VHS Very Horror Story Bloodlust - Engels

VHS: Very Horror Stories is a Horror Role Play Game inspired by ‘70’s, ‘80’s and ‘90’s classics such as Hellraiser, Nightmare, Alien, Halloween and many more, coming in three stand-alone boxed sets that allow you to play in a different subgenre of Horror each.

Each box includes the basic rules and all the setting and genre-specific additions, including lists of unique traits, abilities and customization guidelines.

About:

VHS, AN RPG FOR NIGHTS OF HORROR AND BLOOD

It is from the heart of the darkness, in the darkest hours and in the most grim of reaches of the world, that spawn demons, monsters and bloodthirsty assassins. Inhuman beings, hunters of souls who know only violence and, spurred by vengeance and spite, hunger for the suffering of their preys. For your suffering.

Grab your flashlights, venture in their realms and… prepare to scream.

VHS is the Horror Roleplay Game inspired by classic horror movies from the 70’s to the 90’s, like Halloween, Hellraiser, The Thing and many others.

Press Play… and Scream!

A haunted house, the basement of an asylum, a village of fanatic zealots, a spaceship infested by an alien parasite. These and many other are the scenarios of VHS: more or less familiar places from our world. Places films and tales warned us against encroaching too close, places where fear dwells… and Monsters. And Monsters you will be called (or forced, most of the times) to fight. Sometimes the Monster is a demonic creature, a werewolf or a hungering beast from outer space, others it is a coven of witches, a masked assassin or an ever-smiling family who keeps pieces of their neighbors in their basement refrigerator.

But what can you against them? How many times, watching a movie, you yelled at the screen “Don’t split, you idiots!” or “He’s right behind you!” and “Not a chance I’d go there”? In VHS, there will be no need to yell (not for that, at the very least), because you will be right there, with the other survivors (or, if you prefer, aspiring victims), dealing with the horrors that lurk in the shadows. You will have to stop the summoning of a Kandarian demon. You will have to save yourselves and your companions from the torture dungeon of a bloodthirsty maniac and it will be you fighting a spirit that kidnaps the souls of the living.

All of this, immersed in the atmospheres and cliches of the films and stories that made horror history.

Will you survive the carnage and rewrite the end of the story, or will you join the endless throng of the dead? Your destiny is in your hands.

At least, as long as they remain on your arms.

VHS mixes typical rpg elements, such as playing a character in a shared narrative, with boardgame ones, like tokens and boards.

As a role playing game, players take the scenes as characters whose objective is to survive the Monsters. To do so, they have a Character Sheet and 2 six sided dice (the only needed to play the game)… and of course their wish not die horribly.
On the other hand, the game master is as per usual called to referee and resolve the various gameplay events, interactions with non player characters (Support Cast) and the Monsters, which can take the fork of ruthless murderers, shape-shifting aliens, entities from beyond and so on.

Like a boardgame, however, VHS uses a map, or Main Set (a swamp, a village lost in the mountains, a colonial mansion, etc) and tokens to track the characters’ movements and anything of interest they may uncover.

The Character Sheet

Every character is expressed by 4 main Parameters, (Strength, Agility, Mind and Charisma), 4 Traits, a Special Ability, their Equipment and Wounds and Sanity scores. The three conditions a character can be under (Calm, Fear or Shock) progressively alter the Parameters and Traits of the character and the more terrifying events they witness, such as the Monsters, the more their Sanity score suffers.

The Main Set

Main Sets are the maps characters explore and find all manners of disturbing things in, from tense events (like discovering a corpse or witnessing a demonic apparition) to points of interest, useful items and, of course, the Monsters. Geography, rather than dice rolls, informs the characters’ movements, leaving it to their cunning to choose how to take on the board, where to explore, to look items, places or clues… and when to split themselves. Maybe a wise choice, maybe not. You will learn, one way or another.

The Monsters

Though not the only threat characters will face, Monsters are the main one. Ranging from psychopaths to the undead, from ghosts to demons, each has their own behavior, strategies to survive a close encounter and, who knows, maybe even ways to defeat them. A Monster can appear at any moment, drag the characters to his lair to torture them, take over their bodies or any other despicable and evil things movie villains do to their victims. Like characters, Monsters have their own sheet and Traits, but a Fear Counter instead of Calm, Fear and Shock states. The higher the counter, the more dangerous they become.

The Game Session

VHS sessions are made of multiple parts, some on the Main Set, some not. Like in any horror movie, there will be an introduction, dedicated to the first interactions between the characters and the arrival in the area, the moment when “something starts to go wrong” and some moments of detachment, where everything seems back to normal and the Main Set could be put away… but the Monster is not. Ready to start again?

A session includes one or more Main Sets, conditions (no phone service, being far away from the nearest town, etc), the player group and of course the Monster(s).
All of this brings the Film to life. A Film can be one or more sessions long; after all, sequels are frequent in horror franchises, right?

The Play Style

Everything in VHS, from character interactions to the main set they are set in, the rules and, of course, its Monsters, is geared to pit you against fully customizable horror worlds and to immerse you in the tones of a genre movie, with all its clichés, typical situations and every ounce of terror your mind can bear.

Solo Mode

Though a classic Roleplay Game, VHS also offers a solo mode to play your own personal horror stories… where nobody will hear you scream. Solo Mode changes the approach to the Main Set and the Monster, which dynamics are now determined both at random and by player action. Every Film in the rulebooks specifies where or not it can be played Solo, depending on how important the game master is to place Side Sets or the management of certain game events.

Ready to press ‘play’… and scream?