2023 ENNIE Awards– ‘VHS: Very Horror Stories’ Nominated For Best Adventure

Welcome to the table,

It’s that time of year again. The 2023 ENNIEs are upon us, and I for one am delighted. For those who may not be familiar with the ENNIEs you can hop over to this link and learn a little bit about them, then jump on back and learn all about VHS: Very Horror Stories one of the titles nominated for the 2023 Best Adventure category.

Before we move forward, I have tried multiple times to access the VHS: Very Horror Stories website link that the ENNIEs supplied but every time I click through my laptop freaks out and won’t let me access it. I keep getting warnings that the site is unsafe so I will be using the link to the Kickstarter which had 469 backers who pledged €52,441 (about $58,840 in USD) to help bring the project to life.

Written by Simone ‘Aces’ Morini, VHS is a horror-themed TTRPG that leans heavily into the science fiction and horror movies of the 70s, 80s, and 90s. The pulls for these are unique in some places and in others, they pull from well-known franchises like Alien, Halloween, Hellraiser, The Thing, and more.

What is really novel about the way these adventures are presented is the VHS box sets they come in that really make them appear on the shelf like old well-worn VHS tapes and for those who have curated gaming shelves that VHS aesthetic is one hell of a selling point.

The VHS game is set up for 1 to 5 players that lean on board game elements like Arkham Horror with traditional narrative, character-driven, and roleplay elements that one would find in a normal TTRPG.

I bring up Arkham Horror because I enjoy the hell out of that game and while I have not played VHS yet this feels like it takes all the elements I like about the survival horror board game genre and kicks it into an even cooler space with the RPG elements. It’s one of those games when I can get my hands on it I will for sure try it out with my table.

If you have enjoyed the game you can vote for it at the link.

Until next time, I’m 95% sure they are not using A.I. scrapped art but I swear sometimes stuff looks so close, and I legit avoid it because I know how much work traditional creators put into their work. Seeing a computer prompt used to steal from their stuff and cobble together something with funky fingers makes me really disappointed.