RPGPundit Reviews: Horror Show

This is a review of the RPG "Horror Show", a "cinematic horror RPG", written by Brendan Davis and William Butler.  Its published by Bedrock Games, and this is a review of the print edition, which is a softcover with a full-colour cover showing some classic horror movie monsters (or reasonable facimiles thereof), and a 104 page black and white interior, with ample (though oft-repeated) black and white images.  The formatting seems pretty nice too.

Let me preface by saying that there's only one real horror RPG I've ever liked, and that one I've loved: Call of Cthulhu.  This is no CoC, and that by design; whereas CoC is an RPG that emulates the comparatively highbrow literary genre of H.P. Lovecraft, the primary purpose of Horror Show is to simulate the (mostly American) horror movie genre, with all the gore and schlock that tends to involve.

So I don't think this is really a game for me.  The real question then, is whether its a game that accomplishes what it set out to do, and would be the kind of game that a fan of that genre would want to get?  Certainly, its appeared at an auspicious time for the genre, with shows like the Walking Dead and Grimm, and a variety of films of the last few years, taking that genre in exciting directions and maintaining interest.

Let's begin by looking at the mechanical side of things.  HS makes use of what's called the "Network system", which is based on rolling a pool of d10s and comparing the single highest result to a target number.  I'm no fan of dice pools, much less d10 dice pools that remind me of the White Wolf system, but at least in this ruleset you only end up looking at one number and not "counting successes", which I think has to be among the crappiest methods ever devised for task resolution.  However, this quickly gets muddied by the fact that in some things, like horror checks or combat rolls, multiple "10s" have extra effects.  If a character is trying to do something they have no skill in, they roll 2d10 and take the lowest result.

The central statistic for PCs are skills, which are divided into a number of classes of skills (defense, combat, physical, mental, specialist and knowledge). Characters can have expertise, which adds an extra d10 to certain skill rolls in the right circumstances.  There are shortcomings (flaws), and also motivations (though these are optional; they're what they sound like, and if used grant a +1d10 bonus to skill checks directly related to the character's central motivation, which can be something like "find out what really happened to your missing uncle", "save your marriage", "be crowned homecoming queen", etc), and there's a kind of convoluted mechanic called the "Karma Rating", which represents both a kind of sense of Universal Approval/disapproval (for example, being used sometimes to determine who a monster will attack) and also how likely a character is to get help from his contacts.  That strikes me as kind of an odd combination. Its also moralistic; characters who do good things and help people gain Karma, characters who do bad things lose Karma.  Optionally, Karma points can also be used as a fate mechanic to try to avoid death, or as a determination mechanic to get to re-roll a skill check.

Characters have default "roles" (ie. cop, bookworm, survivor, scientist, etc) which determine which skill groups they get more points and which they get less points to buy skills with.  Yes, the character creation system is point-buy, and the experience system is basically point-buy as well.  Another strike against it in my book, but I know there are people who dig that.

Damage is marked by two different tracks: the "wound tracker" (which marks a person's level of physical damage) and the "horror tracker" (which marks their mental state). I vastly prefer both hit points and sanity points to this.
Horror "damage" is determined by a roll of any given monster or terrible thing's "horror rating" (which rates between 0 and 6) against a PC's resolve. A character can be unaffected, become frightened (losing one action), become horrified (and lose two actions) or become catatonic (and gain a phobia on top of that).

Acquaintances are a fairly important mechanic in the game, which I think is probably a good element of the game's emulation of genre.  Acquaintances can provide support (combat support, material support, or other resources) or information (occult or scientific knowledge, or local lore, etc). Players can only attempt to get one favor per acquaintance per session, and whether or not the help is granted depends on whether they make a karma check.

