Horror Roleplaying Games
When I say “horror roleplaying games”, I’m not talking about video games like Silent Hill or Resident Evil. I’m from an older generation, a generation that grew up on Dungeons and Dragons. So when I start talking about horror roleplaying games, then you know that I’m talking about the granddaddy of horror rpgs, Call of Cthulhu, and all of the dozens of other games that were inspired directly or indirectly by Call of Cthulhu’s success.
Horror RPGs – Call of Cthulhu
As far as I know, before Call of Cthulhu, there were no horror roleplaying games. Heck, Call of Cthulhu was first published by Chaosium in 1981, so the roleplaying game hobby was still in its infancy at that point in history anyway. (Chainmail and Dungeons and Dragons came along in 1971-1973 or so. Other early roleplaying games were also fantasy-based for the most part, like Tunnels and Trolls and Empire of the Petal Throne. Games like Boot Hill and Starfaring were set in some other genres too, like the Old West and science fiction. Some early superhero roleplaying games came along before Call of Cthulhu too, like Superhero 2044, and Supergame. Any of those games might have included a horror aspect, and I’m certain many gamemasters did. Who hasn’t fought a skeleton or a vampire in a Dungeons and Dragons session? But Call of Cthulhu was the first roleplaying game to focus exclusively on what we would consider the horror genre.
Call of Cthulhu borrowed a universe and mythology from the writings of H.P. Lovecraft. Unlike other roleplaying games of the time, characters in Call of Cthulhu didn’t grow more powerful. They grew more insane. Or they died. The monsters were so horrific and powerful that only a fool would stay to be eaten by one of them. Escaping from monsters was more the goal of an adventurer in a Call of Cthulhu game. (In fact, player characters in Call of Cthulhu are called “investigators” in the rules. And the Dungeon Master is called the “Keeper”.
Horror Roleplaying Games – Bureau 13: Stalking the Night Fantastic
As near as I can tell, the next horror roleplaying game came along in 1983, and it was called Bureau 13: Stalking the Night Fantastic. This was a sort of X-Files type game long before the tv show ever existed. Players were part of a secret government organization who investigated the paranormal. Bureau 13: Stalking the Night Fantastic achieved a certain degree of popularity and was published in at least 3 different editions. (Which doesn’t really compare to the immense popularity of Call of Cthulhu, which is in its 5th or 6th edition now, and has always been in print.
Horror Roleplaying Games – Chill
Another early horror roleplaying game was 1984′s Chill from Pacesetter games. This was a really cool game that I bought at Origins 84 in Dallas. One of the things I remember about the fine folks at Pacesetter was that they had a letter from Stephen King endorsing the game, which I thought was oh-so-cool. Again, players played characters in a secret organization fighting the paranormal, although this time the organization was called SAVE. A 2nd edition of Chill was published by Mayfair Games in 1990, and that one had a completely revised game system from the original.
The Ghostbusters RPG
Sandy Petersen, who had written the rules for Call of Cthulhu, also designed the Ghostbusters RPG, which is notable for a number of reasons. One of those is that it was one of the earlisted RPG’s based on a licensed property of a major media franchise. (Earlier RPG’s had done this too, but it was usually for really minor franchises like the Cthulhu mythos of Flash Gordon, etc.) The other reason that Ghostbusters was so notable was the elegance of the rule system. The dice pool mechanic of rolling multiple d6′s based on a character’s skills as an opposed roll eventually was used in other famous and immensely popular roleplaying games like West End’s Star Wars and the ever-popular Risus.
Horror Roleplaying Games in the 1990s-2000s
The 1990′s saw an increase in the number of generic roleplaying game systems like GURPS, and supplements for GURPS explored the horror genre thoroughly. Ken Hite’s GURPS Horror supplement should be required reading for anyone in the horror RPG gamemastering biz.
But it also eventually saw the rise of one of the largest horror RPG franchises ever – White Wolf’s Vampire the Masquerade. I have a lot less experience with this particular game and all of its spinoffs, but needless to say, the entire “World of Darkness” franchise remains hugely popular among the “goth” roleplaying fans.
Horror roleplaying games like All Flesh Must Be Eaten, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Rafael Chandler’s Dread, and Unknown Armies keep the horror roleplaying game genre alive and well. Most of these games have a small following when compared to Dungeons and Dragons, but that following tends to be pretty dedicated. And Call of Cthulhu remains ever-popular. I’m sure that if they didn’t own that property, Chaosium would have gone out of business years ago.
Horror Roleplaying Games at Eerie Books
We carry several horror roleplaying games here at the store. We have almost the entire line of All Flesh Must Be Eaten game, several GURPS supplements, and we even carry the entire Dungeons and Dragons line. (The most successful Dungeons and Dragons adventures I’ve ever played in add a big element of horror.) We also carry board games and card games with a horror theme, like Call of Cthulhu The Card Game, Arkham Horror, and The Fury of Dracula. If anyone is interested, we’d be happy to host a demo or regular session of any of these games at our meeting table here in the store.
I’ll try to get back to my topic of “the New Weird” in tomorrow’s post.
This entry was posted on Thursday, February 26th, 2009 at 7:47 am and is filed under Horror Games. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Nice article, though, a bit short for me. It could have been more detailed. Anyways, it was good to read.