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OGL Horror

"I hear her, she's calling me to her, I belong to her... don't stay here, the curse! The curse!"

At long last, I finally got OGL Horror, which ends a six month odyssey for me*. I was interested in this because I am looking for a modern d20 horror game that wasn't based on Call of Cthulhu. I like CoC, but the Cthulhu Mythos have jumped the shark a bit as far as horror goes (what with Goth Cthulhu Plush Dolls and Cthulhu slippers and KFC Cthulhu shirts), even more than that phrase has, plus I wanted something more broad in focus. Something that could be used to simulate things like Bureau 13, Friday the 13th: The Series, Poltergeist: The Legacy, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, and even things like the various Hammer movies.

d20 Modern itself has been something of a turnoff to me, because at first I didn't like the class system used in it (though I now like it, seeing various alternatives that have worked poorly), but also because it feels too much like D&D in modern times. Urban Arcana, with it's gnoll pimps and D&D style magic system didn't help.

So, I was hoping OGL Horror would be at the worst, d20 Modern tweaked a bit for horror (similar to how OGL Cybernet was d20 Modern tweaked for Cyberpunk), with the silly fantasy gnoll pimp stuff removed.

To a certain extent, that is the case, though unfortunately, they seemed to have removed more from d20 Modern than they should - not just the gnoll pimps and D&D magic system, but in my opinion, essential rules needed in a proper horror game.


"I created your body just as I created your mind."

Much like how d20 Modern has an Occupation and then Base Class (or Hero Type), this has a Occupation and Base Class. Occupation is exactly the same as in d20 Modern, but instead of the 6 Hero Types (Strong Hero, Fast Hero, etc, each keyed to one attribute), there are only 4 classes: "Combatant", "Scholar", "Investigator", and "Ordinary People".

To a certain extent, this combination is a bit less flexible than d20 Modern, but it does pretty much fit the genre.

For instance, Kolchak (of Night Stalker fame) was a reporter, so he would be an Investigator. Mickey and Ryan of Friday the 13th: The Series would be Ordinary People, while Jack would be a Scholar. I actually never have watched Poltergeist the Legacy with the sound on (usually I just put it on because later seasons have this really cute blonde), but I get the impression they are mostly scholars or ordinary people.

It's not perfect, since the vast majority of people are simply shoved into a category called "Ordinary People". But at least they are accounted for, unlike d20 Modern itself. The only real quibble I have, is I think there should have been two sorts of investigator. Ones like police, FBI and such, who also have weapons training and access to vast databases of information, and reporters and amateur investigators, who mostly have to learn stuff by talking to people or use things like the internet.

There's actually not a huge difference between 3 of the classes. The combatant has a +1 to his base attack bonus every level, while everyone else gets the worst progression (+1 every other level). Instead of special abilities every other level (called "talents"), like in d20 Modern or other games, characters just get feats, which tend to be less powerful. There are some minor differences in saves and skill points, and of course, class skills.

So in d20 terms, this is actually somewhere between how Call of Cthulhu d20 and d20 Modern handles classes. As mentioned, it does seems to work pretty well, and you can simulate police type investigators by simply having characters alternate between "Investigator" and "Combatant".

Skills pretty much work exactly the same as in normal d20, and this pretty much reprints the d20 Modern skill list, if not at verbatim in letter, then in spirit.


For those not familiar with d20, basically, skills are ranked from 0 to 22 or so, and to see if your character succeeds at a skill, you roll a d20 and add the result to the skill rank, plus attribute modifier (each skill is keyed to an attribute), plus misc. modifiers, and see if the result is greater than a target number, or difficulty class. 5 for easy, 10 normal, 15 hardish, 20 tricky, etc. For tasks where you can take your time, you can simply assume you rolled a 10, or in some cases, a 20 (this is called "Take 10" and "Take 20")

Each skill gets explained pretty thoroughly, with some target difficulty class numbers. The skill system is probably the best part of d20. Simple, but fairly realistic, and the semi-diceless method eliminates the need to roll for easy tasks.