Sample shortcomings include things like "addict", "cowardly", "low IQ", "Juvenile", "Obese", "reckless Driver", etc. Players can take up to two shortcomings and each shortcoming provides one extra skill point. There isn't a single uniform mechanic to regulate shortcomings, some have obvious effects (reckless driver gives a penalty to driving), but generally speaking the onus is placed on the player to be trusted to use his flaw, and if not, on the GM to enforce it.  To me, this is the worst kind of disadvantage system; the players are free to strategically pick those disadvantages that they think are the least likely to inconvenience them, in order to get the most gain, and the GM is obliged to find excuses to make the shortcoming actually affect the PC in the game. Its got everything I hate about "flaw" mechanics.  And some are worse than others: Nemesis (which doesn't actually mean someone who wants you dead, just someone who wants to "make your life difficult") requires that there be a 50% chance each adventure that said nemesis shows up; leaving the GM to have to explain why said nemesis is in Antartica, Ry'leh or Neptune, I suppose.

I should mention that a whopping four sample characters are provided in the book; a film director, a priest, a tough female athlete and a tough female detective. Those are, as choices, far too specific to be useful as archetypes.

The equipment section provides ample lists of weapons, of all stripes from melee/improvised, lots of guns, explosives (complete with blast-radius diagrams), and high-tech, drugs, stats for four different kinds of specialist dogs (rescue dog, attack dog, bomb-sniffing dog, etc), vehicles, rules for hazards (acid, ebola, gamma radiation, lycanthropy, etc), and miscellaneous gear.  The latter is clearly oriented to a particular style of play; you won't find there the cost of a man's suit, or food prices, or even a laptop; but you will find out how much bionic ear devices, night-vision goggles, silencers and wetsuits cost.

Combat rules cover about five pages, and include all your standard special combat situations and options, like facing, cover, suppressive fire, aiming, grappling, falling, lighting penalties, etc. In a round a character can make one skill roll and move, not counting defense rolls. You can trade in your skill roll for a second move, or a +1 to defense rolls. A move can be traded in for a +1d10 to a skill roll. Characters who neither make a skill roll nor move get +2 to their defense.  To hit, characters make an attack skill roll against their opponents evade. Every 10 you roll gets you an extra die on your damage roll.  Damage is done by weapon, with ranged weapons having fixed damage, and melee weapons damage based on your muscle skill.
Damage is rolled against a character's Hardiness, with a normal success doing one wound level, and each 10 rolled counting as an additional level of damage. Characters who have taken 3 wounds are incapacitated and may die.

After the basic mechanics are out of the way, we start to look at adventure design.  The adventure is called a "feature" in Horror Show, as in "feature film", I suppose. Its recommended that the GM determine the style or type of his "feature" with guidelines based on "budget"; you can make your adventure "b-movie" style, a "big budget blockbuster", or "sleek Oscar fodder", or even intentionally "bad movie" style (ie. Halloween III). None of these are mechanical choices, they are purely described in the sense of GMing-advice.  You're also given some instruction about genres; everything from "atomic freaks" to "ghosts and hauntings" or "horror comedy", to "psychological thrillers", "torture porn", or "urban gothic". Of course, I would think that most gamers who pick up Horror Show would already have considerable experience in these things, and would probably also have an idea what kind of movies they want to emulate, so to me a lot of this section feels like filler. You're also provided with some guidelines as to how to handle villains, which I find slightly more useful.  On the other hand, guidelines on "feature structure" get close to suggesting "story-based gaming" in the white-wolf style, even to the point of suggesting that in some "features", railroading is a peachy-keen idea.

Guidelines are also provided in how to set the tone, suggesting the typical horror-rpg chestnuts of  "dim the lights" or "use mood music".  The section on handling terror gives guidelines on how a GM can make good use of a soft-handed approach versus a heavy-handed approach, using "limited resources" as something to build up tensions for the adventure, building up horror, and maintaining slivers of hope for effect.  Finally, there's a section on modifying mechanics to suit the genre, where you can put restrictions on taking certain skills, or can make all authority figures more deeply skeptical of the PCs by default, playing up karma or turning it around (for those genres where you want the real bastards to get ahead), and how to treat magic or faith.

