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RPGs based on other Horror Writers


Videopete

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We have HP Lovecraft and his Mythos but have not seen RPGs based or inspired by other writers. So for a CoC hack I present you Goosebumps and Other Nightmares based on the wrtings of R.L. Stine, where you play as children dealing with horror investigation.

Of course there should be one for Steven King, Steven King and of course Clive Barker.

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I'be been toying for some time with the idea to try and extricate the mythology of Laird Barron's horror cosmos from his works ... that would make for a great modern horror setting in a Lovecraftian tradition that is still quite distinct (and contains no Cthulhu mythos trappings at all). But I'll never get around to it. Maybe someone else will do it for me ...?

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Well, there is the writings of Robert W. Chalmers, who is referenced through Call of Cthulhu too, and to be honest there is enough scope in CoC to do most gothic horror tales. 

TSR did make a Masque of the Red Death box set for it's Ravenloft, based on the Edgar Allen Poe story, although it had little to do with that story, truth be told. 

Other games have close influences - like Vampire: The Masquerade being similar to the writings of Anne Rice or Kult being similar to the writings of Clive Barker. Ken Hite's Night's Black Agents directly references Dracula in a campaign too. There isn't many as a result of direct licensing though. As much as anything, I think many horror writers tend to write individual stories rather than trying to create an overarching mythos. It would be quite difficult to create a unified 'Worlds of Stephen King RPG' for example, because the stories he tells aren't really connected in terms of backstory. 

 

 

Edited by TrippyHippy
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  • 3 weeks later...
On 5/20/2019 at 3:45 PM, Videopete said:

Ben Affleck was the bomb in that.

Hee hee, just a couple weeks ago I watched the movie (hadn't seen it in years), it was pretty terrible. But the book was a fun read and it reads a LOT like a CoC scenario. And reading this thread reminded me that years ago I ran a CoC game inspired by T.E.D. Klein's short story 'Black Man with a Horn.' It's in his anthology 'Dark Gods'. Another story ripe for a scenario in that same book...'Children of the Kingdom'.

Edited by JLBrown7289
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15 hours ago, seneschal said:

The irony is that cheesy B movies make great RPG scenarios.  Of course, with tabletop games you have an unlimited special effects budget.

Yep, absolutely, for years CoC people have been recommending the movie Q, a b-movie where winged serpent god Quetzalcoatl (sp?) terrorizes 70s New York City. I finally saw the movie recently, it is just awful as a piece of movie-making (Michael Moriarty chews the scenery so much I thought the dude was going to get indigestion)...but it's a great CoC scenario! 

Edited by JLBrown7289
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But “Q” is waaaaaay too recent.  Go back to the innumerable black-and-white films of the 1930s through the early ‘60s starring Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, J. Carrol Naish, or George Zucco (among others).  Mad scientists, world-weary detectives, apes with human brains (or vice-versa), space aliens of all descriptions (did you marry one?  some of them are hotties), zombies and werewolves and indestructible murderers and vampires created by SCIENCE!, old dark houses, cults that meet at the same cozy home where you attended a Tupperware party last week.  It is too much popular culture to allow to go to waste.

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On 6/9/2019 at 4:13 PM, seneschal said:

The irony is that cheesy B movies make great RPG scenarios.  Of course, with tabletop games you have an unlimited special effects budget.

Which is why CoC saw at least two scenario books (Blood Brothers 1 and 2) entirely dedicated to taking cheesy B horror movies tropes and turning them into one-shot scenarios! It's super fun to run in between big campaigns, or when a key player can't make it to the table one night.

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Ludovic aka Lordabdul -- read and listen to  The God Learners , the Gloranthan podcast, newsletter, & blog !

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  • 3 months later...
On 5/23/2019 at 11:45 AM, Kevin said:

Back in the mid-1990s, West End Games, as part of their Masterbook generic roleplaying system published a boxed set and a handful of supplements based on Brian Lumley's Necroscope series.

They also did World of Tales of the Crypt and World of Species for Masterbook in the licensed horror genre.

According to Lumley's website, there were four supplements for World of Necroscope: Deadspeak Dossier, E-Branch Guide to Psionics, Wamphyri, and Operation: Nightside.

 

One I've only heard about but never seen a copy of was Leading Edge Games' RPG for Bram Stoker's Dracula.

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  • 4 weeks later...
On 5/23/2019 at 8:45 AM, Kevin said:

Back in the mid-1990s, West End Games, as part of their Masterbook generic roleplaying system published a boxed set and a handful of supplements based on Brian Lumley's Necroscope series.

They did and the results were so poor that it pains me to even think about it. I personally feel that the Necroscope setting just begs to have a good RPG translation done for it, but it has to be a  better effort than West End Games' treatment.  When I saw the thread title Necroscope was the 1st setting that came to mind. I feel it's perfectly doable with a number of different RPGs, provide the right talent and effort is applied to it.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 11/9/2019 at 12:33 AM, ColoradoCthulhu said:

Why didn't I think of this one before? The original version of the RPG 'Chill' from the 1980s is strongly based on the works of both Bram Stoker and Edgar Allan Poe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chill_(role-playing_game)

Niot to mention a lot of Universal and Hammer films. It remains my favorite horror RPG. Considering how stats and skills worked, it wouldn't be hard to adapt to CoC7 rules, either.

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Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself.

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Marcus L. Rowland's Forgotten Futures has had a sourcebook and adventures for William Hope Hodgson's Carnacki, the Ghost-Finder since 1996: The Carnacki Cylinders

FF is a great game in its own right, but the sourcebook, stories and adventures are easy to run with CoC.

Edited by BigJackBrass
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2 hours ago, Old Man Henerson said:

Speaking of William Hope Hodgson, why not adapt his book The Night Land? It is such a unique setting, and it seems strange that no one has adapted it yet into a RPG, what with CoC being so popular these days.

Licensed settings tend to be a  bit of a risk for  RPG companies, as they need to pay for the license. In practice this works out to less profit per sale, and it turns into a balancing act between the  increased sales due to the license vs. the cost of the license. Plus there is always the risk of a successful line being halted due to licensing issues down the road. 

Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself.

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Kronovan, I ran a Necroscope game using Night's Black Agents. NBA lets you custom design your vampires; it was relatively easy to create Lumley's version using the rules. The PCs ran away screaming in the first scenario when they encountered a low level vampire. Fun times.

M

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