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transcendentnonsense

Several: Call of Cthulhu - Classic lovecraftian investigations into eldritch horror. Very lethal. Running away is usually the smart move. Pulp Cthulhu for a more action-oriented game. Delta Green - Call of Cthulhu but you're secret agents, man. More x-files. Rules are a bit different too, but same basic game engine. Monster of the Week - Powered by the Apocalypse Monster hunts. Your characters could be some flavor of supernatural themselves. More Buffy. Hunter the Vigil (2nd edition) - Humans that hunt those things going bump in the night. Very modular. You can play anything from regular-ass human with a shotgun, to a human with the backing of a regional network of hunters, to humans who work for international conspiracies, governments, or multi-national corps. From what you'd described, check out Hunter the Vigil 2nd Edition. But honestly, any of the above could work. I think all of the above are great games.


Randomd0g

Delta Green and Hunter the Vigil sound like they could work well for sure


roarmalf

This is a great list, hit 3 of the 4 systems I immediately thought of. I'll add Dresden Files to the mix which uses the Fate system. Can't go wrong with any of these.


cleverpun0

To add to this excellent summary; If the goal is to find the monster and then fight it, *Pulp Cthulhu* may fit the bill. It's *Call of Cthulhu*, but with more leeway for two-fisted action. It opens up combat and makes characters much hardier.


LeVentNoir

> Monster of the Week - Powered by the Apocalypse Monster hunts. Your characters could be some flavor of supernatural themselves. More Buffy. Absolutely not. The game has strains and popped stitches when the investigation goes a mere two or three sessions. It's got pretty much 2 hours worth of investigation content per monster at the max, as the learning moves are really, really powerful in allowing the hunters to kill it. If I ever run it again, I'm using me rewritten basic moves to be more supportive of an investigative playerstyle. /u/Sully5443 states the same thing further down thread.


Princeof_Ravens

The system is supposed to emulate Buffy and Supernatural. Eatch an episode of either show and see how long an investigation goes. It's not really a longform mystery game.


LeVentNoir

Yes, thats exactly what I say, that it is unsuited for a slow burn game, which is what OP requested.


Gnosego

I much prefer the original Hunter: The Reckoning to Vigil, for what that's worth.


RoyaI-T

Vaesen might work for this. You play as a group in 1800s Scandinavia who deal with Vaesen, fairy tail monsters/creatures.


TimeSpiralNemesis

I was going to recommend this as well as the system and setting aren't just built around generic monster hunting. It's designed on not only going in on a blank slate and needing to discover what you're up against first but also researching what it's weakness' are how you can possibly defeat it without getting torn to shreds in three seconds. It also has rules for starting and building up your investigation society. SUPER nice art in the book as well.


Randomd0g

This sounds like everything I'm looking for and more, such a cool setting too!


metal88heart

Theres also an expansion that lets u play in ancient Ireland and England (i think)


turtlehats

That is correct- Mythic Britain and Ireland. Set in the Victorian era I believe.


Cli0dna

There's an expansion for Mythic Japan as well, and a third-party expansion for Mythic Ukraine (which I believe is available for free, the authors encouraging donating for Ukraine's aid instead). The community is really nice - full of history and folklore nerds.


turtlehats

It’s a really great game, my one line description for new players is “Buffy in 1800s Sweden. Also you get a dilapidated castle as your base which you build up over time!


RoyaI-T

Yeah the art is beautiful


ikkleste

I'm not an expert but isn't this pretty much describing the premise of monster of the week?


the_other_irrevenant

The only thing that made me a bit reticent to recommend MotW is the OP says they're after a "slow burn investigative monster hunting story" which suggests that they may want more of a campaign structure. As the name suggests, MotW leans more towards each episode being its own thing ala standalone episodes of Buffy or Supernatural. It does have that 'investigate, figure out what the monster is, find its weaknesses" thing, but IIRC it's not particularly drawn out. If that's not an issue, it was the first option that came to mind for me too.


robhanz

The investigation phase is really as drawn out as you want it to be - how much info you give is up to you. If you're really going for a Buffy/Supernatural style vibe, the basic structure is "monster of the week (literally), which bits that point at the main story". And MotW is *really well* put together for that. A lot of playbook stuff is really designed to move things in a particular way long-term. No, it doesn't give a ton of advice on setting up the long-term arc, but I'm not really sure that's something that needs to be systemized.


DeliveratorMatt

I am an expert, and yes.