Really, the whole GM advice section is a roller coaster of purely mediocre stuff mixed in with useful guidelines and advice; the authors seem to keep going back and forth from one to the other.  Let's just say, this isn't the famous D20 Call of Cthulhu gamemaster section or Over the Edge here; its not brilliant, which is too bad because its a pretty essential part of the value of the book.  On the other hand, its not terrible either, and some sections are even useful.   Its just not so great that it makes me say "I have to run this".

After the GM section you get a set of predetermined scenarios. You have a Zombie infestation in modern day Venice; a demonic entity that causes blackouts; a group of crazed teachers that start to kill the teen-aged PC students during a snowstorm; a group of inhuman dopplegangers that are setting up people for atrocities they're committing; and an "invasion of the body-snatchers" style alien invasion. These are all basically fine, they come with sufficient detail (at about one page per scenario) to give you the basic plot and NPCs, though leaving room for the GM to fill out the details.

You then get a chapter on monster creation, which are basically a set of guidelines for stats and then a long list of monster powers to choose from. A number of monsters are statted out for the reader; including empathic aliens, shape-shifting aliens, atomic insects, gremlins, cyborgs, cultists, possessing demons, ghosts (standard and Japanese), serial killers (standard and undead), patchwork monsters (ie. Frankenstein), vampires, werewolves, and zombies ("standard" and brain-eating). A few unique monsters, as in uniquely thought up for the game, are also presented, these include an undead plumber who goes around killing adulterers, a super intelligent psychic fungus, and a cursed mirror that creates duplicates of people.

In conclusion, it would be unfair really, to compare Horror Show to Call of Cthulhu, they're totally different concepts.  So what can it be compared to?  There are not really that many "movie horror" RPGs out there; there are some based on specific horror types (arguably some of White Wolf's games; or Palladium's Dead Reign for zombie horror; or Ravenloft for fantasy-horror), and then there's some sourcebooks for generic games that handle horror (like GURPS horror). I think that the best judgment I can come up with here is that if you're looking for a specific type of horror and there's an actual RPG for that specific type, then you're best off going with that RPG.  But if it doesn't exist, or you're going for a game dedicated to the wide spectrum of generic horror-movie type of horror, you could choose Horror Show.  That doesn't really sound like resounding praise because it isn't; Horror Show isn't a terrible game by any means, I just don't find it a really great game, even at what its for.  A good GM can certainly use it to do what its supposed to do and do it well; a poor GM will find that while the game has some better points and some blander ones, there's nothing inherent to it that will make up for the GM's shortcomings.  It is, in other words, adequate.

RPGPundit

Thanks for the review Pundit. I appreciate the honest assesment.

You're welcome. We'll if Servants of Gaius ends up being more up my alley; certainly its subject matter will be.

RPGPundit

Scared Stiff, Dead of Night and Slasher Flick are straight up horror movie games -- I wouldn't say Horror show is all alone in the category.  Kult represents some of the same territory too.  I feel Horror Show is a better system for Kult than Kult is.

Quote from: RPGPundit;522228You're welcome. We'll if Servants of Gaius ends up being more up my alley; certainly its subject matter will be.

RPGPundit

I hope you enjoy Servants of Gaius. But I welcome your criticism Pundit. I do think SOG is a step-up for us personally.

Quote from: gonster;522258Scared Stiff, Dead of Night and Slasher Flick are straight up horror movie games -- I wouldn't say Horror show is all alone in the category.  Kult represents some of the same territory too.  I feel Horror Show is a better system for Kult than Kult is.

Yes. The biggest differences I know of there are that Slasher Flick is focused on slasher movies and Scared Stiff deals mostly with B movie stuff. Whereas horror show is more general and open to any genre. Dead of Night I haven't read yet, but the cover is gorgeous (but then I love werewolf movies). Don't know much about it beyond that, though I hope to check it out at some point.