Mercule said:
Which brings me to my question: This sounds like a one-shot game, maybe multiple one-shots, but still not an ongoing thing. How well does Dread lend itself to a campaign?
It depends on what style of campaign you want. With no significant alterations, it will be high-lethality. So you'll never get a game with a feel like
Supernatural,
X-Files,
Kolchak: The Night Stalker, or
Friday the 13th (the TV series), because you can't count on the main characters being around from session to session. Then again, that's a large part of why
Supernatural, in particular, has failed to be good horror, for me (and i never really considered
X-Files to be horror, either).
However, high-lethality doesn't necessarily mean "everybody's gonna die every session" or anything to that extreme. Typically, at a convention game (i.e., 4hrs, including filling out the questionnaires), we get 0-1 deaths, unless somebody decides to sacrifice themselves. I can't prove this, but i suspect the rate of heroic sacrifice is inflate at convention games, 'cause the coolness factor is still there, but there isn't the downside of losing character investment in an ongoing game, since it's just a one-shot. And the group, especially the host, has a lot of power to adjust the overall pacing and thus number of pulls, so, with a little practice, it's likely that typical-length sessions (4-8hrs) would still be in the 0-2 deaths per session range--with 0 actually a fairly likely possibility for a 4 or 5 hour game. Nonetheless, you'd need to have some structure to stitch the campaign together
other than main character continuity. A setup like Chill's SAVE would, of course, be perfect: operative dies, the head office sends you a replacement next week.
Then we get into the realm of rules modifications. As others pointed out, you could allow non-permanent removals to be reversable: someone who goes insane could be cured; you chickened out last week, but after you thought about the consequences to your grandmother if you don't continue, you've steeled yourself to return; she miraculously survived the implosion of the sub and made it to an escape pod; given a high-magic game, even resurrection could be possible.
If you do this, probably the best way is to incorporate it into the additional questions that provide character development. Causing the tower to fall should still be it for the rest of the session, and should be a character-transforming event. It could generate a significant new weakness, or eliminate an old one; at an extreme, becoming a new being (a channelled spirit, say) would be appropriate.
Dread is designed for campaign play, as written, and both we and others have done it. But that's probably the biggest failing of the rulebook--we apparently don't get that across very well, because a lot of people conclude that it's only designed for one-shots, and would require modification for long-term play. Really, it's only going to require modification if you want to keep characters around longer. And, even then, it could be very minor modification--just allowing in-game-world-reversible removals to be reversible over time. If you're OK with the high character turnover, no changes whatsoever need to be made. And, even then, that could still likely mean that you get to play a given character for 3-6 sessions, on average (depending on the size of the group, the nature of the scenarios, how the group plays, etc.), not just 1. That's why there's discussion of additional questions after/between scenarios.
In fact, one of the games i'm tryin to push for my group's next campaign would be a dark fantasy game, in the mold of Conan and other warriors-against-evil-magic stories, run with
Dread.