There are two things that work similar to skills, but not quite. Attack Progression, and Save Progressions. Both are resolved the same way as skills (roll a d20, add all the bonuses and compare to a target number or Difficulty Class), but are determined by a character's class and level (plus the appropriate attribute modifier).

New to d20, are "Ties". These are basically things that the character finds important. His family, his job, his car, his monkey, his whatever. These are mostly role-playing tools, things that the GM can threaten or manipulate. Characters have to allocate 5 points of them, though more than 1 point can go to 1 tie. The more points, the more important it is. They aren't completely negative, they provide bonus dice (that can be added to normal skill/attack/save rolls) if the adventure involves the ties.

This is interesting, but could get in the way of some character concepts. For instance, I recently played the game Silent Hill 2 for the Xbox. The main character in that has a strong tie to his dead wife. But that's about it. You can buy off some of the Ties with the Loner feat. Presumably that's what he did, and put the 3 remaining points to his dead wife. So I guess it's not so bad, if it can duplicate that.

"And then he picked up an oil can and threw it at me, almost knocked out my teeth!"

Combat works more or less like how combat in normal d20 works, or d20 modern. Basically, the same way the skill system works. The attack rolls a d20, adds his attack bonus, and if greater than the difficulty class (which is the defense value or armor class of what he's attacking), it's a hit. Damage is then rolled, and subtracted from the target's hit points.

Except I was shocked to notice that there was no massive damage threshold. At all! What's a massive damage threshold you say (for those not familiar with d20)?

In systems where hit points inflate, one of the many common complaints is that high level characters can do crazy things that normal people can't, get shot point blank, jump off cliffs, stick their heads in lion's mouths, punch Mike Tyson and not run away, etc, because even with a high damage total rolled, they'll still have plenty of hit points left.

d20 solves this by having a "Massive Damage Threshold". If a character takes more hit points of damage in a single attack (or round) than this, then they have a chance of simply dying on the spot. They basically have to make a Fortitude save in order to not die. What this target number is set at goes a long way to determining how cinematic a game is.

D&D sets this number at 50 hit points. So you can have fighters fall off cliffs and be okay. Call of Cthulhu d20 set it very low, at 10 hit points. This made just about any blow dangerous, especially gunshots, which can normally do 10 hit points a shot. d20 Modern sets it equal to the Constitution of the character, which is a pretty good compromise.

You can also tweak the difficulty of the fortitude save, by either fixing it at a given difficulty class, or having it equal a fraction of the damge (half damage is typical, full damage is gritty).

There's a whole lot of options available. But this book completely omits this rule (at least for PCs). I was really shocked. I mean, it's such an essential rule, especially for the genre. I expected a fairly novel way of handling, or a discussion on how to simulate different types of horror by setting it at different levels. But instead, nothing.

This is almost a book breaker. I mean, for me personally, it's not that big a deal, I own well over a 100 d20 books, including several core rulebooks. I know the rules pretty well, and having been running a d20 game on and off for the last few years. But for someone new to the d20 system, well, it makes this book almost unusable. At least for the horror genre. Because it makes all the cliches about hit points true.

Actually, I had noticed that the monsters and NPCs had a listing for Massive Damage in the monster section, but assumed it was left over from the d20 Modern SRD. To a certain extent it is, but there is a paragraph in the monster section explaining this. But I would guess from the placement there, it's only supposed to be applicable to monsters in OGL Horror.

Also handled poorly is non-lethal or subdual damage. Basically, in d20, it's a way to knock out opponents instead of killing them. At first glance, I was hard pressed to find any discussion of this in this book (it is quite easy to find in the d20 Modern SRD, and every other d20 book I own). But it is there, sort of hidden in the section on attacking unarmed. But the rules for pulling punches with a weapon, or trying to knock someone out with a blunt weapon, are missing, and the general information about non-lethal damage is general is missing..