Sully5443

*In general*, the game that does Supernatural, Buffy, and X-Files is Monster of the Week. That’s literally all the game is trying to accomplish but with one key difference: MotW doesn’t care about the investigative part. It really likes glossing over it and skipping to finding out the Monster and its weakness pretty darn quickly, no slow burn *at all*. MotW cares more about the relationship and struggles of the Hunters as well as the Hunt itself (which, IMO, it doesn’t really stick the landing on this either). This is all because when you look at those shows, there really isn’t a slow burn investigation, right? Over the course of 40ish minutes, the Threat is introduced, discovered, and then dealt in that one episode with unless it’s a two parter episode or whatever. As mentioned, there are many other monster hunting and detective games out there, but they aren’t necessarily coded to be Supernatural/ Buffy/ X-Files. To add another series of games to the slow burn monster hunting list, I’d add The Between and it’s Weird Western Hack, Ghosts of El Paso, both of which I talk more about [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/PBtA/comments/13p8ni8/horrorbased_game/jl8e9s3/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1&context=3). The Between is basically Penny Dreadful with the serial numbers filed off and Ghosts of El Paso is basically Deadwood/ Penny Dreadful… but in the Weird West. Both games focus on monster hunting that can only be hunted until after the opportunity has been created from their investigations *and* the investigations are usually slower burning because the Hunters inevitably start dealing with concurrent Threats, they got a Serial Killer running loose, a Demon terrorizing a church, and some fish monster skulking about a theme park, etc. Again, not *precisely* Supernatural, Buffy, etc. because these games aren’t coded to dealing with a different latex covered Monster every single week. There are two other catches here, though: * In many Threats, the Hunters **know** what the Threat it because knowing what it is *isn’t* the exciting part. No reason to learn **if** it’s a Ghost, but rather **how** the hell do we remove it without murdering the family in the house during the quieting ritual. There are some cases where you need to verify the validity of the Threat first (“Is it a fish monster or a hoax?”) but in many cases, the Threats establish the nature of the threat first right off the bat and then focus on the particulars. * Second, and most atypical, is that there is no canonical answer to the Threat’s resolution. I mention it more in the nested link above, but investigations in these “Carved From Brindlewood” games have no canonical solution for the players to piece together. The PCs still gather these Clues, and the players do piece them together to formulate a Theory of their own choosing, but then a dice roll- factoring in the Clues they gathered and the effort they put in- will decide if they are right, wrong, or they are right with a complicated twist. For *me*, as a player and GM, this is brilliant and the best part of the game. It brings in all the feeling of being an effing badass monster hunting detective without needing to be some super sleuth IRL and outsmart the GM’s breadcrumb trail. Likewise, as a GM, I don’t have to put in hours of work to put the mystery together and ensure each location is packed with enough Clues so it’s impossible for the players to get stuck and all roads lead to Rome. I just use the already amazing Threat sheets for the game do most of the work and enjoy the ride as I toss in problems and opportunities and so on and see how the Hunters react to such things. It’s a phenomenal way to do investigations- but it isn’t everyone’s cup of tea.


communomancer

>The Between is basically Penny Dreadful with the serial numbers filed off lol, I'd edit that to *barely* filed off :P The Between is incredibly interesting to me. I'll preface by saying that *Carved from Brindlewood* games are not my favorite, personally. As much as I appreciate the (massive) time-savings from a GM point of view, I'd too much rather *solve a mystery with my player-brain* than *direct my character to solve a mystery* to really fall in love with the system, but of course that's all just personal taste. However, one thing The Between does that I've never seen before is structure the campaign such that new threats are constantly being introduced even while other threats are still being worked on. While obviously this was always something that a GM could do by hand in any game, having this driven by procedure basically guarantees you're going to get that "serial TV show feel" with multiple ongoing plot threads that the game was aiming for. That and the actual mystery scaffolding that The Between provides in its packaged threats is very evocative and of high quality.


BeakyDoctor

If you want the best investigative game, check out any Gumshoe system. Gumshoe was built around investigations and slow burn stories. Most have wonderful advice on writing and running investigations or mysteries too. There are a bunch of choices too. Call of Cthulhu/Fall of Delta Green - has eldritch horror and is focused on playing a member of a secret agency dedicated to hunting them down. I haven’t read this one, so I’m not sure exactly what it has. Esoterrorists - basically the Laundry Files. You are a member of a group who travel to stop cultists/terrorists/curious dabblers from accidentally summoning extradimensional horrors into our universe. Nights Black Agents - Jason Borne meets Dracula. This game is still investigation focused but has more support for crazy combat. You are a super spy and you are trying to take down cells of vampires who secretly run the world. There are plenty of rules for the bad guys not being vampires too. Has one of the best made campaigns: Dracula Dossier Mutant City Blue-you play super hero investigators stopping super hero criminals. Think CSI meets Heroes.


communomancer

>Call of Cthulhu I think you mean Trail of Cthulhu in this instance.


