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ChuckRozool
Simple question, has anyone tried a horror campaign within the shadowrun world?
If so, what did you do, what problems did you run into(if any), yadda yadda yadda...

Just curious
Wounded Ronin
Well, once I had the party battle gay hentai tentacle monsters in a warehouse. People kept calling bullshit over the range at which they could squirt their tentacle monster slime and I had to explain that since they were tentacle monsters their slime-shooting spigots were practically omniponent. I guess the players didn't watch enough hentai. Either way I think that that was pretty horrific.
Kremlin KOA
yes I have horrified my players
it is not difficult


2 words

Medical Experiments
ChuckRozool
QUOTE (Wounded Ronin @ Apr 11 2006, 10:23 PM)
Well, once I had the party battle gay hentai tentacle monsters in a warehouse.  People kept calling bullshit over the range at which they could squirt their tentacle monster slime and I had to explain that since they were tentacle monsters their slime-shooting spigots were practically omniponent.  I guess the players didn't watch enough hentai.  Either way I think that that was pretty horrific.

ROFLMAO

OMG that is too fucking funny...
and they were gay to boot, they were prolly only attacking the men in the party and only the good looking guys. I feel sorry for the elf in the group.

but seriously...
how would you pull off a horror campaign when your players are armed with guns and magic?
James McMurray
The biggest problem would be converting horrors. You have to either make them beatable (but just barely) or end up with a Call of Cthulu game, which might be better served by using the CoC system. I wouldn't know though, as I've never played CoC.

I would definitely ramp way back on combat and way up on messed up stuff screwing with the runners' minds.

The first thing I'd proabbly do is try to dig up an old Earthdawn adventure that was based around a magical site, convert it, then run that just to see how the premise would work without putting in the effort of creating an entire idea for a campaign only to find out that it's more work than I've got time for.
HMHVV Hunter
QUOTE (ChuckRozool)
QUOTE (Wounded Ronin @ Apr 11 2006, 10:23 PM)
Well, once I had the party battle gay hentai tentacle monsters in a warehouse.  People kept calling bullshit over the range at which they could squirt their tentacle monster slime and I had to explain that since they were tentacle monsters their slime-shooting spigots were practically omniponent.  I guess the players didn't watch enough hentai.  Either way I think that that was pretty horrific.

ROFLMAO

OMG that is too fucking funny...
and they were gay to boot, they were prolly only attacking the men in the party and only the good looking guys. I feel sorry for the elf in the group.

but seriously...
how would you pull off a horror campaign when your players are armed with guns and magic?

That's something I always wondered. How can you scare players when they're armed like that?

In Call of Cthulhu, the horror comes from the fact that the characters are neither used to these things, nor are they equipped to deal with them. In SR, they tend to be both.

I can see a few ways out of this:

1. Create a whole new nightmarish monster, one never encountered before
2. Go for shock value and put in stuff that leaves even hardened street sams whispering "Dear God in heaven..."
3. Introduce an element of uncertainty somehow - hiding the villain behind layers of intrigue (the only example I could think of this would be the movie "Saw"), giving them a mystery to solve (Like the movie "Se7en") or something else like that.
Kremlin KOA
QUOTE (James McMurray)
The biggest problem would be converting horrors. You have to either make them beatable (but just barely) or end up with a Call of Cthulu game, which might be better served by using the CoC system. I wouldn't know though, as I've never played CoC.

I would definitely ramp way back on combat and way up on messed up stuff screwing with the runners' minds.