I would actually guess that leaving those rules in was a mistake. That when the general rules for non-lethal damage were removed, they weren't removed from all the parts of the book. But in either case, I don't understand the reason.

This is really big stuff, I think. How many times did Ash get knocked out in Army of Darkness? Okay, maybe that's not the genre defining horror movie, but it is something you expect to be able to run with a game like OGL Horror.

The equipment section is pretty much straight out of d20 Modern, including the wealth system, which I am not fond of. Basically, instead of characters having money, and simply spending it to buy stuff, they have a wealth rating, and have to roll dice to see if they can buy things, like a skill roll. And like d20 Modern, it's pretty much set in the modern day world. You could adapt it to other periods, but it would require a completely new equipment and weapon/armor list

"And I told him that's crazy!"

OGL Horror handles it by two basic mechanics, "Fear Saves" and "Shock Points"

Fear saves are basically just will saves, but different situations get different modifiers, and so get their own name. There are 3 sorts of fear saves. Fear, Panic, and Madness. "Fear" probably should have been called "Dread", to reduce confusion and be more accurate, it's the fear of going into spooky places, like a Haunted House or Michael Jackson's bedroom. Panic would be seeing something scary coming at you, like a ghost or a werewolf or Michael Jackson without his nose. Madness is more akin seeing something so awful, learning a terrible secret, or seeing something so bizarre, it drives you bonkers. Like a really grisly crime scene, finding out your parents are really brother and sister, or watching that Clint Eastwood-Lee Marvin musical.

Anyway, characters also accumulate shock points. These end up as negative modifiers to saves, but can be "bought off" by taking various forms of craziness.

I'm not really sure if I like this. For one, it seems almost too crippling, each additional point is basically 5% less likely you'll make your next save.

If the book had appeared a few months later, it could have used the rules from Call of Cthulhu d20 (which appeared as open content in Unearthed Arcana, basically stripped of any mention of Cthulhu, but a better mechanic, I think).

"I don't wanna hear another one of your rational explanations!"

OGL Horror has 3 types of supernatural or magical abilities available to players, all basically skill based. Magic, Psychic Powers, and Faith. There are all considered to be optional.

Magic and Psychic powers actually work suspiciously similar to Call of Cthulhu d20 (which is a good thing, as those are nice rules, and you can't copyright rules, just the specific text).

Spells basically work by making a skill check. There are no spell points, but they cause temporary ability damage. That is, a character's ability scores are reduced temporarily. The book actually says "drain", which means permanently, but I strongly suspect it's meant to be temporary, like Call of Cthulhu d20. Which ability varies from spell to spell. The spells in the book are not particularly flashy, but there are guidelines to convert spells from the regular d20 spell system (aka, D&D's fire & forget system). Magic uses the Knowledge (Occult) skill

Psychic abilities are also similar to the Call of Cthulhu d20 method, that is, psychic powers are gained by taking feats. In that, it was somewhat balanced by the characters getting few feats. In this, characters get quite several feats, so they could stock up on psychic powers if they want. So, balance is basically up to GM fiat. Psychic powers use the Concentration skill

That didn't bother me all that much, but I was disappointed in the selection of Psychic feats. Rather than being "realistic" ones (that is, duplicating supposed real world psychic powers), they tend to be more cinematic, fairly flashy. Things like "Pyrokinesis". Which does fit Stephen King's Firestarter pretty well, but it seems to be at the expense of things like psychometry (basically, getting impressions from objects people have touched or owned), which is probably the most useful skill for occult/horror investigations.

Faith is kinda of weird. Basically, it's almost a religious version of "Lets make a deal". The player "bets" God (or whoever he worships, though really the GM), saying in effect, if I make a prayer check, you'll do this for me, if I fail, then you can screw me over somehow.

