Best system for horror... Thoughts?

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Depends on what kind of horror you want to run.

He explicitly said in his post.

Seriously, is no one reading anything other than his subject line? Ravenloft D20 for a 21st century game revolving around two brothers and a muscle car?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

For horror, you can't go wrong with the World of Darkness.

Except its tone and mechanics are absolutely unsuited for a game where the mortals beating the monster of the week is the central premise.

 

[Treebore]

The PERFECT fit for Supernatural. I'm baffled by people suggesting NWoD or CoC, since the show is about kicking the ass of demons, not being slaughtered by them. Are people making suggestions without having seen the show?

Make the brothers White Hats and the dad more experienced, and you're off and running. Lots of conversion posts on the Eden Studios EZBoard, too.

You might want to get Angel instead of Buffy, since the vehicle rules are there, and you'll need to create your own monsters instead of using the more prefab ones from Buffy.

It would also depend on what time era he wants to do a supernatural type game. If he wants to do it modern than your right, but if he wants to do it mid to late 1800's Ravenloft can do it in spades. At least going by my experience. I have noted how those of us who use Ravenloft do lots of things very differently.

 

[iwatt]

Make the brothers White Hats and the dad more experienced, and you're off and running.

I'm not very familiar with the Buffy rules, but Dean and Sam are pretty tough customers. The Dad's really though.

And I agree that the charcter's don't actually get scared. Or grow out of it:

When I told Dad I was scared of the thing in my closet, he gave me a .45.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It would also depend on what time era he wants to do a supernatural type game.

HE WANTS TO EMULATE THE "SUPERNATURAL" TV SHOW.

I have noted how those of us who use Ravenloft do lots of things very differently.

Really? Do you have muscle cars, credit card fraud and sawed off shotguns?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I'm not very familiar with the Buffy rules, but Dean and Sam are pretty tough customers. The Dad's really though.

Buffy/Angel have a two-tier system where you have the REALLY tough characters, like Buffy or Angel, who are just combat monsters (or magical badasses, if they put their resources into that), while the sidekick characters get Drama Points aplenty to make up for being mechanically weaker, but true to the story.

At the beginning of the show, at least, Sam and Dean aren't even close to their dad's league, and mostly have (some) experience and cool nerves working for them, I'd argue, compared to their father, who, if he's not in Buffy territory, could probably have stood shoulder-to-shoulder with her in a lot of episodes.

There's other ways to model that in the system, of course, and I think the write-ups on the Eden board went different ways.

 

[Nightchilde-2]

Except its tone and mechanics are absolutely unsuited for a game where the mortals beating the monster of the week is the central premise.

I beg to differ. That's precisely the sort of game I ran for a while before Mage came out.

I am, of course, referring to the "new" World of Darkness. I'm in 100% agreement with you about the old WoD as their rules for mortals were uttercrap. Now, the new World of Darkness core rulebook IS the mortal rules.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I beg to differ. That's precisely the sort of game I ran for a while before Mage came out.

I am, of course, referring to the "new" World of Darkness. I'm in 100% agreement with you about the old WoD as their rules for mortals were uttercrap. Now, the new World of Darkness core rulebook IS the mortal rules.

I know it is, but mechanically, a starting mortal and a starting vampire is going to end with mortal shishkabob 9 times out of 10. The gulf between supernaturals and mortals is just too large in WoD, N or O.

Later on, one of the characters in Supernatural gets (mostly disruptive) prophetic dreams and a tiny bit of other psychic abilities, but it's still nothing too impressive.

In the World of Darkness rules, unless Sam and Dean's strategy was "and then we run like hell," they're going to be dead by the end of their first adventure, unless they do something wildly out of character like bulldozing haunted houses instead of engaging the ghosts, etc.

WoD (and to a much greater extent, CoC) posit a very different balance of power than the show "Supernatural" does and of the major published game systems, only Cinematic Unisystem (Buffy, Angel and Army of Darkness) really models that.

Modern D20 and Spycraft, with a lot of modifications, could probably both do it too, but they won't out of the box.

 

[KaosDevice]

For something really different (but I think would work pretty well for Supernatural) you might try the Nemesis system link .

 

[iwatt]

Modern D20 and Spycraft, with a lot of modifications, could probably both do it too, but they won't out of the box.

I'm liking True20 for this.

At the beginning of the show, at least, Sam and Dean aren't even close to their dad's league, and mostly have (some) experience and cool nerves working for them, I'd argue, compared to their father, who, if he's not in Buffy territory, could probably have stood shoulder-to-shoulder with her in a lot of episodes.

Agreed. Although in a level based system this can be represented by been higher level. And most of John's toughness is arguably a much longer experience fighting. He's always a step ahead (blessing the water cistern in the first season) of the beasties, and never seems to be shaken.

BTW, I'm going to have to wait another 2 months before they start airing the 2nd season down here....