The first thing I'd proabbly do is try to dig up an old Earthdawn adventure that was based around a magical site, convert it, then run that just to see how the premise would work without putting in the effort of creating an entire idea for a campaign only to find out that it's more work than I've got time for.

or you could take the stats for jehuthras from Harlequin's back and reverse engineer conversions from there
James McMurray
Reverse engineering being one of those things I probably wouldn't have time for. smile.gif

I started a horror based campaign in SR3, or at least planned on tying in horros at a later date, but that campaign died fairly early on (I tend to not hold back when the players go up against the wrong opposition, and you could only Hand of God once in those days). I may try it again some time.
ChuckRozool
let me clarify a bit...
when i say "horror" i mean like...
you know... horror... like, scarey

like, "OMG i just shit my pants, that scared me"

not like, " hey watch out, there's a horror in the cavern"

Although i just finished a run this Sunday where we banished the spirit of a horror. My rat shaman successfully avoided all combat. smile.gif

Like i said before, how scarey can somethingbe when all you have to do is shoot it or blast it with magic.
FanGirl
QUOTE (ChuckRozool)
but seriously...
how would you pull off a horror campaign when your players are armed with guns and magic?

Deus' takeover of the Renraku Arcology was pretty horrific, if you ask me. In fact, the whole concept is the stuff that horror films are made of: people trapped inside a dark, fortress-like building, desperately trying to escape from an evil AI's burgeoning army of brainwashees, which is trying to capture said people and make them into test subjects in hideous experiments.
HMHVV Hunter
QUOTE (FanGirl)
QUOTE (ChuckRozool @ Apr 11 2006, 11:33 PM)
but seriously...
how would you pull off a horror campaign when your players are armed with guns and magic?

Deus' takeover of the Renraku Arcology was pretty horrific, if you ask me. In fact, the whole concept is the stuff that horror films are made of: people trapped inside a dark, fortress-like building, desperately trying to escape from an evil AI's burgeoning army of brainwashees, which is trying to capture said people and make them into test subjects in hideous experiments.

Oooh, yeah, good point. Everything I've heard about Brainscan says it's a horrific kind of adventure (a good example of my number 2 point in my post above).
James McMurray
Chuck: that's one of the reasons I mentioned the CoC system. From what I understand, those aren't things you can fight. It was the same in Earthdawn (you could fight them but you'd lose).

The same should hold true in SR. To be a true horror it would have to have high levels of shielding (or just counterspelling in SR4). It would also need immunity to normal weapons at a fairly decent level.

From what I've heard my players say, Queen Euphoria was kinda like a Horror campaign, given that they never had a party try and make a run at the hive and live.
James McMurray
Which gives me one idea for a horror that would fit well into SR: a hivemind of some sort. You can shoot it all you want, but it'll just keep coming. I guess that's why they nuked Chicago. smile.gif
Grinder
QUOTE (James McMurray)
Chuck: that's one of the reasons I mentioned the CoC system. From what I understand, those aren't things you can fight. It was the same in Earthdawn (you could fight them but you'd lose).

The Horrors of Earthdawn are beatable, if only by high-circle adepts. It's their subtle manipulation that makes ED-Horrors so dangerous, much like their CoC-counterparts. In CoC the characters can fight the "Horrors", but they won't win, thanks to sanity loss and the immunity of most "Horrors" their to mundane weapons - and casting spells makes your character go insane.
Kagetenshi
Brainscan isn't that that great for horror. If you want horror, throw them into the Arcology without any sort of warning or companions who know the story.

~J
hyzmarca
As much as I'd love to run an SR horror game I have only run one horror scenario ever and that was for The Other Game. It involved an inn/brothel run by vampiric beauties. Unfortunatly, I laid the flavor on a little too thick too soon and the party slaughtered the women as a matter of course.

Remember, there are two types of horror stories. There are the stories about the monster outside and there are the stories about the monster inside. The latter is universally more frightening and disturbing. The external moster can be fought and possibly killed leaving us safe from it. The internal monster can remain a part of us for ages without ever showing itself and there is no way to know if it is ever really gone.

One very nice idea for an internal horror campaign would be to run Bug City but, before the campaign starts hand each player a numbered envolope with instruction to look at the paper inside once and then put the paper back in the envelope and return it to you without disclosing the contents to any other player. As each envelope is returned have the players note their numbers on their character sheets.

