Does it exist as a RPG? Is it any good?
I just got done watching Event Horizon and Pitch Black and they made me want to play some games with Laserguns, Mecha and Zombies!
Can anybody feed this craving?
It should be a healthy part of the upcoming Warhammer 40K RPG. If you've ever read any of the background fluff for the TT game, it's a big chunk of why you don't want to live there.
Chaos, from traitor Marines, to warp entitys, to the chaos gods themselves. All sorts of supernatural horror available here. Throw in psychers who may or may not be able to control their powers and run the risk of being possessed by warp daemons..... well.... you get the idea.
Inhuman Aliens From the bestial Orks that crave only war to the Tyranid that seek to consume everything in it's path (they eat whole planets, leaving behind balls of rock, they even take the atmosphere). And those are just a few of the big races. There are a dozen 'other' races that are mentioned, weird, strange, and most often, frightening.
Forgotten Tech During the 'Dark Age of Technology', Man was at his hight in his ability to manipulate the universe with science. He made himself as unto a god...... pride before the fall...... Man's creations turned upon him and helped cause the 'Age of Strife' (along with the rise of mutants and psychers) that tore the fledgling expansion of empire apart.
What horrors to the forgotten tech hold? What Pandora's boxes lie in wait for some foolish seeker of knowledge to stumble across?
The Imperium of Man Man's inhumanity to man..... Imagine all the horrible things we've done to each other in the real world. The Spanish Inquisition, the Crusades, Stalin (and other's) Purges, oppression by 'Big Brother' types, CIA, KGB, ect.... Now imagine, a government that does all these terrible, terrible things. Now imagine that they have to.
Is it all horror? No, but it's a big chunk. Almost as big as the all pervading war and sense of despair.
Hope this helps.
Quote from: KrakaJakDoes it exist as a RPG? Is it any good?
Dark Conspiracy was pretty much Sci-fi/Horror, though it's not space opera. And, of course, Blood Shadows was/is Sci-fi/Horror (you wouldn't know it by looking at the marketing, but that
is the case). Current products? I can't think of any that address what you're looking for specifically.
As far as balls-out, high-action, survival horror in outer space, I think that
Year of the Zombie combined with d20 Modern and d20 Future could do the job well. Also, 12 to Midnight (a small-press company) has some Doom-like adventures (one of which I will post a review for at Flames Rising this weekend, in lieu of my growing and very late WotG review).
The 12 to Midnight adventures are Weekend Warriors and Fire in the Hole, available in both d20 Modern and Savage Worlds versions. I haven't seen the former, but the latter looks very engaging (it also refers the reader to Weekend Warriors in severasl places, so you'll need them both).
A lot of people found The Covenant Generation setting from Galactic Adventures pretty scary. I didn't intend it that way.
Yes, the Dagonites are more advanced than humanity and very pissed at us. Yes, the UN&C probably shouldn't have provided the Gnar with all those refugee children, but they'd have starved instead of inheriting an interstellar empire. Sure the Gryph, Dagonites, and Inheritors of Gnar are all pretty psycho. But the Sheth are big fuzzy, happy critters.
It's a good thing I never got very far along on the Phoon and the Silent War. Then people would have been really scared
Quote from: NazgulIt should be a healthy part of the upcoming Warhammer 40K RPG. If you've ever read any of the background fluff for the TT game, it's a big chunk of why you don't want to live there.
Chaos, from traitor Marines, to warp entitys, to the chaos gods themselves. All sorts of supernatural horror available here. Throw in psychers who may or may not be able to control their powers and run the risk of being possessed by warp daemons..... well.... you get the idea.
Inhuman Aliens From the beastial Orks that crave only war to the Tyranid that seek to consume everything in it's path (they eat whole planets, leaving behind balls of rock, they even take the atmosphere). And those are just a few of the big races. There are a dozen 'other' races that are mentioned, weird, strange, and most often, frightening.
Forgotten Tech During the 'Dark Age of Technology', Man was at his hight in his ability to manipulate the universe with science. He made himself as unto a god...... pride before the fall...... Man's creations turned upon him and helped cause the 'Age of Strife' (along with the rise of mutants and psychers) that tore the fledgling expansion of expansion apart.
What horrors to the forgotten tech hold? What Pandora's boxes lie in wait for some foolish seeker of knowledge to stumble across?
The Imperium of Man Man's inhumanity to man..... Imagine all the horrible things we've done to each other in the real world. The Spanish Inquisition, the Crusades, Stalin (and other's) Purges, oppression by 'Big Brother' types, CIA, KGB, ect.... Now imagine, a government that does all these terrible, terrible things. Now imagine they they have to.
Is it all horror? No, but it's a big chunk. Almost as big as the all pervading war and sense of despair.
Hope this helps.
Yeah, I'm definate;y looking forward to that one...but until then...:)
Sci fi horror isn't a hard genre to pull off. Just add Lovecraftian races, like the Mi Go or even cthulhu's race, to a game.
The C'tan and necrons from warhammer 40,000 could put instant horror into a SF game.
Imagine the horror if the human race encountered the race that a member of was seen in John Carpenter's "The Thing".....
Quote from: Dominus NoxSci fi horror isn't a hard genre to pull off. Just add Lovecraftian races, like the Mi Go or even cthulhu's race, to a game.
The C'tan and necrons from warhammer 40,000 could put instant horror into a SF game.
Imagine the horror if the human race encountered the race that a member of was seen in John Carpenter's "The Thing".....
Lovecraftian stuff was my first thought, I'd love to see that done as sf horror without magic.
Dark Conspiracy was also my sci-fi/horror sourcebook of choice (although we used CORPS mechanics), and I later incorporated concepts into my SF campaign...because I always include elements of horror in just about every campaign I run.
