horror games that you love (that aren't 'world of darkness' or cthulhu related.)

[Voadam]

I am a big fan of D&D gothic horror, so Ravenloft, Pathfinder Carrion Crown, and such has been a lot of fun for me.

I tend to like it as conceptually fantasy pulp Call of Cthulhu where you fight the monsters. Lots of atmosphere and investigation and creepiness and dread, not over the top gore or grimdark or depressing failure or loss spirals.

Many don't consider it true horror, but that's fine by me. It is the flavor of horror I really like.

 

[Voadam]

Army of Darkness the Movie is a big RPG inspiration and template for me, horror but PG-13, a protagonist who fights the deadites, action humor horror.

I bought the PDF but have not played the Army of Darkness RPG.

You could consider it Mythos adjacent though with the big role of the Necronomicon.

 

[Voadam]

I played in a d20 modern game that was sort of a drafted off the books x-files in an illuminati world. We did a haunted Ikea night mission that was based off a seriously freaky horror novel and it was fantastically creepy.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yeah I’d agree, afterall DnD also features vampires, demons, creepy dolls but its not horror. Even Buffys villains supplement was titled Monster Smackdown, a clear indication that horror wasnt the point

Its action-horror, which lives its own life a little separated from other forms even if it carries over some elements of it.

 

[Fenris-77]

I love The Between, which is a game of Victorian monster hunting loosely based on the show Penny Dreadful. The base is PbtA, so not for everyone, but I think it's grand.

 

[Umbran]

I've run a lot of Classic Deadlands for its horror aspects.

 

[MGibster]

I've run a lot of Classic Deadlands for its horror aspects.

One of my favorite games of all time, and yet another one I don't think of as a horror game and didn't occur to me to add it to the list! I'm striking out all over the place.

 

[Thomas Shey]

One of my favorite games of all time, and yet another one I don't think of as a horror game and didn't occur to me to add it to the list! I'm striking out all over the place.

It really can be hard to separate action-horror from, well, typical action games. Deadlands probably kind of fits the bill because of the significance of the Reckoners to the overall setting, but its one of those things you could spend a lot of time not thinking about.

 

[Umbran]

One of my favorite games of all time, and yet another one I don't think of as a horror game and didn't occur to me to add it to the list! I'm striking out all over the place.

Well, you can play thign thing as pretty much an adventure game. But play up the atmospherics and the Guts checks, and you'll see fear in the player's eyes right quick.

 

[aramis erak]

Yeah I’d agree, afterall DnD also features vampires, demons, creepy dolls but its not horror. Even Buffys villains supplement was titled Monster Smackdown, a clear indication that horror wasnt the point

Two of the creepiest hours of TV I've ever watched were buffy episodes. Hush - probably the most creepy horror I've watched, is a wonderful episode of it. The other one (I don't recall the name) is the one were Buffy meets the Primal Force.

A lot of horror isn't scary, per se. Much of it is satirical... Werewolves of London, Lifeforce, and the remake of The Blob are all in the "campy horror" along with the Evil Dead Trilogy. And much of it is creepy rather than proper fear inducing - The Blob, Blair Witch Project, Pitch Black.

Some only work when one sympathizes with the point of view protagonists... one of the reasons Xander was a major character in Buffy.

Oh, and monster smackdown was the guiding motif of Hammer Films, as well as a couple other film studios doing the campy horror of the 50's and 60's. And exactly the kind of films Scooby Doo was a sendup of. Most of Hammer's films ended with the bad guys losting... largely due to the Hayes Code. Good horror as inducing fear in the audience was very much a thing in the 70's, but only a few trying in the 60's. (Alfred Hitchcock.) And let us not forget 1938, the terror inspired by Orson Welles' production of HG Wells' War of the Worlds as a radiodrama... terrified a good chunk of the US... but most of us now would have a scant few minutes while we looked for corroboration online.