Honestly, I found this to be very bizarre, both metaphysically and mechanically. It also goes against the very notion of faith, I thought. There's a quote I always liked, "I will not serve God like a laborer, in expectation of my wages.". You don't believe in a religion to get goodies from it, you believe in it because you believe in it. "True devotion is for itself; not to desire heaven, or to fear hell.". If faith has any effect, it should just happen, not as the result of some sort of cosmic wager.

Game mechanically it's bad because the effects either way are too vague, and with a scheming player, could easily be misused.

"You're one of us!"

Organizations have always played a fairly large role in the horror genre, whether they are groups fighting against the darkness, or for it.

Bureau 13. The Legacy. SAVE. The Men in Black (Tommy Lee Jones/Will Smith variety). That paper in the show on the Sci-Fi channel that got canceled after one season a couple of years ago. The O.S.I.R. from Psi-Factor (which apparently was based on a real organization, but in reality, was just 2 guys and a van). Ghostbusters International. The Wilmarth Foundation.

The Hellfire Club. The Rotary Club. Various vampire clans. The Illuminati. PAGAN. Actually, there seem to be fewer bad guy organizations than good guy organizations.

And of course, there's real world things like MUFON, CUFON, CSISCOP, various Fortean societies, etc.

So, this book has rules to address all of those things. Basically, organizations are treated very similar to characters. Attributes (analogous to the attributes a character has), feats, and even skills.

This is actually very clever. Very very clever.

For instance, if a character isn't very good at research, he can turn to his organization for help (if they have the research skill). It's generally much slower for the organization to do it, but it provides options for the players, especially if they get stuck.




"Experience the door to your mind, no matter how bizarre. You create your own brave new world."

The author of this book is apparently a long time Call of Cthulhu GM (or "Keeper"), apparently as well as a moderator here at RPG.net, the latter which makes writing this review rather awkward at best. But the first thing makes the GM advice section very very useful.

There's also an excellent discussion of the different types of horror, though it does perhaps seem a bit biased towards the hopeless sort of horror (ie, Call of Cthulian), as opposed to things like the X-files or Friday the 13th: The Series. Not to mention, Baywatch Nights. Or even Aqua Teen Hunger Force. I mean, I guess they would be super-heroes, but most of the people they meet are straight out of a horror movie ("I ain't hugging no damn mummy!").

The section on monsters is actually pretty long, about 40 pages or so. But only half of it is actually devoted to monsters, the rest is on how to design them, complete with charts and such. By my count, there are only 12 monsters - Nightmare Engine, Animated Corpse, Demon Hybrid, Demon Child (aka, the Olson Twins), Werewolf, Vampire, Zombie, Mimetic Ooze, Cosmic Mess (aka The Blob), Grey (aka, the alien with big eyes. Though in real life, they're sort of a milky white, they just look grey in the dark), Demon, and Ghost. Plus some sample NPCs and some common animals (like the cat, dog, tiger, etc).

There are also several campaign ideas, most of which are fascinating. One seems to tie in almost directly with Pinnacle's Weird War 2 game, only expanding it after WW2. That is, Hitler was into the occult, and the Allies had programs to stop his occult programs, but after WW2, they were also used in the cold war. Another seems inspired by Silent Hill.

"In case you didn't happen to notice this, I'm one hell of a gorgeous chick."

Actually, appearance wise, this is probably the ugliest of the 3 OGL books I own (which are the first three OGL books, period). The cover is really dark - I never realized that was supposed to be a cheerleader on the cover of it until I actually held it in my hands. From the smallish pictures I've seen on their website, I thought it was a Scottish guy with a kilt and a mustache! Usually there is a slight line where the mouth region hits the cheeks, but it's overly pronounced in this picture, which to me, looked like a mustache when it was very tiny. Full size it doesn't look so bad. That's really funny. Though now that I think of it, it could be a reference to the actress that plays Buffy: The Vampire Slayer - she always looked to me like she has a mustache, at least sometimes.