Fading Suns can also be a space-opera/horror RPG, especially if you play up the horror aspects.
An odd (and unfortunately out-of-print) choice would be Dark Space by Monte Cook. Designed for Rolemaster, it was a blend of horror, sf, and fantasy. Definitely Lovecraftian vibes from this one. We ran several campaigns in this setting, or that were strongly influenced by this setting.
Long ago and far away, I ran a Traveller game set in an asteroid mining colony. it was billed to my players as a murder mystery. they eventually found out that the murderer was actually a Vampire. Good fun that game.
Lacuna Part I. and Schism are both sci-fi horror, tho' not in an aliens & spaceships way.
- J
Quote from: Jared A. SorensenLacuna Part I. and Schism are both sci-fi horror, tho' not in an aliens & spaceships way.
- J
Schism is a good example actually, though I was talking more specifically about using CoC but with the horror based more on alien science than magic. Not about spaceships and so on.
But hey, threaddrift happens.
Alternity did sci-fi horror really well. Dark Matter and Star Drive were great settings for it, but I used a homebrew setting for my big Alternity sci-fi game, and it still worked really well. The system has a good mix of grit and flash to do horror.
Quote from: The Evil DMLong ago and far away, I ran a Traveller game set in an asteroid mining colony.
I'll hafta look it up, but ther was an issue of
Shadis back in the mid-90s which posited a far-future religion popular among asteroid miners: that their vacc suits, too expensive to replace and absolutely vital to their lives, could be haunted by previous owners who died in 'em.
Good. Stuff.
I'm still going to suggest that if you can beg, borrow or steal a copy of "Codex Necrons" for WH40K it could give you lots of SF horror ideas.
Hmmm, an idea popped into my head. (This will require some familiarity of Warhammer 40K)
Start a Sci-Fi game, with a tech level a little higher than our own, maybe 50-150 years from now. Some lasers, hover vehicles, decent, in system space ships. Nothing that can leave the system, and only the main planet is habitable, maybe a mining colony on one or two others.
Call the planet something other than 'Earth' or 'Terra'. Wayyy back in the distant past (so long it's become myth), a generation sleeper ship landed on this world after suffering damage in a mico-meteor storm. Main comp systems were damaged and the new colonist started their new lives here. (Make up/borrow/steal a history from this distant point) and have lived here for the past 20,000 years or so. (Don't make a big deal of the pre-history, just make it a quick spiel and then ramp up to 'modern day' history of what's going on.)
Have at least two world governments/megacorps/shadowy groups, ect. These will the the current 'focus' of the game. (i.e. From trouble between the two, to resource race on the outer planets/asteroids) Runs a few sessions dealing with this.
Then, aliens show up. (Prior to this, only non-intelligent life forms have been found) After some tense negotiations, they turn out to be friendly. They seek peaceful co-existence with all sentient life. They call their doctrine "The Greater Good" These alien call themselves the Tau, along with their allies, the Kroot, Demiurge, Vespid and others.
The Tau will seek to add the human world to their empire, in an enlightened manner. Promising tech advancements ranging from medical to 'hyperspace' engines.
As the powers that be enter into negotiations with the Tau, some startling news appears. The Tau know of other 'humans'. In fact the Tau are surprised that they do not know of the other humans in the galaxy.
Get the characters involved at some level, at least have them 'around' at the negotiations or at least give them an 'inside man' who feeds them information.
From here you can have any number of nastys show up. The Dark Eldar on a raid, The Tyranid with a 'scout' fleet. A few Necron 'harvest' ships.
The Tau will attempt to defend their newly aquired world and will fight along side their new allies. But the threat will be too great and they will be beaten back to the point where it look like all will be lost.
And then, the Imperium will arrive with a large war fleet and wipe out the thereat. The fleet will hail the PCs homeworld and 'welcome' them back into the fold of the 'Imperium of Man'.
The Imperium will destroy/drive off the Tau (as the Tau fleet is badly damaged at this point) and set about 're-educating' the world.
At some point the PCs will be wishing that they had died to the invasion force. :hehe:
The reason for the isolation is due to a large warp storm that's been rageing around the system for the past 15,000-20,000 years and prevented warp travel.
The Imperium ships ended up here after being blown off course and leave soon after, leaving behind a crusier, a few frigates and ground garrison.
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This was a quick sketch for a campaign. It assumes you know just how bad all this would be in the context of the 40K universe.
Alternately, don't have the Imperium show up and the Tau/Humans must fight a difficult war, both in space and on first the outlying worlds then the homeworld. Keep the PCs with the Tau and have them discover the horrors of the galaxy at a slow pace, saving the Imperium for 'season two or three' of the campaign.
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This approach is slow, but can be affective. Everything seems normal, aliens that look terrible show up and are shown to be "not be all that bad". Then the real horror starts.
P.S. DO NOT TELL the Players that this will be a 40K game. Hell, change the Tau name to something else (Have the 'Tau' be what the Imperium calls them)
Fear of the unknown works best.
P.P.S. This ramble is all Nox's fault. His suggestion of the Necron Codex inspired all this. :eek:
Well, my idea was to add horror to an existing SF game without turning it into 40k. One option might be to have a very, very few eldar in the universe, and when the necrosn turn up an eldar farseer comes and warns the humans about them.
This would be strange as the eldar in the universe up till that time had shown little interest in humans, but they feel an ancient obligation to warn them, perhaps the eldar having failed to stop the necrosn in the ancient past.
But for SF horror without turning the game into 40k just the necrons and maybe a few eldar, would do.
I see what you're saying Nox. I ment it to be more of a "File off the serial numbers and season to taste" ramble of ideas than "Put it in the 40k universe" type.
It's more of a thumbnail sketch than a full fledged idea. I wouldn't expect anything to remain very intact in it's final form.