How to keep it going

I find myself asking this question over and over again when I run horror rpgs; how can inject some longevity into this?  Anyone who has played or ran something horror themed, especially Call of Cthulhu, knows all too well that the characters are two steps away from being a smear on the floor.  Chaosium scenarios for Call of Cthulhu are legendary for their lethality.  Spoiler alert, doing anything in any Call of Cthulhu scenario will get your character killed and or insane.  Players have some pretty strong responses to gaming like this, myself I'm a glutton for punishment and love to watch my characters go insane and or die gruesomely.  Usually the player adopt a hopeless attitude, go cracknugget and kill the party (I'm looking at you Ben, aka Mr. Shazam!), or just have their characters simply give up, go home, and refuse to get involved anymore.
     So what is to be done?  It's fine to crush the party into a fine paste in a one shot scenario but what about a year long Call of Cthulhu game?  Players will get sick and tired of dying and stop showing up.  In my pondering a few ideas have popped out of the ether.
     Take it slow and think long term.  Build up the suspense slowly and dish out information slow and steady.  The players should not be going from gunfight to gunfight but from library to library.  This though can get boring fast if something is not done to alleviate the boredom factor, or the cracknugget factor to be more specific.  Props and handouts work well for this, gives the players something to focus on.  If done correctly the mystery will take precedent, which makes for a lot less lethality.
     If your going to kill someone make sure it isn't someone important.  This means if things are going to get messy bring around some fodder for the monster to kill.  This is the trope of every monster movie, you are only invested in one perhaps two characters, the rest are there just to get eaten/stabbed/crushed/gutted/etc.  When the characters go to the haunted mansion, bring some expendable friends along.  Use this sparingly though otherwise it will turn from horror to comedy.  You do not want your characters rounding up innocent people every time they go investigate a cult down at the abandoned Masonic Temple.  A spin on this is to create a beloved NPC, really flesh him out good and have him become a trusted member of the group.  Wait till the players are emotionally invested, then kill him.  Do not do this too often otherwise the players will become hopeless pretty fast.
     Horror games are foremost games of atmosphere.  This can best be described as a sense of unease.  For longer games keep jump scares and horrifying moments spaced out.  Fill in the gaps with long stretches of "there just isn't something right...I can't put my finger on it...but......something."  The players should know that something is wrong but will not know what to do about it or what it is, or if it is even real.  Call for random spot hidden checks with clues that lead to know where.  Make it like the characters are being followed, or are they, is it just paranoia?  The bellhop of the hotel has very sharp canine features, and did he just scratch himself like a dog would?  Keep the players on their toes and only let them keep their balance for short stretches of time.
     Keep your players interests in firearms to a minimum.  Guns kill people very quickly.  4d6 damage from a shotgun blast and I have how many Hit Points, Ten you say, doesn't look good.  Guns are bad and they will kill your PC's quicker than anything.
     Switch to a different system.  I'm saying this mainly to those associated with Call of Cthulhu and are in need of something with a built in buffer towards PC deaths.  There are plenty of other systems out there that are a bit less lethal.

• Kult- Gnostic Horror.  This system offers in depth character creation and a built in world mythology that can rival the Cthulhu Mythos in scope.  The combat is deadly, perhaps even more so than Call of Cthulhu, but it gives the players Hero Points which can turn grievous wounds into mere scratches.  It's not much, but it can turn a lethal scenario into one of survivability.
• Eclipse Phase- Transhuman Horror- I have never played this system but have only heard good things.  Plus if your character gets juiced you can just download your backup into a new body.  No muss or fuss, but sometimes there are worse things than death.
• Hero's of Horror- This is a supplement released for Dungeons and Dragons 3.0/3.5.  It explains how to incorporate horror elements into a traditional fantasy world.  Great resource.
• White Wolf- They have a multitude of horror/dark fantasy games, Vampire the Masquerade being its most popular.  Their World of Darkness core rulebook is a good place to go if you want to play mortals in a world swimming with monsters.

The main goal I'm attempting is to keep the death rate down while still maintaining the "fun" aspects of the game.  Fun being a rather loose word for barricading the door so the unspeakable thing will not get in and eat everyone.  If anyone else has some suggestions I would like to there them, post them up in the comments.  And when all else fails just have your players bring extra character sheets.                    
    

Movie Review- V/H/S 2

Short films are a medium which receives little love or attention from mainstream audiences.  Shorts seems to have peeked out during the mid 80's to early nineties with anthologies like Creepshow or Amazing Stories.  Recently though there has been resurgence in anthology film making, especially in the horror genre.  At  a local horror film festival the shorts features are the only thing that I will not miss.  For myself the horror genre is a perfect avenue for short feature films; a little introduction, some buildup, a couple of scares or creepy moments, and end.  If the short was bad it's ok, because another one is following up quickly to wash out the bad taste.  If it was good that only heightens the scares and anticipation of the next short.  Which is why when I heard a while back about V/H/S I was exceptionally excited.  I watched it and was very impressed.  The shorts were cleaver, scary, bloody, and entertaining.  Some were better than others but on a whole the vehicle delivered what it needed to.  Fast forward a year and another anthology has been released titled V/H/S 2.  

