Urban Fantasy Fridays: WitchCraft RPG & Unisystem

 It is Halloween! The best day of the year. For that, I want to share one of my all-time favorite Urban Fantasy Horror RPGs.

C. J. Carella's WitchCraft RPG

WitchCraft is, hands down, my favorite game.  Period.  Picking up a copy of this book back in 1999 was just like picking up a copy of the Monster Manual in 1979.  Everything I ever wanted in a game was right there. Everything.

WitchCraft had such a profound effect on my gaming that I can draw a rather clean line between what came before and what came after it.  Granted, a lot was going on in 1999/2000, both gaming-wise and personally, that may have added to this effect; it was an effect all the same.

Back in 1999, I was really burned out on AD&D. I was working on my own Witch netbook and reading various games when someone, I forget where, must have been the old RAVENLOFT-L that TSR/WotC used to run, told me I really needed to check out WitchCraft.  At first, I balked.  I had tried Vampire a couple of years ago and found I didn't like it (and I was very much out of my vampire phase then), but I was coming home from work and my FLGS was on the way, so I popped in and picked up a copy.  This must have been the early spring of 2000.

I can recall sitting in my office reading this book over and over. Everything was so new again, so different.  This was the world I had been trying, in vain, to create for D&D, but never could.  The characters in this book were also all witches, something that pleased me to no end; it was more than just that.  Plus, look at that fantastic cover art by George Vasilakos. That is one of my favorite, if not my most favorite, covers for a game book. I have it hanging in my game room now.

WitchCraft uses what is now called the "Classic" Unisystem system.  So there are 6 basic attributes, some secondary attributes (derived), skills, qualities, and drawbacks.  Skills and attributes can be mixed and matched to suit a particular need.

WitchCraft uses a Point-Buy Metaphysics magic system, unlike Ghosts of Albion's levels of magic and spells system. Think of each magical effect as a skill that must be learned, and you have to learn easier skills before the harder ones first. In D&D, for example, it is possible to learn Fireball without having previously learned Produce Flame.  In WitchCraft, you could not do that.  WitchCraft, though, is not about throwing around "vulgar magics".  WitchCraft is a survival game where the Gifted protect humanity from all sorts of nasty things, from forgotten Pagan gods, to demons, fallen angels, and the Mad Gods; Cthulhoid-like horrors from beyond.  WitchCraft takes nearly everything from horror and puts it all together, and makes it work.

The Eden Studios version was the Second Edition, I was later to find out.  The first one was from Myrmidon Press. I manged to find a copy of that one too and it was like reading the same book, from an alternate universe.  I prefer the Eden Edition far more for a number of reasons, but I am still happy to have both editions.

The first edition (from Myrmidon Press) is like an alternate-universe echo of the later Eden Studios release. I own both, but Eden’s version is definitive. It’s cleaner, more playable, and it feels like the book C. J. Carella meant to write.

The central idea behind WitchCraft is the same as most other Modern Supernatural Horror games.  The world is like ours, but there are dark secrets, magic is real, and monsters are real. You know the drill.  But WitchCraft is different.  There is a Reckoning coming, everyone feels it, but no one knows what it is.  Characters then assume the roles of various magic-using humans, supernatural beings, or even mundane individuals, and they fight against the threats.  Another conceit of the game (and one I use a lot) is that supernatural occurrences are greater now than ever before.  Something's coming...  (dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria).

It is most often compared to World of Darkness, but there are aspects of WitchCraft that I prefer.  Unlike (old) Mage there is no war between the (good) Mages and the (evil) Technocracy.  There is a war certainly, but nothing so cut and dry.  Unlike the new Mage, there are rarely clean divisions between the factions.  Yes, yes Mage players, I am being overly simple, but that is the point, on the simple levels new Mage dives everything into 5 because that is how the designers want it.  There are factions (Associations) and different metaphysics for each, but they also overlap, and sometimes no clear and defined lines are to be found or established.  It feels very organic.

In my opinion, C. J. Carella may be one of the best game designers out there.  WitchCraft is a magnum opus that few achieve.  I took that game and I ran with it.  For 2000 - 2003, it was my game of choice above and beyond anything.  The Buffy RPG, built on the Cinematic Unisystem, took over till I wrote Ghosts of Albion, which also uses the Cinematic Unisystem.  I mix and match the systems as I need, but WitchCraft is still my favorite.

WitchCraft, in fact, is what got me into professional game design.

Back in the Spring/Summer of 2001, I started up a new game.  I had just purchased the WitchCraft RPG book about 16 months prior, and I was looking for something new.  That something came to me in the guise of Willow and Tara.  I had been watching Buffy for a bit, and I really enjoyed the character of Willow.  When she got together with fellow witch Tara, I thought they were perfect.  I had become very involved in the online Willow/Tara fandom, so I created a game, focusing on just them.

The game would focus on just these two, no one else from the show (which I would soon become an ex-fan of, but that is a different story).  Plus it gave me something to try out in a modern setting, something I have not done since my early days with the Chill RPG.

The trickiest part of developing game stats of any fictional character that belongs to someone else is knowing how to strike a balance between the game's rules and the fictional portrayal. A lot of "artisitc" license needs to be used in order to get a good fit. For example, how do you determine what some one's strength is when there is little to no on screen evidence? What spells would the girls have?

In the end, I decided to play it a little loose, but I love where their stats ended up.  In many ways, this is who Willow and Tara are to me, not the characters on TV or in comics, but the ones who were my characters since that day back in May 2001, when I decided they needed their own chance to shine.

After this, I worked on the Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG.  It should be no surprise then that the Willow and Tara stats that appear there are not that much different than my own.  I can be pretty vocal in play tests.  That got me the chance to write the Ghosts of Albion RPG. This also allowed me to meet, work with and remain friends with Christopher Golden and Amber Benson.

WitchCraft paved the way for so many other games for me, not just in terms of playing but in writing.  If it were not for WitchCraft, then we would not have had Buffy, Angel, or Army of Darkness. Conspiracy X would have remained in its original system. There would be no Terra Primate or All Flesh Must Be Eaten, and certainly there would be no Ghosts of Albion.  This game means that much to me.

But you don't have to take my word for it, Eden Studios will let you have it, sans some art, for free.

Download it.  If you have never played anything else other than D&D then you OWE it yourself to try this game out.

My thing is I wish it was more popular than it is.  I love the game. If I was told I could only play one game for the rest of my life then WitchCraft would be in my top 3 or 2 choices.

Larina Nichols for WitchCraftRPG

Like Willow and Tara, I consider the WitchCraft version of Larina to be the "main" or even "true" one. Not a shock. I was reading the WitchCraftRPG after completing my first publication, "Complete Netbook of Witches & Warlocks," which featured a six-year-old Larina learning she would become a witch.  

Later on, I played her in an online game where she went to Scotland, got married, got divorced, and moved back. In fact, it was her "return to America" stage of her life that I tried to capture with the Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG. It was here that her "modern age" counterpart had made contact with her "fantasy age", aka D&D counterpart. 

