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Supernatural Role Playing Game
The truth hurts and there's no use sugarcoating it. Ghosts are real. Demons, too, along with those bumps in the night and maybe even the monster under your bed. The world's a scary place. If you're lucky the nasties that creep around in the dark won't get hold of you. 'Cept maybe you aren't lucky. Maybe you've already lost something - or somebody - to the darkness. All the booze and therapy in the world can't put your life back the way it was. And evil has a way of finding you again once it's had a taste of blood. So you decide to fight back! In the Supernatural Role Playing Game you and your friends play hunters from the world of the hit CW television series. Play characters from the show or use the Cortex System rules to create your own hunter. You'll also find gory details on ghosts, demons, and other nasties for the Game Master to throw your way. All you need to start the hunt is this book, some friends, some dice, and some time to kill...
184 pages, Hardcover
First published February 20, 2008
2 people are currently reading
148 people want to read
About the author
Jamie Chambers
31 books57 followersJamie Chambers was born in Atlanta and grew up running around barefoot in the pine forests and kudzu fields of north Georgia. The son of a Trekkie and an early D&D player, Jamie was doomed early to a life of geeky pursuits. He began playing role playing games at the age of seven and writing his own fiction at eight.
He spent his youth reading fantasy and science fiction, reading comic books, watching cartoons, and playing any game he could get his hands on -- video games, board games, card games, and especially role playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons. Eventually he became an online volunteer for TSR, Inc. while the Internet was in its infancy and became involved with the RPGA (Role Playing Game Association) as a club president and convention coordinator.
After a lifetime of creating (and playing) games and writing (and reading) stories, Jamie has launched Signal Fire Studios LLC, creating game and entertainment products. He's had stories, game products, and articles published by many companies and is pursuing creative writing projects for publication. Jamie served as Vice President on the board of directors for GAMA (Game Manufacturers Association), the trade organization for the hobby games industry for more than eight years.
After nearly a decade in Wisconsin, Jamie has returned to north Georgia.
He spent his youth reading fantasy and science fiction, reading comic books, watching cartoons, and playing any game he could get his hands on -- video games, board games, card games, and especially role playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons. Eventually he became an online volunteer for TSR, Inc. while the Internet was in its infancy and became involved with the RPGA (Role Playing Game Association) as a club president and convention coordinator.
After a lifetime of creating (and playing) games and writing (and reading) stories, Jamie has launched Signal Fire Studios LLC, creating game and entertainment products. He's had stories, game products, and articles published by many companies and is pursuing creative writing projects for publication. Jamie served as Vice President on the board of directors for GAMA (Game Manufacturers Association), the trade organization for the hobby games industry for more than eight years.
After nearly a decade in Wisconsin, Jamie has returned to north Georgia.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
March 25, 2017
An interesting role-playing game, but the mechanics of play are very hard to get into. It really doesn't surprise me that it went out of print.
October 2, 2014
Supernatural is a role playing game based on the monster-hunting world of the television series by the same name. It is clearly targeted for and marketed at people who like the show, which follows a pair of hunters, Sam and Dean Winchester, as they travel around the country fighting with vampires, demons, zombies, ghosts and more.
Things I liked:
Supernatural more than adequately captures the show's sense of adventure and danger. It is well-written, clear, and easy to understand, and is organized in an intelligent, structured fashion. Hooray for the glossary, index, and little paragraphs at the end of each chapter telling you what the next step is. This would be a great starter RPG for folks new to the concept.
I'm not deeply versed in the Cortex System, but the rules seem relatively well thought-out and balanced. They are also clearly aimed at cinematic role playing -- that is, rules that try to evoke the feeling that you're in a movie or television show. I applaud this; I'm a little tired of games that requires graphs, charts and calculators to resolve combat.
The system for encouraging player creativity with Plot Points is also well done, with built-in controls to prevent hoarding and encourage participation. I also like the use of different dice to allow greater and greater chance for success while still keeping your luck with the dice important. (Frankly, seeing a system that uses more than just d20s pleases my little dice-hoarding gamer heart.)
In many ways, Supernatural feels like Hunter: The Vigil if the World of Darkness had a little more hope in it, more of a scary adventure game with monsters than a game of true supernatural horror. And you know what? That's okay. Sometimes I don't always want my RPGs to be full of doom, existential ennui and soul-crushing despair. This setting seems fun, and that appeals to me. It also seems easy enough to ramp up the action and drama to actual horror if that's more your cup of tea.
Things I didn't like:
* I didn't like the cozy way it talked to everyone as if they were True Fans of the show. If I wasn't familiar with the Supernatural TV series, it might well have felt a little alienating. As a fan of the show, it felt a little condescending. However, it was probably written with younger readers in mind, and as such, this is a relatively minor quibble.
* I actively hated the art director's decision to include still shots from the series. It ends up looking more like Teen Beat than an RPG, and threatens to evoke the feeling that you are expected to just pretend to be the show's main characters rather than playing out your hunters in that world. Which is a shame, because it's not true; the book gives you lots of options for making unique individual concepts. Ultimately, the photos are distracting and annoying; inked illustrations of the same scenes would have been much more effective.
