Historic (horror)
John Wick
2005
Complexity: 2
Introduction
Schauermärchen—which apparently is German for “horror story”—is a game about children trying to not get murdered in a nightmarish landscape. That description should more-or-less tell you if this is the sort of game you may be interested in.
The most interesting thing is what a complete little package this is; combining a system, setting, and story all within a 16-page booklet. Given that this is a stand-alone entity, I’m going to be trying to avoid anything that might spoil the game for potential players. If you want to be extra safe in that aspect, avoid the Content section.
Setting: 3/3 [+]
Players find themselves as children waking up in an abandoned orphanage, on the outskirts of a town that seems to have become abandoned and dilapidated overnight. All the adults seem to have gone—taking anything of value with them—and the children are left to rummage through what’s left for food and somewhat useful items. All while being stalked by a sinister figure.
While small, the setting is definitely nice and creepy, and fleshed out in sufficient detail to set the mood and facilitate gameplay. I do have some issues, which will be discussed in the Content section.
Mechanics: 2/5
Each character has two traits: Hope and Fear, which both start at 2. Whenever players take an action it is judged as either actin out of Hope, or out of Fear. Acting out of Hope or Fear gives the player a hope point or fear point, when points reach the value of the associated trait, that trait is raised by 1 and the other lowered by one. Players roll a number of d6 equal to the relevant trait, and the GM rolls a number related to the difficulty, with successes being earned for rolls of 4–6. But here’s where it gets interesting, each success allows the player or GM to state one fact about the outcome, essentially creating a tense little back and forth about the outcome of actions. While interesting and heavily narrative-driven—which I generally like—there are some big problems here. First, the player with the lowest number of successes goes first, meaning that those with the higher roll not only get the last word, but at least two consecutive last words—also, settling ties isn’t mentioned, I recommend going the Creeks and Crawdads route and arm wrestling. Second, having one trait go down when the other goes up really seems like it would lend itself to picking one and just picking on and either avoiding actions related to the other or trying to rationalize that any action taken is motivated by the chosen trait. I’m pretty sure the idea is that the traits would go back and forth at low numbers, but I just see Fear getting higher and not wanting to act out of Hope and lose some of your Fear bonus.
Writing and Presentation: 3/5
The writing style is creepily appropriate throughout while still adequately explaining the rules—although it is never explicitly stated to use d6s, yes I know “dice” equals d6 to most people, but I’m not most people, I like rules explicitly stated. The book feels more like, well a book, than it does a standard game book, which fits the horror story theme. There’s some page breaks in places I would generally not like to see them—e.g. In the middle of a list—but if I held everyone to my ridiculous layout standards I’d be giving out way too many 1/5 scores.
Content: 1/3 [−]
All of the main areas are given good—albeit brief—descriptions along with lists of items that can be found their and any unusual occurrences that may take place. There’s also fairly good details on one of the sinister entities, stalking the town, but pretty much nothing on the other. And that ladies, and gentlemen, and variations thereupon, is where I begin to find fault. The game has some mystery elements, there’s clues to find, things to piece together, but no definite answers to any questions. Also, there’s a number of obstacles with no clear way to overcome them, and no suggestions of how it might be done. And as stated, there’s a secondary antagonist who’s barely described at all. I feel like this puts the GM in a weird position, they can verify for players that things are related, but can neither validate nor invalidate any inferences the players make from those connections. Yes, the GM can use their imagination to fill in the gaps, but they shouldn’t have to. I’ve known unimaginative GMs, it’s not a prerequisite for the position.
Summary
Schauermärchen is a nice little one or two session game. It is however such a self-contained thing that it wouldn’t have much replay value without a whole new group of players. But if you’re looking for a game to play on a moonless night in an abandoned mansion, this is probably the best thing for it.
Base Points: 5
Character Creation: N/A, Mechanics: 2/5, Presentation: 3/5
Adjustments: +0
Setting: +1, Writing: +0, Content: −1
Overall Score 50% (5/10 Points)
A creepy little game. Very creepy, very little.
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