Quote from: Wanderer;1004740A friend of mine was telling me about a Hammer horror film he saw when he was a kid. One of the Christopher Lee Dracula films that really frightened him featured  a priest who was terrified of Dracula in a real,abject way.

I think that was 'Dracula Has Risen from the Grave'.
I remember people expressing something similar about a scene in 'Dragonslayer' where a priest attempts to repel/exorcise the dragon and gets burned to a crisp... that by subverting/ignoring the power of god it made the dragon much much scarier for them.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;1004689It's one of the reasons I prefer the Stability/Sanity system from Trail of Cthulhu. It allows characters to be pounded by the immediacy of terror without permanently breaking them, and handles the recuperation process automatically without the GM needing to intercede with fairly arbitrary Sanity bonuses.

Sanity awards seem about as arbitrary as the experience awards in a lot of systems. They don't especially concern me, but I can see how someone might want something other than the Keeper awards appropriate sanity. But in my comment I wasn't thinking of the sanity awards for victory but the mechanism in the rules for using Psychology/Psychiatry to regain lost sanity. It's a fairly time consuming process that will usually happen outside of an actual scenario and sanity regained is limited by the lower of starting sanity or max sanity (100-Cthulhu Mythos).

I picked up Ten Candles recently and it seems like it would play as well as I've heard it does.

I bought Ten Candles yesterday after reading this thread. Really neat ideas. Not sure how it will play with my group, but it's worth a shot.

Quote from: Simlasa;1004766I think that was 'Dracula Has Risen from the Grave'.
I remember people expressing something similar about a scene in 'Dragonslayer' where a priest attempts to repel/exorcise the dragon and gets burned to a crisp... that by subverting/ignoring the power of god it made the dragon much much scarier for them.

[Checks]. So it was. Do you have a working knowledge of all 70s Drac flicks?  

Quote from: darthfozzywig;1005154I bought Ten Candles yesterday after reading this thread. Really neat ideas. Not sure how it will play with my group, but it's worth a shot.

Isn't there an issue that you end up playing, or trying to play...in the dark?

Quote from: Wanderer;1005298Isn't there an issue that you end up playing, or trying to play...in the dark?

It is a (real) storygame played by candlelight.

Quote from: Voros;1003886This. Just watch the Will Wheaton video and you'll know how to run Dread better than if you read the sketchy rulebook.

Dread isn't good for anything.

Adding mechanics ruins fear and horror by clarifying your situation.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1005745Dread isn't good for anything.

:rolleyes:

I find Dread to be a critically flawed game, but RPG reviewers who have never played a game who nevertheless insist that games are literally unplayable and everyone playing them is lying about their experiences are demonstrating little except their inability to write RPG reviews.

Very well stated as usual. I only read Dread but I felt that something seemed off. Still the Jenga as mechanic seems inspired enough that is could be repurposed.

Having played ten candles, it's neat I guess but I had a terrible time and don't wanna play it again.
Fundamentally, it sets up a game where in theory a player has creative freedom to introduce plot and setting elements just as much as the GM. It could be a really nice storytelling experience. In practice, though, the GM gets creative control and gets to tell the players 'no, I don't think that fits, veto'. And having your creative input vetoed all the time fucking sucks.
It's a shame, 'cos the way it uses fire and light as physical concrete things that reflect the game is neat. But the way it divides up narrative rights is fundamentally flawed.

Or maybe the game I was in just sucked, and I'm bitter, and the game's actually fine. Hard to say.

Sounds like a bad GM. There is no mechanic that allows GMs to veto the players in Ten Candles that I recall except that a player cannot establish a weakness for Them by speaking a truth, only the GM can do that. The players can even take narrative rights from the GM by putting out a candle. Otherwise the GMs main job is to call for conflict rolls.

New Delta Green is the best.
It's close to regular CoC which is sufficient.
It does have mechanic of "fixing" your insanity by burning your relationships. Not a fan of that. I like DG just because of great thin core ruleset.

Quote from: cavegirl;1006251Or maybe the game I was in just sucked, and I'm bitter, and the game's actually fine. Hard to say.

Sounds like your GM was having a hard time of letting other people contribute (which I get - it's a different way of playing).

The game is quite explicit about narrative control. When a player has control to "speak a truth" (i.e. establish something in the game that is true), no one (inc. the GM) can overrule it.

QuoteThe ability to speak truths is a powerful resource. When you speak a truth, you may establish any one thing as an irrefutable fact of the story.
(...)
Once something is true, it is true. While you can build off of the truths of others, you cannot contradict them.

The only exception is a weakness for Them: players can't establish a weakness for the baddies. Otherwise, when it's your turn, the GM just has to run with it.