The sheet of paper in each envelope contains one sentence. "You are NOT a good merge. "

Every now and then check the numbers on there sheets as if they are actually important. Keep the paranoia going and turn up the heat in game but keep it just below the boiling point. The trick is to make them fear the other PCs constantly but not so much that they start killing each other.
FanGirl
Or just send them in while the Arc's shut down: after all, initial reports on what was going on were sketchy at best.
Wounded Ronin
QUOTE (ChuckRozool)

OMG that is too fucking funny...
and they were gay to boot, they were prolly only attacking the men in the party and only the good looking guys. I feel sorry for the elf in the group.

Ha ha. Well, naturally the PCs didn't realize they were gay at first so the elf face lead the charge. He was like, "Oh my frikking god" when they found out the monsters were gay.
Teulisch
for good horror, you have to start slow, and build tension slow over time. preferably over a few games.

horror must have an unknown, unknowable threat. something that cant be looked up in some book.

so lets have an example... first run, we show the aftermath of when an evilugly kills someone. lots of graphic detail in the wounds. bonus points, if it was in a locked room without visible entrance. next run, we hear a rumor. and maybe catch a glimpse in bad light.
what could it be? how about a sprite that can manifest in the real world. able to climb out of a video screen... something with a power much similar to a magical beasts weapon immunity, but weapon foci do nothing. adept powers and magic? nothing. its just NOT THERE. but it dosent want YOU. not yet. just the guy your extracting. for now.
of course, a technomancer could hurt those things. maybe banish it. maybe a technomancer is summoning more? what if one got free?

the real key, is to slowly hand out information, over time. let em wonder. if they wonder aloud, steal ideas as needed.
James McMurray
QUOTE (Grinder)
QUOTE (James McMurray @ Apr 12 2006, 06:01 AM)
Chuck: that's one of the reasons I mentioned the CoC system. From what I understand, those aren't things you can fight. It was the same in Earthdawn (you could fight them but you'd lose).

The Horrors of Earthdawn are beatable, if only by high-circle adepts. It's their subtle manipulation that makes ED-Horrors so dangerous, much like their CoC-counterparts. In CoC the characters can fight the "Horrors", but they won't win, thanks to sanity loss and the immunity of most "Horrors" their to mundane weapons - and casting spells makes your character go insane.

True. I never got that far along. We always started at first circle (or whatever the equivilent of 1st level is, it's been forever).

Of course, Earthdawn at several points would tell the GM something similar to "be sure and kill a character or two here, so they know it won't be easy."
Kremlin KOA
oh in ED the low end horrors can be killed by low circle adepts
there are adventures where 3rd circle adepts kill a horror
James McMurray
Guess I never played one of those. It probaly wouldn't have mattered though. Someone would have said "look, a horror!" and I would have run like hell. biggrin.gif
hyzmarca
Some horrors are very easy to kill. Gnashers are a prime example. Dread iotas are too. What makes the horrors work is their diversity. You can slaughter thousands of dread iotas with a single purify water spell but once they get inside of you you're as good as dead. A single gnasher poses little threat to the weakest of adepts but they travel in rather large packs.

There are no two classes of unamed horrors that are similar and no two named horrors that are similar. What works against one probably won't work against another.
ChuckRozool
QUOTE (Wounded Ronin)
QUOTE (ChuckRozool @ Apr 11 2006, 11:33 PM)

OMG that is too fucking funny...
and they were gay to boot, they were prolly only attacking the men in the party and only the good looking guys. I feel sorry for the elf in the group.

Ha ha. Well, naturally the PCs didn't realize they were gay at first so the elf face lead the charge. He was like, "Oh my frikking god" when they found out the monsters were gay.

Holy shit that is fucking hilarious, comedic genius
i was only able to stop laughing long enough to type this
classic...
Kremlin KOA
"A Gnasher for every man, woman, and Child in Seattle. That sounds like the thinking of Verjigorm, to me."
Grinder
QUOTE (hyzmarca)
Some horrors are very easy to kill. Gnashers are a prime example. Dread iotas are too.

