# RPG a Day 2023 - Day 28: Scariest Game You've Played? tags: #thoughts/RPGaDay/2023 ![[RPGaDay2023.png]] This is probably going to come across as very strange, but it was a convention game I ran of **[[Bliss Stage]]**. Not because of the inherent horror elements. While there are a significant number of horror elements in BS, they provided the general mood of ominous oppression – which led to the real horror. Characters with real emotional vulnerability. ![[Pasted image 20230827014011.png|300]] This wouldn't be nearly as terrifying if intimacy wasn't part of the mechanisms that drive the mechanics of the game. Your metaphysical giant robot is literally armed with your relationships with other characters; your ability to fend off the Other World depends on your intimacy and connection with other characters. Nothing scares a bunch of game geeks like actually having to have real vulnerabilities as a character in public. In retrospect, it was probably not the best game to bust out at an anime convention… But it was also simultaneously the BEST game to bust out at an anime convention because characters with emotional vulnerability, bad and good decisions, intimacy issues in both directions, comprise the bulk of anime characters in almost every genre. But, man, were the players scared to play for most of the game.