No Security: Horror Scenarios in the Great Depression

by Caleb Stokes, Ean Moody (Illustrator), Steffon Worthington (Illustrator)

The crops fail. Then the banks fall, crushing every honest man on the ledgers beneath their rubble. The fertile lands turn to dust, the modern marvels into slums. Spirits are the last to go, but in the end they break like everything else. The American dream becomes a curse. Hope – a memory. Some whisper about revolution. Others talk of Armageddon. But for the unluckiest few, they are coming, drawn from other realities to feast off the misery. And those poor souls will learn the true meaning of “Great Depression.” No Security presents five original tales of terror compatible with multiple pen-and-paper RPG systems. The various settings within 1930’s America – ranging from the ravaged farmlands of rural Georgia to the icy peak of Mount McKinely – put players in desperate situations from the very start. The cast of original, Lovecraftian creatures frees experienced gamers from the complacency brought on by years spent memorizing the monstrosities of their favorite system. Bring the horror back to gaming and your players to the edge of their seats. The real hard times approach. Do you have what it takes to survive?

Genres: Horror

148 pages, Paperback

First published January 6, 2014

Reviews

[Benjamin]

How? If I recall, I wanted free shipping and I liked Caleb Stokes other work (in Delta Green and Red Markets).

What? Five _system-neutral_ horror scenarios that take place in the Great Depression. "System-neutral" means that these aren't for any particular game, so you won't find game stats in most of them, just descriptions of the monsters / people for the GM to translate into their game of choice. But I'm still marking this as Call of Cthulhu because that's the overwhelming theme here: cosmic horror, things beyond space and time.

Yeah, so? A couple things I love/not-love about this for all the adventure: I love the system-neutral aspect as an RPG reader, because stats are not so interesting to read; as a GM... I might be less enthusiastic about doing all that work.

I love that each adventure starts out with a description of the themes -- though almost each kinda hits the same notes: cosmic horror and man's inhumanity to man in desperate times. (Definitely a theme in Stokes's work, cf. Red Markets.)

I love that the adventures focus on a trail of clues that can be picked up from each location, but I found the clue maps a little... unpolished. (I mean, they just aren't very pretty.)

Now, as for the adventures, for me the highlight is the first, "The Wives of March," where the murder of a preacher in a curiously healthy town -- free of the travails and pestilence of the neighboring communities -- gets the PCs to look into a truly horrific and weird world. The horror here is based on a story Stokes wrote, I gather, which is why there's so much backstory. What's really curious to me here is that you could write a fairly ordinary adventure with just the apparent story: this town is curiously free of boll weevils, etc., and of course the answer would be a cult of dark magic and human sacrifice. But it becomes so much weirder and richer by adding in that other layer, about this creepy family that loves and hates each other and keeps getting reborn.

Compared to that, the adventure "Bryson Springs" is a little more ordinary, since it involves weird deaths that trace back to a monster and a cult around one weird scroll. And "The Fall Without End" is the type of survival horror that I feel like we see more often these days: you're climbing a mountain and also there's a monster. It's fine, but removing the characters from civilization makes it feel a little less Depression-dependent: yes, we're told that the prize for climbing Denali is related to the Great Depression, but it could just as easily be divorced from that.

"The Red Tower" is an interesting story not so much for the outlines of it: it's "a weird death traceable to a weird monster" sort of adventure, but what's arresting here is the image at the center of the sealed and death-directed slaughterhouse, with its miles of lightless tunnels.

"Revelations" is another interesting adventure and an absolute one-shot, where a disgraced preacher's son has some ideas about remaking the world to bring god back, which results in the town going through the Bible literally, rather than in any poetic, allegorical, or metaphorical sense. Stokes notes at the beginning that this isn't an adventure against religion, but maybe against a certain literal reading of the Bible, and it's refreshing to see an adventure engage with the world in that or any way.

[Laura Briskin-Limehouse · Rating 5 out of 5]

No Security is an excellent source of horror system-less scenarios. The scenarios focus on creating a cohesive narrative and clues for game masters to completely terrify their players with, rather than any mechanics. This leads to highly adaptable scenarios, as full and ready to run in your favorite horror RPG system whether that's Call of Cthulhu, Gumshoe, Delta Green, or any other system, narrative or simulationist.

Narratively, each scenario is complete unto itself and very creepy. The 'monster' of each one is original to this source – experienced players/readers of the Cthulhu mythos will be surprised by these monsters. Reading the scenarios from the mindset of a GM, I still followed the narrative like a player and found myself taking breaks in order to recover from being creeped out a bit and to think more about / enjoy the scenario. I highly recommend this collection of scenarios to anyone who plays horror RPGs or anyone looking for inspiration for their own horror stories.

Actual play episodes of three of the No Security scenarios, as run by the author:
The Wives of March, Part One and Part Two
Bryson Springs
Revelations