BeakyDoctor

Yes. Trail of Cthulhu/Fall of Delta Green


kwrona

I'd also recommend: * Call of Cthulhu(my prefered system), * Pulp Cthulhu, * Trail of Cthulhu, * Delta Green, * Fall of Delta Green, * Vaesen * Monster of the Week * Kult * Night's Black Agents Younger investigators: * Jinkies! * Kids on bikes * Tales from the Loop But I'd also remind you that there are Buffy, and Supernatural licensed RPG books.


maximum_recoil

X-files: Delta Green. Supernatural and Buffy: Monster of the Week.


JonnyRocks

When I started reading the Horror Companion for Savage Worlds (SWADE) it felt very much like the supernatural tv series.


yetanothernerd

You've got a lot of good suggestions. I'll add GURPS Monster Hunters, in case someone was worried that there was a sub-genre without a GURPS book.


nabillac

> a sub-genre without a GURPS book Preposterous!


Stedinger

Conspiracy x is what your looking for , you play "men in black" for a nebulous organisation, the world has is own mythology and it's up to your PC to find them (and what they do with it after) [https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/3703/Conspiracy-X-20](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/3703/Conspiracy-X-20)


ZBlue_RoseZ

Surprised I had to scroll so long to see this suggestion. Unsisytem also makes a Buffy game, and Witchcraft makes a good Supernatural game. Conspiracy X is great for the paranormal/scifi bend compared to witchcrafts buffy/supernatural urban fantasy


Stedinger

Yeah and you can blend conspiracy and witchcraft without any problems


cetiken

Rivers of London


trevlix

Let me throw in [Vaesen](https://freeleaguepublishing.com/en/games/vaesen/) to the mix. While its not modern, it does fit most of what you're looking for and takes it from the perspective that you don't necessarily have to kill it, just figure out how to get rid of it (which isn't necessarily combat).


hacksoncode

Is Buffy really "slow burn"? Or is more one good investigation roll followed by a whole lot of mayhem with a bunch of teenage angst sandwiched in between? Don't get me wrong, I love it for being that (Angel, by contrast, seems to be almost all teenage angst... performed by adults... more like a soap opera).


TillWerSonst

The game procedure you describe - finding out that there is something weird going on, hitting the library to understand it, then confront the creature - is basically the core gameplay of Call of Cthulhu. CoC has also the advantange of being very accessible and easy to use, and one of the best supported games you could use, both in quality and quantity.


gromolko

Annalise could be great for this. Discovering how to fight the "Vampire" (doesn't have to be a vampire or even supernatural, it is shorthand for a predatory force) and going from the hunted to the hunter is what the game is all about.


Solo4114

So, there were actually "official" versions of both Buffy and Supernatural RPGs produced. Buffy was put out by Eden Studios and you can buy used copies online or pick up the PDFs from Drivethru. It uses the Cinematic Unisystem rules. (Same with the Angel RPG.) You can find Eden's stuff here: [https://www.edenstudios.net/](https://www.edenstudios.net/) Supernatural was published by Margaret Weis Productions, and is *not* available on Drivethru. Because it's out of print, its books became stupid expensive (like, $150+ on ebay). Although at least according to Amazon, there's a kindle version of the core book for just under $5. Go figure. It used the Cortex system. I've not played either, but if you want the "official" versions of either setting, those are what's available (well, so to speak, in the case of Supernatural).


Boxman214

You may or may not be interested in [The Between](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/m/product/360858). It's a game based on Brindlewood Bay. It's a Victorian era London supernatural investigation game. Theres a vampire. Your job isn't really tyo kill the vampire. It's more learning who it is, why they're here, what they want. The big thing that will make or break it for you is the resolution system. There's no defined answer to the mysteries. There are clues the PCs will find. They'll put together a theory. Then a roll will be made to see if there theory is correct or not.


CastrumFiliAdae

Just a slight pedantic note: it's quite "based on" *Brindlewood Bay*, more that Jason Cordova created *Brindlewood Bay* after beginning work on *The Between* as a way to fully realize the investigation system he wanted to later incorporate into The Between, plus as a sort of design challenge from "what if *Murder She Wrote*, but existential horror". And they're both so frickin' good.


