One of the things that happens being back in school is looking at things in a different light and seeing things that you learned of in the real world. Okay, maybe it just happens to me I don't know. This all starts with three instances withing the last few days all involving gaming.

The first was I get a board game called Michelangelo. Last fall I took an Art History course that covered many of the pieces used in the game. The second bit was someone on EN World using the Socrates questioning method in a thread though not a very good job of it I'd say. And the third and the one that really got this post going was talk of games that were feminist over on RPG.Net. After taking class on it I would say Blue Rose is the only one I've seen. Many games tone down gender and make it equal but at the same time making it invisible. Gender was always one of the defining characteristics so it needs to be important in the game.

But looking over my classes and the games we have out on the market few of them embrace a higher level of learning. Economics is never shown well if all all. Few games have a real sense of history and culture in them. Geology as are most of the sciences something to be ignored, made up, or just lucked into. Philosophy is one that games tend to have, at least their own philosophy. But none I've seen take up the debates of the or use the arguments of the classic philosophers.

One challenge is that most games tend to throw out what is not going to interact with the PCs. And it goes a step farther because there are players that just won't give a damn even if it does matter to the characters. Babylon 5, the TV show, was ultimately a show about two different philosophies. But it took the show four years to get there and in an RPG you'd have one player who read the book ahead of time and knows what's coming up, two that have forgotten what went on year one two and maybe even three so they don't follow the events that leads up to this, and perhaps you'll have one player that gets it. Perhaps my opinion on players is to low. Perhaps the opinion of the game publishers is too low.

There are games and products that get close. Scion has the potential to really embrace the classics and the mythologies of many different cultures but just doe not go far enough or indepth enough. Space Opera, I think, has hard sciences represented but that might be one of the reasons it never seemed to take of. D&D as produced by Wizards never got close to any of these but some of the third party books tried.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this. It is not my first post on these type of thing and certainly won't be my last. But I feel the desire for a game that does more then what I am seeing out there. Maybe I'm missing something obvious and perhaps what I think I'm looking for can never exist. But I feel like there should be something more to these game we play.

Crothian

This was first posted on Livejournal late Saturday since that is were I do my blogging even gameing related. This is an experiment to see if I should cross post blog posts about gaming here.

It needed a nice dramatic title and I think that works.

Today I ran my first 4e one shot and my first 4e game ever. I played once before and that was not that good but I learned some of the things needed to improve the game and was able to fix some of them. Others can be fixed I just didn't this time.

The first was to make it fun. One of the problems with the other 4e experiences I and some of my friends have had was the games were with strangers and people that did not help the game out. For this game everyone basically knew or knew of everyone else. They were all from my extended gaming family. This makes a huge difference in a game, any game. The other general thing I did and again this works for any game is we made it a pot luck lunch. Everyone brought some food and we had some great items to enjoy.

Everyone made characters there and it went mostly smoothy. We did have seven players and that slowed things down some and made the encounters easier then they were. But even with that many characters everyone had something to do each and every round. This is a very good sign for the game.

I used the D&D RPG Starter Set. I bought it specifically for this. We used the full rules of the game and every created characters using just the PHB. I used the starter set more for the dungeon tiles, the chits, and the simple adventure they have in there. We were not going to get through anything big and we didn't even get through the three planned encounters of the starter set.

The players commented on it being a little much with all the marking and keeping track of things. We did not use special token or anything and that would have helped them. I had no issue with it because I was keeping track of everything on a sheet of paper. The players didn't seem to have an issue with their own marks and knowing what they had done and that was really the important part. It was not as important for them to know who the other characters had marked. There was strategy in marking and communicating marks that they didn't do being most people's first real experience.

We ran a little short on time so I didn't have a chance to use the one skill challenge I had planned. A the beginning the players explored a barn first and had I been better with the system I would have come up with a Skill challenge for them there. My DM inexperience with the system was a factor like it would be in any game.

