The Culture: To Campaign Against The Dark

If your clubhouse only has room for a handful of games to do campaigns with, then you can guess what I recommend:

• Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st Edition
• Classic Traveller
• Gamma World 1st Edition

Given the proven strength of the older games, it should be no surprise what I recommend for those wanting Horror.

You'll note that I am recommending an earlier edition of the game.

The reasons are similar to earlier editions of the three aforementioned games: they are (a) better products and (b) actual games.

Due to Death Cult convergence in the publisher, and many now involved being Death Cultists themselves, the current edition and its immediate predecessor cannot and should not be trusted- and neither should the publisher.

This is a strict Buy Used recommendation. Do not, under any circumstances, buy new from Chaosium. You are better off doing without.

Backups

Chill, if you can get it, will be a fantastic substitute. It doesn't get the nod inititally only due to COC being to Horror adventure gaming what D&D is to Fantasy.

After that, things leave the "complete game" track and you're into the Non-Game or Incomplete Product wilderness, means going to Uncle Kevin's catalog and buying a copy of Beyond The Supernatural, Nightbane, or Dead Reign. Uncle Kevin may be bad at making games, but he does not hate you.

But It Plays The Same

Whatever you choose, you're not going to have the full suite of procedural generation tools that AD&D1e/GW1e/CT have.

You also won't need them because you're playing in a contemporary or historical real world setting, so you have leave to use real world resources to make up the lack. Instead of a blank hex map, you get a real map of the area (and, if applicable, the time period) you're campaigning within. Real places, real legends, real things- but made horrific in the manner prescribed by the game being played.

That's how Horror games get away with not having the full suite of tools that Fantasy and Space games do. (Other games with similar settings get the same treatment, such as Boot Hill, Twilight 2000, and Top Secret.) This also means that all you need is the rulebook; you can skip all the supplements, even if some (usually more monsters) are desirable.

Otherwise, all of the dynamics of play are the same. It's who the Patrons play, and to what end, that changes.

If you need an example of a viable campaign, go look up all the Resident Evil games and map what goes down when. That could easily come about through a proper Horror adventure campaign.