Critique-al Hit: Homebrews & Horrors – Spooky Games to Play This Season
Tis the season of spooky and what better time is there to talk about the games that allow you to bring horror to the table top? From the silliest spoopy themes to the truly terrifying, there are countless ways to lean into the Halloween spirit in your TTRPGs.
Many games exist that lend themselves to the various aspects of the horror genre. If you want a heavy role playing game that requires a table full of people you trust, Ten Candles is a great game to consider. Ten Candles is a game of tragic horror, you go in knowing no one’s character is going to survive. It’s group story telling about trying to do the most with your final hours. The game can be run in a variety of settings and you can really ramp up the scary side as much as you want by adding truly horrific situations and monsters.
The World of Darkness is another system where you can lean into the terror with its various games. Vampire the Masquerade is the most well known in their line up and leans into themes of Political Horror and losing one’s humanity. It is a game that can be run as a true horror or, if your groups isn’t into the scary, it can lean into the silly. Other world of Darkness games include Hunter: The Reckoning and Werewolf: The Apocalypse.
In Hunter: The Reckoning, you play as monster hunters pushed to the edge. Your characters have seen things out of other people’s nightmares and are have to deal with those horrors. Werewolf: The Apocalypse, leans into Environmental & Spiritual Horror. You play as werewolves trying to survive on a dying planet that causes rage to bubble up inside you. All three games offer different types of horror themes that all have their own kinds of scary.
Another excellent system to lean into the spooky with, Monster of the Week is a flexible system to look at. The game can be scaled from Scooby-Doo types of silly to much scarier situations that feel more like Silent Hill, sometimes all within the same campaign. Monster of the Week has multiple modules available already that can all be tailored to the appropriate level of scary for your table. Monster of the Week is currently crowdfunding two new books which will bring even more flexibility to the system adding new Team and Hunter playbooks and new moves that can really personalize the game for your specific needs.
If the horror side of sci-fi is more your speed, you can’t go wrong with ALIEN the Roleplaying Game. Set in the ALIEN universe in the year 2183 offers options for a full campaign as well as a cinematic play option that offers single session one-shot type modules that are high adrenaline and high stakes with absolutely brutal combat.
Another sci-fi option is The Expanse RPG. Set in the fictional world of The Expanse books and television series, the TTRPG allows you to tell your story anywhere within the storyline. The setting is much less flexible in terms of how scary you can or can’t go. There isn’t a lot of room for the sillier, spoopier themes. It’s a scary time and place to exist with very real dangers from every angle.
And then of course there is Dungeons and Dragons. It’s one of the most flexible systems out there and there are countless ways you can adjust the fear levels for the people at the table. From turning modern horror characters into D&D bad guys to the biggest monster in the game to creating your own horrors, there are numerous ways to adjust the game to your needs.
Spooky season is a great time to try out some scary games for your table. If you find one you love it doesn’t have to be just a Halloween thing. Horror games are great year round and definitely worth giving a try if you haven’t before.
Be sure to tell us in the comments what games you and your tables are looking at playing this season!
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