Over all I like the game. It is not better or worse then 3e, it is different. It is more focused on what it does and trying to play a game that goes against that will either end in frustration or a lot of house rules.

The aspect I like least about the game so far is the lack of skill points. I like the condensed number of skills. But I liked the flexibility of skill points and now the only way it seems to get a trained skill is with feats. Feats were always too few in 3e and in 4e making feats also cover improving skills with make it that much worse.

I haven't tried out multi classing yet but it looks like in 4e the developers gave people exactly what they wanted from 3e. In 3e it seemed most multi class was a dip, a level or two in one class but the character would remain focused on the original class. This is what 4e seems to do.

I know some people say it feels like a minis game or a computer game but I didn't see that. The players role played. It was non serous make jokes in the role playing but for a one shot with these people that is to be expected. The game though did not seem to lessen anyone ability to role play it.

I haven't been paying a lot of attention to the many many 4e hatred and love fest threads so I'm not sure what people feel are the biggest problems or best areas of the game. I'm curious as to what they are to see if they how they fared in this game.

Crothian

Desolation

The fantasy market is dominated by high fantasy. There are a few low fantasy options like Warhammer Fantasy but the genre of fantasy has always been dominated by Dungeons and Dragons. With the invention of the Open Game License and then the Oseric movement the gaming community has also been subjected to many clones of Dungeons and Dragons. It is a little refreshing then to read a game that is fresh and not a variation or a fix on the world’s most popular RPG.

Desolation is a new fantasy RPG by Greymalkin Designs. I guess I should really say it is a Post Apocalyptic Fantasy RPG. It comes in a good sized hard bound book that is over two hundred and fifty pages long. The art is pretty good and it is mostly black and white. There are color pages that are the sample characters and pictures of them. For the most part the lay out and look of the books is really good. However, there are stories through out the book that are a page or two in length that have varying fonts and text size in the story. It is a very odd choice and visually unappealing and a little hard to read at times. The eye is drawn to certain sections over others and it just does not look good. That is one of the bigger complaints I have about the book, so while annoying not too bad.

Desolation is a RPG about a fantasy world that got the kicked out of it. The event is called the Night of Fire. Yes, the night burned with firs but a lot of other bad things happened on a global scale. The game is set a short eighteen months later. The characters the players will play will have survived that event. The world is changed and the characters will have to learn how to cope with that. One of the very interesting things the game does is it explains how the world was in nice detail. While it is only a single chapter and map on the inside covers of the book it has the feel of a full campaign world. A book on just the world as it was before would be a fascinating setting filled with adventure and exploration. This is very important as it allows for a great comprehension of what has been lost and destroyed. It showcases what has happened to the great kingdoms and the civilizations that are now lost. There is great contrast between the before times and the way the world is now.

The world as it is now is a very different. One of the great choices the publishers made was to include no maps of what the world looks like. No one knows what it is like. There are stories of coast lines changing, mountains being turned in upon themselves, and even islands being moved some thousands of miles inland. The world looks different but no one has a full understanding of just how different and in what ways it has changed. This will leave a lot of open room in the setting for the GM to set up villages and alter the landscape as he sees fit. There is no official way to in what ways things have changed. There are a few small villages in the book. Each has just a few hundred people and it shows that no large population centers have survived.
The feel of the world is dark. The first story and in fact it is the first thing one will read if they start on page one is dark. It is about a small town barely surviving and what they are doing to survive. It shows at what lengths people will go to to live. There are no enforced laws or conduct. People band together for common protection but it is now an untamed world. The game is about exploration and survival. It can also be about building a place to live and raise a family. There is a lot that needs done to get the setting back to the glory of what it once was. Characters may want to try to do that. They may want to try to find lost friends and family or see what happened to the place they used to live. They may even want to find out what the hell really happened and why.

