[Poll] Vote For The Top 10 Horror RPGs!

Just for Halloween fun, I've gone to the Wikipedia list of horror roleplaying games and made a poll to see what the top 10 most popular are. If your choice isn't on this list, post in the thread and I'll add it. You may select multiple games. I've tried to include RPGs, but not settings for RPGs (though that would also be a fun poll). Votes are hidden -- I'll reveal them in dramatic fashion later! Voting closes Sunday midnight. I'll reveal the results first on next week's podcast, and then post them here.

 

[Celebrim]

Has anyone ever played enough of these games to have an informed opinion, or are we all basically going to vote for the limited selection of games we've experienced?

 

[Michael Silverbane]

Has anyone ever played enough of these games to have an informed opinion, or are we all basically going to vote for the limited selection of games we've experienced?

Probably the latter, though I did play a few of these games (Beyond the Supernatural, Call of Cthulhu, Kult, Dark Conspiracy, and World of Darkness) concurrently, so maybe that counts for something.

 

[BigJackBrass]

Great though it is to see "Bureau 13" and "Stalking the Night Fantastic" on the poll, you should probably know that they are the same game.

 

[Morrus]

Great though it is to see "Bureau 13" and "Stalking the Night Fantastic" on the poll, you should probably know that they are the same game.

Blame Wikipedia!

 

[JLowder]

Ravenloft might belong on the list. It uses a modified D&D game engine, but many of the games listed use other engines.

Cheers,
Jim Lowder

 

[TrippyHippy]

Probably the latter, though I did play a few of these games (Beyond the Supernatural, Call of Cthulhu, Kult, Dark Conspiracy, and World of Darkness) concurrently, so maybe that counts for something.

I've been playing horror games since the 1990s, and have certainly encountered most of the games on the list in some shape or form. I won't claim to be an absolute authority on horror rpgs, but you can't go beyond Vampire: The Masquerade or Call of Cthulhu in terms of impact on the hobby.

Call of Cthulhu was probably ahead of it's time, and is the first horror RPG which built up something of a cult following in the 1980s and was based on the writings of HP Lovecraft, which were not well known before the game itself helped popularise them. It's success was primarily based on being one of the first games that really focussed on interesting stories in the adventure scenarios it provided. Of these, Masks of Nyarlathotep remains the most celebrated, being a sort of Indiana Jones adventure with more gore and death. Call of Cthulhu also challenged the notion of 'heroic roleplay' by having players play relatively ordinary folk, who were physically and mentally vulnerable. The success of CoC, probably influenced a few other companies to try out the horror genre - games like Chill and Beyond the Supernatural, but didn't really create enough of a following to really make an impact.

Fantasy games like Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play and settings like Ravenloft were certainly influenced by it too, and reached out into it's own dark fantasy epics (but I regard it more of a dark fantasy than a horror proper), while lots of other games have been released about Cthulhu Mythos in more recent years - largely due to Lovecraft's writing becoming part of the public domain and free from copyright. The most acclaimed of these is probably Delta Green, which was originally an independently written Call of Cthulhu supplement, presenting the Mythos as a back-setting for a conspiracy-based game of government agents.

Vampire: The Masquerade was one of the most commercially successful RPGs ever released, causing a phenomenon in the hobby throughout the 1990s - attracting about a quarter of all RPG sales during that time. Not only was it evocative in setting and graphical design, but it also introduced a lot of new gamers, including female players, through live action roleplay while also appealing with relatively simple mechanics and other innovations. The collective 'World of Darkness' setting was particularly successful in having multiple follow on games within the shared setting (which was the first time games had been marketed this way). Of these, the most critically acclaimed, but commercially unsuccessful, was probably Wraith: The Oblivion with some clever 'Shadow-Play' mechanics (where you play the darkside of another character), but all the games have their fans. Some critics note that the idea of the setting was not the first, with Nightlife beating it to the punch in 1990, but then again, they had plenty of immitators themselves while hitting the zeitgeist of the time better than anyone else. Of course, there was also a later attempt at reimagining of the World of Darkess setting, now referred to as the 'Chronicles of Darkess' games, and people can argue their own preferences thereof. However, these new World of Darkness games didn't quite reach the levels of popularity and success that the 'classic' games did - especially Vampire: the Masquerade.

The other games that, I think, caused the most 'stirring' in the hobby was In Nomine, Kult, Unknown Armies, The Whispering Vault, Nephilim, All Flesh Must Be Eaten, and Deadlands, to a degree (it's more of a Western fantasy with horror tropes really). Most of these games emerged in the 1990s, when dark urban fantasies were prevailent, and are characteristed by quite intellectualised, evocative settings. A number were translated from European games, where there seems to be a slighter higher tolerence of dark settings. I'd argue that Kult was very simply the starkest, most viscerally, transgressionally nasty of these - while being intellectually very stimulating. It's a bit like a cross between Hellraiser and The Matrix, but has a very intricately constructed mythos of it's own based on Judeo-Christian ideas. Another favourite is Unknown Armies, which takes some cues from WoD games but focusses on a human-centric setting with a big focus on personal psychology. All Flesh Must Be Eaten and Deadlands are more jocular in tone, but still delivered an entertainment experience that satisfies gamers.

Games of note that came out in more recent times would include narrative games that tended to focus on more specific modes of play - My Life With Master, Dread, Don't Rest Your Head and so on. Even though it's not a horror game, specifically, you could argue that Fiasco is the most successful of these.

 

[Morthrai_17]

Cthulhu Hack needs adding

 

[Durand Durand]

Eclipse Phase, Conspiracy X, Amber... should be on this list.

 

[ragr]

Dead Of Night is a glaring omission. Esoterrorists could do with being too.

 

[Morrus]

Added the latest requests.