Best System for a Silent Hill-like Horror Game?

[MortonStromgal]

I really really want to say nWOD but the correct answer is Unknown Armies its similar to the Cthuhlu system (uses %) but you could harden rather than go insane it also has several sanity meters based on the type of stimuli.

 

[Yora]

I think one problem that needs to be dealt with is the issue of lethality. The characters need to be very vulnerable, but since it's all about the specific characters identity, you can't really afford to lose them.

Unfortunately, the one method to create tension that worked best for me, and that is used by most horror videogames, is to slowly sap away the characters resources and making it difficult to regain strength.
Playing with a 1st level group without healer or potion against very weak critters in Castles & Crusades led to a very exciting game. The fighter could take a lot of hits, but with each one every new encounter became more and more dangerous and they had to be increasingly careful.

Creating tension in a horror game when the PCs can't die would be quite difficult.

 

[gamerprinter]

I think one problem that needs to be dealt with is the issue of lethality. The characters need to be very vulnerable, but since it's all about the specific characters identity, you can't really afford to lose them.

Unfortunately, the one method to create tension that worked best for me, and that is used by most horror videogames, is to slowly sap away the characters resources and making it difficult to regain strength.
Playing with a 1st level group without healer or potion against very weak critters in Castles & Crusades led to a very exciting game. The fighter could take a lot of hits, but with each one every new encounter became more and more dangerous and they had to be increasingly careful.

Creating tension in a horror game when the PCs can't die would be quite difficult.

While I agree that limiting resources is a good way to put horror into a session, I don't believe into otherwise limiting the lethality. If a PC dies, he/she dies, and the party gets smaller, that should increase the horror for the rest of the party, and not taking too much risk to keep the rest alive becomes paramount. It would be the GMs job to adjust the rest of the encounters to account for the party with one less member. I would never play a game (horror or otherwise) where the PCs cannot die - I'd consider that exercise a waste of time.

Add to that, those thinking that horror only really works when PCs are at 1st level haven't played in the Kaidan setting of Japanese horror (PFRPG). Here's a free one-shot adventure from Kaidan, called Frozen Wind for a party of 4 each, 5th level characters. Using the pregens, there are no healers in the party, except for 1 paladin (and it's not enough). This is a survivor horror adventure - I've run it twice, and once it was almost a TPK, in the other 2 of the 5 died, even after getting some healing. I've got another one-shot (not free) called Up from Darkness built for 4 each, 7th level characters, and due to the reincarnation aspect of the adventure, PCs can expect to die, multiple times in the same adventure. Both are solid adventures for higher level characters built for some real horror gaming...

 

[Jhaelen]

I've been thinking of running a horror game like the Silent Hill series of Playstation games, so I've been looking for an appropriate rule system that would support it. The things from the Silent Hill series of games that I would like to emulate are:

• A twisted "Dark World" version of the real world.
• Deformed, grotesque monsters that represent the subconscious fears of the characters.
• Characters are forced to confront their fears and guilts

That sounds a lot like the setting of WOD's Wraith: The Oblivion. Of course in Wraith, every pc is a ghost which may or may not be a problem. Still, I suppose you could borrow its most interesting features, e.g. fetters that you need to resolve and confronting your Shadow.

 

[Jabborwacky]

Rather than making a new thread on the topic, I thought it would be better to share my current research and preparation for a Silent Hill tabletop game here.

Silent Hill is fairly unique and requires certain options that systems like Pathfinder aren't really designed to accommodate. The best three systems I've ran into for Silent Hill have been Savage Worlds, FATE, and Monte Cook's Cypher System. For those who want a more narrative driven experience, the FATE and Cypher systems are good choices. Narrative driven RPGs provide systematic ways to reward players for their roleplaying. They also limit dice rolls and provide explicit rules for overruling low rolls in ways that serve to further enrich the narrative.

Savage Worlds is a bit more mechanical in the sense of being at the mercy of the dice. It is also the cheapest option of the three if you want a hard copy of the rulebooks. You can buy the Savage Worlds Deluxe Explorer's Edition and the Horror companion with complimentary PDFs for $10 each from their store as of this post. While I personally love the narrative rules from the cypher system and FATE system, executing good judgement behind the GM screen can still prevent random chance from turning the game into a comedy.

One of the most critical things to remember that is far more important than any system you choose for your game: Don't tell players they are playing in Silent Hill!

