Glad this thread got bumped up to the top, I would have never heard about this great-sounding game. I'll throw in my two cents call for a PDF version.
I know that there are several people in my regular game group who would love a tension-filled story game like this one. As I read this thread, I was mulling over story and plot ideas, and how I could come up with interesting characters. I was doing a bit of multi-tasking too, punching out my new copy of Kingsport Horror, the Arkham Horror boardgame expansion here in front of the computer when it hit me: I've got all the tools right here to whip up a plot.
A variety of archtypical characters (8 in this box, lots of others in the original game and other expansions), a whole slew of locations to choose from on the map, heck, loads of monsters to choose from, Ally cards to use as NPC's, and on and on. Of course its set in the Cthulhu mythos, but there's nothing stopping me from making it more mundane horror if I want to.
I love the idea of Dread as a party game for my group, but I know I'm not the most creative person when it comes to horror plots. Using something like Arkham Horror to help generate a plot seemed like a good idea. I'm thinking of pre-generating the questionnaires to fit the plot, but letting them randomly drawing a character card and have the players do their best to answer the questions in light of the character they drew.
Just for fun, I'm going to try it out while I'm sitting here now.
- Location: Mysterious old Kingsport, Maine (the mapboard in front of me)
- Sub Locations: The South Shore neighborhood (drew a red card, indicating three sub-locations: The Hall School, the Artists Colony, and Neil's Curiosity Shop)
- Monster: Leng Spiders (random draw from the monster chits)
- Enemy NPC's: Dr. Herbert West (a familiar name to horror fans, randomly drawn from the Ally deck)
- Friendly NPC's: Professor Morgan, Asenath Waite, The Terrible Old Man (also drawn from the deck).
- How did this happen?: A "Crystal of the Elder Things" (draw from the magic items deck)
Ok, it may not be blockbuster material, but its not a bad start for something randomly generated. Strange deadly spiders from another dimension brought here by an evil doctor using an eldritch crystal; the players must stop them before they overrun the neighborhood. All the bare bones of a plot are there, and I can already envision some of the character questions.
Off to by a copy of Jenga tomorrow...