Larina "Nix" Nichols

Wicce Seeker of Knowledge Gifted
Age: 30 (circa 2000/2001), Ht: 5'4", Hair: Red, Eyes: Blue

Attributes: Str 2 Dex 3 Con 3 Int 5 Per 5 Wil 6*

Life Points:  33
Endurance: 29 (27)
Speed: 12/6

Essence Pool: 76
Channeling Level: 10

Survival: 10
Lifting Capacity: 100 lbs

Qualities & Drawbacks

Gifted (+5), Attractive (+2), Essence Channeling (+5),  Hard to Kill (+1), Increased Essence Pool (+8), Nerves of Steel, Old Soul* (+3), Resources (+1), Emotional Dependency: Fear of Rejection (-1), Honorable (-2), Recurring Nightmares (-1), Obsession Magic (-2)

Skills

Cooking (1), Craft, Simple Crafts (2), Driving, Car (2), Humanities, History (2), Humanities, Religion (2), Humanities, Wicce Theology (2), Humanities, Psychology (1), Language, Latin (4), Language, Greek (3), Language Italian (3), Language, Gaelic (2), Magic Bolt (3), Magic Theory (3), Myth and Legend, Celtic (2), Myth and Legend, Greek (2), Folk Magic (4), Occult Knowledge (2), Play Instrument, Clarinet (2), Research (3), Rituals, Wicce (2), Singing (1), Survival, Urban (3), Trance (2)

Metaphysics/Powers

Affect the Psyche (Influence Emotion, 2), Blessing (Good Luck, 2; Protection, 2), Create Ward (2), Flame (2), Insight, One with the Land (1), Perceive True Nature (2), Protection vs. Magic (3), Soul Projection (4), Soul Fire (3), Sending (1)

Weapons

Knife d4x2
Baseball bat d8x2 / d8x3 (two handed)

Possessions: Books on magic, spell components, crystal ball, laptop computer (Mac PowerBook G3 "Lombard"), 1998 Volkswagen Beetle. 

As with Chill, this is not a starting character. I have said it already, but I consider this to be the "Prime" modern Larina, that is, until I wrote NIGHT SHIFT. I use the Old Soul quality not only to have her connect to past lives, but also to her "alternate lives." This would include her D&D and Mage versions. This is what allows her to exceed the human limit of 5 in Willpower. 

Larina's Timeline

Since this is the last post in this particular series, I decided to look back on the lifespan development campaign idea. 

• Childhood
• Tween
• Teenager
• Young Adult
• Adult
• Later Adult

There are certainly more games I could use to fill in some more. Even if I never play all these games, using them is a better solution than a huge backstory. It gives you the chance to build that backstory. 

WitchCraft as a D&D Replacement

I have talked about this one as much this month, even if it is a central feature of my Fantasy Fridays. But the WitchCraftRPG can be used as a replacement for D&D. Eden even published a book for it, Dungeons & Zombies. Overtly for the All Flesh Must Be Eaten RPG.

It is no surprise then that Dungeons & Zombies comes from Jason Vey. Vey and I would later take all that we knew from WitchCraft, AFMBE, and Buffy and Ghosts, and design NIGHT SHIFT.

I even ran the Ravenloft I6 adventure using WitchCraft. It was fantastic.

Final Thoughts

Revisiting WitchCraft after Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition feels like returning to the root system after tracing the branches. Mage is about transcendence, belief shaping reality. WitchCraft is about endurance, belief surviving reality.

In Mage, Larina questions the structure of the cosmos; in WitchCraft, she defends it. Both games explore the same axis of power and consequence, but WitchCraft speaks to something older and more intimate: the soul’s stubborn refusal to go quietly.

Twenty-five years later, WitchCraft still reads like a love letter to the people who look at the dark and light a candle anyway. It’s hopeful without being naïve, mystical without losing its humanity.

When I flip through those pages now, I can still feel that same spark from 1999. The moment I realized that “urban fantasy” wasn’t just a genre; it was a worldview, and it was where I wanted to spend my gaming days and nights.

And Larina’s still there, at her desk, cup of tea beside a stack of grimoires, scrolling through student papers by day and summoning protective circles by night. The Reckoning may come, or it may not, but she’ll be ready either way.

Links

• C. J. Carella’s WitchCraft RPG – Eden Studios (DriveThruRPG)
• Ghosts of Albion
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer / Angel
• Eden Studios
• WitchCraft
• Ghosts of Albion
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer / Angel

Urban Fantasy Fridays: Mage The Ascension, 20th Anniversary Edition

 I will admit, I love Mage. I love all versions of it, to be honest.

While I never really got into the original World of Darkness when it was all the rage, I did have Vampire: The Masquerade, and I recognized why and how it was good. Still, at the time, I had also just discovered WitchCraftRPG (next week!), so that was the game I had chosen to scratch my Modern-Supernatural itches.

I remember picking up a copy of Vampire the Masquerade back in the early 90s and thinking it looked interesting, but nothing I was going to play really.  Though my thought did go to moving the whole thing over to Ravenloft.  It wasn't until I had moved to Chicago to work on my Ph.D. that I found Mage.  

The ground floor of the commuter train station had a bookstore in it.  One of the pure joys of my daily commute. I picked up a copy of Mage: The Ascension (Revised) and thought that it was fantastic.  While I would ultimately stick with WitchCraft, Mage continued to have a fascination for me. Moving back and forth between the systems, I ultimately landed on the idea that a "Mage" was an evolved form of a "Witch."  I did some refinements, mostly after Mage the Awakening was released, so eventually came to the idea of an "Imbolc Mage," the term borrowed from a friend who wrote about "Ascended witches."  IT worked for me.  Even in my D&D 3.0 days, an Imbolc Mage was a witch prestige class. Even today I have a Mystic Class Starship kitbash called "The Imbolc Mage."  

Though I did really like Mage. A lot. I really like Sorcerer's Crusade; it was a cool idea and much more interesting to me than Mage: The Ascension at first.  That led me to Sorcerer: The Hedge Wizard's Handbook, which is not part of Sorcerer's Crusade, but part of modern Mage.  But I am glad I made that mistake, since I really liked this book, and it made me look again at the World of Darkness.

While Mage: The Ascension grabbed my attention, it was Mage: The Awakening that I created more material for.  I soon figured out why: it felt very similar to WitchCraft.  I wanted to do something that took the best aspects, or more to the point my favorite aspects, of both games and use them together.  I grabbed the Mage Translation Guide with great glee, but I never really did anything with it.  With the release of Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition (and its nearly 700 pages), I just dropped all the work I was doing with Mage: The Awakening. 

Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition

The 20th Anniversary Edition of Mage: The Ascension is a massive, beautifully crafted tome that brings every prior vision of the game into focus. It’s not just a revision of the rules; it’s a celebration of what Mage has always been: the meeting of philosophy and passion, of science and sorcery, of power and the price of using it. 

It’s also the most “complete” version of Mage ever written. M20 doesn’t erase the differences between editions; it embraces them. The Traditions feel ancient and mythic again, the Technocracy has teeth and ideology, and even the Marauders and Nephandi have more depth than ever before, a LOT more depth. The lore isn’t presented as dogma but as perspective, filtered through the unreliable narrators who populate the Ascension War. This is hit home time and time again. Reality is what you make it. 

