Tabletop Games/Nightmare Fuel: Difference between revisions

=== Sub-pages: ===

 

 

----

* The indie game [[Don't Rest Your Head]] has simplified rules and setting bound so tightly to its core horror concept that the entirety of play is a race powered by only the best nightmare fuel. The Nightmares you face are bizarre and creepy in the most disturbing of ways, the locals aren't much better, and your own powers can easily be worst of all. The fact that something as simple as trading often means giving up memories or years off your life doesn't help.

** Nor does the fact that the default losing conditions of the game are not death, but the far worse fates of collapsing (letting the Nightmares get to you) or going so far over the deep end of insane you become a Nightmare.

* The German RPG ''[[Engel]]'' comes close, though. Unless you play it as a superhero/[[Dungeons and Dragons|D&D]] hack-n-slay setting, which would totally kill the creepy.

** The creepy only really sets in when you ''get'' the fact that {{spoiler|the so-called 'angels' are actually brainwashed, nanomachine-infected children mostly aged 12-14 who were stolen from their parents and forcefully molded into androgynous 'angelic' figures meant to know nothing outside of service to their Himmel}}. And you know that age-range? Well, aside from the standards dangers of the world, there's a Papacy-sponsored reason as to ''why'' Engels never seem to get any older...

* ''[[Shadowrun]]'''s "Cybertechnology" sourcebook is a good source of this, particularly the move-by-wire implants (which are described as putting the implantee's body in a state of perpetual seizure), and the information on Cyberzombies and the fiction about {{spoiler|frequently mentioned Shadowrunner 'Hatchetman' turned into one of them.}}

** Both made a comeback in the 4E sourcebook ''Augmentation''. What's particularly nasty is the way that regardless of what you do to it, the spirit of the cyberzombie ''knows'' that they shouldn't be alive, and that knowledge causes them to stop working on a cellular level without a horrific cocktail of obscure magic and medication. Even then, a cyberzombie will eventually just go insane.

** On the magical side of all things [[Shadowrun]] is the Blood Mage Gestalt in Aztlan (Mexico as of the SR Timeline). At best they are sacrificing hundreds if not thousands of people yearly ''Aztec''-style {{spoiler|to keep their President from parts unknown alive}}...at worst, its to {{spoiler|speed up the return of the Horrors from ''[[Earthdawn]]'' (see below) to our world}}. Usually, though, they just kill people to power-up their spells, or to summon spirits into the world comprised of the blood of the sacrificed victims. These spirits would be more than happy to engulf and ''drown'' you in that blood, if their master orders it.

** A first edition spell (which has been nerfed in the newest 4th edition) was called Turn to Goo. It turns the subject into an amorphous homogenized mass... and JUST the flesh. As soon as the spell is ended, they turn back to normal though. This wouldn't be as big of a deal if it weren't that this was a genre-mash with cyberpunk which involves cybernetic implants. A old tactic before the spell was changed was to cast this spell, then reach into the goo that is a STILL LIVING PERSON and pick out all their implants before releasing the spell.

** For Nightmare Fuel in Shadowrun, there's Bug City. The Chicago sections of Real Cities is probably the most unnerving part.

*** The earlier entry in the "Insect Spirit" arc is Universal Brotherhood. Imagine a world of corporate greed in overlord, with an oppressive Big Brother atmosphere, with the omnipresent megacorporations flat-out not caring whether customers live or die (they can literally write their own laws and avoid prosecution) and governments just as corrupt or too weak to do anything. Even in the richest countries, the poor have no legal rights or protections. Suddenly, there's a beacon of hope. A charity organization shows up offering food, shelter, and medical care to the poor and [[SI Nless]]. Finally, someone's looking out for the little guy! {{spoiler|They are, of course, huge (8ft tall) extraplanar intelligent insect-like creatures seeking to take over the world and use the humans as incubators for other insect spirits to hatch out of them, some of them looking like hybrid human-insects, some looking like 8 ft tall insects, and the worst actually looking exactly the same as they did when human with all the memories of their host. They're spreading throughout the entire world in secret, killing anyone who knows the truth in convenient accidents all the while maintaining a squeaky clean public image.}} And this was the first metaplot story arc told in the Shadowrun world. It just goes downhill from there.

** And {{spoiler|they exist in [[Shadowrun]].}} See the "Harlequin's Back" module.

*** The Blood Elves. To defend themselves from the Horrors, they used a powerful magical ritual to cover everything in their forest home in thorns. Everything. Including themselves. The race survived by virtue of living in such pain that the Horrors were no longer interested in tormenting them, for the most part.

** 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.

** 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]].

** And the one adult is kind of a dick.

* ''[[GURPS]]'' has produced some scary stuff. Nerlochs top the list: they're mindless superfast zombies that paralyze you (leaving all of your senses working perfectly) and then feed you to a monster that tears your body and soul apart while you're still completely functional. If you do happen to somehow survive, the trauma automatically drives you insane.

* [[wikipedia:Fairy Meat|Fairy Meat]]. IF YOU CAN'T EAT YOUR FRIENDS, WHO CAN YOU EAT?

** 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.