Netflix and KILL: 31 Days of Scary Posting

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Mechanical Ape
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Re: Netflix and KILL: 31 Days of Scary Posting

Post by Mechanical Ape (?) » Wed Oct 27, 2021 11:43 pm

October 27th: KILLER FREQUENCY

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Wrapping up tonight's trifecta of terror in free indie games, here's 2019's Killer Frequency, a cheesy 'n' fun thing made for a game jam over just 2 weeks! This turns out to be more about laughs than scares, but the core concept -- a late-night DJ trying to save listeners from a serial killer -- has lots of potential and could easily be played for genuine terror.

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It's the late shift at 189.16 The Scream. A knife-wielding maniac is loose in town and with the sheriff unavailable, folks are calling their local radio show for help getting home safely. Their safety is in your hands and supple voice as you search your studio for clues to guide them; for example referring to the map on the wall to give directions to a stranded motorist. Failure means the caller gets the chop-chop, leading to a snarky response from your producer.

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Killer Frequency goes more for dark comedy than true slasher horror. But there's certainly a lot of horror that could be mined from the situation, and the game as is does provide some suspense. There are only three callers and the puzzles are extremely simple; it's enough, however, to make the case that this is a good idea for a game and deserves fleshing out.
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Re: Netflix and KILL: 31 Days of Scary Posting

Post by DaikatunaRevengeance (?) » Thu Oct 28, 2021 3:50 am

What [videogame creepypasta] stories reveal, I think, is an underlying anxiety we have about games in general: that beneath their smiling faces and heroic poses Mario and Link are somehow hostile to us. That if these emblems of childhood and adolescent pleasure had their way, we would keep playing with them until it killed us.
i'll be blunt:

this is the most pretentious try hard edgy thing i've seen so far.
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Re: Netflix and KILL: 31 Days of Scary Posting

Post by DaikatunaRevengeance (?) » Thu Oct 28, 2021 4:01 am

also, i feel like i've heard of killer frequencies from somewhere, most likely the various youtube channels about video games i used to follow
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Re: Netflix and KILL: 31 Days of Scary Posting

Post by Mechanical Ape (?) » Thu Oct 28, 2021 10:55 pm

October 28th: TORG


Lots of tabletop RPGs exist in the horror genre. But what if the RPG is designed around the overlapping of multiple genres? Where the heroes can be "jacking in" to "cyberspace" one moment (this was the early '90s), then take a boat to medieval fantasy land, then hop on a plane and head to pulp comic adventure land? How do you incorporate the genre of horror in such a setting? That's the challenge faced by West End Games, creators of Paranoia, the Star Wars RPG and today's topic, TORG.

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(No, we haven't time to explain why it's called that.)

Here's what you need to know: the setting of TORG is present-day Earth as it's being invaded by evil raiders from other realities. Turns out our dimension's chock full of "possibility energy", the fundamental energy of the cosmos, so the villains have teamed up to divide Earth amongst themselves. As a dimension conquers territory on Earth, the local reality changes to that of the invaders', including the rules about what level of technology or magic functions there. So big chunks of the USA are overrun by primitive lizardmen from a Lost World reality, the Middle East is under the thumb of a cackling supervillain from '30s pulp, France and Germany are ruled by a weird hybrid of cybertechnology and the medieval Catholic Church. You thus have a situation where your party is an elf mage, a cyberpunk, and Indiana Jones, and they all go to Japan and fight undead ninjas.

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But pictured above is the Gaunt Man, the mastermind behind it all and by far the most powerful of the villains, and he rules the Victorian horror realm of Orrorsh. And horror stories are a different kind of story from action/adventure, the odd one out among the other genres. Take skeletons, for example: in fantasy stories they're a low-level nuisance to be cut down by the dozens, while in a horror tale, even one walking skeleton is meant to be really scary. So how do you convey that difference in threat to players -- do you just beef up the monsters in Orrorsh, give them tougher stats? Is that enough to generate real fear and anxiety?

The designers of TORG came up with interesting mechanics that apply to adventures in Orrorsh which make them hit very different from adventures elsewhere. (The idea being that the Gaunt Man, who feeds on fear, has had millennia to tweak the rules of his reality to favor himself.) Monsters in Orrorsh aren't inherently tougher, they're usually pretty normal stats-wise, but the power of fear pervades the whole dimension and gives bonuses to the monsters until the heroes have managed to overcome that fear.