Set up the game in a neighboring town, have all the signs scratched up so bad that they are unintelligible, and even consider changing the names of key locations (especially the town of Silent Hill itself). Part of the beauty of Silent Hill games when they were still new on the block was that players had no idea what was really going on. The isolation, visuals, and monsters left players guessing as to whether everything the character was experiencing was supernatural, a product of the character's mind, or somewhere in between. Opening up with a car accident, I remember pondering whether Henry was even awake: The entire experience was so surreal I honestly didn't know if it were a dream or reality. As a result, probably the best Silent Hill game is one where the player characters are left questioning the nature of the reality they are experiencing.

 

[Imaculata]

The OP kind of deflected the idea of Call of Cthulhu in his opening post, because Silent Hill is not about going mad (according to him).

Here is why he is wrong:

The Silent Hill games have always been about trying to drive the player mad. It is all about madness. You may not have noticed it while you were playing the games, but there are many fine details and deliberate design choices in Silent Hill that are meant to put the player in a certain state of madness.

So if you aim to bring that same experience to your table, then you are not going to achieve that goal unless you include that element of madness. Bringing a game like Silent Hill to life as a role playing game, is all about first understanding the subject matter.

 

[Warbringer]

Dread would be fun or gumshoe could be interesting

 

[Jabborwacky]

The OP kind of deflected the idea of Call of Cthulhu in his opening post, because Silent Hill is not about going mad (according to him).

Here is why he is wrong:

The Silent Hill games have always been about trying to drive the player mad. It is all about madness. You may not have noticed it while you were playing the games, but there are many fine details and deliberate design choices in Silent Hill that are meant to put the player in a certain state of madness.

So if you aim to bring that same experience to your table, then you are not going to achieve that goal unless you include that element of madness. Bringing a game like Silent Hill to life as a role playing game, is all about first understanding the subject matter.

In the case of the Silent Hill series, insanity certainly did have its place (particularly in the widely popular Silent Hill 2). However, the setting was about giving manifest to the dark corners of the human mind, not a downward spiral into insanity. The only insanity is what any visitor brings with them. If someone does experience a Cthulhu style spiral into insanity, that would be very unique to him/her and him/her alone.

Dread would be fun or gumshoe could be interesting

Yeah, after I posted I was looking around and found some references to the Dread system on a Reddit post. Most seemed to support the idea that it would be good for a one-shot, but not a long campaign. The gumshoe system is a new one to me, but I'll look it up.

Although, Dread would probably work well for my purposes. The series does best when focusing on the town itself rather than the backstory, and so lends itself well to standalone adventures. The best games in the series did the same (Silent Hill 2 and 4).

 

[Imaculata]

In the case of the Silent Hill series, insanity certainly did have its place (particularly in the widely popular Silent Hill 2). However, the setting was about giving manifest to the dark corners of the human mind, not a downward spiral into insanity. The only insanity is what any visitor brings with them. If someone does experience a Cthulhu style spiral into insanity, that would be very unique to him/her and him/her alone.

This is only true on the surface. Manifesting the dark corners of the human mind, and that of the main characters, is only the outward appearance of the game. But there is a deeper much darker layer, which intentionally messes with the mind of the player. It is this aspect, which most gamers do not even notice (but it does affect them on a subconscious level) that is vital to getting the mood right in a Silent Hill game.

This is most noticeable in Silent Hill 2, where sometimes doors disappear that were there before, and how sentences disappear from a letter in your inventory. The game is constantly changed on purpose, to create a nightmarish feeling, where the player is deliberately driven a bit mad. This is especially takes root if you have been playing the game late at night.

It is interesting to note that there was a case in the Netherlands of a man who thought that he was stuck inside Silent Hill, and he attacked the nurses of the hospital that he was hospitalized in. And while this man was probably completely out of his mind, this does not entirely surprise me. Silent Hill is a game designed to mess with your head. It is a tall order to recreate that in a table top game, but Call of Cthulhu would certainly be the right system to do it with. So don't be too quick to dismiss it.

 

[GMMichael]

Savage Worlds is a bit more mechanical in the sense of being at the mercy of the dice. It is also the cheapest option of the three if you want a hard copy of the rulebooks. You can buy the Savage Worlds Deluxe Explorer's Edition and the Horror companion with complimentary PDFs for $10 each from their store as of this post. While I personally love the narrative rules from the cypher system and FATE system, executing good judgement behind the GM screen can still prevent random chance from turning the game into a comedy.

Good insights, Jabbor. The responsibility of turning a game into anything other than a jokefest always rests heavily on the GM.

If you haven't picked out (or made) a system for your game yet, I'll recommend Modos RPG because it's cheaper than Savage Worlds, just as narrative as Fate or Cypher, and mental health is hardwired into the system. http://www.enworld.org/forum/rpgdownloads.php?do=download&downloadid=1210

Have fun driving your PCs crazy!

P.S. My skin is crawling just remembering the Silent Hill PT...