The Atrocity Vaults

What is a S ession Zero? A Session Zero is a game session in which all players (including the referee) discuss the campaign and create characters prior to actual play. Typically, despite the name, a Session Zero is the first session of a given campaign.   Content Warning!  The Atrocity Vaults campaign is, by design, a weird conspiracy campaign with heavy horror elements including, but not limited to:  Aliens Body Horror Cannibalism Cults Demons Gore Insects  Occultism Possession Undead Vermin If any of that bothers you, I’m here to tell you that you need to steer clear of this campaign. It is not for you. I do not make this statement lightly.  Lines & Veils Lines and Veils are, as defined by Ron Edwards , topics that should never be brought up in actual play and topics that should take place ‘off-screen’ respectively. As the referee for this campaign, I have one line of my own: overt sexual content.  I have no tolerance for overt sexual content (e...

So, what exactly can you expect from the Atrocity Vaults campaign? Well, it's a bit GURPS Black Ops mixed with some Madness Dossier and Delta Green , as well as a dash of The Whispering Vault . In short, there's gonna be a whole lotta weird going on - and some action-packed, over-the-top, violence to go hand in hand with it.  I don't want to show too much of my hand in case some of you reading this end up in the player pool, but I plan to run the Atrocity Vaults as a game that progresses slowly from a low unreality, minor supernaturalism affair (as defined by genre master Ken Hite in Nightmares of Mine ) into an over-the-top overt supernaturalism and major unreality campaign. In short, shit's gonna get WEIRD.  I've wanted to run a game heavily influenced by the music of Carpenter Brut and Grimlin for a while now and the pieces just recently clicked into place. This is going to be a world of blood slicked, neon-lit, dark asphalt alleys that brings conspiratorial ...

As I work on the specifics of the Atrocity Vaults campaign structure, I'm homing in on a system to use for actual play. I've narrowed it down to the following candidates, mostly based on factors of cost (I'm poor and I already own these systems) and focus (these are explicitly horror RPGs, with the exception of one as discussed later). I lay out the pros and cons of each of these systems below.  Cryptworld/Chill 1e, being a game of supernatural investigation using the Pacesetter system (made famous by Chill 1e). Pros: Simple to learn/teach, available in print (for those who dislike PDF games). Cons: Although ostensibly geared toward occult investigation out of the box, this premise is not really explicitly supported by the mechanics. Most of the support material has a humorous overtone, which is not something I'm shooting for with this campaign.  Cthulhu Deep Green, being a hack of Cthulhu Dark for playing in the universe of Delta Green. Pros: Simple to learn/teach, ine...