RPGs in general are not good engines for horror, because PCs are prone to behaving like action movie characters, not horror movie characters -- if you had a group of PC-like people in a horror movie, they would all die horribly before the movie was half finished. They're decent for monster movies, but not horror movies.
That and there's generally an expectation in an RPG that you can take on whatever you fight.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
RPGs in general are not good engines for horror, because PCs are prone to behaving like action movie characters, not horror movie characters -- if you had a group of PC-like people in a horror movie, they would all die horribly before the movie was half finished. They're decent for monster movies, but not horror movies.
That and there's generally an expectation in an RPG that you can take on whatever you fight.
So I don't know whether limiting TTRPG player performance to genres of film is really fair to TTRPGs (and not trying to diss movies - I'll save you my lecture notes on various theories of adaptation and anputation within the arts, but I used to really nerd out on this end).
I will say presently I regularly listen/watch Into the Darkness who actual play a slough of contemporary game titles for horror, not as "creature features" (which what I think you all mean by monster movies). Many a TTRPG player's second TTRPG experience after D&D is often a rule set where "acting like a action movie hero" just won't work. I just don't think the dissonance you all are trying to put between the horror genre and TTRPGs is there (especially as horror and ghost stories are one of the few fiction/narrational genres where 2nd person storytelling can be used to great effect). Call of Cthulhu, which was never about battling Cthulhu in a straight up fight (and Delta Green basically takes the notion of taking a straight up fight to Cthulhu and laughs at it) is like the second oldest TTRPG still being supported by a publisher. The mid 80s brought Chill. Kult and Over the Edge were different forms of horrific (with different degrees of mind bending surreality) and those were late 80s or early 90s games.
Horror is done on the regular in TTRPG, it's played differently than action oriented games, just as a straight detective (non pulp) game is played differently from a straight of action game (basically, there are "action games' and then all the other games where the game world goes "dude, wtf" if you try to shoot at the bad guy in their getaway car. Unless you're playing a "long con" sort of epic adventure with a lot of detective work before the final confrontation (note, not a fight, the confrontation is usually the PCs confronting their own frailties against the horror), most horror adventures are designed with players likely experiencing a death scene. And characters that do survive, the games have rules describing how prolonged "adventuring" of that nature wears down the character. So just like in other media characters in the horror genre have a different "arc" and so the play style is different accordingly.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
RPGs in general are not good engines for horror, because PCs are prone to behaving like action movie characters, not horror movie characters -- if you had a group of PC-like people in a horror movie, they would all die horribly before the movie was half finished. They're decent for monster movies, but not horror movies.
I think an RPG can be cosmic horror themed if the players are aware of it in session zero. I think of various Lord of the Rings RPGs and Shadow of the Demon Lord. Both of those games have main villains that are incomprehensibly powerful and essentially unbeatable (Sauron and the demon lord). I alluded to The Shadow Over Innsmouth earlier, in which the main villains were the regular mutant-folk of Innsmouth, with Dagon lurking in the background. That story would have made for a fine adventure.
On the issue of "cosmic horror that isn't Lovecraftian", that gets into what you think makes something cosmic, and what makes it Lovecraftian. Presumably you want to avoid all the things that look like spawn of Cthulhu, which rules out most illithid threats, but how do you feel about aboleths, beholders, gibbering mouthers, nothics, and slaad?
This is a good point, and a little bit hard to answer because the gap between Lovecraft and the overarching themes of cosmic horror is precisely what I'm trying to discover. I think of all of those monsters as something out of Lovecraft with the exception of beholders and nothics. An example of non-Lovecraft cosmic horror that can serve as an example is the Alan Wake universe including the more recent game Control. Control, in particular, featured a malicious force that is more conceptual than real, which made it both terrifying and interesting.
That and there's generally an expectation in an RPG that you can take on whatever you fight.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
So I don't know whether limiting TTRPG player performance to genres of film is really fair to TTRPGs (and not trying to diss movies - I'll save you my lecture notes on various theories of adaptation and anputation within the arts, but I used to really nerd out on this end).
I will say presently I regularly listen/watch Into the Darkness who actual play a slough of contemporary game titles for horror, not as "creature features" (which what I think you all mean by monster movies). Many a TTRPG player's second TTRPG experience after D&D is often a rule set where "acting like a action movie hero" just won't work. I just don't think the dissonance you all are trying to put between the horror genre and TTRPGs is there (especially as horror and ghost stories are one of the few fiction/narrational genres where 2nd person storytelling can be used to great effect). Call of Cthulhu, which was never about battling Cthulhu in a straight up fight (and Delta Green basically takes the notion of taking a straight up fight to Cthulhu and laughs at it) is like the second oldest TTRPG still being supported by a publisher. The mid 80s brought Chill. Kult and Over the Edge were different forms of horrific (with different degrees of mind bending surreality) and those were late 80s or early 90s games.
Horror is done on the regular in TTRPG, it's played differently than action oriented games, just as a straight detective (non pulp) game is played differently from a straight of action game (basically, there are "action games' and then all the other games where the game world goes "dude, wtf" if you try to shoot at the bad guy in their getaway car. Unless you're playing a "long con" sort of epic adventure with a lot of detective work before the final confrontation (note, not a fight, the confrontation is usually the PCs confronting their own frailties against the horror), most horror adventures are designed with players likely experiencing a death scene. And characters that do survive, the games have rules describing how prolonged "adventuring" of that nature wears down the character. So just like in other media characters in the horror genre have a different "arc" and so the play style is different accordingly.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I think an RPG can be cosmic horror themed if the players are aware of it in session zero. I think of various Lord of the Rings RPGs and Shadow of the Demon Lord. Both of those games have main villains that are incomprehensibly powerful and essentially unbeatable (Sauron and the demon lord). I alluded to The Shadow Over Innsmouth earlier, in which the main villains were the regular mutant-folk of Innsmouth, with Dagon lurking in the background. That story would have made for a fine adventure.
This is a good point, and a little bit hard to answer because the gap between Lovecraft and the overarching themes of cosmic horror is precisely what I'm trying to discover. I think of all of those monsters as something out of Lovecraft with the exception of beholders and nothics. An example of non-Lovecraft cosmic horror that can serve as an example is the Alan Wake universe including the more recent game Control. Control, in particular, featured a malicious force that is more conceptual than real, which made it both terrifying and interesting.
Robert Chambers's The King in Yellow.