There is no official answer to that. There are a few hints and clues found around the book but those can be misleading or contradictory. The gnomes of the world knew something was going to happen. They warned people and were ignored or worse over their warnings. Bad things were going on before the Night of Fire. The elves became unwelcome in the forests. As one can tell by the races many of them will be familiar to people. But they all have a little bit of a unique twist the setting brings to them. I am not sure which is better to have races that are way to familiar with to players or to alter the names of them and just have people say that this race is just an elf under a different name. Obviously, they went with using the familiar names and changing things. Some are changed a bit others are changed a lot. Kobolds for instance are arctic dwellers and thrive in the cold.

Players will have a wide variety of options. This is a point based game so no classes or levels. There are eight playable character races. One of the nice things is that there is information on how to play the races and also how to play characters based on where they are from. The game uses the Ubiquity rules system that was first introduced to people in the game Hollow Earth Expedition. In that game of pulp adventurers the system works very well. I am a little unsure how well it will translate to the dark fantasy genre. It does add to the system with some very interesting magic rules.

Magic of Desolation is broken and untrustworthy. Many people fear magic now and blame the castors for somehow causing the Night of Fire. Most places will just kill anyone they think can do magic so even before one sees how the mechanics of magic work they can see it is a dangerous skill to possess. Magic is a trait one has to take as a starting character. Different races can only learn certain types of magic with humans having the most magical options. If a human uses both his traits to select magic he can learn from two different areas. Magic is free form. There are all sorts of guidelines and sample spells to help the players and GM determine the strength and difficulty of the spells. It will still require someone who is comfortable dealing with spells on the fly and has the trust of his players to make the system work. Each spell has a difficulty and for easy spells a caster can choose to roll less dice. The advantage to doing so is that each die of this die pool system that comes up a failure does damage to the castor. Each success over the ones needed to cast the spell can be used to refine the spell in some ways or to reduce the damage the castor takes. I like the magic system and think once people get used to it and get to a comfortable place in the learning curve it will work well. Until then it is probably the place most likely to cause frustration and slow down the game.

Desolation is a solid game with a good theme that goes through it. It is a darker fantasy setting but no one without hope or possibilities. The worst thing most people can imagine has already happened and now it is time to pick up the pieces and start to rebuild and explore the new world.

Crothian

Pirates Guide to Freeport

It is rare to see a setting get reinvented by throwing the rules out. Most settings seem to be defined by the rules and the exceptions to them they demand. And then to just release the setting with no rules attached at all is not something commonly seen in the gaming industry. Not many companies can really do this and expect success.

Pirates Guide to Freeport is the latest installation of the setting. It has come a long ways since Death in Freeport a module released at the same time as the 3e Players Handbook. The full city did not get a book till 2002 and the Pirates Guide is the twelfth book in the series not counting a few odds and ends done by other publishers. I was prepared to do the research to include a bit of the settings history in the review but lucky for me a two page Publishing History is included in the book.

Freeport is a city founded and used by pirates. It has a good history in the first chapter. The time line of Pirates Guide to Freeport assumes that the modules have already happened. There are spoilers for some of the bigger events that happened in some of the modules in the history. The history of the city is bloody and filled with conflict and intrigue. But it really shows how a pirate city survives and manages to not get destroyed by the many external and internal forces that want it.

The book is mostly black and white. The second chapter though is done in color. In it some of the cover pictures from other books are included and it is nice to see them here. There is plenty of original art work in the book. The mix of color and black and white looks good here. Freeport is not a city of vibrant colors so contrast between the sections is not as apparent as other books I have seen this in. The lay out and cartography are of a similar high standard Green Ronin has had in many of their products. The color map on the inside covers would make a great poster map. Hopefully, one will eventually be released.

The feel of the setting is a good mix of dirty and gritty Pirates with a bit of horror here and there. The city is a functioning city with honest people and businesses. The underlying villainy of it all though is not even attempted to be hidden. The place is a free haven for pirates and criminals. They try to follow the pirate’s code in the city. That is none of the different factions attack each other. There is a Captain’s Council and Sea Lord that serve as the heads of the city. But the city watch is there to protect the city a little more then its citizens. They are not always going to take an interest in every little or kind of big crime that goes on. It is one of the reasons even before Green Ronin got the license that Freeport reminded me of Sanctuary.

