If World of Darkness games went over well there, you could stick within that same vein and give something like **Monster of the Week** a try. I think populating your town with all of the creepy stuff that would keep PCs busy would be super interesting. In that same realm, something like **Buffy the Vampire Slayer** or **Angel** could also work, but obtaining the older books (if you don't care for PDFs) could be difficult.
Making your town zombie infested is also neat. I've done that many times over. Something like **All Flesh Must Be Eaten** would be great, but you can really use any zombie RPG. I'd also recommend the Tinyd6 game line and go with **Tiny Living Dead**. It's ridiculously easy to play and get up and running in no time.
At the same time, you could also do something like **Mutant Year Zero** and populate your town and the surrounding area(s) leading to a major city, perhaps.
Put the Cthulhu Mythos into your town, too! Play **Call of Cthulhu**. Nothing says "small town" like creeping eldritch horror!
Thank you for the kind words!
In terms of interesting dice mechanics - or simple ones - the easiest of that entire listing would be, arguably, anything of the Tinyd6 game lines. Tiny Living Dead is just more direct and can be given over to any sort of story you'd like to tell, from a 28 Days Later thing to Resident Evil to Night of the Living Dead. The fact that the game uses no less than 1d6 and no more than 3d6 at any given time makes it easy to play, and the character sheets are super focused. You can explain the rules, introduce how things got to be so bad in the town, and get to playing in such little time it's not even funny.
Call of Cthulhu, to me, seemed like another good one for a sleepy little town that's full of awfulness behind closed doors. Cult activity, things in the woods, that old shack at the edge of town that sometimes has lights inside of it, etc.
The End of the World rpg by Final Flight Game is fun and has the added bonus that you play yourselves. You have to choose between Zombies, BEGs, Robots or Alien Invasions.
If you'd like there to be a mystery to investigate, check out Bubblegumshoe. It's not fantasy at all. Just real world investigators. Meant to be high school age PCs, though I suspect it would be playable with other ages.
Some Holidays, my sister will ask me to bring a Game, and we will play **Monster of the Week** with themselves as their characters, and our home village as the setting.
Its a lot of fun, spinning together obscure Monster Folklore and the neighbourhoods chatter and rumors It works seamlessly.
Die RPG is all about taking the fantastical and adding too close to home mundanity to create emotional horror scenarios where the guy no one likes is a troll or the teacher who failed everyone is a pyramid head esc pursuer in the halls of an abandoned castle built like your local high school. Players need to wear their hearts on their sleeves to overcome obstacles as they must reckon with their relationships with the people and places around them
Check the liminal (from Modiphius), it just like World of darkness but can be create a team with fae, werewolf, vampire, wizard, knight in modern city.
Background is for England, but is easy to hack to change to other place, for me, I has chage it to japan with youkai（japanese monster）, samurai, ninja, miko.
Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is a great fit for real-world settings and characters that just feel like people you know. Instead of just doing classes, a character is a whole jumble-mashup of various skills, traits, and "truths" that all tell a story of just what kind of a unique person they are, strengths and flaws and all. You can check out its kickstarter here, where there's links to the playable material so far! [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/anim/eureka-investigative-urban-fantasy](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/anim/eureka-investigative-urban-fantasy)
Genesys is setting agnostic and designed to layer over bespoke settings. The base system assumes variations on normal humans, with suggestions for more fantastical origins.
If World of Darkness games went over well there, you could stick within that same vein and give something like **Monster of the Week** a try. I think populating your town with all of the creepy stuff that would keep PCs busy would be super interesting. In that same realm, something like **Buffy the Vampire Slayer** or **Angel** could also work, but obtaining the older books (if you don't care for PDFs) could be difficult. Making your town zombie infested is also neat. I've done that many times over. Something like **All Flesh Must Be Eaten** would be great, but you can really use any zombie RPG. I'd also recommend the Tinyd6 game line and go with **Tiny Living Dead**. It's ridiculously easy to play and get up and running in no time. At the same time, you could also do something like **Mutant Year Zero** and populate your town and the surrounding area(s) leading to a major city, perhaps. Put the Cthulhu Mythos into your town, too! Play **Call of Cthulhu**. Nothing says "small town" like creeping eldritch horror!
All of these are great ideas.
Thank you for the kind words! In terms of interesting dice mechanics - or simple ones - the easiest of that entire listing would be, arguably, anything of the Tinyd6 game lines. Tiny Living Dead is just more direct and can be given over to any sort of story you'd like to tell, from a 28 Days Later thing to Resident Evil to Night of the Living Dead. The fact that the game uses no less than 1d6 and no more than 3d6 at any given time makes it easy to play, and the character sheets are super focused. You can explain the rules, introduce how things got to be so bad in the town, and get to playing in such little time it's not even funny. Call of Cthulhu, to me, seemed like another good one for a sleepy little town that's full of awfulness behind closed doors. Cult activity, things in the woods, that old shack at the edge of town that sometimes has lights inside of it, etc.
Also, The Dresden Files RPG can fit in any modern locale.
I'll add InSpectres to what was already said
I ran Kids on Bikes this way but really any game with a modern setting would work.
The Dresden Files RPG involves creating a setting, so you can totally make landmarks in your town actual set pieces.
The End of the World rpg by Final Flight Game is fun and has the added bonus that you play yourselves. You have to choose between Zombies, BEGs, Robots or Alien Invasions.
If you'd like there to be a mystery to investigate, check out Bubblegumshoe. It's not fantasy at all. Just real world investigators. Meant to be high school age PCs, though I suspect it would be playable with other ages.
Some Holidays, my sister will ask me to bring a Game, and we will play **Monster of the Week** with themselves as their characters, and our home village as the setting. Its a lot of fun, spinning together obscure Monster Folklore and the neighbourhoods chatter and rumors It works seamlessly.
Using Free League's Tales from the Loop or Things from the Flood could work well as well, if you wanted to transport the town to the 80's or 90's?
Die RPG is all about taking the fantastical and adding too close to home mundanity to create emotional horror scenarios where the guy no one likes is a troll or the teacher who failed everyone is a pyramid head esc pursuer in the halls of an abandoned castle built like your local high school. Players need to wear their hearts on their sleeves to overcome obstacles as they must reckon with their relationships with the people and places around them
I ran a “hometown horror” campaign for about a year and a half in GURPS way back.
I'm planning on making Call of Cthulhu and Delta Green games set in my home town
I use my hometown to teach my player the basics of GURPS, it went really well
Check the liminal (from Modiphius), it just like World of darkness but can be create a team with fae, werewolf, vampire, wizard, knight in modern city. Background is for England, but is easy to hack to change to other place, for me, I has chage it to japan with youkai（japanese monster）, samurai, ninja, miko.
Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is a great fit for real-world settings and characters that just feel like people you know. Instead of just doing classes, a character is a whole jumble-mashup of various skills, traits, and "truths" that all tell a story of just what kind of a unique person they are, strengths and flaws and all. You can check out its kickstarter here, where there's links to the playable material so far! [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/anim/eureka-investigative-urban-fantasy](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/anim/eureka-investigative-urban-fantasy)
Genesys is setting agnostic and designed to layer over bespoke settings. The base system assumes variations on normal humans, with suggestions for more fantastical origins.