Reading it feels like walking through every era of the game’s evolution: the raw wonder of 1st Edition, the sleek paranoia of Revised (my previous favorite), the fiery metaphysics of Awakening, all of it bound together by the idea that belief shapes reality. If you’ve ever argued about whether magic is real, or what truth even means, M20 will make you feel like those questions matter again.

Plus the physical book is just so damn attractive.

Magic, Philosophy, and Price

What I’ve always loved about Mage, especially the 20th Anniversary Edition, is that it treats magic as both metaphor and mechanism. Every paradigm is true, and none of them are. The more you understand, the more dangerous it becomes to believe in only one truth.

That’s why Larina fits here so naturally. In earlier games, she learned that magic has limits. In Mage, she learns that those limits are hers.

The system itself still shines. M20’s rules strike a balance between the freeform wonder of 1st Edition and the structured precision of Revised. The magic system remains one of my favorites of any RPG ever written, not because it’s powerful but because it demands creativity and consequence. Every effect has a cost, every belief has friction, and paradox is always waiting for the arrogant.

This is where Mage transcends its own mechanics. It’s not just about bending the universe; it’s about how much of yourself you’re willing to give up to make that change. Every roll feels like a wager between your vision and the world’s resistance. It’s a game of philosophy disguised as spellcraft, where your paradigm defines not only your powers but your purpose.

In that way, it’s the most dangerous kind of fantasy: the kind that makes you ask, What if I’m the one who’s asleep?

The Mature Stage of the Lifespan Campaign

If Little Fears represents childhood beliefs, Monsterhearts embodies teenage Sturm und Drang, and Chill signifies early adulthood resilience, then Mage is mid-life transcendence.

By the time a character reaches Mage, the world has stopped being mysterious because they have seen too much of it. They’ve fought the Unknown, lost friends, made mistakes, and realized that survival is only the beginning. Mage is what happens when you stop reacting to horror and start defining reality for yourself.

For Larina, this is the phase where the witch becomes the magus. She’s no longer the frightened girl with ghosts in her room or the grad student who stumbled into S.A.V.E. She’s a woman in her mid-40s who has survived every shadow the multiverse could throw at her, and learned that power without wisdom is just another kind of curse.

Her story at this stage isn’t about discovery; it’s about integration. Every past incarnation, every spell, every trauma, they all thread together into something greater. The act of Ascension isn’t about escaping mortality; it’s about embracing it as sacred.

Like the rules, I want to integrate all the disparate threads of her life here. 

Larina Nichols in Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition (2015)

By 2000 or so, Larina had returned to the States and lived quietly in Chicago. She teaches folklore and comparative mythology at a small liberal arts college, but that’s just the daylight cover. At night, she works as an independent consultant for the Traditions, specifically the Verbena, though she maintains uneasy friendships among the Dreamspeakers and Hollow Ones.

In the context of my Lifespan Campaign, this is Larina’s middle-age chapter, the reckoning after experience, when all her past choices catch up to her. The ghosts from Little Fears, the stress of Monsterhearts, the agents of S.A.V.E. from Chill, even fragments of her other lives like Lowis from Dark Ages, they all echo here.

Mage lets me weave those threads together into something coherent. Maybe those different incarnations were just past lives of the same soul, or echoes across parallel worlds. In Mage, that kind of metaphysical bleed makes sense. It’s one of the only games where her story could become mythic without losing its human edge.

At 45 (2015 in this build), Larina is a seasoned practitioner who has seen the price of awakening. She knows that every act of will leaves ripples in the world. She teaches her students that folklore endures because it speaks to something real, and when she’s alone, she can still hear the faint hum of the Tapestry, like a heartbeat under the world.

She’s part scholar, part witch, part weary survivor. The Ascension War has become quieter, now fought through memes, corporate sponsorships, and disinformation rather than fireballs and paradox spirits. Larina has learned that the Technocracy doesn’t always need to win; reality often fights their battles for them.

But she keeps the candle burning anyway.

Her focus remains rooted in belief: the Old Faith, the Goddess, the sacred cycles of life and death, but expanded now to the Universal and Multi-versal scale. She has studied Hermetic theory and understands the language of the Ethers, yet she still draws her strength from the soil, the stars, and the blood that ties them together. In M20 terms, she is a Verbena, a witch who believes in creation’s divinity but refuses to kneel to any monotheistic god.

She works minor wonders through old rites: candle flame, herbs, whispered prayers, moonlight on water, spreads of her well-worn tarot cards. Her paradigm has grown sophisticated; witchcraft, psychology, and spirit all merge into her personal practice. Where she once used spells, she now shapes Correspondences.

Her Avatar is older now, too, no longer the reckless maiden or disappointed wife, but a patient, keen-eyed woman who sometimes calls herself the Lady of Crossroads. 

Larina "Nix" Nichols

Chronicle: The New Millennium

Nature: Questing
Demeanor: Traditionalist
Essence: Visionary

Affiliation: The Traditions
Sect: Verbena
Concept: Mystic

Attributes 

Physical
Strength ••, Dexterity ••, Stamina •••

Social
Charisma •••, Manipulation ••, Appearance ••••

Mental
Perception ••••, Intelligence ••••, Wits •••

Abilities

Talents
Alertness ••, Art •, Awareness •••, Empathy ••, Expression •, Streetwise •

Skills
Crafts •, Drive ••, Etiquette •, Research •••, Survival •••, Technology •

Knowledges
Academics ••••, Cosmology ••, Enigmas ••, Esoterica •, Investigation •, Medicine •, Occult ••••, Science •

Spheres

Correspondence ••
Entropy 0
Forces •••

Life •••
Matter •
Mind ••••

Prime •
Spirit •••
Time ••

Advantages

Backgrounds
Allies ••
Avatar •••••
Dream •
Library ••••
Past Lives •••
Wonder •

Other Traits
High Ritual ••••
Seduction ••
Area Knowledge ••

Arete ••••• ••

Willpower ••••• ••

Quintessence xxxxx

Rotes
Talons (••• Life, • Prime or • Matter)
Far Speak (•• Mind, •• Spirit)
Astral Projection (••••Mind, • Spirit)
Past Life (•• Correspondence, •• Spirit)

Focus
Paradigm: Creation is Divine and Alive
Practices: Witchcraft
Instruments: Books, ritual tools, tarot

Wonder
Athame

Merits & Flaws
Languages (Celtic, Greek, Italian, Latin, Russian) 5, True Faith 2
Echoes -1

Age: 45, Apparent age: late 30s
Sex: Female
Ethnicity: White (Caucasian)
Hair: Red
Eye color: Blue
Height: 5'4"
Weight: 125 lbs
DOB: October 25, 1969

Equipment
2005 purple VW Beetle
2013 Macbook Pro (Core i7, 2.6 ghz, 13.3" screen, 256gb ssd, 8gb RAM), silver

Notes: One thing I have not decided yet is whether or not this Larina has a 3-year-old daughter "Taryn" as her WitchCraftRPG counterpart would have at this point (Taryn born Dec 21, 2012, when the Meso-American calendar ran out.) I would like to think so, but I have not played this particular character to that point.