Here's how it works: the party has a collective Perseverance score, which starts at 8 and represents the resolve of the heroes to defeat the monster. (Horror adventures don't have many monsters -- sometimes just one, with maybe a few minions.) They gain Perseverance by investigating, doing research, and learning about the monster and how to kill it. The monster, the villain of the piece, has a Fear score which is anywhere from 10 for starter villains to 27 for terrifying arch-villains like the Gaunt Man himself. Importantly, the PCs don't know the monster's Fear rating -- they don't know the magnitude of the threat they're facing. They might even be wrong about the true villain of the story; maybe they think they're hunting a simple werewolf, not aware it's doing the bidding of an evil cultist.

Whenever something scary happens, like the monster appears or somebody dies, the party has to roll Perseverance against the villain's Fear, and if they fail, then the GM gets to apply bad stuff to the party. The monster can terrify a party member and make them flee -- oh, you thought you were a fearless hero? Tough luck Aragorn, you're in a horror story now -- or maybe remove a hero's plot protection, creating a real risk they can be killed. And the GM is encouraged in these situations to get nasty and actively try to kill a character, because that's what happens in horror stories: heroes die along the way, and sometimes fail entirely. The PCs are encouraged to retreat from situations where things are going pear-shaped.

Now the monster is much easier to defeat if the party makes its Perseverance check, so the goal of the players is to get their Perseverance as high as possible before going off to face the monster (and they're never 100% certain how much will be enough). As said before, you gain Perseverance by investigating and making discoveries -- but you also gain it after the monster kills someone, be it a hapless villager or one of the PCs. It's tragic and horrifying when it happens, but afterwards the surviving heroes are more resolved to succeed ... or die trying.

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The idea of all this is that, ideally, the mechanics drive the adventure toward rising action and a climax. At first the heroes don't know what they're facing and are on the back foot. When the monster attacks there's a very real chance someone might die. But the more horrors and losses the heroes endure, the higher their Perseverance grows. Inevitably the heroes will have enough Perseverance to stand a chance against the monster, simply because the monster has been doing its job. Of course there may be only one or two heroes left by this point.

An interesting side effect is that under these rules, it can make sense to split the party, just as always happens in horror films. Because if someone goes off alone and gets killed the party won't lose Perseverance, because nobody witnessed it -- but they still gain Perseverance later when they discover the body. That's a good trade!

The important thing about adventuring in Orrorsh is that it's designed, almost inevitably, that PCs will die or at least seriously risk dying. So it's recommended that players who don't want to lose their favorite heroes shouldn't bring them on those adventures, and roll up a different character just for Orrorsh. Because horror is supposed to be fun, and it's more fun when nobody's too worried about getting killed. West End Games made Paranoia, they know all about that.
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Re: Netflix and KILL: 31 Days of Scary Posting

Post by DaikatunaRevengeance (?) » Fri Oct 29, 2021 3:38 am

the 80s were a weird time for tabletop rpgs
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Re: Netflix and KILL: 31 Days of Scary Posting

Post by Mechanical Ape (?) » Sat Oct 30, 2021 12:38 am

October 29th: GHOST STORIES


No not the anime, although the anime does own.


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This Ghost Stories is a 2017 British film, and I just finished watching it! It's spooky and fun and doesn't take itself too seriously. Perfect choice for this Halloween weekend.

Prof. Philllip Goodman is a professional skeptic, one of those dudes who goes around debunking psychics. In his long career he's never found a real case of the supernatural -- but when he comes into possession of three unsolved case files, what he uncovers just might change his mind. And the stage is set for a good old-fashioned horror anthology, with each witness relating their close encounter with the supernatural. The third segment even has Martin Freeman! He's always a welcome presence.

There was no real need for Ghost Stories to look as good as it does, but it does anyway. The interior & exterior sets are amazing (Britain is very photogenic, I guess), the lighting is great and the cameraman sets up some very cool shots. Acting is good all around but Freeman steals the show once he appears. The segments are spooky but not too spooky, suspenseful without being dour, there's a fun use of the Evil Dead monster-cam, and the ending ... well, it needs to be seen to be believed. This one hits right for the season.
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Re: Netflix and KILL: 31 Days of Scary Posting

Post by DaikatunaRevengeance (?) » Sat Oct 30, 2021 8:35 pm

oh that sounds pretty good
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Re: Netflix and KILL: 31 Days of Scary Posting

Post by Mechanical Ape (?) » Sun Oct 31, 2021 9:15 pm

Days 30 and 31 on hiatus due to the SPOOKY FLU

Instead, accept this picture of Ame:

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Re: Netflix and KILL: 31 Days of Scary Posting

Post by DaikatunaRevengeance (?) » Mon Nov 01, 2021 3:08 pm

perhaps ame is the scariest post of all
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