The city does have one item though that I think pulls it out of the grim and gritty feeling it does a great job of projecting. It is mentioned on a sidebar and it is easy to ignore. The city is protected by magical siege cannons. It explains how they got them and that is a big mystery of its own. They were recovered from some inner planar ship is what is thought. It takes the souls of three people to fire the things and that is not commonly known. A single shot from one cannon can destroy a full sized ship. It is one element but the piece in the book I found to be the least fitting for the setting.

The city is divided into different districts and each one gets its own chapter. A few key places are defined in each district and some of the chapters have very nicely written up ghost stories for them. Each chapter is well written and easy to locate things in. A great care has been giving to make each section feel unique and really makes each district feel like its own smaller city within the Freeport.

There is a chapter on the Denizens of Freeport. It is a place to find the key NPCs of the city. I love this chapter. It is great to see a chapter of people and not have to read through stat blocks. It does not matter what the game is having no stat blocks is just nice. Each NPC has a well done background, appearance, personality, secrets and goals, and adventure hooks for them. It is a place filled with ideas and when looking for a simple adventure idea there are many to choose from here.

Freeport is mostly designed to be placed into an existing fantasy setting. There is information on how to do that. There is also some basic information for its own fantasy setting if one does not already have one in mind. A near by continent is mapped out and the countries are described in short yet informative section.

Freeport is known as the City of Adventure and this book really shows why that is. The book is not just useful for the City of Freeport though. Anyone running an urban fantasy game can find some good ideas for characters and places in this book. It is very easy to use this book piecemeal like that taking only the best from each section one likes. With a little work it will work in other genres as well.

Freeport has been one of the most popular new settings since it came out. This book opens the setting up for people that were not fans of the D&D game. I really like how they did this book without stats or rules. It is easier to read without the interference of rules.

Crothian

Og Unearthed Edition

I have never had a chance to read or play the original edition. But I had a friend who always talked about and who told me to look out for it at conventions. When I saw that there was a new version of the game last Gen Con I had to pick it up and I was very glad that I did. Og is the rare game that is so simple to be near brilliant. I have had a lot of fun playing and running one shots with it though I am not completely sold on it for a continuous campaign. Og though is the funniest game I have read and played in the past few years.

This is a new version of Og put out by Firefly Games. It is written by Robin Laws who did a great job of capturing the comical nature of cavemen. The book is small in both size and length. It is less then fifty pages long and is printed in soft bound a little bigger then most novels, I wonder if they looked into getting it printed on stone tablets?

Og is a simple game with a simple premise. The players play cavemen and deal with things like dinosaurs, other cavemen, weather issues, geography, and all the lovely things that made life suck in the stone age; both the real and imagined one. It is not a realistic game nor is it meant to be. It is a bit silly at times and has a great sense of comedy about it. I think it makes for a better one shot then a long campaign. It supports a longer game then a one shot and I impressed it does that. They have some good ideas for it but I am not sure it is enough.

The game play uses a d6. There are no attributes and the game is more randomly generated and has no point buy options. But it is very simple so there are not issues with min maxing that I have seen. There are seven character classes and each is very basic. Strong deals more damage while Banging is better at attacking. There is Eloquent that knows more words and Learned that know more skills. There is also Fast (harder to be hit), Tough (more hit points), and Grunting. Grunting is the closest this game gets to spell casting. The Grunting character tries to make things happen by grunting and gesticulating wildly. Maybe something will happen, but more then likely nothing will. But it is fun to watch the players try.