This is obviously not a starting character. I figured she began as a Mage character when I first discovered Mage (circa 1999) and she has had 15 years of experience since then. Granted, maybe she would be more powerful, but she had a lot going on in her life that was not Mage-related. 

I have always played my Mage and WitchCraft versions as similar, but separate universes. This Larina may be the Larina that keeps the others connected to the whole cabal/coven of them all. Actually, I really like this idea. Maybe I should reach out to Phil Brucato, "That Mage Guy," and ask him how he would craft such a character. 

Final Thoughts

Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition isn’t just a rulebook. It’s a philosophy text disguised as a game manual, a challenge to imagine what reality could be if you dared to believe differently. It captures everything I love about urban fantasy, the collision of magic and modernity, of belief and disbelief, of hope against entropy.

For me, Mage represents the mature stage of the horror-fantasy journey. It’s not about surviving the darkness anymore. It’s about illuminating it, understanding it, and, if you’re brave enough, even becoming it.

Larina has learned that the Ascension War was never about gods or Technocrats. It was always about the soul’s struggle to stay awake.

And after all these years, she’s still standing at the crossroads, candle in hand, whispering to the night: "So mote it be."

Links

• Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition, DriveThruRPG
• Mage: The Ascension (Wikipedia)
• Mage: The Ascendion (White Wolf Wiki)
• Mage: The Ascension (RPG.net)
• Mage: The Awakening

Urban Fantasy Fridays: Chill

The depth of my love for Chill knows no bounds.  

I am continuing to focus my Fantasy Fridays on Urban Fantasy and Horror. These will be more about accenting and supplementing your games with horror, and less on these games being a “D&D Replacement.”

And for me, no game sits more firmly in that sweet spot of horror and urban fantasy than Chill.

Chill was my first RPG after D&D, and it has stayed with me ever since. I still remember flipping through the Pacesetter box and realizing this game wasn’t about dungeons or dragons, it was about the dark places just outside your door. It’s a game about the things you whisper about, the shadows you hope never notice you, and the brave (or foolish) people who stand up to fight them.

The Core of Chill

Across its three editions, the spirit of the game has remained intact. The secret society of SAVE, the Societas Argenti Viae Eternitata, provides players with an immediate reason to join the fight against the supernatural. The Unknown itself is the real adversary, a collection of folklore and fear that resists easy definition. Unlike Call of Cthulhu, Chill does not end with despair. Unlike World of Darkness, it does not try to make the monsters alluring. Most importantly, it doesn’t require the “epic heroics” of D&D or Pathfinder. The Unknown is terrifying and often lethal, but it can be fought.

The tone of play always reminded me more of Kolchak: The Night Stalker than Lovecraft. Later, when shows like X-Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Supernatural came along, they felt like they could have been written as Chill campaigns. It is a game about mysteries and folklore, about investigating hauntings and cryptids, and about facing the terrors that slip into our world when no one else will. The monsters are not just stat blocks to be defeated; they are creatures that feel like they have stepped out of legend and into your story. More importantly, each monster was special. Even when it was just a "monster of the week" it still meant something. From vampires and Wendigos to Elizabeth Bathory herself, the creatures of Chill are more than just stat blocks. They feel like they crawled out of real-world legends and onto your gaming table. 

What You Can Do With Chill

Chill is wonderfully adaptable. I have used it to run Buffy-style adventures before there was a Buffy RPG, Kolchak investigations, and even material that began in Ghosts of Albion. It thrives in the modern day, but it also works in Victorian gaslight, or the occult revival of the 1970s with its bell-bottoms and Ouija boards. The mechanics are approachable and lean toward story, so it is a natural fit for short Halloween one-shots as well as longer campaigns.

One of the joys of Chill for me has been bringing recurring characters into it. I have created versions of many of my characters for many systems, but Chill has always felt like one of the most natural homes for them. Characters in Chill are ordinary people thrust into extraordinary danger, and that is exactly the kind of story I have always enjoyed doing.

Why Chill Stands Out

What makes Chill endure is the way it carves out its own place among horror RPGs. Call of Cthulhu leans into inevitability and madness. World of Darkness often leans into seduction and corruption. Dungeons & Dragons calls for epic heroics and high fantasy. Chill stands apart. It is a game about people who could be your neighbors, co-workers, or friends, suddenly forced to confront the shadows that lurk behind familiar walls. Victories are rare, but when they come, they feel earned. That balance of fear and fight is what keeps me coming back. 

It gives you ordinary people with extraordinary courage, standing in the dark with nothing but a flashlight, some folklore, and the hope they can survive until dawn.

Chill is available in both the 2nd Edition and 3rd Edition rules.  The mechanical differences are minor. Chill 3rd Edition is a bit better organized and presented. 

The Early-Middle Years Campaign

If Little Fears is a childhood belief made into rules, then Chill feels like the story of what happens when those childhood terrors never really go away. It is a game for the middle years of life, when you are old enough to understand that monsters should not be real, yet still young enough to feel the raw shock when you discover they are.

In this sense, Chill is the perfect start to a “middle chapter” of a larger horror Lifespan Campaign. Dark Places & Demogorgons can cover the later childhood and early teen years. Monsterhearts or Buffy can cover the chaos of all the teenage years, but Chill is where the players step into early adulthood. Bills need paying, jobs need doing, but there are still nights when something crawls out of the dark, and it is up to you to stop it. Adulthood in Chill is defined not by power or responsibility, but by resilience.

Characters are rarely specialists or superheroes; they are people in over their heads who choose to fight back anyway. That resilience is what makes victories against the Unknown so satisfying. Chill is about holding on to courage, even when everything around you insists you should not. 

A starting Chill character is a fragile thing, but it is assumed they have what it takes to survive. 

Larina Macalister, nee Nichols, for Chill

So we have been moving through the years. In this, I am opting for the Chill 2nd Edition timeline, circa 1992. Larina is 22 years old. She has been living in Scotland for a couple of years now. She was an exchange student from the University of Chicago to St. Andrews University. She graduated with a degree in library sciences and early medieval history. She is currently a GA at St. Andrews. While here, she met, fell in love with, and married Eric Macalister. An Irish ex-pat living in Scotland. She later learns he is on the run because he is a former IRA sharphooter. I had watched Patriot Games when I came up with all of this in the late 1990s. In fact, this setup is all based on a WitchCraftRPG game I played with her. At the time, I worked out conversions in Excel for Chill, WitchCraft, and AD&D. These Chill stats are some of the oldest I have shared.

While I am basing all this background on Chill 2nd Ed, I am going to present her newer Chill 3rd Edition stats below. 

This Larina is fresh out of her undergrad days and working on her MA. She married, but life is not all marital bliss (she will be divorced and back in America by the time she is 25). She works with her friend Prof. Scot Elders and his wife, and her best friend Heather.  At some point, Larina learns that Elders worked for S.A.V.E. She is brought in, but she isn't trusted since her training in "The Art" has been haphazard and largely self-taught since she was 13. 

S.A.V.E. wants to evaluate her, but they had their own troubles in the early 1990s. 

Larina Macalister
22 years old, American citizen (married to an Irish citizen) living in Scotland on a student visa.

Larina in 1992.

