Horror TTRPGs focused on feelings/relationships?

Hey GamersPlaners,

The more systems/games I play, the better it feels like I understand what I most enjoy when I'm playing.

One part of me is drawn to games where PC feelings, relationships, and trust are mechanised - as in, for example, Thirsty Sword Lesbians, Starscape, Masks, or Girl by Moonlight - so that the game is all about the FEELS and the DRAMA.

Another part loves horror - things like Alien RPG, Fate of Cthulu, or Starhold – I wanna be SCARED and feel DOOMED.

But I've yet to find a game that merges those two things I enjoy. I've looked at pushing setting-agnostic games like TSL or Girl by Moonlight that have the feels in them, into horror - but those games aren't really built to play the kind of horror I'm looking for - Clive Barkery, Stephen Kingy, Alieny scarieness.

So I was wondering - have any of you come across any games that you feel bring those two things together effectively?

closest I can think of is Curse of the house of rookwood which is a game that promotes PC conflict in a gothic horror setting. They don't really have any pre-made adventures though. Maybe not enough feels, but I guess there's plenty opportunity for rules driven drama. The horror is in the background so you can drop an alien queen here and there easily. Not totally rules light, but simple enough to quickly learn it

though I guess it will be mostly down to the players to get the drama and feels regardless of the system

Monsterhearts comes to mind. High school angst where PCs are all monsters. It takes itself seriously, and each character is largely built around a key flaw built into that monster.

I once listened to the One Shot Podcast play Sleepaway. I think that might fit the description.
The tag line is "A game of horror, dreams and summer camp". So it's about teenagers/young adults and their relationships but at the same time spooky things happen at their summer camp. I believe it's also a GMless game

Thanks all three of you! Each of those looks like it could scratch the itch I seem to have here....! Will look into them in more detail and hey hopefully get a chance to offer one of them (or something similar) here on GP sometime...

Kult is another game that has relationships between characters built in. I'm not sure if it fits as I haven't played much of it. Definitely fits the horror theme.

Oooooooh I've been curious about Kult... I'd only really looked at the setting which I both loved while also there's stuff in there that I will never be in any game I ever play in... I'm going to go and check out the moves now!

Kult is great for horror as is Liminal. I don't remember if relationships are built into Liminal though.

Burning Wheel is the pinnacle of mechanized player relationships and trust and "soft" characteristics like feelings to me. It is designed to create absolutely beautiful and painful, but ideally not game ending, drama between players.

And I think that game could do a decent job at the horror genre as well.

One of the premade "campaigns" (it's really more of a one shot) for it (Twilight in the Dutchy Verdorben) is supposed to have horror-ish themes infact. I didn't find it to be too well done, myself, however and had to change and embellish it quite a bit to make it really work.

I've also played in a campaign using it that was very Bram Stoker's Dracula-like.

It's a pretty brutal system, damage>health>healing-wise, so there's fragility to the characters.

And it's just really good at using character relationships and goals at creating tension when it all revolves around a greater central tension.

That all sounds rather like horror to me.

I've run a few games of Kult now and it definitely fits the bill. More so for campaigns I feel. Delta Green also has a Bonds system that is very similar.

Don't disagree, but DG has a *very* different feel, mechanically, than every game BeardHare lists. It's a very straight-laced trad game vs. Kult, Masks, TSL, Fate, etc. There aren't mechanics to support social interactions and relationships beyond the bonds, for example.

Maybe Quietus might be of interest. That’s what came to mind, but don’t know why!

Most of The Gauntlet games incentivize both backstory development and interpersonal scenes amongst PCs while focusing primarily on horror. The Between and Public Access are scarier versions of this, while Brindlewood Bay is more whimsical. The mechanization of interpersonal stuff is fairly minimal (it clears status conditions or heals you), but it's incentivized in ways it isn't in most systems.