type of experience I'm aiming for. I mean what better representation of a shattered sanity is there than a falling tower of wooden blocks?

 

[the Jester]

I've played in a number of WoD games over the year, but they've never hit the horror button, not even a little bit.

CoC... yes. YES!!

 

[Tinker Gnome]

Dread sounds interesting, but I would be hard pressed to play particularly seriously. I am a bit bad at pulling Jenga blocks out. For me, it would be like trying to play one of those old NES games that are legendarily difficult, not scary, just frustrating.

 

[prosfilaes]

I'm personally a fan of Trail of Cthulhu; I ran one of my most scary games with it.

 

[MerricB]

CoC and WoD, as far as I'm concerned, are the two biggest horror games in the market. They both have their very own unique sorta appeal. What is it that you like in the two games? Which one do you prefer? Do you think that they're both the best in the horror genre?

World of Darkness is "you play the monsters in a dark world", and it doesn't quite work as a horror game to me. I'm really not fond of how the world is presented.

Call of Cthulhu is "you discover things man was not meant to know", and it works a lot better. The game system is creaky, but the adventures make up for it. The one bit of system that really works is Sanity, and it's all it needs.

Cheers!

 

[Keeper of Secrets]

I never really saw WoD as a horror game, actually. I saw it as more of a game where characters embrace darkness . . . to a point. I guess WoD is closer to a game in psychology than horror, which, I suppose could be its own form of horror.

Call of Cthulhu is the original horror game but as Crothian accurately stated, how scary is a game when your main symbol comes on plushies, is being endorsed for president on t shirts and has coloring books associated with it? (As a slight derailment, as much as I love the old 60's James Bond movies, Austin Powers have kind of ruined their credibility at this point.)

As far as sheer horror goes, well, let's face it - it really is hard to replicate horror in your living room when players are sitting around with their munchies and have the ability to do side conversations about Fantasy Football or even how much better Cthulhu WOULD be as president or whatever.

This is why Dread is the only game that I have found that actually does at least TRY and replicate some horror. You, the player, share, albeit slightly, with your character. The nervousness and tension you feel from pulling from the tower is one of the few things that actually can bring you to that same horror level.

 

[DragonLancer]

I GM both games and they both provide different approaches to the horror gaming genre. WoD is about playing monsters, and CoC is about investigative horror. Of the two, CoC is by far the best though once players know anything of it the game does lose something.

 

[Jhaelen]

World of Darkness is "you play the monsters in a dark world", and it doesn't quite work as a horror game to me. I'm really not fond of how the world is presented.

But that's not quite correct. If you're playing WoD without any of the 'add-on systems' (like Vampire, Werewolf, etc.) then everyone is a normal human.

Actually, after reading the nWoD rulebook I thought it would be a very cool system to use for a 'Mystery' campaign, similar to the X-Files stuff.

Similarly, in the nWoD Changeling rpg you play a (formerly) normal human that has been kidnapped and taken to the Fae realm and managed to escape back to the real world. The experience has changed you somewhat, but you're still no supernatural creature (and definitely not a 'monster in a dark world').

nWoD has also dialled down on the 'grim-dark'/pesudo-goth aspects that were so typical for oWoD. I think it should work quite well as a system for modern horror.