There are twenty skills in the game. Instead of picking the few skills one knows during character creation players are allowed to pick skills during the adventure. But one only ever will know three skills and once one is picked the character is stuck with it. The Learned character knows six skills. All characters automatically know how to run away. Some classes are better at certain skills then others. The Fast class is a bit better at Running away, the Tough class is better at Resistance. A skill can be used if one has it or not. Having the skill increases the odds of being successful with it.

The brilliant part of the game and the hardest part I have found is that the game limits the words players are allowed to use. There are eighteen words that are possible. But characters only know a d6+2 words. Eloquent either know d6+4 or two more then the character that knows the most; which ever number is higher. It can be tough to do. When I have ran and played the game communication was tough. Some players will really get into the character this way and enjoy the hand motions that go along with communicating knowing just five words. Other players I have noticed do not do well and really do not want to try to keep to only a few words. The only other way of communicating is with the draw skill. Players are encouraged to use a stick and a sand pit to draw it if they have the skill. I have yet to game any place with a sand pit so we have used the other option. Characters that have the draw skill have their players draw with their off hand and holding the writing instrument crudely clasped.

The game can get a little stale with the few options and few words characters have. After each session or adventure or when ever the GM feels like it I guess the player characters can discover a new word. This can be one of the eighteen or something completely new. Words are better then currency in OG especially since there is no currency in the game. What word is learned is best left up to the players to decide what one word really showcases the adventure or session they have just had. Our first word was hive as in the thing my Banging Caveman hit with a stick. It was a painful lesson that he was not able to learn from.

The other option is to add in things to do in combat. Thumping on ones chest can hopefully draw the saber tooth tiger to eat you instead of the injured member of your tribe. Characters can disarm, lure, distract, grab, and other things as well. The rules are simple and add a few important options to keep the game from being too repetitive. Character can die in the game and there is no coming back from death in this game. However, character creation is so fast that five minutes later or sooner the player should be able to introduce a new character. It is not important what the new character was doing before or how he or she got there. Such considerations are really not the types of things this game cares about.

Og is a simple and funny game. I know I have failed to showcase the funny but I am not sure how to with out just quoting the text and that is not exciting. It is a simple game and a cheap game. I like that combination. It took only a few minutes to explain things to the players and the rules really help players get into character much better then most other RPG rules. I really like the game for one shots but for prolonged games it just has not been what we look for in a game. This is a great game and very funny and one that I carry around at cons as it makes a fun and easy pick up game.

Crothian

Idylls of the Rat King

It has been several years since the Dungeon Crawl Classic series of modules first came out. I do not know the story that brought this successful line of modules us but I am sure it would be interesting. This is the first in that line. The module has sat on my shelf for years and finally I was able to get to use it in a campaign. If I use a book, I try to review it. The review will contain spoilers so beware.

Idylls of the Rat King is the first in the long line of Dungeon Crawl Classics. There are now over fifty modules in the line and it will soon be branching out to a new edition. This is the first one and a classic in my mind. It is written by Jeffrey Quinn. The module received an Honorable Mention for Best Adventure in the 2003 Gen Con Awards. It is for levels one through three and is written under the OGL for Third Edition D&D.

The adventure takes place inside a silver mine near the large thorp of Silverton. There is a small appendix in the back that details some of the Silverton Area. I like that the place has a militia of three people. The focus of the module though is of course the silver mine and its many levels. The maps for the most part do not look like a collection of mines. Level three almost has the look but for the most part it has the look of any old dungeon. That is one of my few issues with the module. The art is fairly average and the best in my eyes is the almost cute looking zombie badger on page twenty one.

The story of the mines starts over a hundred years ago and the cursing of the mine owner Jasper Gannu. He gets strung up by the town’s folk and his wife and son are driven away with the curse that makes them were rats. That son has a son and now we are in business. He is Laurence and he is seeking to get revenge on the town that cursed his family. He pairs up with necromancer because that is always a good idea and they hide out in the old abandoned mine with their goblin minions. That is hopefully where the player characters come into the picture.

