Character Creation: Horrors - The Scary Story RPG

The Game: Horrors - The Scary Story RPG
The Publisher: True in One Games
Degree of Familiarity: None with this particular game, but the genre is of more than a passing interest
Books Required: Just the one.

 

I have to say, this game was a bit of a disappointment to me. I backed it on Kickstarter and I was looking forward to it. Not that a "horror RPG" with no further qualifiers is terribly innovative in itself, but there was something I liked in the presentation, the idea of creating a "Horror" and playing through a movie. Slasher Flick emulates a particular kind of horror movie very well, but I was keen to see something a little broader but with a distinct flavor.

Horrors doesn't really have that. It's very much a generic RPG with the mechanics built around the horror genre, so that's good, but there are bits of it that come off as a little too glib in the wrong ways. To wit:

Kinda problematic, I think. Also, you heal Willpower damage from sex and drugs...and that's it! Now, one could argue that it's in-genre, and within a very small subset of horror movies, maybe it is. But suppose I want to play It (which, OK, I'm talking about the movie, not the novel) or some other movies with kids as characters? Kinda...not great. Playing as kids is never mentioned in the book, which means that not playing as kids is never mentioned.

Anyway, stuff like that kinda made me read the book and put it back down. But I'm still gonna make a character, because it's what I do.

Starting off creating a Victim (which is what characters are called in this game; dunno how I feel about it), I'm meant to begin with the personality/name/description side of things. I find it interesting where different games include this step. There's not a right or wrong, and I suspect it comes down to the author's biases, but I dunno.

Anyway, I want to play the old guy that gets eaten by the Horror in the first reel, except this being an RPG rather than a movie, maybe I hang on a little longer. In reading the chargen system, I see this:

I...don't know if that's true. Like, sure, powerlessness is a staple of horror, but it usually comes from the situation. Sure, there are horror movies in which the monster is preying on poor people, but just as many where the protagonists are affluent, able-boded white kids (that's, like, most of the slasher genre, in fact). Anyway, just struck me.

My character's name is Barnaby, and don't you call him "mister," he works for a living. He's in his late 60s, his hair's gone white ("there's snow on the roof but there's fire in the furnace!" as he likes to say). He's a custodian - head custodian, thanks - in the facility in which this game is set.

Now, Attributes. There are six of them, and they start with a free point, and I get 5 more to throw around. Oh, wait, no, I get 5 points per column, so I get 5 to split between Vigor and Feeling, Vitality and Perception, and Reaction and Thinking. So I really get 7 points for each column, min 1, max 6.

OK, well, I see Barnaby as being a tough ol' bastard, and he's not really great with other people, so I'll do 5 in Vigor and 2 in Feeling. Vitality, well, he's not as young as he used to be and he tires easily, so I'll go 3 Vitality and 4 in Perception. And then Reaction and Thinking can be pretty close; 4 and 3, respectively.

I get Endurance equal to my Vigor + Vitality + Reaction, or 12. I get Willpower equal to my other three Attributes (9).

Now I get an Archetype, which determines my Skills. Let's see if they have "old coot" as one of them. Well, no, but there is one called Survivor, which I think works just fine for my purposes. That gives me Focus 1, Handy 2, and Notice 2. I'm also "locked" in Computer and Politics, which means if I want to buy those Skills I have to spend an extra point to unlock them.

And, indeed, I get 10 more points to spend on Skills. Well, I'll bump Handy up to 4 (that's kinda gonna be Barnaby's thing). I'll buy up Notice to 3 and put 2 into Outdoors. I've got 5 left. I'll put one into Stealth, two into Fighting, and the last two into Mechanics.

I could, if I wanted, take Flaws - Major ones (like Slut) give me an extra Attribute point and Minors give me two more Skill points. Do I have any glaring holes in my Skills? I dunno. There's stuff I'd like, but I don't know if any of it is crucial. Yeah, actually, I'll take Brash (Barnaby is crotchety, as stated) and give myself a point in Driving and a point in Stamina.

Finally, Contacts. I can take three Contacts - they're people I know that I can call on for favors, and each one excels at one Skill. Or, I can forego taking some or all of them and take a point of Skills for every Contact I don't take (I actually really like that; I know a lot of players who don't really groove on making up or using contacts).

Let's see. I think Barnaby mostly keeps to himself and most of his old Army buddies are dead by now. I think I'll his ex-wife Gertie as a Contact, and say her special Skill is Veterinary (she's a vet, duh). I'll leave it at that, though, and take two more Skills - Shooting, how about.

And that's it, actually! There's a slot of gear and Contacts, but it's another sheet and I don't feel like printing it, so we'll just take Gertie as read.