Tabletop Games/Nightmare Fuel: Difference between revisions

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** What about some of the ''spells'' in Earthdawn? Just look up "Skin Shift" or "Onion Blood". Or better yet, don't.
** What about some of the ''spells'' in Earthdawn? Just look up "Skin Shift" or "Onion Blood". Or better yet, don't.
** If you really want to see how much of this Earthdawn has, check out the 'Horrors' book. {{spoiler|According to the dragon legends a Horror called Verjigorm created the first Dragon by accident while sprouting all kind of Horrors. Now he's hunting them and corrupting even while the magic level is too low for other Horrors. There is also Nebis, whose name is a nice cause of [[Speak of the Devil]], and who rebuilds himself from the bodies of those who have slain his physical body. Or Ristul, who isn't an actual entity, but the corruption itself.}} And those aren't the most interesting ones. If you look up the Earthdawn bestiary, you'll see that even cows and rabbits can be nightmarish.
** If you really want to see how much of this Earthdawn has, check out the 'Horrors' book. {{spoiler|According to the dragon legends a Horror called Verjigorm created the first Dragon by accident while sprouting all kind of Horrors. Now he's hunting them and corrupting even while the magic level is too low for other Horrors. There is also Nebis, whose name is a nice cause of [[Speak of the Devil]], and who rebuilds himself from the bodies of those who have slain his physical body. Or Ristul, who isn't an actual entity, but the corruption itself.}} And those aren't the most interesting ones. If you look up the Earthdawn bestiary, you'll see that even cows and rabbits can be nightmarish.
* The ''[[Call of Cthulhu]]'' game, being based off [[H.P. Lovecraft]]'s works of horror, has this as its core quality. The modern-era conspiracy thriller version of the game, ''Delta Green'', is the same. It is a dark, depressing RPG book, and very well-written. Conspiracy theories, UFO lore, and the Mythos all rolled into one makes for a very bleak view of the present and near-future indeed.
* The ''[[Call of Cthulhu (tabletop game)]]'' game, being based off [[H.P. Lovecraft]]'s works of horror, has this as its core quality. The modern-era conspiracy thriller version of the game, ''Delta Green'', is the same. It is a dark, depressing RPG book, and very well-written. Conspiracy theories, UFO lore, and the Mythos all rolled into one makes for a very bleak view of the present and near-future indeed.
** The introductory fiction for the original ''Delta Green'' core rules is of a clean-up squad sent out to handle an incident of a retired Navy SEAL having gone insane and murdered his entire family. Why? Because he had a traumatic flashback to an old mission involving Deep Ones, triggered by the smell of his house's ''backed-up septic tank''. That detail alone hammers home just how much the touch of the Mythos never goes away, even years later.
** The introductory fiction for the original ''Delta Green'' core rules is of a clean-up squad sent out to handle an incident of a retired Navy SEAL having gone insane and murdered his entire family. Why? Because he had a traumatic flashback to an old mission involving Deep Ones, triggered by the smell of his house's ''backed-up septic tank''. That detail alone hammers home just how much the touch of the Mythos never goes away, even years later.
** The entirety of anything inspired by the Cthulhu mythos is nightmare fuel. Even [[Cthulhu Tech]]. The good side: hey, [[Instant Awesome, Just Add Mecha|we've got mecha!]] The bad side: it's still a world where there are games between ancient evils and we are so pitiable and worthless that all of them but Dagon (and maybe Nyarlathotep) don't even consider us worthwhile pawns. Even when we have [[Humongous Mecha]].<br />For additional persective, we've got giant robots, the Guyver, and everybody knows they're fighting for the survival of the species. ''We're still losing.'' And if Cthulhu wakes up, it's an automatic [[Game Over]].
** The entirety of anything inspired by the Cthulhu mythos is nightmare fuel. Even [[Cthulhu Tech]]. The good side: hey, [[Instant Awesome, Just Add Mecha|we've got mecha!]] The bad side: it's still a world where there are games between ancient evils and we are so pitiable and worthless that all of them but Dagon (and maybe Nyarlathotep) don't even consider us worthwhile pawns. Even when we have [[Humongous Mecha]].<br />For additional persective, we've got giant robots, the Guyver, and everybody knows they're fighting for the survival of the species. ''We're still losing.'' And if Cthulhu wakes up, it's an automatic [[Game Over]].