     I tried to keep the anticipation low for this movie.  I did not want to over hype it till it could not deliver the goods.  I couldn't help myself and began readings some reviews, and they were unabashedly gushing over it. I was hooked in.  Though after watching it I'm not sure how to come down about it.  It was not a bad movie by any means and they did "ramp" things up for the sequel, but I'm not sure that was the best approach.  The movie definitely has a harder edge and is much more bloody.  The amount of times someone puts a gun to their head and pulls the trigger seemed almost like a running gag after while.  It had the same clever feel to it as the original but the gore gets in the way.  Why I am no prude when it comes to onscreen violence and gore but with all things you have to walk a fine line before it becomes too much and ceases to have shock value anymore.  While trying to be edgy and upping the gore the film becomes exactly the opposite.  The segments which had the least gore proved to be the ones I enjoyed the best; the first and last segments.

     To give a quick no spoiler account of the film; the first section is about a man who gets an eye implant, but the implant starts to glitch giving him strange glimpses of people who may be dead.  The second is different spin on the zombie tale.  The third has to do with a cult and the sinister dealings they are involved in.  I mean they are a cult after all.  The last segment is a alien abduction tale.  All the segments are woven together in a story of two private eyes looking for a missing kid and stumbling upon the tapes, of the features, at his house.  

       The movie overall was uneven and tried to hard with slop buckets full of gore which was detrimental to the scares and unease it was trying to create.

Verdict- 5 out of 10 Fatal Head Wounds
Who will like this- Horror and short fans, people who like something on the different side other than mass produced horror movies starting young hot bods, and lovers of gore.
Who will not like this- Those who are sensitive to gore need not apply, those who want in depth characters and long arcing stories, and those who obviously do not want to be scared.

Forbidden Knowledge- The Unspeakable Oath

Anyone being heavily involved in Call of Cthulhu back in the good old days remembers a magazine called The Unspeakable Oath.  The magazine was like nothing out there at the time, the content was solid and edgy and perfect for the system it used.  The magazine went defunct a while back, but due to a pact with some indescribable being the Oath is back!  They have all ready put out a number of issues and every single one of them is a keeper's trove of resources including tombs, scenarios, informative articles, reviews, and more.  The  writing is top notch and all the hard hitters of the Cthulhu gaming world are there including Scott Tynes and Shane Ivey.  These are not mere read and toss magazines, these are more akin to finely published materials one would see from a sourcebook.  Anyone looking to run Call of Cthulhu, or any horror themed rpg, should take a look.  They have a website where you can take a look at their musty worm ridden tombs.  To take the Oath head on over to Arc Dream to get a hard copy or RPG Now for a digital copy, for those who dislike the sheer heft of musty old books.   

The Book of Cthulhu II

Lovecraft and the Mythos he created are a hot commodity these days.  There is a never ending production based on his work, which varies wildley from good, to bad, and to use a Lovecraftian term, too unspeakable to mention.  The problem is most are played to be jokey, with no respect for what Lovecraft envisioned for his stories.  Chibi Cthulhu, c'mon.  Ross E. Lockhart, the editor of the The Book of Cthulhu 2, is an obvious devotee of Lovecraft and the tales he chose for the book represent a diverse slice of how to use the Mythos to tell a good story.

     The book itself tops in at 421 pages with a total of 24 stories that range from a couple pages to longer novelettes.  The direction the various authors take in exploring the Mythos are diverse; we have traditional Lovecraftian stories complete with fainting scholarly protagonists, a far future sci-fi story where the space travel is done inside giant living organisms, a noir fiction with a hard-boild detective at the height of WWII, an action packed tale set in the Delata Green universe, and the list goes on.  This is not just the bookish scholar wandering around the Miskatonic Valley, although we do have some of that, here we have variety of not only tone but scenery as well.  Each author brings the quality as well, there is no leftover shoggoth slush to be found here.

     The cover for the paperback edition displays "Tales isnspired by H.P. Lovecraft," and each author takes that seriously.  Sure there is some fun to be had, the story set in The Laundry universe comes to mind, but each author pays his dues to Lovecraft.  There is no Chibi Cthulhu or Plush Hastur to be found.  Story elements that Lovecraft often employed are here a well, the unavoidable curse, the forgotten and dangerous tombs of forbidden knowledge, the bad endings of protagonists, the insanity, and of course, the fainting.  The authors, as Lovecraft himself did and encouraged others to do, borrow various aspects of his work to craft  some good stories.  Lovecraft would approve.

Who will like this: Any fan of Lovecraft, Horror story lovers, anyone who can't help but love a fainting protagonist.

Who will not like this: Romance fans (although there is a rather racy story buried in the middle), short story haters, people who just do not "get" Lovecraft.

Solid book, high quality stories, diverse application of the Mythos.  8 out of 10 forbidden tombs.

           

Darkwood- Alpha Demo

Found this game a little while ago and it looks to be promising.  It appeals to my hard core early gaming days of leaving the Nintendo on for days so I could beat the 7th dungeon in Legend of Zelda.  If survival horror  sparks an interest you can check out the website here.