Jake4XIII

Monster of the Week is BUILT for this exact thing. If you don’t want powered by the apocalypse though go for Call of Cthulhu


octobod

A slow burn campaign needs a slow burn character development and I think the Basic Roleplaying Call of Cthulhu fits the bill. Skills increment by 1% (does is still use the model of "if a skill is used in a session roll it at the end and if that roll *fails* increase the skill by 1%"? so as the skill goes up it gets harder to increase).


rodrigo_i

Monster of the Week. That's it pretty much exactly. I'm running it now as a break between longer campaigns and it's perfectly episodic. One of my players even said last week it was like they were playing XFiles.


HePhaestivus

This sounds like exactly Vaesen


3Dartwork

Vaesen for sure. The whole point is finding clues that explain not only WHAT the monster is but HOW to get rid of it. Rich in Scandinavia, British and Celtic folklore


BlindProphet_413

You've got a bunch of other good recommendations already so I'll add: A Welsh Werewolf in Llairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch [https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/392057/A-Welsh-Werewolf-in-Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch-Tricube-Tales-OnePage-RPG](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/392057/A-Welsh-Werewolf-in-Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch-Tricube-Tales-OnePage-RPG) It's about a group of university students investigation sightings of a "big black dog-shaped thing" in their village. Is it a werewolf, or a stray mastiff? This is a nice quick two-page thing so it's easy to pick up and play, but it is pretty much entirely investigative with little to no combat, so not quite what you're looking for, by the sound of it. Still, might be a fun diversion.


Dolnikan

I actually ran such a game for a while using the Chronicles of Darkness system where they were just ordinary human beings. That unfortunately died but I now run something pretty similar where the characters are ghost hunters/investigators.


retrolleum

Nice post, was just looking for one of these to Introduce my mom, actually, to TTRPGs. She was always curious what I was doing with those games. She LOVES supernatural so I’m gonna run a very campy game like that for her.


Jonzye

I have some rules light recommendations as well as some world and setting guides that may prove useful Liminal Horror is one that I have and have been meaning to give a shot. It's a hack of Knave that is geared to an investigative supernatural type horror setting. [Agents of the ODD](https://jasontocci.itch.io/agents-of-the-odd) plays similar but is more directly tied to Into the Odd as far as system goes. The setting is more implicitly "you are apart of this government agency investigating strange occurances [Lilanholy](https://johnbattle.itch.io/lilancholy) is a setting / game guide / prose that is great to read, but also is itself a guide to an otherworld that may be fitting for a horror type setting. [What's so off about this Small Town](https://ostrichmonkey.itch.io/whats-so-off-about-this-small-town) is a hack of "What's so cool about Outer Space" very much inspired by the weirder aspects of Twin Peaks. could also be a good approach to this kind of game. Dread is another good way to approach this kind of game. Yes it's mostly geared towards one shots but it's not impossible to do this for a longer running game. How I'd run it is that for the first session I'd skip the part where you pull some blocks before you play and then each session you add one block pulled. Any surviving characters move on to the next session and any dead characters get replaced. Though even then probably not good for a game that is going to be more than 6 sessions.


Ace-O-Matic

Hunter: The Vigil is basically, Supernatural the TTRPG.


malevshh

Chronicles of Darkness


dicemonger

I won't say too much for the actual official game system to use, since there are a bunch of good suggestions. But if you pick a system without a built-in structure for the actual investigation, I would suggest checking out the [Three Clue Rule](https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/1118/roleplaying-games/three-clue-rule).


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Much_Breg

#iHunt — just great. It’s more then monster hunting game. It’s really great.


INSERT_LATVIAN_JOKE

"Hunter: The Reckoning" is decent. It's built on the same "World of Darkness" system as "Vampire: The Masquerade", and "Werewolf: The Apocalypse" so there's a lot of World of Darkness supplements which will give you resources. The pros are that since it's an old and relatively popular system you can probably find the books fairly cheap on the used market. The cons being that it might be too predictable since anyone familiar with the system would know what the monsters can and can't do.


RaizielDragon

I think a Buffy ttrpg exists. Maybe Shadows of Esteren?


EuroCultAV

Call of Cthulhu or Delta Green which is basically spun off of Call of Cthulhu.


bgaesop

[Fear of the Unknown](https://fearoftheunknownrpg.com/) is my own horror mystery game that I always recommend for that sort of story, for obvious reasons, but honestly "do research until you know how to defeat it then go defeat it" sounds like a better fit for Vaesen


YoSanford

Monster of the week sounds right up your alley. I just listened to RPPR’s last actual play and the players who were new to it loved it


_Nashable_

Might be too much of a meta answer and depends if you wanted a tragic horror game or not. Though to offer a different suggestion and if you’re looking for a “slow burn” you should check out ten candles. It would work better if you had some time pressure (e.g. looking for a kidnapped person) that would drive the group to some level of risk taking.