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** Which makes sense, once you know that H.P. Lovecraft had horrible nightmares that inspired a lot of his work...
** Which makes sense, once you know that H.P. Lovecraft had horrible nightmares that inspired a lot of his work...
* The GUMSHOE system's ''Esoterrorists'' setting has a sourcebook called the Book of Unremitting Horror. Thirty "creatures", each lovingly detailed with (hideous) artwork, (disturbing) agenda and modus operandi and (extremely creepy) fiction, usually in the form of diary entries, coroner's report or interview with a survivor. Not recommended for reading after dark.
* The GUMSHOE system's ''Esoterrorists'' setting has a sourcebook called the Book of Unremitting Horror. Thirty "creatures", each lovingly detailed with (hideous) artwork, (disturbing) agenda and modus operandi and (extremely creepy) fiction, usually in the form of diary entries, coroner's report or interview with a survivor. Not recommended for reading after dark.
** The d20 version is worse. For the uninitiated, this is a book that features a creature called a "[[Snuff Film|Snuff Golem]]," created from the psychic trauma of the victim of a snuff film. [[It Got Worse|And the entries only get more disturbing from there]], such as the creation ritual behind the [[Squick|Blossomer]]. For those who are horribly, morbidly curious: {{spoiler|1=The Blossomer is a demonic entity that looks like a human being with nothing below the torso. That's because the Blossomer is made from a ''willing'' human cultist, who undergoes a transformative ritual to merge with the demon. That "transformative ritual"? His fellow cultists ''eat everything below the waist'', in slow, piece-by-piece fashion. Oh, and the write-up is preceded by a fiction piece where two DIs interview a cultist who describes the thing ''in detail''.}} This is probably one of the single most disturbing books on the page.
** The d20 version is worse. For the uninitiated, this is a book that features a creature called a "[[Snuff Film|Snuff Golem]]," created from the psychic trauma of the victim of a snuff film. [[It Got Worse|And the entries only get more disturbing from there]], such as the creation ritual behind the [[Squick|Blossomer]]. For those who are horribly, morbidly curious: {{spoiler|1=The Blossomer is a demonic entity that looks like a human being with nothing below the torso. That's because the Blossomer is made from a ''willing'' human cultist, who undergoes a transformative ritual to merge with the demon. That "transformative ritual"? His fellow cultists ''eat everything below the waist'', in slow, piece-by-piece fashion. Oh, and the write-up is preceded by a fiction piece where two DIs interview a cultist who describes the thing ''in detail''.}} This is probably one of the single most disturbing books on the page.
* The ''[[Deadlands]]'' roleplaying game. The setting is in 1876 America with a few major changes. The civil war has gone on for 14 years and the country is still divided into north and south with an uneasy truce. The men killed at the many great battlefields in the Civil War, like Shiloh and others, have risen as zombies and formed the Black Regiment. The world is suddenly infested with strange monsters that range from Bigfoot to pod-people replacements, one of whom happens to be {{spoiler|Confederate President Jefferson Davis}}. But even that is not the worst: as it happens, it is all the result of something much worse. {{spoiler|Four powerful demonic spirits are 'terrorforming' the earth by causing ungodly amounts of fear and paranoia in the populace that eventually makes the area an uninhabitable 'Deadland' filled with monsters and unnatural weirdness. Oh, and those spirits? They become the Four [[Horsemen of the Apocalypse]].}}
* The ''[[Deadlands]]'' roleplaying game. The setting is in 1876 America with a few major changes. The civil war has gone on for 14 years and the country is still divided into north and south with an uneasy truce. The men killed at the many great battlefields in the Civil War, like Shiloh and others, have risen as zombies and formed the Black Regiment. The world is suddenly infested with strange monsters that range from Bigfoot to pod-people replacements, one of whom happens to be {{spoiler|Confederate President Jefferson Davis}}. But even that is not the worst: as it happens, it is all the result of something much worse. {{spoiler|Four powerful demonic spirits are 'terrorforming' the earth by causing ungodly amounts of fear and paranoia in the populace that eventually makes the area an uninhabitable 'Deadland' filled with monsters and unnatural weirdness. Oh, and those spirits? They become the Four [[Horsemen of the Apocalypse]].}}
* ''[[Bliss Stage]]''.
