"But Horror games don't meet your Standard!"
You're fucking retarded if you believe that.
For all the talk of mood, dread, and other narrative language the fact remains that there are proper RPGs that are acclaimed horror classics (and some others that are still solid games) such as Chill, Call of Cthulhu, Beyond The Supernatural, and All Flesh Must Be Eaten.
All of these games run into the same elements that Dungeons & Dragons does: mandatory downtime for travel, recovery, and research/development. The further back into the past you go, or the more ruined the environment becomes, the greater that downtime will be due to lack of resources and infrastructure that would otherwise relieve such a burden.
The reason is simple. When you strip away trappings of genre tropes (and their expectations), what you have is readily apparent: you are actually running either survival scenarios or para-military/intelligence operations, with the difference being that the opposing force is superhuman if not supernatural. Yes, even the more investigative play scenarios are really intelligence operations, just without the Bondisms.
And what are these? Wargame scenarios.
From there, you can see how readily horror gaming conforms to the Standard when applied and an actual campaign quickly arises- especially in ruined environment scenarios that are typical of zombie games that last more than one or two (often tournament-style) sessions at the table. (Those turn into Gamma World with extra steps in practice.) One set of investigators/survivors/operatives is en route to deal with this monster, while another set are recovering from their last ecounter, and a third set are split up doing legwork before going after a third threat.
That's a wargame paradigm, folks. Don't let the tweed jackets, out of shape characters, and lack of useful intelligence fool you. You are playing a game where all of the elements of the Standard not only apply, but tease out the full power of the medium when doing so. Some--many, depending on the game--get eaten or worse. Some escape. Some prevail. Some end up in Uncle Bob's Home For Future Nicolas Cage roles. It's still a wargame.
This is because "horror" is not a genre to itself; it's a trope package you add on to something else, a lens that tells the audience to adjust their expectations, and it does not require either the supernatural or the superhuman to achieve- merely a gross disparity of power between the contesting parties and both the desire of the more powerful to prey upon the weaker as well as the inability of the weaker party to easily escape.
"But actually-"
No, no "but"s. It is a wargame. It runs like one, it plays like one, it is one- it conforms to the Standard when used properly, so it is. Simple as.
Has anyone done a deep look at how Aaron Allston's famous Strike Force campaign compares to the 'Standard'? Looking at the Champions 6E update, I see lots of similarities but also some differences (one-to-one time is present but doesn't seem to be as rigorous, no use of PC patrons).
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