#RPGaDay - Day 20: What's Your Favorite Horror RPG?

Honestly, I think it would be disingenuous to only name one game for this entry. I feel like I should name a game meant for longer campaigns and a game meant for only a session or two of play. One might believe I'm giving this specific genre of games special treatment due to my love of horror media, but I feel the exact nature of the genre deserves to have this distinction made.

I mentioned my choice for long-term games yesterday when discussing my upcoming micro-campaign. Call of Cthulhu is one of the oldest horror roleplaying games on the market, mostly due to it being one of the best as well. I know some people view the d% system that it uses as old fashioned and outdated, I believe it does a great job at modeling the investigative style that really shines with horror games while keeping things relatively simple. Call of Cthulhu is the game I reach for when I want to run this kind of game and it will have a place upon my shelf for years to come.

My choice for a shorter-form horror roleplaying game has got to be Dread. This is the game that uses a Jenga tower instead of dice to resolve actions and characters are created by answering a series of leading questions. Dread does a great job at build the tension that's necessary in a horror game due to the uncertain nature of the tower. Each time a player pulls a block, the tower becomes less stable, meaning the next pull could be your last. The freeform and improve nature of the game also allows you to really play any kind of horror story you want. Dread is a game I believe everyone should play at least once.

Mysteries, and Investigators, and Great Old Ones! Oh, My!

Based on this scenario, I have a feeling this group's going to be
losing a lot of sanity after this..

This weekend, I will be kicking off my first new campaign since my Pathfinder one unfortunately fell apart. However, I'm going to be doing something a little different. Instead of my usual fantasy antics, I'm going to go down a darker path for the time being, one that might test my players' sanity.

I'm going to be running Call of Cthulhu. The last time I ran this wonderful game was in high school, and things didn't turn out so well. However, I highly doubt many of us can look back at our early days within the hobby without cringing.

Now that I have more experience under my belt, I'm going to give CoC another crack with a group who seems excited to explore the horrors of the Cthulhu Mythos.

Although I still have some kinks to work out, I already have the basic premise that I'll be using as the foundation for the campaign. The characters will begin their careers investigating the Mythos in 1928 in Arkham, Massachusetts. They will be brought together by a fellow associate who happens to be a professor at the prestigious Miskatonic University. This game will be a micro-campaign, hopefully lasting about four to five sessions. I don't want to give away too much about the specifics since the three people who will be playing in this game know about this blog's existence and I wouldn't want to spoil anything for them, I'll just say the campaign will probably blend some of that science fiction chocolate with Call of Cthulhu's horror chocolate. Also, I have one more thing to ask:

Have you seen the Yellow Sign?