The Final Girl is a Horror Movie RPG
Players: Dani, Manu, and Brenna

At the beginning of the game players setup a location, scenario, and ground rules.

Location: la Isla de Sangre. The secluded tropical island where our research was based.

Scenario: We were a group of researchers and support staff working for a large biotech corporation called Genotech. Our researchers were working on illegal genetic experiments while our staff were oblivious to the dangerous experiments taking place in the lower levels of the complex.

Ground Rules: We decided that our killers were escaped genetic experiments gone wrong. This was great because we were able to make up new beasts as the game progressed.

Each player creates four characters that anyone can choose to play within any scene.

Our 11 victims and sole survivor:
1) Joe Mactyler RIP – agile but somewhat dim janitor with a heart of gold
2) Carl RIP- the pessimistic coo who had a constant victim mentality and felt alone in life
3) Jaycen Torrence RIP - the disinterested intern who doesn’t really care about the research or the fact that it’s illegal, he’s just there for the credits and is biding his time
4) Sasha Gunnarson RIP - the quiet nurse who doesn’t like to talk about herself
5) Sophie RIP - the optimistic intern who is young, bright and excited about everything
6) Terrence RIP - the reluctant research leader; his skills and experience got him the promotion but it is never what he wanted
7) Jaquelyn James (aka J.J.) RIP - the “I’m pretty and I know it” skilled helicopter pilot
8) Ash RIP - the beefy guard who is not very bright and a former jock that missed his chance at the NFL due to an “injury”
9) Yoshiro Tagara RIP - the brilliant but arrogant researcher who is inordinately proud of his bodybuilding
10) Regan RIP - the self-important ex-military man who is impatient, lacks social aptitude, and is always looking for someone to blame
11) Miranda Alten RIP - the spastic technical wizard who is a bit frenetic and seems kind of spacey but has a very sharp mind
12) Susan Smith SURVIVOR? - a slightly deranged lab technician who loves paint ball.

Our Genetic Experiments(the killers):
An amorphous blob capable of absorbing other beings
A rat-like creature with quills who knew to go for the throat and whose mother made an appearance later in the game.
A ghastly figure capable of shifting in and out of human form
A large creature with thorny vines and roses that torn apart its victims
A bat/scorpion highbred who hunted down victims for its babies to feed on
A tentacle face sucker
A large tentacle blob capable of regenerating lost limbs

The Killer Attacks: the role of the killer rotates around the table while the other players choose characters to play (we chose most of our characters at random). The killer is the only character in the game that can kill another player and say how they were killed. The killer can attack a single character or multiple characters at once. The success of an attack is determined by the numbers the killer and victims drew from playing cards. Each attack does not conclude until the killer takes at least one victim.

The Victim Responds: The victim draws 1 card plus a card for each relationship they have with other characters. Once in battle if characters are friends they can help one another by giving cards to the other player, more than once we saw a character sacrifice themselves for the safety of their friend. If characters are nemeses they can choose to aid the monster with cards. If they are lovers they can chose either: to help the monster or their lover. If a victim has already survived an attack they gain survival points. These points can be spent on extra cards.

Game End: The game ends when there is one survivor left. At the end of our game after one last intense meeting with the killers Susan Smith was able to escape with a few scrapes, bruises, as well as a small puddle of ichor that landed on her arm. We watch her board a helicopter on her way to the mainland and safety. Just after boarding the skin on her arm begins to ripple and in our last image of Susan she wears a sinister grin.

Thoughts: I was pleasantly surprised by this game. I really do not enjoy horror films and was reluctant to play. I liked the ability to switch characters, the large amount of role playing, the playing card mechanics, the fact that none of us had any idea who was going to survive, and that my amazing companions did not choose to go into detail with gore. Thank you Dani and Manu! 

I had a good time with it! Manu had the great suggestion of having more than one "Killer." I enjoyed the card mechanic actually. It kept things suspenseful for sure! I wish we'd had a fourth player but it was still a fun, workable game with three.

I think we all did a good job of not interrupting while there was still fun things happening between the characters. It was sad to say good-bye to some of these characters! I would have been happy to see any of the final three survive. :)

It was a good afternoon around the table, an interesting story with a system I enjoyed and fun players.

Thanks to Manu for facilitating and to Brenna for her wonderful contributions!

- Dani

Great write up, Brenna! You not only described the flow of the story but also how the game rules worked, so your post will benefit those curious about the game mechanics also. You went above and beyond the call. I appreciate your willingness to try the game, too. With you and Dani contributing we had an awesomely suspenseful story, I thought!

Thank you both! I had a great time playing and really enjoyed the mechanics of the game. I've also been thinking about it a bit over the last few days. While the game is advertised as a horror movie rpg it could lend itself to other genres. It would be fun to try one where the victims are monsters, aliens, robots, etc. and the killer is the last human alive or a hero sent to save humanity. You could also go full on Dexter with this game and have a killer hunting other killers.

That's actually a very clever twist. You could have a group of humans attacking too. Maybe even a reverse dungeon crawl:

Ogruk the Orc: "I'm telling you, someone's invaded the dungeon!"

Gorbug: "That doesn't make sense. Who would want to break *into* a dungeon?"

Ogruk: "But Thog went up to the first level hours ago and no one's seen him since! Something got inside - and now it's stalking us!"

:-)

Yes. A brilliant idea, I think it'd be so much fun!