Attributes

Agility AGL: 60
Strength STR: 50  (Injury: __)
Stamina STA: 55

Focus FOC: 80
Personality PSY: 70
Willpower WRP: 75   (Trauma: __)

Dexterity DEX:  60
Perception PCN: 80
Reflexes REF: 70

Sensing the Unknown STU: 40

Skills (Specializations)

Movement 30
Prowess 25
Close Quarters Combat 25

Research 40, Academics (E+30), Occult (E+30)
Communication Empathy (E+30), Deception (B+15)
Interview 38 Academic (E+30), Counselor (B+15)

Fieldcraft 30
Investigation 40 Relics (B+15)
Ranged Weapons 35

The Art

Communicative (PSY)
  Attunement: Follow the Strings
  - Telepathic Empathy (B)

Incorporeal
  Attunement: Eyes of the Dead

Kinetic (DEX)
  Attunement: Schematic
  - Hidden Hand (E)

Protective (FOC)
  Attunement: Disrupt
  - Blessing (B)
  - Line of Defense (B)

Sensing
  Attunement: Third Eye
  - Clairvoyant (B)

Edges and Drawbacks

Attractive 1, Highly Attuned 1, Pet (cat) 2
Hunted (Shadow Girl) -2, Marked -1, Reluctant to Harm -2

Drive To understand The Art and The Unknown

History

1975: Visited by ghosts and other spirits (gains Incorporeal ART)
1983: Develops Kinetic and Sensing Arts
1989: Travels to Scotland
1990: Recruited by S.A.V.E., same year married Eric Macalister
1991: Begins MA program at St. Andrews.

--

New to 3rd Edition are Focus and Reflexes. Also, Luck is now gone.

Her stats are pretty high for a starting character, but not high if you consider the Lifespan Campaign. She was seeing ghosts at 5 or 6, had control of various Arts by age 13. Because of this, she is largely self-taught. Her magical aptitude is a mile wide, but only inches deep at this point. 

I am bringing back the Shadow Girl, who, she had forgotten, from Little Fears. Maybe this creature is Larina's Never Was? And something happened in either DP&D or Monsterhearts that has caused her to decide she can use her Art to harm anyone. She hurt someone and has not gotten over it. 

Herein lies the most significant issue surrounding the Lifespan Campaign: moving characters and their abilities/powers from one game to the next. It can be done, but it is a challenge. Or, more to the point, a challenge to do it and not break some of the fundamental tenets of the game. Larina above should almost be a threat to S.A.V.E., not a consultant. Part of this balance also influences the narrative structure. What is real for that game world? You have to strip all that out and build your own world where the games fit.

Final Thoughts

Chill is not just another horror RPG for me. It was my first real step beyond D&D, my second RPG ever, and the one that showed me roleplaying games could be more than fantasy adventures. They could be mysteries, ghost stories, and urban legends made real.

Whether I’m reading the battered Pacesetter books, the sleek Mayfair volumes, or the modern 3rd edition, the heart of Chill never changes: ordinary people, extraordinary courage, and the eternal struggle against the Unknown.

For all the years and all the editions, that is why Chill remains one of my all-time favorites.

Links

• Chill,
• Cryptworld, 1st Edition clone
• 2nd Edition
• 3rd Edition
• My Chill Reviews,
• 1st Edition Pacesetter
• 2nd Edition, Mayfair Games
• 3rd Edition, Growling Door/Martin Carron
• Frightshow Classics Adventures
• My adventures, Golem and The Nightmare
• Other Reviews,
• The Children of Chill (Cryptworld, Majus, RotWorld)
• Chill 3rd Ed Quickstart - Good Fences Make Good Neighbors
• Characters
• Megan O'Kelly (Spirit of '76)
• Wayward Sisters (Supernatural)
• Fran & Miriam, the Vampyres
• First Edition
• Third Edition
• Willow & Tara

Urban Fantasy Fridays: Monsterhearts

Last week, with Little Fears, we explored childhood monsters. Now this week I want to explore the most horrifying years of all. High School.

Granted I have a lot of games that do this and do this well. Perhaps one of the best urban fantasy / Horror games about high school is the Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG. BUT I want to cover Buffy when I do Unisystem later on this month. 

Of course, another fantastic example is Dark Places & Demogorgons, a game I have covered often. The biggest reason not to cover it today is that I have said so much about it. 

This leaves one game that fits as well as those two AND it takes such a different approach that I have to try it out. Monsterhearts.

Monsterhearts

Monsterhearts 2 by Avery Alder is one of those games that doesn’t just sit on your shelf, it stares at you. It dares you to pick it up and think about all the messy, complicated, horny, terrifying stuff that made adolescence such a fever dream. Avery Alder’s game is firmly within the Powered by the Apocalypse family, utilizing those mechanics to push hard on narrative, relationships, and the dark hunger lurking within every teenager. I would go as far to say it is one of the best examples of a Powered by the Apocalypse game. Now, normally, I am not a huge fan of the Apocalypse system, but here it works so very well. 

The pitch is simple: you play teenage monsters, or maybe monstrous teenagers, or just regular teenagers. Vampires, witches, werewolves, fae, the usual suspects, but this isn’t about killing things in the night. It’s about identity, sexuality, and the strange alchemy of desire and fear. The “Skins” (playbooks) are equal parts archetype and pressure cooker, designed to push your character into bad decisions that feel achingly real. You’re going to lash out, you’re going to want someone you shouldn’t, and you’re going to hurt the people closest to you. That’s the point. 

Monsters as metaphors for teenage life and feeling a little outside the norm. Not to lay it on too thick, but the monsters are metaphors, but...you actually are a monster. I think it is something everyone can relate to, I think. 

Mechanically, it is lean and mean. Strings (the currency of influence and emotional leverage) do a lot of the heavy lifting, ensuring every interaction has bite. Conditions, labels you can slap on characters, make the social world as dangerous as any dungeon. And the sex moves? Well, they’re here to remind you that intimacy is never neutral. It changes the fiction in a big way, sometimes empowering, sometimes wrecking you.

The base mechanic is simple: 2d6 + whatever mods (depending on the game), get higher than 10 for a success, or a 7-9 for something weird.

I did write-ups for Monsterhearts before, and I always wanted to do more. I just got around to it for various reasons. I played it at Gen Con many years ago and had a great time. It is not a game I get to play often, but each time is memorable. 

Larina in 1986 and her experiment with bangs

Larina "Creepy" Nichols for Monsterhearts

Larina has gone from the strange little girl who sees ghosts in Little Fears, to the odd girl everyone nicknamed "Creepy" in Dark Places & Demogorgons, to the goth chick people are actually afraid of in Monsterhearts.  Gone are the ripped jeans and Misfits concert t-shirts, she is now in her full young Stevie Nicks meets Elvira stage. Heavy make-up, lots of rings, black everything. 

While there is no time period set for Monsterhearts in the rules, but I am going to set this one in 1986. This means I am going to not use the whole section on "Texting." Sure it is fun, but passing notes is better. 

The underlying tone of Monsterhearts is the queer experience (which I know practically nothing about); I do know the "outsider" experience, and the Satanic Panic helped that. Don't worry, I am not going to "straight-wash" this at all; that would go counter to the game's intended ethos and, honestly, just would not work as well. 