(I found the photos so annoying I contemplated buying a PDF version of the book so that I could use Acrobat to manually remove them. Please, publishers, if you go for a second edition, get an artist to recreate the scenes. It will make this book's appeal broaden significantly. Mind you, the photos are still 100 times better than Cyberpunk 2020's disastrous choice of doll illustrations, but that's not saying a whole lot.)
* I didn't like some of the grammatical mistakes I found, some of which were intentional but others of which probably weren't. The tone of the writing clearly was meant to emulate the loose, informal tone of one of the show's two main characters, Dean. Ultimately, however, I found myself wishing they'd chosen the slightly better spoken tone of the other main character. Still, this is a relatively minor complaint.
Things I would like more of:
* Actual monster stats that aren't based on the TV show's monsters. The most likely audience for this game is people who have already watched the whole TV show. Given that, I'd like to see things to spring on them that they haven't encountered before. However, there's a supplement out now about monsters, so I expect that's where I'll find these.
Things I liked:
Supernatural more than adequately captures the show's sense of adventure and danger. It is well-written, clear, and easy to understand, and is organized in an intelligent, structured fashion. Hooray for the glossary, index, and little paragraphs at the end of each chapter telling you what the next step is. This would be a great starter RPG for folks new to the concept.
I'm not deeply versed in the Cortex System, but the rules seem relatively well thought-out and balanced. They are also clearly aimed at cinematic role playing -- that is, rules that try to evoke the feeling that you're in a movie or television show. I applaud this; I'm a little tired of games that requires graphs, charts and calculators to resolve combat.
The system for encouraging player creativity with Plot Points is also well done, with built-in controls to prevent hoarding and encourage participation. I also like the use of different dice to allow greater and greater chance for success while still keeping your luck with the dice important. (Frankly, seeing a system that uses more than just d20s pleases my little dice-hoarding gamer heart.)
In many ways, Supernatural feels like Hunter: The Vigil if the World of Darkness had a little more hope in it, more of a scary adventure game with monsters than a game of true supernatural horror. And you know what? That's okay. Sometimes I don't always want my RPGs to be full of doom, existential ennui and soul-crushing despair. This setting seems fun, and that appeals to me. It also seems easy enough to ramp up the action and drama to actual horror if that's more your cup of tea.
Things I didn't like:
* I didn't like the cozy way it talked to everyone as if they were True Fans of the show. If I wasn't familiar with the Supernatural TV series, it might well have felt a little alienating. As a fan of the show, it felt a little condescending. However, it was probably written with younger readers in mind, and as such, this is a relatively minor quibble.
* I actively hated the art director's decision to include still shots from the series. It ends up looking more like Teen Beat than an RPG, and threatens to evoke the feeling that you are expected to just pretend to be the show's main characters rather than playing out your hunters in that world. Which is a shame, because it's not true; the book gives you lots of options for making unique individual concepts. Ultimately, the photos are distracting and annoying; inked illustrations of the same scenes would have been much more effective.
(I found the photos so annoying I contemplated buying a PDF version of the book so that I could use Acrobat to manually remove them. Please, publishers, if you go for a second edition, get an artist to recreate the scenes. It will make this book's appeal broaden significantly. Mind you, the photos are still 100 times better than Cyberpunk 2020's disastrous choice of doll illustrations, but that's not saying a whole lot.)
* I didn't like some of the grammatical mistakes I found, some of which were intentional but others of which probably weren't. The tone of the writing clearly was meant to emulate the loose, informal tone of one of the show's two main characters, Dean. Ultimately, however, I found myself wishing they'd chosen the slightly better spoken tone of the other main character. Still, this is a relatively minor complaint.
Things I would like more of:
* Actual monster stats that aren't based on the TV show's monsters. The most likely audience for this game is people who have already watched the whole TV show. Given that, I'd like to see things to spring on them that they haven't encountered before. However, there's a supplement out now about monsters, so I expect that's where I'll find these.
March 15, 2013
Now this is how an role playing game based on an intellectual property should be done! Chambers and crew follow the theme and overall feeling of this series and gives it that much of an oomph!
Kudos to MWP for an outstanding Rpg!
Kudos to MWP for an outstanding Rpg!
Want to read
November 3, 2008Really looking forward to this.
October 26, 2019
I've worked with a few rule-sets for Horror RPGs and this is one of my favourites, clear and concise the book is well put together. The style of the writing is eh but altogether its a great game with a great rule-set for Supernatural.
March 31, 2019
I love the freedom and customization of this game. Running it now. Everyone loves it.
January 6, 2013
This is a really well written book that follows the theme of the show.
I wish there were more books in the series.
This is my first play with the cortex rules system, I like it but a little more examples of game play would be good.
It you like the show you will like this game.
I try to run the game session like a show, find the monster, research how to fight it, kill the monster.
We should be able to do this in one night, sometime we run a little late.
Thanks for reading.
John
I wish there were more books in the series.
This is my first play with the cortex rules system, I like it but a little more examples of game play would be good.
It you like the show you will like this game.
I try to run the game session like a show, find the monster, research how to fight it, kill the monster.
We should be able to do this in one night, sometime we run a little late.
Thanks for reading.
John
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews