Black Gloves and a Massive Pair of Scissors: A Couple of Tables for Giallo and PSX/PS2-style Survival Horror Characters

 I started playing Remothered earlier tonight and it got me thinking about translating giallo and old school survival horror (especially stuff in the vein of Clock Tower, Haunting Ground, etc. - the slasher-type games) into an OSR context. I'm generally envisioning this in a kinda Haunting Ground-esque scenario, where the PCs have been drugged and abducted and are trapped in a location where they're being hunted by a killer who can easily overpower them, without any real knowledge of how they got there. That bit being unraveled in the course of play, of course. Maybe even amnesiac PCs who only remember fragments of their life prior to their abduction. That sort of general feel. The setting is anywhere between the 70s and the present day.

I threw together a couple of tables for character generation, just some basic stuff to flesh out character concepts and the like. 

Iconic Clothing

Characters in this style typically have a distinctive piece of clothing. Fiona Belli's microskirt in Haunting Ground. Heather Mason's orange turtleneck and white vest in Silent Hill 3. Susie Banyon's nightgown in Suspiria, etc, etc. Each player should roll on this table once to generate a bit of distinctive style for your PC. You've got other clothes, of course, and the rest is up to you, but this is your 'thing'.

Also, you'll probably notice pretty quick that the results here are very much skewed towards women's fashion. Giallo generally focuses on women and girls, but if you want to play a male character (since, like, they do exist in giallo from time to time), either adapt the results or play a crossdresser. 

Anyway.

d50 Pieces of Iconic Clothing

1: Long Skirt

2: Very Short Skirt

3: Baseball Cap

4: Denim Vest

5: Leather Jacket (+2 AC)

6: Hoodie

7: Sunglasses

8: Sweater

9: Leather Pants (+1 AC)

10: Leather Vest (+1 AC)

11: Big Fucking Boots

12: Sandals

13: Heels

14: Converse/Vans

15: Windbreaker

16: Shorts

17: Really Short Shorts

18: Jeans

19: Sundress

20: Silk Scarf

21: Thick Glasses

22: Band Tee

23: Puffy Vest

24: Button-down Shirt

25: Fingerless Gloves

26: Lace Shirt

27: Tube Top

28: Fiona Belli Shirt (The whole complicated kinda poet-y/wizard-y looking top that's got almost corset-y looking lacing in the front or back)

29: Corset

30: Work Boots

31: White Tee

32: Cardigan

33: Shawl

34: Sunhat

35: Widow Hat

36: Pajama Pants

37: Sports Jersey

38: Cowboy Boots

39: Cut-Off Jeans

40: Capris

41: Flats

42: Beanie

43: Lots of Necklaces

44: BDSM Collar

45: Extremely Lowcut Top

46: Dress with a Slit

47: Barefoot

48: Fishnets

49: Cargo Pants

50: Wool Socks

What's In My Pockets?

Running with the amnesia theme - or at least a situation where you've lost time and don't know how you've ended up in the situation you're in - PCs will have stuff on them that they don't necessarily remember having on them. Once a while, this will be something immediately and apparently useful. Sometimes this'll be something that gives some clues to what they were doing when they were abducted. More often, this'll be useless crap that PCs being PCs, they might be able to turn into something useful with a lot of work. 

Roll twice on this table for the contents of a PC's pockets. I'd generally recommend rolling when the PCs check their pockets for the first time in play, but if you want to do it earlier, feel free. I really wouldn't recommend doing it afterwards, because that just makes no fucking sense.

Anyway. 

d50 Objects in Your Pockets

1: Wallet

2: House Key

3: Receipt

4: Pocket Knife (d3 damage)

5: Pepper Spray (Target saves vs. Poison or is incapacitated for 2d6 rounds, coughing, trying to clean out their eyes)

6: Scrunchie

7: Paper Clip

8: Pack of Gum

9: ID

10: Journal

11: Book (Roll 1d6. 1-4: Fiction, 5-6: Nonfiction)

12: Chapstick

13:Flash Drive

14: Cellphone (Broken)

15: Watch

16: Pen

17: Ring of Keys

18: Card Key

19: Gameboy

20: Highlighter

21: Handful of Bobby Pins

22: Walkman

23: Credit Card

24: Coins

25: Hair Ribbon

26: Bag of Marbles

27: Gaming Dice

28: Bottle of Lotion

29: Bracelet

30: Wedding Ring

31: Garage Door Opener

32: Reading Glasses

33: Die-Cast Airplane

34: Wad of Paper

35: Matches

36: Pack of Cigarettes

37: Lighter

38: Bag of Weed

39: Prescription Pills

40: Duct Tape

41: Microtool

42: Keychain

43: Vibrator

44: Condoms

45: Pencil

46: Paystub

47: Phone Charger

48: Cellphone (Dead)

49: Makeup Bag

50: Pencil Sharpener

More to come as I work out in my head how to translate the whole Giallo/Clock Tower thing into mechanics for PCs and the like. These types of characters are very very much not trained combatants, so the pre-existing B/X-type classes don't really work, you know?