I am living the gamer’s dream running Third Floor Wars. At any point, I am running or playing three to five RPGs for the channel. As of today, I have Forbidden Lands, Shiver (Gothic), Brindlewood Bay, and Trail of Cthulhu running on the channel. In September, we start Outgunned! I’m so lucky that I had to look at a calendar to see which I played last.
Last Saturday, I ran Shiver by Parable Games using their Gothic expansion book. You can watch it HERE. Earlier this year, we did another play using Shiver with an 80s-slasher theme.
Shiver is an excellent game for running cinematic horror games. It has a simple dice-pool mechanic, fear system, and skill-tree advancement. It leans into the tropes for character creation, and the Gothic book expands it to include character options like the Immortal (for vampires or Dorian Gray) or Mad Genius.
The scenario on the channel is one I wrote with help from a friend, Konnel. It is capital “G” gothic. Set in 1888 Victorian England, in the country mansion estate of Lord Randolph Churchill, the characters are attending a Halloween gala that is quickly spiraling into dread. I created a scenario that gives them threads to pull as a group, but side threads catered to each. Is there a ghost of a Ripper victim attacking the guests involved in the investigation? Why were the house staff recently replaced with suspicious butlers, footmen, and maids? One of the famous inventor twins has confided in our Mad Genius that he doesn’t know who, or what, his “twin” sister is. He claims she isn’t his twin.
The table is stacked with four of the best players on the channel. A Slayer, a Mad Genius, an Immortal, and a Weird Spiritualist are slowly unearthing everything happening in this isolated gothic mansion. There are layered and parallel threats galore.
I am a supporter of Parable Games on their Patreon. They continue to support the game with rules for exorcisms, ghost hunting, and more scenario ideas.
The big secret to the game is the Doom Clock mechanic. As dice are rolled and abilities are used, the clock ticks forward. At 15 minutes past, the Director (GM) has a lousy event or twist planned. At 30 minutes, there is another set event that will make things worse. At quarter-to-midnight, the players need to consider they may not make it out of the game alive as another awful event unleashes. If the clock reaches midnight before they “solve” the scenario, it will likely not end as hoped. This creates a level of dread in the game I did not expect until I ran it. It looms over every die roll and lives, rent-free, in the player’s heads. What a gift to a GM running a horror game!