That are horror-constructs (and some of the weaker ones). They're not more than mindless killing machines, created by Horrors to scare Name-givers and wreak havoc. But the true real powerful Horrors are named and are not easy prey for low- to mid-circle adepts.
Grinder
QUOTE (Kremlin KOA @ Apr 12 2006, 06:53 AM)
oh in ED the low end horrors can be killed by low circle adepts
there are adventures where 3rd circle adepts kill a horror

The official adventures are a little bit ...strange... when it comes to suggested circles. "Mist Of Betreyal" i.e. has a Horror which the characters can overcome - and that's an adventure for starting groups. It was written before the ruels had been set in stone and the guys at FASA were sure, what role Horrors are supposed to play.

edit: typos
blakkie
QUOTE (FanGirl @ Apr 11 2006, 10:56 PM)
QUOTE (ChuckRozool @ Apr 11 2006, 11:33 PM)
but seriously...
how would you pull off a horror campaign when your players are armed with guns and magic?

Deus' takeover of the Renraku Arcology was pretty horrific, if you ask me. In fact, the whole concept is the stuff that horror films are made of: people trapped inside a dark, fortress-like building, desperately trying to escape from an evil AI's burgeoning army of brainwashees, which is trying to capture said people and make them into test subjects in hideous experiments.

Good call there. I remember someone here way back posted about a Halloween run into the Arc they did or were in. It wasn't canon Arc either. I still get goosebumps just thinking about his post and I don't remember much about it. Just a few things.

At at one point near the end they reach a room with an item that seems to be a key to what is causing the shutdown. The mage goes Perception and rolls to Assense.....and drops over dead. No rolls to try soak or resist. Just up and keels over just because he LOOKED at it on the Astral.

Plus the GM designed the run to play on each of the actual player's deepest fears, like one room with an avalance of spiders. Also the guy went mad on props. I think I remember he convinced a GF of one of the players to record "help me" on a tape in a desparate distant voice, and then played it back under the table during the game. This guy throughly messed with the player's minds, even leading some to have nightmares based on the game for some time after.

Pure. Evil. Genius.
Kagetenshi
QUOTE (Grinder)
QUOTE (hyzmarca @ Apr 12 2006, 06:59 AM)
Some horrors are very easy to kill. Gnashers are a prime example. Dread iotas are too.

That are horror-constructs (and some of the weaker ones).

Wrong, actually—both are fully-fledged (if minor) Horrors.

~J
Grinder
You're right.
The ubbergeek
The power level is important, I guess.

One could pull a very concievable, frighgtening horror campaign at gangers street level I guess... Big Troubles in Little China + predator 2, hehehe....
nezumi
As has been stated, making the threat internal or otherwise intangible is a great way to make it feel scary. Rather than having a single, clear enemy you're fighting, make the entire environment a dangerous character on its own (like the arcology).

Also try fooling with the characters' sense of perception. For instance, during one run four people were camping out in an old house. Adam is on guard and hears something suspicious coming from Bob's room. He goes to investigate and peers in. Bob, meanwhile, has just awoken from a frightening dream and sees a rotting cadaver entering the door of his room! While he grabs for his weapon, Adam sees a shadow creature look up from Bob's dessicated corpse and turn to attack. Meanwhile, Charlie hears the commotion of gunfire and sees Adam getting attacked by a strange shadow creature. Only Diane sees everyone as normal (although fighting each other). No magical signatures are left after the 'attack', no sign of any enemies. She tazers everyone and makes sure her three comrades are alright.

Then she notices Bob still lying on his bed (as well as at her feet).
Calvin Hobbes
Ghouls are also a good horror villain if you play it right.

One campaign I've heard about had the PCs design shadowrunners, go through food fight and DNA/DOA, and then for no reason anyone understood, HMHVV became airborne in the city and ninety percent of the urban population became ghouls. The game became a simple story of how do you stay alive when there's zombies? The last PC to survive the siege on their apartment complex ended up blowing his brains out because he realised that there was nowhere to go.
Calvin Hobbes
Also: Banana Phone seems silly until you honestly think about the horror of it happening to you.
James McMurray
Banana phone?
nezumi
cellular, modular, interactiveodular, banana phone.
ChuckRozool
QUOTE (Calvin Hobbes)
Also: Banana Phone seems silly until you honestly think about the horror of it happening to you.

