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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ninjacat" data-source="post: 5496550" data-attributes="member: 24418">Whoops, sorry I'm a little late to this party; I don't check my Profile for Mentions all that often.Mouseferatu, you may well have made a decision already, but if you're still pondering, here's my (semi-experienced) $.02:As Mark and others have said, Unisystem is quite good for a horror game; the "Classic" Unisystem WitchCraft is even available as a free PDF. Classic Uni is a bit darker and grittier, good for any horror campaign where the focus is on the setting itself, whether that's paranormal investigations (and their dramatic consequences!) all the way up to absurdly powerful beings duking it out over the rights to reality itself. It's just a question of what kind of horror setting your group wants to play. The Unisystem was streamlined into the Cinematic version for Buffy and other licensed horror settings, and it works well for that style of action-survival horror, as you mentioned being interested in. The streamlining is in a removal of much of the crunch, becoming a simple d10+Stat+Skill system, with Very Broad skill categories. Cinematic also adds the feature of Drama Points, which work Very Well for emulating a Hollywood feel kind of action. Unisystem is easy to use and has a wealth of supplement material, easy to file serial numbers off of or use as frameworks for your own ideas, so it would be my recommendation.I'm afraid I can't recommend nWoD as anything other than source material for a setting. I played in two groups using nWod, one modern & one medieval fantasy a la Ravenloft, and the mechanics just don't hold up. We added a house rule of Aspects (somewhat like FATE) using a beautiful horror-themed Tarot Deck, but it still didn't make the system work. You have to play characters that are so powerful mundane challenges become nigh-meaningless to stand a chance in combat with an actual supernatural threat. All the Monster: the Somethings of nWoD are great source material, setting flavor, etc...but lousy games, IMO. Your Mileage May Vary, of course.Cortex is a fantastically fluid system that is well and truly focused on the story being told, and Supernatural is the best version of Cortex before it shifted to Cortex Plus. It has mechanics built in to let the Players contribute to the story, while leaving control in the GM's hands (as you kinda have to, to run anything with a mystery/investigation angle, such as a horror game that is not straight-out survival horror.) It's a little tricky to work with, however, and of the three power levels presented in the Supernatural Corebook, the first two seem too under-powered to me, personally. However, the system is very much designed to allow the GM to make the challenges as big or small as they like, so less-robust characters aren't a problem, as long as everyone is happy playing at the level. Since my campaign is trying to parallel the show, I used the maximum points for all PCs, and added a few tweaks of my own to make them interesting. I tend to run a Supernatural adventure very much like the show: lots of Let The Main Characters Run Around Cluelessly Until Enough Horrible Things Happen They Figure It Out, then a bam-POW confrontation with the MotW at the end of the scenario, with maybe a few red herrings or 180-degree Plot Twists in the middle to keep the Players guessing and keep things from getting predictable. If you're comfortable with that kind of a rising-action scenario with a focus on the story, I'd say Cortex Supernatural would work great for you, but Unisystem is simpler. (Supernatural is worth picking up just for the reams of detail and the advice on running a horror event alone, if you want an excuse to get it!)tl;dr = nWod: Bad, SPN: Good, Unisystem: Probably Better.Hope some of that's useful to you!</blockquote>

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