[Dread] Jenga beat up my dice! My results from the indie horror RPG.

Janx · Nov 4, 2012

Monglo said:
They are a corp. grunts sent on a secret mission to retrieve valuable cargo from a colony ship. I hope they'll retain enough motivation to explore the ship for the cargo after they realize the ship has been abandoned.

naturally, I'm a day late, so I hope yer game went well.

I was gonna recommend adjusting your premise, which would help reduce the problems the other guy had.

Namely, the ship is carrying cargo, one of the containers is for the corporation.

The ship suffers a problem, and ceases communication. Last message was the engine was down. You might have the ship drift into an asteroid belt for added threat later.

So the corporation sends the PCs to get to the ship and return with that precious cargo before scavengers get to it first.

This sets the tone on WHY the party would go to the ship and that the initial percieved danger is asteroids and scavengers.

This means you can start the adventure AT the ship, or navigating through the asteroid field for a few extra initial pulls. It also sets the danger level that there may be combat with bad guys.

It's hard for players to argue that they accepted that premise while refusing to initially board the ship.

Once aboard, they'll have to explore a bit to get to the hold. If you spring on the big scary and they want to bolt, you can use the asteroid belt to damage their own ship, making them needing to scavenge parts to fix their ride.

the goal being, to get them to go deeper, keep moving, and eventually work towards escape as the second half, rather than the immediate reaction.

Monglo · Nov 4, 2012

Well, the game went relatively well. Some of the people didnt make it, so we had only 3 players. One of the players was reluctant to pull and didnt understand why he would risk dying. To the point that he didnt want to do anything, since even declining to pull would mean some sort of a complication.
Still the game worked really well with the tension of deciding when to pull or not and seeing the tower becoming more and more unstable.

Motivational problems luckily didnt come up, since the Captain's player understood the whole "putting himself in danger" horror theme.

Overall, the game was enjoyed by everyone, the unique Tower mechanic was engaging and brought a sort of excitement I dont think we ever experienced at the table.

The only thing is that I really dont see using it for long-term games. As in more than a couple of sessions in the row.
My group has agreed to try it again next week and Im looking for a scenario at the moment. Ive read the three official ones. Liked the premises, but my players have said that they'd like to try something other than a horror game.
Is there anything out there that could be considered not-horror Dread scenario? Maybe someone has documented his try at something similar. Like Piratecat's reality-show idea?

Wednesday Boy · Nov 4, 2012

Monglo said:
My group has agreed to try it again next week and Im looking for a scenario at the moment. Ive read the three official ones. Liked the premises, but my players have said that they'd like to try something other than a horror game.
Is there anything out there that could be considered not-horror Dread scenario? Maybe someone has documented his try at something similar. Like Piratecat's reality-show idea?

Chad from Fear The Boot adapted the rules to use for an Inception inspired game.

Janx · Nov 5, 2012

Monglo said:
Well, the game went relatively well. Some of the people didnt make it, so we had only 3 players. One of the players was reluctant to pull and didnt understand why he would risk dying. To the point that he didnt want to do anything, since even declining to pull would mean some sort of a complication.

I saw that with one player the first time I ran Dread. In D&D, that same player would have no problem running into a dungeon and killing monsters. Whereas, in Dread, there is a direct and obvious cause and effect to pulling = risk. For some players, this seems to cause hyper-avoidance of risk, that isn't present in normal RPGs.

I think one way around that with that kind of player is to do what horror movies do. Bring the trouble to the PC. The PC does not NEED to enter the haunted house for your monster to get at her. Instead, the monster finds and pursues the PC wherever she is. Ellen Ripley was going to sit on that ship and not let Kane back in. Heck, it's like Sigourney was refusing to make any pulls because she KNEW that thing was bad.

For a passive player, forcing them to take action or suffer bad things is the way to get them moving. Luckily, Ash let Kane back in, against Ripley's orders. After that, bad stuff happens and Ripley HAS to start taking action or get grabbed.

I think the trick there is interpreting "if you don't pull" as a threat of something worse than death. Like getting implanted with a symbiote and taken out of play.

Horror movies are a bit heavy handed, because certain death and doom is on the table. The bad guys are railroading the PCs into certain locations and inflicting impending pain on them.

It ain't a sandbox, where the PCs can choose to investigate the haunted house or go do something else.

Though I think that philosophy should coupled with giving the PCs meaningful choices within the situation they are thrust into. To me, that means allowing the players to find a solution or escape so some of them live.

Plane Sailing · Nov 6, 2012

Monglo said:
Maybe someone has documented his try at something similar. Like Piratecat's reality-show idea?

Oh, that was horror all right!

Piratecat · Nov 7, 2012

Monglo said:
Is there anything out there that could be considered not-horror Dread scenario? Maybe someone has documented his try at something similar. Like Piratecat's reality-show idea?

Yep, that was definitely horror.

I know that someone runs Paranoia using Dread, and [MENTION=3448]Cerebral Paladin[/MENTION] has developed Heroic Dread, which he uses for naval ship battles and other exciting non-horror games.

UselessTriviaMan · Nov 9, 2012

It took me a couple of days, but I finally got through reading this entire 53-page monstrosity. (How in the world did I not see this thread before?!) I recently bought Dread, but believe it or not it wasn't because of you guys.

It was because of an awesomely-portrayed Dread game in a webcomic. (Several of the characters -especially Brett and Charlie - have a tendency to spout profanities. It's mildly NSFW - FYI.) And it also included a fascinating twist to the Dread game that I can't wait to use in a game one of these days.

malcolypse · Feb 12, 2013

That comic is amazing! I love it, it makes me want to play Dread again soon. Thanks for sharing it, UTM.

Janx · May 28, 2013

I think I found a source for Dread ideas.

the SCP Foundation is apparently a fictional agency where real world folks have been writing fiction about "unusual" objects for some time.

http://www.scp-wiki.net/

When I first heard of it, it sounded like a good fit for Dread.