The interior art is generally average to good, but is also generally pretty dark. So color is rarely taken advantage of. There are a couple of nice landscapes by the artist whose work I liked so much in OGL Ancients, the one who uses a symbol that crashes the RPG.net review database. But in this book, his stuff is very pixelated, like it was scanned in badly.

Layout wise, it's probably on the poor side of average. You do get chapter names in the sidebars, which I like, but it's fairly hard to find things. There is an index, but it's often surprisingly unhelpful. Though sometimes things just don't seem to be in the book. For instance, in the equipment section, there's a entry for a squirt gun, and says something like "often stolen from children to be used as holy water dispensers". So, I wanted to look up holy water. Not in the index. Is it in the book? Dunno.

"This is what I've been waiting for, all my life... I'm going... I'm really going... I'm finally taking a step..."


So, is this worth buying? Well, that really depends.

Personally, I don't think it works as a stand alone horror game. Playable, but I don't understand the logic in removing the game mechanic that makes d20 more lethal for PCs (massive damage), nor do I understand the logic in obscuring the rules that allow characters to get knocked out.

I mean, no one in a horror story or movie ever got knocked out and kidnapped, or horribly experimented on, or goes bonkers and has to be conked on the head and taken to an asylum? Of course they do. So not having rules to address them is simply baffling, and wrong. As is removing rules that make PCs pays for doing stupid or incredibly dangerous things (i.e, the massive damage rules), like trying to french kiss the axe-wielding maniac or flee the aliens by driving their car off a cliff. Thus it simply doesn't work as a horror game.

Most of the OGL books do seem to be missing stuff. OGL Ancients was missing rules for diseases and starting money for male nobles. But that was pretty minor for the genre it tried to emulate (and the disease rules probably wouldn't have modeled Alexander the Great's death, anyway). This is really big stuff.

So basically, if it has value, it's as a d20 supplement or pseudo-standalone game (that is, needing a WOTC d20 rulebook for just a couple of things, though in this case for proper damage rules, not how to make characters). As that, it's okay, and is more useful if you own the D&D PHB or something like d20 Call of Cthulhu than d20 Modern (in which case you'd have a lot of repeated stuff).

In any event, while I do like the character classes (mostly) and the GM advice, and really like the organizations, I dislike how psychic powers are handled, really hate how it handles faith. The monster section also seems very uninspired, almost as an afterthought (and some is straight out of the SRD). Still, it's got a fairly high compatibility with d20 Modern, so you can use d20 Modern gun books, the Menace Manual (much of which is in the d20 Modern SRD), and products like Blood and Relics (sort of a modern day occult campaign. Cheap in a special package, too.). There's also a wide variety of PDF products for d20 Modern that would probably work - 12 to Midnight's stuff, especially Bloodlines, and the upcoming "Lost Destinations" from Alternate Realities Publications. Digging around RPGNow would probably turn up some other stuff, I imagine - it has some hidden gems.

As a stand alone horror game (which it technically is), I have to give it a D. As a d20 supplement, it's probably a C+, close to a B-. Somewhat disappointing. I'm reasonably happy with it, but again, I've got a ton of d20 books, so missing rules have no evil powers over me. But I think someone with just this book would be very disappointed. Still, it's funny, the two rules left out only would have taken a page or so at most, but they add so much to the game (or subtract from it if missing).

I will be using it for the basis of a Bureau 13 game, probably borrowing quite a bit from d20 Call of Cthulhu (the guns, the sanity system, the damage rules) and Fright Night: Haunted House (the psychic powers). And the monster book for d20 Deadlands is pretty decent, as is some of the stuff from the Weird War 2 line.

(all the quotes are from here)

* To make a long story short, basically I bought this twice via mail order, originally buying it in January on ebay and getting ripped off, though it took me quite a bit of hassle (and almost 6 months) to discover I actually got ripped off. Then buying it again recently, and actually receiving it. I mention this mostly for reasons of potential bias.

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