Skin: The Witch (obviously)

Look: Edgy but Attractive
Eyes: Are the brown? Are they blue? No one is sure.
Origin: Heard the call of the Goddess at six and taught by the ghost of her grandmother.

Backstory: Larina began seeing ghosts and other things when she was little. Now she can command some magic, but keeps it hidden because the more she uses it, the more she is also seen by those things.

Stats

Hot 1, Cold -1, Volatile -1, Dark 2 (seductive and spooky)

Sympathetic Tokens: 2 (Mortal and Fae) Tokens count as Strings.
Strings: 2  (Mortal and Fae), Infernal has a string on her.

Darkest Self

The time for subtlety and patience is over. You’re too powerful to put up with their garbage any longer. You hex anyone who slights you. All of your hexes have unexpected side effects, and are more effective than you are comfortable with. To escape your Darkest Self, you must offer peace to the one you have hurt the most.

Sex Move

After sex, you can take a Sympathetic Token from them. They know about it, and it’s cool.

Witch Moves

• Hex Casting: Binding, Illusions (demonic visages)
  
  
• Sanctuary

So, it's 1986. The Satanic Panic has come to her sleepy little midwestern college town and all eyes are on the girl everyone already suspects is out in the woods sacrificing animals and calling up demons for sex. When in truth she is typically at home in her attic room (she moved up there years ago) and listens to her dad's Yes albums. 

At 16, Larina is very confused about her sexuality. She has heard the joke a few too many times that college Wiccan groups are just lonely heart clubs for new lesbians and bisexuals, but she feels the need to conform somehow.  There is an older metalhead guy she has a crush on (The Mortal), and there is a girl with blonde hair she has been fantasizing about (The Fae); both seem to be mutual.  At the moment, she is still too scared to do anything with either of them, except for a couple of make-out sessions each. 

There is an Infernal foreign exchange student who keeps pursuing her, and Larina isn't sure how much longer she will be able to resist her charms, nor is she sure she really even wants to. The Infernal is based on a character my wife played in a game a while back. A girl named Sasha, who was really a Succubus.

Final Thoughts

I really enjoyed what Little Fears brought to the childhood experiences of characters, and I LOVE what Monsterhearts brings to the teen experiences. 

In reality, you could dual-stat every character you are playing in a teen/high school game. Say Buffy or DP&D and Monsterhearts. Use the more crunchy stats for things like fighting vampires and Monsterhearts for...doing other things with them. It would take a very experienced Game Master (Director and MC) with a very deft hand to do this, but it would be fun. 

Monsterhearts 2 isn’t for everyone. But for the right group, it’s raw and cathartic in a way few RPGs even attempt. It captures the horror of being young and not knowing who you are, except maybe something terrible. And that’s a story worth telling at the table.

Urban Fantasy Fridays: Little Fears

It is October! You know what that means around here. For all of October, I am going to focus my "Fantasy Fridays" on Urban Fantasy and Horror. These will be more about accenting and supplementing your games with horror and less on these games being a "D&D Replacement."

Little Fears: Nightmare Edition

When was the last time you were really, really afraid? Most people would say childhood.  Little Fears is exactly about that.  Little Fears is a game of childhood fears.  The monsters are real; they hide in your closet and under your bed. The scary old lady down the street really is a hag. But don’t worry. You are protected by Belief, and items that seem mundane or meaningless to grown-ups can help you.   Little Fears is based on a simple system, as befitting its nature of school children fighting monsters that adults can’t see. 

Little Fears also has the notoriety of being one of three RPGs that one of my FLGS will not sell openly.  You can order it, but they don’t stock it.  I disagree, but I respect their choice.

Little Fears is a game of Childhood Horrors.  Simple enough.  As a father, I have been up many nights, sleepily fighting one bogeyman or another.  Thankfully, most bogeymen are terrified of my "huh? go back to sleep" speech cause I have never seen them.  But maybe once upon a time I did.  I am reminded of a Charmed episode where a little girl was being attacked by little bogey-like creatures, and the Charmed Ones, being adults, could not see them.  They had to cast a spell to be more childlike (with accompanying wackiness) to see the threat.  That was the hook I was going to use to get my group to play Little Fears one day.  Turn their characters into kids, and to keep them off guard, I was going to take their Unisystem sheets and give them Little Fears sheets instead, and then not tell them all the rules.  The Little Fears book makes a big issue about kids living in an adult world and not knowing or understanding the rules.  Frankly, I thought it was brilliant, but it never happened.

Little Fears plays like that.  Only more so.  Monsters are defined by the character's fear but also by their belief.  In some ways, playing LF with adults is a bit like playing D&D with really young kids.  They want to be the player AND the DM.  In LF the characters and players can change the nature of the game in overt or subtle ways.

The rules are very simple, really.  The system is a d6 dice pool based on abilities or qualities.  Monsters are built similarly to characters, though they are tougher, generally speaking.  The damage system reminds me of Mutants and Masterminds a bit and is also pretty simple.   Emphasis, though, in this game is not how many monsters you can kill, but how well you role-play the monster you nearly escaped from and lived to tell your friends about (because they have seen the same monster, but have been too afraid to tell you).  Little Fears is one of the most role-play-heavy games I have read in a very long time.  If you only like to hit things with pointy metal sticks or throw fireballs, then this might not be your game.  If the idea of playing something that is akin to "Kult Jr." or "C.J. Carella's WitchCraft Babies," then this is the game for you.

There is an overarching malaise, though, over Little Fears.  I get depressed reading it, I have to admit.  Maybe it is because I am a father and I know how those little kids feel to be afraid, alone, and powerless.  I guess the counterargument is that they are not powerless or alone, really.

The Lifespan Campaign

One idea I’ve toyed with is the Lifespan Campaign: taking characters from childhood through adolescence, young adulthood, and into older years across different horror systems. Each stage of life would utilize a different RPG: Little Fears for childhood, perhaps Dark Places & Demogorgons, Monsterhearts or Buffy for the teenage years, WitchCraft for adulthood, and Kult or Call of Cthulhu for the endgame. I love this approach because each game has a distinct “rule set” that reflects how life feels at different ages. 

Childhood is governed by Belief. Adolescence by Drama. Adulthood by Responsibility. Old age by Fragility. Or something like that. I reserve the right to tweak these ideas.

It’s a long campaign dream, but Little Fears is the perfect opening chapter.

Larina Nichols for Little Fears

Let's try out this idea. I have already established that Larina began to hear The Call of the Goddess when she was six years old. Around the same time, children have imaginary friends. In this universe, that would be the same time a Little Fears game would begin.

Little Larina and a ghost.

My name is Larina Nichols
I am a 6-year-old girl.
My birthday is October 25.

Concept: Outsider/Quiet kid

Abilities

Move: ØØOOOO 2

Fight: ØOOOOO 1

Think: ØØØOOO 3

Speak: ØØOOOO 2

Care: ØØØOOO 3

Traits

Good: I can Fight well when I am angry.

Bad: It’s hard for me to Think when I'm scared.

