@MountZionRyan – Ooh, Tremors would be perfect!

@deadlytoque – Re: Geiger, holy shit, you may indeed! That looks like a really cool game. Any idea if a non-beta is coming soon?

I played a Dread game at GenCon ’07 that was one of my favorite events of the con. Fantastic little system for doing exactly what it does.

@Scott Martin – I’ve played but never run sustained horror. I too tend to favor it in one-shot format — I love being to just cut loose, and anticipate my character’s demise.

@ascentury – Never seen it — I’ll have to check it out. Thanks!

@Ameron – The Abyss is legitimately good, but I have an abiding love for DS6 and Leviathan. So much good cheese — and you’re right, perfect for this type of one-shot.

Quarantine isn’t that uncommon an RPG scenario– we were in the middle of Shadowrun’s quarantine of Chicago when a campaign had to be canceled. The scenario did a great job of conveying the “trapped, doomed” feel of being sealed in with the disease and while allowing real choices.

Geiger Counter is one of very few games I’ve encountered specifically designed for this kind of gameplay.

If you’re into alternative dice-mechanics (in this case, a Jenga set) I can also recommend Dread. Careful, though, there’s another game on the market also called Dread, and it’s TOTALLY different.

Both games take the growing tension of the survival horror genre and make it a key part of the mechanics, to ensure your group are actually feeling the mounting horror and paranoia.

Characters realize more-or-less what’s going one then have to be very creative to escape or kill the sand-worm.

I ran a Deadlands one-shot based on Tremors that went really well.

That being said, I ran an entire campaign based on Dean Koontz’s novel, “Phantoms”. Does that count?

“Session 9″ is one my favorite movies in the genre, I would think that would be extremely fun to play.