There are lots rooms and things to fight in this complex of mines. There is only one entrance and no other exits so not a lot of choices on where to go. The goblins are in good numbers and backed up by dire rats. With the rats and the wererats in the module characters will have wished they took the Great Fortitude feat. Once the group is in hopefully they will find some of the secret rooms. These are very important for they have a couple magical silver weapons to be found and more importantly they hint at what the heck happened one years ago with the curse and the even greater evil that is trapped somewhere in these mines. My players were able to find all the secrets areas and all the hints. It helped that we have two elf rogues in the party that are keen at spotting secret doors. They were never quite sure what the great evil was they were going to find. They also were not sure they really wanted to find it.

The first two levels are pretty much alike. There are plenty of goblins and rats to kill. There are a few other things but the module does not have odd monsters thrown in just for the heck of it. It means the players might get a little tired of facing the same things but there is never that thought of why do the goblins live peacefully next to this other monster that should eat them. The third level the group will be very happy to have a cleric with good turning skills. It is wall to wall undead with a necromancer on top. It is also the smallest of the levels. By the fourth level the player characters should have silver weapons and with luck magical silver weapons. This level is invested with were rats and a few failed fort saves can really alter the nature of the campaign. One of my players failed his fort save and when they went back to Silverton I had the local priest be able to cure him but only with a promise they would rid the mine of that ancient evil. They did try to, they just were not successful. The evil is a vampire and at first I had them talk to her. They were not sure what she was and she was trying to get information out of them and just fight them. She also hid the fact that she was a vampire from them. They gave her food and holy water to drink and that made things a lot clearer for them. They fought it but only had one weapon that could really hurt her so she pretended to get slain by going gaseous form.

Idylls of the Rat King is a good solid low level dungeon crawl. As the first in the Dungeon Crawl Classics I am pleased to say that it is as good or better then many of the fifty plus that have followed it. It is written for third edition D&D but many of the encounter areas can be brought together to form the larger areas that the fourth edition game favors. It will take a little bit of work on the DM’s part but this module should be able to be played in other editions of the game., Just watch out for the stats on the Vampire, they might be a little tough in other editions for even a well prepared low level party. And if you do get to use this module and like it do not forget about the sequel Revenge of the Rat King DCC 27 or the first edition version Saga of the Rat King.

Crothian

The 11th Hour

Spoilers, Spoilers, Spoilers. This review is of a module that can not be discussed without fully spoiling it. Please don’t read this if you think you might one day get to play through the module. There is a special twist and like with movies knowing the twist does ruin the experience for yourself and the people you are gaming with. This is not going to be an easy module for your DM to run so be kind to him and don’t ruin the adventure.

The 11th Hour is a module written by Bret Boyd. It is a PDF adventure and one of the few adventures that is better as a PDF then if one bough t it in print. It is not a long adventure though if played the way the author suggests it could take a few hours or longer to go through. The module is written under the Open Game License for third edition Dungeons and Dragons. The idea of the adventure though is one that can easily be used in almost any game though one will need some sort of supernatural element of science fiction in there to explain how it all happens.

What happens then? What is the module all about and why is it so important that even the slightest knowledge can ruin the adventure? It is about a time loop. I have not seen any other adventure try this sort of thing before though it is a staple of science fiction stories. The group of first level characters though it should be easy to make this adventure for higher level ones as well comes into an inn or tavern out of a rain storm. It does not matter where the tave3rn is, everything the adventure needs is right here. One of the great yet very challenging ideas of the adventure is to play it in real time. The group arrives in the Tavern and has many planned encounters that happen at different times around the place. The whole thing takes on hour and at the end of that hour everything repeats itself and only the player characters have memory of the previous hour. There are eleven things the module has happen in that hour. From the players point of view most of them could somehow be causing the time loop and they have to investigate each to learn what is going on. And it is possible for the group to stop the time loop without realizing what they have done stops it till it doesn’t happen again.

