Episode 71 - Horror Gaming in the Modern Day

We're back, and we're shaking our fists at the modern world. You youngsters probably have an app to do that.

This is our look at the pitfalls and opportunities presented by setting horror games in the modern-day. By modern-day, we mean anything more recent than 1975. Well, Paul does.

This is also the first episode to feature our new microphones. Thank you again to all our Patreon backers for making this possible!

Good show guys and it sounded great!

Great episode.

An anecdote: I've only called the police once in my life. It was 4 in the morning, and there was some commotion going on in the apartment under mine, and it sounded like the most hackneyed "loanshark/bookie/gangster wants his money back" scene you could imagine. When they arrived they couldn't find the place, nor could they figure out where I lived. In the end they had to call dispatch, who called me. So, I had to go down and meet them in the pre-dawn street, which is exactly what you want when you've called the police and live right above the drama.
In the end nothing came of it. Everyone had left before they came.

(Maybe it's the OSR getting to me, but there should totally be a "Why don't our phones work NOW you bastard?"-table).

The "Why don't our phones work NOW you bastard?"-table

1: Solar flare or freak weather.
2: The tower is too far away.
3: The tower is down. They're working on it. Promiz.
4: Coverage sucks.
5: “This is a notorious dead zone, city slicker”.
6: Radiation from power lines.
7: Fairy ring/alien structure/thin reality (Roll 1d6) 1-2: The call goes to the wrong place, 3-4: the call goes to the wrong time, 5: The call goes to a Numbers Station, 6: The call goes to the wrong kind of entity (!!!)
8: Natural and man-made structures impede the signal. It could be those pine trees and the scenic waterfall, or just a bunch of tower blocks full of demonic hoodies.
9: Those batteries drain fast. Spooky fast...
10: Deliberately jammed by bastards. That's illegal! Call the po-no, wait.
11: Neighboring cells with the same frequency interfere with your signal.
12: Overload. Do you think you're the only one calling for help?

Here's my simple and totally ripped off way of taking cell phones out of the equation.

Remember the game Silent Hill? Remember the radio that would go all static and crazy when evil approached?

I basically do the same thing in modern games, but with phones. The extra-dimensional nature of Lovecraftian beasties disrupt cell service. And like Silent Hill you can use the static and weird voices and noises emanating from your phone to ratchet up the terror. Plus cellphones are now monster detectors.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1jZ2MJRCjs

What's the most clever use of modern tech you've seen in a game (whether by players or the keeper)?

Had a group in a modern game use heat sensing equipment to detect people in a building. I'm not sure how that technology works and how effective it would be, but the player spoke convincingly about it, plus it seemed pretty cool, so I went with it.

The only example I can think of is from one of our Leverage Horror games. The Hacker retroactively decided that he's installed an 'ultrasonic scrambler app' pn the Thief's phone, allowing her to interfere with vampire echolocation ('cos we all know that vampires have echolocation, right?). Then, Leverage doesn't have the plausibility we usually want from CoC.

I am visiting my mother in the countryside, and I just had to give up on a mobile call due to poor reception. I would've been shantak-kibble before you could say: "you're breaking up"! Even in tiny Denmark...

That table is phenomenal, Tore! I may have to use that next time I run a modern game.