How Horrible do you like your Horror? How Crazy your Cthulhu?

[Masada]

My games lean more toward Hellboy, but I'm pushing them more in to the scared/functional. One of the issues with d20 Modern is the lack of Horror type encounters--which is what I play most often. After years of D&D we tend to forget that if something as big as a house roar in anger right in our face... we'd prolly flood our boots and flee.

I'm all for "battle hardened" when it is due. But low level modern characters should still be affected by the grim and grizzly scenes.

 

[Qualidar]

I vote "all of the above". (just not at the same time)

~Qualidar~

 

[Desdichado]

Somewhere between CoC and UA. I like the threat of characters losing it all, going insane, dying, and having their souls taken to be tortured for all eternity by some mind-blasting daemonic entity, but I don't want it to actually be a given that it will happen.

Besides, its all that much more horrible when it does happen if the players think they have a chance at escaping that fate!

But seriously; if it's a given that the PCs will fail and fail hard, then it's not very horrible when it happens.

 

[Kanegrundar]

It all depends on the style of game I'm running. If it's CoC, then I have to go with the mind-shattering horror that will leave PC's drooling in the corner babbling incoherently. For something like a zombie horror campaign, I go for creepy to horrific, but the PC's are still up to the challenge (or could be). For D&D, it runs the gamut between extremes depending on the campaign.

Kane

 

[PJ-Mason]

I fall along the lines of your Hellboy category with the occasional dip into the UA area, and a rare trip to COC every once in a long while. Like Joshua said, if you constantly play the COC style, i think it dilutes the experience.

 

[GlassJaw]

I'm huge a fan of horror-based games but I like the horrors and secrets to be discovered over time. My preference is to start with a "normal" setting and then slowly introduce encounters, clues, etc that hint to the players that all is not as it seems. I think the illusion that something bad is going on is sometimes more powerful than meeting the horror face to face.

A lot of Cthulhu stories are developed in this way as well. A normal person uncovers something they shouldn't have and slowly, over time, they learn more and more. Eventually, in the end, that person's world comes crashing down around him (or just in him mind). Fun stuff.

 

[Henry]

In truth, I'd like somewhere between "Unknown Armies" and "Hellboy", but I answered "Hellboy" level, because most players I know get depressed when going BELOW that level for the length of a whole campaign. In truth, any time I run Call of Cthulhu, the horror gets so oppresive that I find players naturally generate their own humor to keep it from becoming a slasher film in interactive fiction. The "Dark Humor" tends to arise on its own even if I don't want it there, so I just go with the flow.

My favorite "one-shot" homebrew yet is my Arkham Squad game that I run at cons and for my group occasionally, in which I mix d20 Modern and Call of Cthulhu for a Hellboy-like experience.

The PCs are the ONLY ones who don't go insane upon seeing a Mythos creature or event; "normals" will flip out almost always, even those working for the same organization that they work for -- It's why they don't call for backup often, and it's why they are (despite relatively inexperienced training) chosen for the agency they work for.

 

[Pierce]

What about when the players get all freaked out and scream like little girls?

 

[Desdichado]

What about when the players get all freaked out and scream like little girls?

What about it? Isn't that the primary goal of every GM for every game?

What? Isn't it?

 

[Kheti sa-Menik]

I was running a zombie game..end of the world, survive at all costs type horror game, but it ended before I could introduce a lot of horror elements.
Currently, I am running a modern day horror/shadow creature game (using D20 Modern with Urban Arcana/Weapons Locker/Modern Player's Companion I and II). It's kind of a BtVS/Angel/Constantine/Van Helsing- themed game.
There's demons and other creatures of Shadow constantly hammering their way into our world and of course, there are those folk who would open the door for them and invite them in. Most are simply hunters, animalistic, dangerous but predictable. They come here, kill people, drink their blood, eat their eyes, etc but have no thought beyond the next meal and securing some territory, maybe even breeding if more than one of their kind came through. My PCs are members of the Catholic Church (two priests, one layperson) who secretly combat these menaces. The animalistic predators don't scare them quite as much as the few demons that come from Hell who can plot, plan, and have goals.

I get kind-sorta complaints from one player who says it's too dark, that there seems little hope, and the tone of the game is gritty. We've had one PC, in horror at what he had done under the influence of a very powerful and old demon, commit suicide with a 9mm pistol in front of his fellow PCs; one get possessed and kill a bunch of innocent people; still another that shot a sixteen year old fleeing kid in the back with a shotgun from ten feet away; oh, and one is doing community service stemming from an arrest for obstruction of justice.
The PCs routinely deal with issues like homosexuality (in the "closet" and otherwise) and the Church, moral vs ethical and the law, uses of deadly force (with humans, not demons/Shadows), use of force against the possessed, the homeless poor as victims of society, institutionalized brutality, alcoholism, drugs, suicide, etc

As you can probably guess, I like dark, gritty games. It seems more realisitic and far more interesting than cinematic, "four color" comic book style games.

The players are able to lighten things up with witty banter (inappropriate humor in the face of death ala Angel or Buffy) and concentrating on the more civilian side of the priesthood..two or three confessions a day by lovely old women in the neighborhood, being able to help those in need, sermon topics on Sunday services, etc.