The adventure is very detailed oriented. With the events repeating themselves it is important for the DM to take notes on exactly what happens in the first hour so he knows how to have things play out in the hours that follow. It is the reason this adventure makes good use of being a PDF. There are places for notes in each encounter. It is very useful to have ones notes on the same pages the encounter. And with this being a PDF one can print off multiple copies that are clean instead of having to write on the master print version.

The time loop does involve rats and when my group played through it they almost stopped the loop from ever happening. They had the magical item known as the Pipes of the Sewers and we always play with it bringing out the rats in the area like the Pied Piper. They almost used it early on but talked themselves out of it. That is the only real concern for a higher level group I would have. They might have means to accidently make it so the time loop never happens.

The adventure is something very different from almost anything out there. There is no dungeon crawl and really no chance for player character death. It is a mystery and a chance to introduce some colorful NPCs that are not expected to be killed off. It is much more of a role playing module then almost any other module I have read or played for D&D. I highly suggest this one for people looking for a night of something different. IT would make for a good side adventure after a particularly thrilling and long dungeon crawl. It could also make a good one shot since it requires not a lot of preparation ahead of time. The DM though needs to take notes during the adventure. It is edition proof. There is nothing in here that would stop one from using it with other editions of D&D or even other games. The elements and details might have to change for this to fit into a modern game of Scion or into Traveler. But the core idea of having a Time Loop should be easy to do in most games.

Crothian

Dread

There have been plenty of horror games that have come out. I just Spent my Origins playing a in a lot of different ones and managed to have a full schedule of only horror games and never playing the same system twice. Of all the con games of horror I’ve played none of been able to match the extra level of nervousness or uncertainty that Dread has. Dread has been my best experience for one shot horror and it continues to be my game of choice to play or run at least once at each convention I goto.

Dread is a small press role playing game by the Impossible Dream. There are many unique qualities to the book and game that set it apart from other. The first is the cover. It is a plain white book with the word Dread in what I would describe as newspaper like text. And around the cover is a single bloody hand print as if someone with blood on their hands held the book. I liked that so much the year it was entered in the ENnies and I was a Judge I pushed for it for best cover. Alas, it was not to be. It was up for Best Game and while it didn’t win, only Mutants and Masterminds do I see being played more it at conventions. Dread has staying power.

Dread as a friend called it is a gimmick game. But as I responded to him, it is a gimmick that works. Many people know if it as the Jenga using game. If you see people at a convention playing with a Jenga tower they are probably playing Dread. The tower is the mechanic of the game. There are no dice and no numbers. If a player once to do something that is not automatic the player must make a pull from the tower. Knock over the tower and your character dies or will soon die. Yes, one can meet their end with something as simple as an observation check. One of the best and simple things I’ve seen people who run Dread do is ask who wants to see something. The players want to see something but they have to decide if it is worth the pull. Each pull makes the tower more unstable and will lead to a character death.

The book does a very good job of explaining when to have players make pulls, and how to encourage someone who doesn’t want to pull to pull. The only way to die is to knock over the tower so not pulling is sometimes important. In one game I played it there were three players left and we were near the end. My character was driving the getaway car from the evil cultists. So, the other two players agreed to make all the pulls till the end of the game from that point so that way I was guaranteed to at least live. It only turned out to be seven pulls and one of the women playing was like a Jenga master as she was able to make some very good pulls to keep us alive. There is a little strategy and risk and reward in the game. Some people are just not going to be good at making pulls. In another game on the third pull of the tower one of the guys nearly toppled it. WE only got about twelve total pulls out of it before it fell when in most cases a tower can go easily over twenty and sometimes thirty pulls.