Virtues

Belief 7

Wits: scared ØØØØØ|ØØØOO calm

Spirit: dark ØØØØØ|ØØØØØ light (whole)

Qualities

I am the smart girl  +2
- I know words the teacher hasn't taught yet. +1
- I love books. +1

I am Curious +1

I am Brave +1

I see Scary Things -2

I don't fit in -1

I feel (Care)

fine ØØØØØØØ|OOO
sore ØØØØØØØ|OOO (-2)
bad ØØØØØØØ|OOO (-4)
cold ØØØØØØØ|OOO (-6)

My Stuff

My "Book of Monsters" +3
- "Names" monsters so they can't hurt me +1 to Armor
- Gives me advice on how to beat them +1 to Fight
- lets me talk to Monsters +1 to Speak

Pendant +2
- Glows when danger is near
- Protects me +1 to Wits

"Dragon tooth" (really some baked clay) +2
- Lucky +1
- Protects me +1 to Care

Questionnaire

My best friend is...Aurora. She is a year older.
The One Grown-up I can Trust is...Mrs. Jess, my 1st grade teacher. I think she used to be a witch.
Once I Lost...my stuffed bunny Jackson. 
He was special because...he would protect me from ghosts.

The One Place Monsters can't get me is...Dad's library. They are afraid of his books and music.
The One Thing Monsters can't touch is...my star pendant. 
I Don't Go near...basement.
Beacuse...the Shadow-girl lives there and she is not like other ghosts.

My biggest fear is...fire. 

A Little About Me
The Thing I like Least about Myself is...kids make fun of my hair and nose.
The Thing that always gets me into trouble is...when the ghosts bother me and I yell at them to stop.
When I get scared I...bite my nails. My mom hates that.

Family
I live in a one-story house with an attic and a basement that's a bit scary. With my mom (Stephanie) and my dad (Lars). I have a kitten named Cottonball who is small, white, and super fuzzy. The ghost of an old woman lives in the attic, but she is not mean and keeps the other ghosts away.

The Shadow-girl lives in the basement. She looks like a ghost, but isn't. She tells me she is going to take me and live as me. Shadow-girl will sometimes do bad things around the house, and I get blamed for it.

Goals

Short-term: I want to be braver around the older kids.

Long-term: I want to get rid of the Shadow-Girl

Secret

Knows her friend Aurora is being abused. She told a teacher, and then Aurora was gone for a long time. 

-

This is quite a good system for figuring out who your character is, or rather, was back then. There are things here I have thought about for Larina that I have never actually explored in other games; her fear of fire yes, but also how she sees ghosts all the time, and her interactions with "The Shadow-girl" a demonic presence in her early life. 

Going through this, I also decided that in a modern game, she would have been advanced a grade due to her intelligence, but was she emotionally ready? AND how does all of this affect the character I would play in Buffy, Chill, or Kult?

As a reminder that it is a weighty game with some weighty issues, I went ahead and put in Larina's secret about Aurora. Larina feels like it is her fault that Aurora was gone for so long. As mentioned above, this game challenges you to confront a range of childhood fears.

Final Thoughts

Little Fears: Nightmare Edition isn’t just “kids fight monsters.” It’s about capturing that liminal space between innocence and terror, where imagination and fear are indistinguishable. It’s a heavy game, sometimes even depressing, but it’s also brilliant in its design and focus.

While it is a game about children, it is not a game for children.  The subject matter of abuse and death can be a bit much for some adults, let alone kids.  So consider this your warning about the issues covered here. 

Little Fears might also be one of the most effective horror games I have ever played. Chill, Kult, WoD, CoC, WitchCraft are all great and I love them all, but Little Fears is different and the power structure between what you can do and what you need to do is such that it is a scary, scary game.

If you want a horror RPG that digs deeper than gore and jump scares, one that makes you feel vulnerable again, this is it. Buy it. Play it. Even if it unsettles you. Because once you’ve cracked open Little Fears, you’ll never look at butterflies (or teddy bears, or shadows) quite the same way again.

Plays Well With Others: Modern Occult Horror Games

Been thinking a lot about all the modern supernatural games I have (and I think I have all of them) and in particular the ones that have come out from the Old-School gaming scene.  These games all cover roughly the same sort of topics and themes but they all do them in different ways that I keep thinking they would all work great together. 

In other words, it sounds like a perfect topic for a Plays Well With Others. 

So the games I am talking about are Dark Places & Demogorgons, We Die Young, Dark Streets & Darker Secrets, and my own NIGHT SHIFT.  These are the big modern supernatural, occult horror games from the OSR. 

I have reviewed these games in the past.

• Review: Survive This! Dark Places & Demogorgons
• SURVIVE THIS!! We Die Young RPG Core Rules (2021)
• Review: Dark Streets & Darker Secrets

Obviously, I have not reviewed NIGHT SHIFT. Reviewing your own game is incredibly tacky and remarkably dishonest. 

I have covered many of these games in other Plays Well With Others too.

• Night Shift and Modern Supernatural Games
• Dark Places & Demogorgons: Cryptid Manual
• Kids Games, Dark Places & Demogorgons (with NIGHT SHIFT)

With the addition of Dark Streets & Darker Secrets to my occult library, I wanted to revisit some of these ideas. Though I want to take a different approach today.

With this Plays Well With Others, I am going to mention each game and talk about what can be used from that game in any of the other three.  In some cases, this is easy like moving from Dark Places & Demogorgons to We Die Young which are essentially the same system.  In others, it will be converting characters from one system to the other. 

At the core of all four games (three systems) is the old-school, the OSR, design.  All of these games have the same "godfather" as it were in Original or Basic D&D.  They have the same uncle (mother's brother), the d20 SRD. And their mother is all the D&D games we all played and the supernatural, occult, horror and urban fantasy media we consumed when not playing. 

Dark Streets & Darker Secrets 

This is the newest game, for me, and the one on my mind the most.  Thankfully it is also the one that has the most to offer all the games.  

For starters, the classes can be imported rather easily into the other three games.  In particular the Tough, the Nimble, and the Smart can be used as subtypes of the Veteran or Survivor in NIGHT SHIFT or as a class in We Die Young.  Maybe not so much for DP&D since those are supposed to be kids. The Gifted of DS&DS is similar to the Supernatural in NS.

The real gift of DS&DS is all the tables.  Someone online described the game as a great toolkit game. Some of the best ones to use in all games are the Complication table (p.20), Weird Items (p.32- 33), almost all the Gear. The Magic and Psychic backlash tables are also fun. ALL the artifact tables. The various "signs" in Chapter 7.  In fact, pretty much all of Chapter 7 to be honest.

Survive This!!

Both Dark Places & Demogorgons and We Die Young from Bloat Games use the same Survive This!! basic rule system, so right out of the gate they are compatible with each other.   Dark Places & Demogorgons focuses on kids in the 1980s and We Die Young on young adults in the 1990s.  So there is a continuum there for any that wish to use it.  There are plenty of "classes" in both games that can be used and mixed and matched.  Like DS&DS there are a lot of great toolbox-like tables and ideas that can be imported into another game.