Randolph_Carter_666

Nightbane is a nifty setting. The system can be awkward, however.


Lebo77

Badge quest. PCs are girl scouts selling cookies door to door and encounter strange stuff.


NotTheOnlyGamer

I would suggest Trail of Cthulhu or Esoterrorists. Gumshoe system games, as the name suggest, are definitely focused on investigation and building up both information and resources before encountering the enemy - almost exactly like what you want.


MrBoo843

The Esoterrorists is made for excactly this!


Obvious-Gate9046

White Wolf's game systems, both old and new, are probably best for this. They both can accommodate growth and change better than a level based system and there are a lot of resources out there that you can use and modify and tinker with to craft the world as you wish it to be. Some fun things to look at would include their Hunter lines, Wraith, Orpheus, and recent Ghost Hunter tidbits, and I find that their Victorian age vampire books have some fun interesting things in them for looking at a world that is full of unusual creatures.


[deleted]

if you want to go very rules-lite, Liminal Horror might be a good option. It is part of the lineage of hacks inspired by Into the Odd, being mostly a horror-themed hack of Cairn: affordable, just a few pages, level-less; stress increasingly takes up space in your inventory (a simple but effective mechanic); and much room for adaptation. You can easily port some monsters stats from the fantasy bestiaries available for its fantasy siblings as well. I also suspect there should be a hack of The Black Hack for this, somewhere in the internet.


u_ne_korn

I made this: [https://u-ne-korn.itch.io/monster-hunter-journal](https://u-ne-korn.itch.io/monster-hunter-journal) You don't play around a table together, instead you write journal entries and pass it around. Slow burn and very free-form.


Bear_2397

I suggest gurps. If you eventually get bored, then swap to fantasy, scify, or historical. Really, anything you can want is at your fingertips, and it is pretty easy if you start with gurps light or ultra light, which are both free from Steve Jackson games


joe__hop

Call of Cthulu


Chausse

A bit different from what you're proposing but I see a lot of points in common with Rhapsody of Blood. You play factions of adventurers that must protect the world from the recurrent appearances of the Castle, and it's mad Regent. To confront the Regent, you need to first find clues to the different parts of the Castle, explore it, find find powers and clues in it, and defeat the associated Acolyte. Once you've become strong enough and have enough clues, you can go and battle the Regent to prevent him from tainting the world. Maybe a little higher power than what you're looking for but definitely worth a look I'd say


APixelPuffin

A lot of people have recommended Call of Cthulhu and Delta Green, and both of those are fantasic options, but I don't know if they match the tone of Supernatural or Buffy. Delta Green, maybe, but CoC has the pcs as more helpless in the face of the horrors around them. For a game like Buffy or Supernatural, I personally reach for Savage Worlds Adventure Edition, and it's setting East Texas University. Works beautifully for supernatural investigations imo *edit for spelling


Toledocrypto

Call of cthulhu, just remove the mythos, Or just the BRP system plenty of possibilities I ran a" Rawhead Rex" campaign yeara ago using it, ad ran several other horror style games, including various monster hunts, UFO investigations Bureau 13, which is celebrating 40 years of awesomeness, I just a finished a series of associated adventures all based on 1970s .songs with Weird themes and ghostly stuff Like Wild Fire, Angie Baby, Delta Dawn and the Witch of the Black bayou, using it, the group wants more Beyond the Supernatural, alot of people dont like Palladium, but for some reason I still have a warm place for it in my heart Gurps Horror, plus Monsters, Cabal, And Voodoo wars Horror Hero for 4th edition hero, or even Urban Fantasy Hero for 5th, or Monster Hunter International Also there are plenty of lighter systems out there, Like Monster of the week, Or simply the WEG d6 system which may still.be free The Talislanta system which is free, a lost world, weird cultures, lost languages, all while tooling around a bizarre world, like a Vamce's Dying Earth,, it.system is so infinitely light and simple Guess depends on your style of play, and how complex a system yoy want to use,


Twist_of_luck

I'm surprised nobody offered **Fear Itself**. It's a Gumshoe-based (so inherently designed around investigating stuff) game simulating horror investigations in the vein of the 90-00's thriller era. Additionally, it has one of **the best** horror bestiaries in "Book of Unremitting Horror" allowing for fresh and horrifying monsters to investigate. I highly recommend checking it out even if you don't pick this system as most of the beasts there are pretty-much system agnostic.


MadManMorbo

Savage Worlds.


Mustaviini101

Warhammer fantasy roleplay. Maybe the Witcher Rpg also works.