The tower as the mechanic is not the only thing that Dread does differently. In fact the character creation process is one that is simple to adapt in other games to enhance their own character creation ways and I have seen it used for other games at conventions. The characters are a list of questions, usually about a dozen. Each question is important in some way to the character and the adventure. Sometimes it is obvious how a question will be used. One question I got was what injury had my character sustained that still hampered him. Obviously, that injury was in some way going to come up in the game. Another time I got the question of what irrational fear does the character possess? Other questions deal with the relationship between characters or particular hobbies or other items that seem more mundane. Questionnaires have been used to develop characters for decades. Dread though is the first game to only use the questionnaire and to ask leading questions to help shape the characters and the adventure. Not all the answers get a chanced to be used in the game and sometimes the storyteller is waiting for the player to make use of one of the answers but they never do. One nice thing is the answers help determine when a character doesn’t need to make a pull. I’ve seen it where one person had their character be a gym rat who loved the climbing wall so when it came time for us to make pulls to climb to safety his character didn’t need to.

In the games I played the best were when the players were really paying attention and into the game. This is true of pretty much any game. But what I liked about Dread was that even in the games were the players were less serious they would shut up and be a little uncomfortable when they had to make the pull. As long as the players are still care to not knock over the tower the suspense the tower brings still worked to some degree.

Another game I played had the players basically as two factions after the same thing. We were still worried about the thing in the house trying to kill us but the groups would oppose each others’ actions. At one point I and a friend who I’ve known for a while were pulling against each other and neither one wanted to admit defeat. We made about a dozen pulls on an already not great tower and turned a simple scene of trying to over hear a conversation into one of nail biting terror. It played out very well.

The game is simple to learn and simple to play. I think it is one of the few games that I would recommend to everyone to play at least once. It is also one of the few RPGs that one only needs the core book. There are plenty of games that can be played with the core book only but there are also a few supplements that are darned useful. With Dread there are no supplements. In fact I can’t even think of what else the game would need. The book has the rules which do not take up a lot of space. IT has some very solid advice for designing the one shot horror game and has three adventures in it. The book concentrates on different kinds of horror games like that makes a a good mystery game verse a good gory horror game. And along the bottom of each of the one hundred and sixty pages of the book are great sample questions for the character questionnaire.

Crothian

Tellus is my homebrew setting. I have a wiki and there should be a link in my signature to it for anyone curious. It isn't the best wiki and very incomplete.

The setting came out in 1995 or maybe a bit earlier. My friend Tom created it and ran people through it out in California. He brought it with him when he went to OSU for his Masters degree and he ran a great second edition campaign in it. It was that campaign that brought me back to D&D. After that campaign he wanted to play and I wanted to DM. We talked about me running his world and my thoughts went well with his so I ran a campaign that was also a success. He moved away for work but I kept using the world. We've lost touch and I'd be curious to hear what he thinks of it now.

I'm about to start my ninth campaign in the world. This will probably be the final 3e campaign as well but that remains to be seen. This campaign though is going to connect back with many of the older campaigns that the players have participated in and heard about.

Character creation started over a month ago. The first game is this Thursday (7/09). I wanted character generation to be very different then we've done before. So, I started them out with the concepts and their race. Only when they got that down did I tell them to open a book and pick their attributes.

It has been a fun event and the campaign really hasn't even started. I think blogging about it on EN World would be a fitting use for this space and offer something here that isn't on my other blog.

Crothian

The Review section is still down and I'm not sure when it will get fixed. I'm not going to worry about that. I'm going to try this new blog feature and place reviews here. I hope that an audience of some sort will notice and be able to read them.

I've nine books I have played through or run games out of I'm going to sit down and review soon. Those include some RPG games from small press companies and a few modules that were designed for d20 D&D.

I am also interested in hearing what people would like to see me review. I'm avoiding some of the big releases like 4e core books but I'm up for suggestions. I might get to reviewing what other people want but it will depend a lot on if I happen to have a copy of it. As always if people want to send me something to review I'll look at it. I am reviewing more books then just PDFs. It's been a nice summer and I like to get away from the computer and go on the deck and read.

If you are interested in reading reviews, have some suggestions either on what to review or what you would like to see in a review, or other comments please respond to this. I'm kind of interested to see if there is an audience out there still.

Crothian