I can easily see a game then of people in their 30s in the 2000s with large chunks of DS&DS mixed into the Survive This!! system.  Would this game be called "Survive This!! Dark Streets" or "Dark Streets, Dark Places, Darker Secrets & Demogorgons?"  I don't know, but I LOVE the idea of kids experiencing weird shit in the 80s, taking a bunch of drugs to forget them in the 90s (both DS&DS and WDY have these) and finally having to deal with this shit all over again in 2000-2020s as older adults.  Very "It" if you think about it.

The jewel though in the Survive This!! (and there are many) though HAS to be the DP&D Cryptid Manual.  DS&DS takes a toolkit view on monsters.  NIGHT SHIFT has a minimalist view (a very OD&D view if I can add) on monsters.  But the Cryptid Manual gives us a proper monster book.

Of note. Both DS&DS and We Die Young use the newer D&D5-ish Advantage and Disadvantage mechanic. Albeit in slightly different ways.  I have been using this in NIGHT SHIFT as well and find it works better for me than a simple +3 or +5 to rolls. 

Also, both games have a Madness mechanic.  I like the one in We Die Young much better.  Bits from DS&DS could be added to this, but in general, I think I'd use the one in WDY. 

We Die Young also has some really cool races that can help fill out the "Gifted" of DS&DS.

Don't forget you can get the new Hardcover version of Dark Places & Demogorns on Kickstarter now.

NIGHT SHIFT: Veterans of the Supernatural Wars

I talk a lot about NIGHT SHIFT here and with good reason, I am quite proud of the work I have done it.  It fills the void in my life left by the Buffy RPG and everything I wanted from all three editions of Chill, but never exactly got (no slight on Chill, fantastic game), a little more approachable and less nihilistic than Kult, and none of the baggage of The World of Darkness (though I do get the urge to play that again.  My oldest want to give it a try sometime).

Dark Places & Demogorgons makes some assumptions in the game that makes it what it is.  The characters are kids and there is also the Jeffersontown setting, all of which are central to the game and make it work.

Dark Street & Darker Secrets is on the other end of the spectrum with no assumed setting other than "The City" which also works fantastic for this game and one of it's great strengths.

In between those two, we have NIGHT SHIFT (and We Die Young, but I'll get to that).  NIGHT SHIFT does not have a default setting. There are different levels of difficulty you can configure the game in, Cinematic, Realistic, or Gritty.  DP&D would be Cinematic, DS&DS is the poster boy for Gritty, and WDY is around Realistic.  So I would use ideas from those games to inform my choices in the three levels of NS and vice-versa. 

What NIGHT SHIFT has to offer these other games are our "Night Worlds" or mini-settings.  Any of these can be used in any of the other games and the other games can be used to add more details.  Jason's "The Noctnurmverse" can be supplemented either by or used in DS&DS.  The "City" in DS&DS becomes the Noctnurmverse's Pittsburgh.  Or dialing back the Way-Back Machine use it with We Die Young in the 1990s.  My own "Generation HEX" benefits from the ideas on playing kids in DP&D.  You could even take Generation HEX and play it as a DP&D setting if you wanted.  My "Ordinary World" can be used in DS&DS IF you ever decide to move out of the city into the suburbs. 

I already talked a lot about how NIGHT SHIFT and Dark Places & Demogorgons can be used together.  The same logic applies when adding in the other two games.  In fact one place where this might work great is my own Sunny Valley, OH game of the Buffyverse in the 1980s rather than the late 90s/early 2000s.  This works well since a.) NIGHT SHIFT was made to fit the "Buffy-shaped" hole in my life and b.) DS&DS takes a lot of cues from and was influenced by Buffy in all media.  I might just be the best melting pot for all these games. Or crucible. Time will tell.

Putting it All Together

Honestly, there are just too many ways to combine these four games into something you can use.  Start with one and add what you need.  Start with two and be pickier about what you add from the others.  One of the ways I am using it is in my Life-Path Development ideas. Each game represents a different point the characters' lives and each is used to model that time.  The obvious reasons are that DP&D takes place in the 80s with kids, WDY in the 90s with younger adults, and DS&DS and NIGHT SHIFT go beyond that.  To go with personal experience, I was living in Chicago proper in the mid to late 90s and then in the suburbs after that.  To use my ordinary world example my progression would look like this:

DP&D (high school, small town) -> WDY (college, college town) -> DS&DS (grad school, city) -> NIGHT SHIFT (adulthood, suburbs).

In a weird way, it makes sense to me.  But I am not stating up myself. I don't live in a magical world, I live in this one.  BUT I do have my Drosophila melanogaster of these sorts of experiments, Willow and Tara.   I have done stats for them for Dark Places & Demogorgons and NIGHT SHIFT.  Doing ones for We Die Young and Dark Streets & Darker Secrets would be easy enough.  BUT.  Those are not the same characters really. They fall under my "Alternate Reality" versions rather than "Lifespan or Lifepath Development."   Though doing DS&DS versions of Willow and Tara should be in my future.

No for this I need a character that has been around for a while, for that I am going to have to turn to my Iconic Witch Larina.

Fortunately for me, the witch is one of the few character classes/archetypes/concepts that can be found in all these games (the weird psychic is as well, but witches are my thing).  So building a witch feels right.

I worked up all the sheets and this is what I ended up with.  Purple is the color of all of Larina's sheets. Click for larger. 

Dark Places & Demogorgons

It's 1984 and Larina is 14 and 4th level.  She lives in a small town where her mom runs a spice shop and her dad is a Professor of Anthropology and teaches music.  She is called "creepy girl" by the kids in school.  At this point, she is shy and can't quite understand why others can't see the strange things all around them. 

Most of these adventures are of the "Scooby-Doo" sort; short ones that are resolved by the end.  Easily Monster of Week sorts.

We Die Young

We are moving to the early 90s now and she is 7th level. Larina is in grad school and is now Larina Macalester. She was married at age 19 but obviously, it is not working out well.  She is living in Chicago while her estranged husband is still living in Ireland. Her stats nudge up a little but she largely is similar to her 1DP&D version.  There are some differences between the two types of Witch classes (and DP&D still has others) but nothing I consider earth-shattering.  I did get to add her two tattoos. One is a protection tattoo (a large Triple Moon Goddess on her back) and one on her left wrist that allows her to cast a magic bolt. 

Dark Streets & Darker Secrets

Things are getting darker.  Larina is now 35, 10th level, and back to going back to using "Nichols" as her last name.  Her complication is she is hiding from her ex-husband who was in the IRA.  (NOTE: I actually played through this back in the early 2000s.  The big twist was that while she was hiding out, her ex had moved on and was living his own life with his new wife.)  I wanted to use my new idea for Sanity by having it as Intellect +  Willpower /2. BUT for Larina here both scores are 17 giving me an average of 17. 

NIGHT SHIFT

Here is the one closest to my heart, obviously.  She has more spells, but this is expected at 13th level. 

As expected the powers don't always match up right and I could have taken more care in aligning the spells with each version. But I figure that these changes can be chalked up to learning and experiences.  I do feel that all versions reflect the character at the time well.   

Looking forward to trying this with other characters to see how they work out. Also, I am keeping all of these books together to use as needed.  By themselves, they give me a wonderful experience. Together they give me an epic experience.