gritty industrial/sci-fi horror RPG recommendation?

[jdrakeh]

The Shadow Project is very much a dark, gritty, industrial science fiction RPG. Think Resident Evil if the T-Virus went completely off the rails.

 

[aramis erak]

As much as I love Classic Traveller, I’m not sure how well it would do as a horror game. It absolutely has the industrial sci-fi thing sewn up, no question. If you’re looking for a horror game with mechanics that support horror, I don’t see Traveller doing that. If you want to just throw big scary monsters at Traveller characters and that’s close enough, it could work. To me there’s a big difference between a game designed for horror and a game the referee injects horror into.

Not well.
3 published adventures have horror themes: Shadows, Werewolf, Death Station.
An article added Reticulan Parasites. (the ALIEN xenomorph in generic wording.)

There's no fright mechanic, no mental stress mechanic (tho' that's easily added as int & edu damage), no good stealth rules (later editions go from no to poor)... There is Morale, and Bk4 suggests imposing it on PCs, while the core does not.

Classic does have a good selection of weapons - the Pulse Rifle of ALIENS is easily statted as an ACR with extra ammo.

Modern players would also be face with the lack of a central mechanic in rules other than combat's 2d6+Skill+(modifier for attribute by weapon)+(weapon vs Armor Type)+(weapon vs range) which is two table lookups.

Can you run Horror with it? Yes. Will it provide tools for it? No.

 

[aramis erak]

I would still (after 40 some years and many sci-fi games) use Classic Traveller for this.

Of the ones you mention, I've read all of them except Alien, but only played Death in Space. Here are my, probably slightly idiosyncratic, takes:

The reason I've not bothered with Alien is that I'm not a fan of RPG's licensed from other media. They're always filled with lots of pages of fluff I either already know or don't care about. I love Free League's production values, but I am not a big fan of their rules. I doubt Alien is lightweight, especially compared to the others you mention.

While Alien does have a lot of setting info... the rules are actually as full featured as Classic Traveller... and have a few things CT lacks... like vehicle maintenance and combat rules. (Those don't really come in until TNE and MT respectively.) It does lack lifepath character gen and robust speculation.

Plus, the unified resolution mechanic just makes play easier. The combat is faster and at least as tactical as CT Bk 1 combat, and the same movement resolution... 25m

The only things CT has that alien lacks? Variety in ship hulls and tech levels, animal encounter random generation, robust speculative trade...

Alien does have randomization in duration of consumables; by that, the resource management isn't as cut and dried as CT.

The stress mechanic in Alien works really well even outside combat and xenomorphs...

 

[Mageman]

I have only played Aliens sci-fi horror. I have played in three cinematics and DMed one. The module chariot of the gods is one of the best RPG modules I have ever experienced. It's a must play

 

[Enaknomolos]

Yeah, that's kinda why I'm also wondering about Hostile. Since it's based on Cepheus, I think it'll be close enough to Traveller to be pretty familiar, while I think also including some sort of panic mechanic.

The full version does have a stress/panic mechanism - it's pretty straightforward based on INT checks

 

[Enaknomolos]

Can you run Horror with it? Yes. Will it provide tools for it? No.

This is fair, and the OP did ask for horror-specific tools. My answer probably reflects the fact that I have never, whether as a player or referee, found those tools actually add to the horror of a game (and this goes back to early Call of Cthulhu for me). Fragile characters and uncertainty do the job of creating tension just as well or better, in my experience, and CT is great for that.

The other thing biasing my answer is that I work in mental health, and find most implementations of stress/sanity rules to be breathtakingly stupid, downright insensitive, or both. Hopefully this might not apply to some more modern versions such as Alien (although it applies to Vaesen, so maybe that's too optimistic?). Given the popularity of these mechanics, that's more my problem than the OP's anway.

Hostile, Mongoose's Traveller Companion and T5 all do have sanity/stress mechanics that could be ported back into Classic Trav seamlessly.

 

[Simlasa]

My answer probably reflects the fact that I have never, whether as a player or referee, found those tools actually add to the horror of a game (and this goes back to early Call of Cthulhu for me). Fragile characters and uncertainty do the job of creating tension just as well or better, in my experience, and CT is great for that.

I wholeheartedly agree with that. The scariest moments for me, as a Player, have seldom been in dedicated 'horror' games and have never had anything to do with 'stress' or 'sanity' mechanics.
I've felt quite on edge in games of Earthdawn, DCC, Twilight 2000, Traveller, Magic World, D&D... and others... but none of them aimed specifically at horror.
I really like Call of Cthulhu, but that's because the PCs are generally NOT set up to go toe-to-toe with the monsters. That frailty in the face of danger is what makes them true heroes and what drives the scary bits... for me.
A lot of it has to do with the dreaded 'immersion', my willingness to buy-in on what's going on in the game and get into the mindset of my character. Those horror mechanics tend to feel very 'gamey' to me and take me right out of the atmosphere... as if I'm playing a boardgame and worried about resources for my meeple.

 

[Morrus]

It's a RPG genre I'm not too familiar with, but I'm interested in picking up a game to learn. I kind of prefer lighter weight games, but strong genre mechanics are also important, imo, for such worlds with such atmospheric settings.

In poking around, I've seen a quite a lot about Alien and Mothership. Does anyone have any opinions about those or about others, such as Hostile (Cepheus engine), Those Dark Places, or Death in Space?

Alien if you want that setting. Mothership if you want something with the file numbers stripped off. Alien is a bit prettier. Mothership allows more variety. Mechanics are a wash.

 

[Fenris-77]

I'm releasing a game, Vac Suits and Duct Tape, in the next couple of weeks that's right in this wheelhouse. It's based on Trophy Gold and might, in a dim light, draw on Scum and Villainy to get the Alien/Firefly feels working. Space truckers hunting for salvage and trying not to get eaten by giant space oozes or skinned and made into a figurehead by cannibalistic space pirates. If anyone wants an advanced taste, DM me and I can provide links to the cheat sheet and an adventure.

 

[dragoner]

My kosmic/solis people of the sun has a postive vibe though often we play it gritty industrial sci fi. Sometimes it's james bond in space though, or cyberpunk. I have thought of writing New Kowloon on Harinder in the Procyon system as "neon black" though I think someone has grabbed the name.