It was ok until i realized it never ends...

the horror
the... horror...
Calvin Hobbes
Double Posted. Sorry.
Calvin Hobbes
Here is a link.

http://uploads.ungrounded.net/content.php?...j=0&w=550&h=400

I think one of my favorite horror quotes was by David Cronenberg: The most horrofic thing I can think of is going to pick up my children from school and them not being there. It colors most of my thinking about what is really dark for a character to go through.
James McMurray
Must do to players... drool...
Wounded Ronin
Man, I was never cool enough of a GM to make the mage die for looking on the astral. Heh, had I done that with my group I'm sure there would have been apoplexy.

Someday I might be cool enough a GM to drive PCs to suicide and make them die and record their girlfriends screaming. Perhaps I need to meditate for a year while sitting on a SR3 sourcebook.
James McMurray
Use SR4, it's more controversial and, according to some folks here, steeped in horrors of its own. wink.gif
Kagetenshi
Some things are better left buried.

~J
fistandantilus4.0
QUOTE (Grinder)
QUOTE (Kremlin KOA @ Apr 12 2006, 06:53 AM)
oh in ED the low end horrors can be killed by low circle adepts
there are adventures where 3rd circle adepts kill a horror

The official adventures are a little bit ...strange... when it comes to suggested circles. "Mist Of Betreyal" i.e. has a Horror which the characters can overcome - and that's an adventure for starting groups. It was written before the ruels had been set in stone and the guys at FASA were sure, what role Horrors are supposed to play.

edit: typos

I don't know... for 1st circle characters, I just don't get this adventure. First it lets them practically waltz through Bloodwood, which I don't agree with. THis is assuming that they get past a pair of jehuthras. I ran this game once and got a TPK off just those two. I had some damn good rolls, but they were an experienced group. It was just bad.
Anyways, most groups I've seen go throug this (Mists of Betrayal) only made it because the GM was either pulling punches, or just ran the horror like any other stupid monster that just sits there in the room waiting for someone to come kill it. The only group I had get past that horror was 4th circle, and they were pretty beat on. Horrors are just messed up. They should only be used when your group doesn't mind losing characters, or you've got some seriosuly bad ass characters.

God I love horrors.

Bonecrown for President.
Crusher Bob
Don't forget the Horror Stalker discipline. All the suicidal madness and glory of a troll slayer, and you don't even have to sacrifice your dignity by being a dwarf.
fistandantilus4.0
Gotrek would kill you

Snorri would just drink his vodka while he wasn't looking.

smile.gif
Grinder
QUOTE (Crusher Bob)
Don't forget the Horror Stalker discipline. All the suicidal madness and glory of a troll slayer, and you don't even have to sacrifice your dignity by being a dwarf.

The guys of RedBrick are working on a revised Horror Stalker discipline. After that, a HS will be less suicidal.

And you've never seen an Ork HS in action? Kicks the butt of every troll wink.gif

@fistandantilus3.0: uhm. That's what I tried to say smile.gif
nezumi
QUOTE (Calvin Hobbes)
Here is a link.

http://uploads.ungrounded.net/content.php?...j=0&w=550&h=400

I don't understand. You guys don't hear bananaphone all day? I've heard it since puberty (before that it was baby beluga).

I'll call for pizza, I'll call my cat, I'll call the white house, have a chat! I'll place a call around the world, operator get me Beijing jing jing... *snaps fingers*
Kagetenshi
QUOTE (Grinder)
The guys of RedBrick are working on a revised Horror Stalker discipline. After that, a HS will be less suicidal.

I'm not sure that thats actually a good thing. I mean, the whole idea is that they've taken on a task that is, no two ways about it, completely insane—the idea that one would be able to choose this path and not be on a short trip to the grave is absurd and against the flavour to me.

~J
hyzmarca
The Horror Stalker's greatest advantage is their tendancy to die. That is a hell of a alot better than what most other adepts get. When dealing with horrors there comes a point where surviving is the worst posible outcome.
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