What is RPOL's opinion of true survival horror? The kind of story where you know full well that most of the main characters have no chance of survival and the villain is an almost unstoppable force of nature until some mystery is solved. Think Alien, Scream, or The Descent.

We know the characters will likely die, but we want to find out how! Is that something people would be interested in playing?

I've got mixed reviews. I got 3 faithful players out of a playtest designed for such a purpose, but one of them actually died (someone else ended up joining some stuff of mine on his word though. Silver lining I guess, still pretty depressing). Ran another VERY OBSCURE system about making bad movies, and all the players were OK with the idea of the first one being "survival horror comedy western" because bad movie. I don't quite remember what went down with that one, I think it was when I got sepsis. I can say people seemed to like my system more than they liked the obscure movie based one.

Also, I'm interested :D
This message was last edited by the user at 15:47, Fri 14 Oct 2016.

I would be interested. After all, it's the journey not the destination that counts.

I was thinking of using Gieger Counter as the system, but tweaking it slightly to make it more suitable for PbP roleplaying, mostly by adding a GM. The game is available for free at https://bleedingplay.wordpress.com/geiger/.

Yeah ok, I'll try that one out.

The Window is always good for these ideas! I made rules for sanity once and it worked perfectly

In survival horror, at least in the vein I'm thinking of, characters rarely get the chance to survive long enough to worry about their sanity. None of the marines in Alien could have been helped by a therapist.

I'll check out The Window though.

Meh, the system does not matter to me, so long as I can get enough information to play it.

How about All Flesh Must be Eaten? I'm definitely not planning to go with zombies, but it works well as a horror system.

I got revised. Would go for that.

Unisystem, the technical meat of AFMBE, is a very hackable system. I used it to do a Unisystem/AFMBE conversion of the STALKER video game and was easily able to stat out the various mutants in the game. Also, CJ Carella's Witchcraft uses the Unisystem rules, is free, and gives you options outside of zombies.

In reply to Xhaosdaemon (msg # 11):

I've grabbed Witchcraft, and I'm definitely going to use aspects of it! I think AFMBE's characters are more the sort of scale I'm looking for though. Hopelessly out of their depth in a situation they're just not equipped to deal with.

What sort of setting would people be interested in? I'm leaning towards an investigative team sent in to see what happened aboard an exploratory space ship that went dark, but there's so many other options.

A group of reporters in a Silent Hill style abandoned town?

Teens breaking into a mall at night?

Scientists in an arctic research base?

Or anything else you can think of!

Never really been into Sci-fi horror.


You won't catch me objecting to that one.


Personal favorite. Either breaking in, or they were there when it closed, and somehow they were missed by security.


Maybe


This message was last edited by a moderator, as it was against the forum rules, at 21:25, Sat 15 Oct 2016.

All the options except for arctic research base sound good to me.

I have always wanted to be in a Silent hill rpg.

This message was deleted by a moderator, as it was against the forum rules, at 21:23, Sat 15 Oct 2016.

This message was deleted by a moderator, as it was moot, at 21:25, Sat 15 Oct 2016.

Sorry about that. I'm a bit of an Inspiration Magnet where RPG ideas are concerned. Jury's out whether I'm more like Leonard of Quirm or B. S. Johnson though. The point I was trying to make was less political than it seemed and I don't blame the mods for stepping in. I was basically trying to say that I have no shortage of ideas and some of them are far more (or less) worthy of a game than others.
This message was last edited by the user at 05:59, Sun 16 Oct 2016.

So if I started a game about a group of teenagers trapped in an abandoned shopping mall using All Flesh Must be Eaten, I'd find some players?

I'm currently thinking of some fun ideas for a threat, and I'll be taking some ideas from Gieger Counter to make this as much like a horror movie as possible.

I can only speak for one: Myself.

Sure, I saw the AFMBE rule book a few years ago and have been wanting to try a game in it. Just most games do not catch my eye.