Dread

Has anyone seen this game? It is not like anything I've seen. It is an indie game, but unlike most indie game it doesn't have the usual arrogance of this one play style is better or the pseudo intellectual talks of what gaming is. Dread is a RPG that has good character immersion and it says if that kind of game is not for you, find something else that you will enjoy.

Dread is a horror RPG. It does not assume a certain setting just the genre. Dread is diceless, but unlike other deiceless games has a unique way of dealing with success/failure: Jenga. At first when I read that I was like what the bleep?? But the more I read and the more I thought of it the simple brilliance of it came into focus. Dread is a horror game and if you've played Jenga as the game progresses people get more nervous and worried about knocking over the tower. And that kind of worry fits in well with the life and death struggles of a horror game. Knock over the tower and your character dies, goes insane, or something happens that he is no longer part of the game.

Character generation is also unique. THe character sheets have no numbers on them. They are a list of questions that should be taylored to the type of character one is playing. The game seems better for one shots so for instance if the horror game takes place in a remote farmhouse, one of the questions might well be: Why are you at the farm house? THe questions can also be very leading and the answers shape what a character is able to do. Of course all answers have to be game master approved.

It is a refreshingly different type of RPG. I'm hoping these guys are at Origins or Gen Con as I really want to try to get into a game.

Cool! Got a link?

After some digging around, I found this link to a review by James Hargrove (whom I recall having seen post here from time to time):
http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/11/11974.phtml

And then I found the link to the company site here:
http://www.tiltingatwindmills.net/dread/index.html

Seems intriguing. I'll have to check it out more as well.

Thanks for getting those links. That is one very good review by Hargrove, I hadn't read that and it seems our thoughts on the game are very close.

Crothian said:

It is a refreshingly different type of RPG. I'm hoping these guys are at Origins or Gen Con as I really want to try to get into a game.

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Well they should be at Gencon because I'm signed up for one of their games on Thursday night. I think most of their games at gencon this year were being held late at night (10 - 2am)

The game looks fascinating, very free form and you're right, the jenga element does seem like it'll up the suspense a lot.

One element I thought was particularly interesting, in the context of a horror game, was that if you want to sacrifice your character to help the group, all you have to do is let the GM know and knock over the tower.

This is one of the games I'm really looking forward to at GenCon this year.

A nice little bump fopr this now ENnie nominated game

Wow, that's a great diceless system for a horror game. I don't know that it would work well for any other genre, but for horror it's utterly brialliant. I despise diceless games and even I'm over here thinking that if anyone's doing it Dragon*Con I've gotta get in on it.

That's what got it its Best Rules Nomination. I'm not going to Dragon Con, but they had events of this at Origins so you might get lucky and find some down there.

I think i found a game i could powergame at.

(jenga master. I've NEVER lost a game.)

Agent Oracle said:

I think i found a game i could powergame at.

(jenga master. I've NEVER lost a game.)

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Unfortunately for you, but fortunately for the game, we've found it's not that easy. It's amazing how much wobblier the tower is when your character is on the line. I've seen groups that were terrified of touching the tower by the end of the game, and those same people then fearlessly pulled another dozen blocks after the game was over.