* ''[[Bliss Stage]]''.
** You're fighting aliens that put [[Parental Abandonment|all the adults of the world]] [[Lotus Eater Machine|to sleep with ''those fucking creepy smiles.'']]
** You're fighting aliens that put [[Parental Abandonment|all the adults of the world]] [[Lotus Eater Machine|to sleep with ''those fucking creepy smiles.'']]
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** The best example of this is a Straight Mission where the players are put in charge of a food factory showing record levels of production. This is, of course a lie and the "food" is mostly empty boxes, but if the players were to expose it, then they'll be executed along with the rest of the staff. As a reward for their incredible production, the quota for that factory is increased. And so the players lie again about how much food is being produced, so their quota is increased, and that factory's defective methods are imposed all over Alpha Complex. All fun and games, until the players realise that their actions are causing mass starvation, and that pretty soon the best possible solution will be to [[I'm a Humanitarian|shove half the citizens of Alpha Complex into food processors to feed the rest]].
** The best example of this is a Straight Mission where the players are put in charge of a food factory showing record levels of production. This is, of course a lie and the "food" is mostly empty boxes, but if the players were to expose it, then they'll be executed along with the rest of the staff. As a reward for their incredible production, the quota for that factory is increased. And so the players lie again about how much food is being produced, so their quota is increased, and that factory's defective methods are imposed all over Alpha Complex. All fun and games, until the players realise that their actions are causing mass starvation, and that pretty soon the best possible solution will be to [[I'm a Humanitarian|shove half the citizens of Alpha Complex into food processors to feed the rest]].
** And then there's MemoMax technology. Whenever someone dies, his clone picks up where he left off, having downloaded all his memories. Including how he died.
** And then there's MemoMax technology. Whenever someone dies, his clone picks up where he left off, having downloaded all his memories. Including how he died.
* Somehow, [[All Flesh Must Be Eaten]] has gotten a pass here. Sure, the scenarios are designed to be one-shot and varied by the GM's plans... but they're pretty horrific. One sample flavor story is from the perspective of a scientist in a military base who's studying the zombie plague, and gets bitten. He describes what happens to him in graphic detail. Bad enough, sure, but another one has the zombie plague as an STD.
* Somehow, [[All Flesh Must Be Eaten]] has gotten a pass here. Sure, the scenarios are designed to be one-shot and varied by the GM's plans... but they're pretty horrific. One sample flavor story is from the perspective of a scientist in a military base who's studying the zombie plague, and gets bitten. He describes what happens to him in graphic detail. Bad enough, sure, but another one has the zombie plague as an STD.
* [[Eclipse Phase]]. Anything and everything involving the Exsurgent Virus.
* [[Eclipse Phase]]. Anything and everything involving the Exsurgent Virus.
* ''Dead Inside''. How would you like to lose your soul and become a gray, empty husk of a person? And that's not even the worst thing that can happen to you in this world. If you die while Dead Inside you become a zombie, lose what little emotion you had, and can ''never'' heal your soul, you're stuck like that for a long long time while you slowly rot away. And even worse then that is what happens if the last dregs of soul-stuff you have get lost or stolen, you become an [[Omnicidal Maniac]] [[The Heartless|Quippoth]] intent on eating the souls of everybody and everything and turning ''them'' into monsters as well.
* ''Dead Inside''. How would you like to lose your soul and become a gray, empty husk of a person? And that's not even the worst thing that can happen to you in this world. If you die while Dead Inside you become a zombie, lose what little emotion you had, and can ''never'' heal your soul, you're stuck like that for a long long time while you slowly rot away. And even worse then that is what happens if the last dregs of soul-stuff you have get lost or stolen, you become an [[Omnicidal Maniac]] [[The Heartless|Quippoth]] intent on eating the souls of everybody and everything and turning ''them'' into monsters as well.
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