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

[Epidiah Ravachol]

Damn, now I have to go buy this, and convince some people to play. I should have just bought it at the con!

I recommend purchasing through IPR at the moment. We all but sold out of our copies at GenCon and it'll be a while before the new print run comes in. Fortunately, according to their website, IPR still has 17 left.

I know I mentioned Rodrigo when talking to you cause he's the one who first ran Dread for me and got me into the game. That's the Morro Castle (sinking ship) game that he's run a few times at ENWorld gamedays. Sorry you didn't get to meet him, cause he runs a good game of Dread and I think, along with Piratecat, has helped introduce a lot of people to the game.

Ah, that about sounds right. (And now I can place a face to your boardname). I own a debt of gratitude to so many ENworlders for championing this game. Thank you all.

 

[Hypersmurf]

I own a debt of gratitude to so many ENworlders for championing this game. Thank you all.

We were playing a game on the Hyatt 3rd floor, run by Queen Dopplepoppolis (DangerGirl! on Circvs Maximvs), and someone passing by saw the Jenga tower. "Hey, is this Dread? Cool - I know the guy who wrote this!"

In another session she ran, there was a table of people playing Settlers of Catan adjacent to her table. The last fifteen or so pulls of the game were all player vs player, and the last five were clearly defying physics. Two of the Settlers players were saying "Come on, guys, can we just play our game?" But the other three were completely riveted to the Jenga tower...

-Hyp.

 

[Kellri]

We've been talking about Dread all week over here. Even have a few variants...c'mon over and take a gander.

 

[Hypersmurf]

We've been talking about Dread all week over here. Even have a few variants...c'mon over and take a gander.

You might notice that most of the Rah Rah Rah in this thread comes from people who have played Dread.

The Jenga tower might appear at first glance to be gimmicky. And maybe it is... but it's not a gimmick with no purpose other than to draw attention.

Most resolution systems rely on independent events. The dice have no memory. A DC 20 saving throw is as easy or difficult to make at the start of the game or the end of the game.

The Jenga tower, on the other hand, is influenced by every pull that has come before it. At the start of the game, pulls are easy. By the end of the game, the tower is unstable, and pulls are much harder. During the end-game, the tension at a Dread table is visceral and palpable, and that's why the system works for the horror genre. The mechanic reinforces the genre.

It's easy to read the book and dismiss the tower as gimmicky. Play a game with a decent table, and that dismissal becomes a whole lot harder.

Can someone game the system, and refuse to make pulls? Sure - I've seen it done. And it was done by someone who doesn't get it. And I wouldn't invite him back to play at my table again. But weighed against that one guy, I've played with twenty people who did get it, and the experiences were fantastic.

Feel free to scoff without understanding why the 'gimmick' works. Feel free to be the guy who doesn't get it. I'll continue to play with the people who do, and I'll continue to have those stellar gaming experiences.

-Hyp.

 

[John Crichton]

We've been talking about Dread all week over here. Even have a few variants...c'mon over and take a gander.

As Hyp suggests, try a playtest. You may be pleasantly surprised. It's entirely possible that you're missing out on some serious fun. More fun than simple mockery of something misunderstood.

As an RPG fan, I'm sure you can see where I'm coming from.

Feel free to scoff without understanding why the 'gimmick' works. Feel free to be the guy who doesn't get it. I'll continue to play with the people who do, and I'll continue to have those stellar gaming experiences.

This.

Can someone game the system, and refuse to make pulls? Sure - I've seen it done. And it was done by someone who doesn't get it. And I wouldn't invite him back to play at my table again. But weighed against that one guy, I've played with twenty people who did get it, and the experiences were fantastic.

Well said, Hyp. As one who has played a few times, it's easily the best game to run for horror. Especially as a one-shot.

The game certainly requires an amount of buy-in and is entirely dependent on roleplaying. It's not a game where one can "win" like most social, tabletop roleplaying games.

 

[scholar]

I can't tell you how cool it was to finally meet all the ENworld people I met at GenCon. And to be a creepy little ninja spying on the late night Dread games on the third floor of the Hyatt.

i didn't ge to meet you, but apparently you talked to my girlfriend while I was spying on a 316 game in he embassy...

so irritated I missed talking to you

she was the one telling you about my random idea for a dread larp where people have to move a card table holding the tower a few inches to advance down hallways and such

and I'm getting ready to run my first dread game in about a month or so at the albany game day, so wish me luck

 

[The Grumpy Celt]

I just ran my favorite horror game in years...

That all sounds fun.

Wish I could make it to GenCon.

 

[jdrakeh]

The Jenga tower might appear at first glance to be gimmicky. And maybe it is... but it's not a gimmick with no purpose other than to draw attention.

This. As I stated in my initial review, in a niche market that seems to be defined by its self congratulatory fervor at times (often times digustingly so, in my opinion) Dread's modesty is incredibly refreshing. The game itself doesn't once claim to reinvent the wheel or openly boast of the Jenga implementation.

The big thing that discounts the Jenga tower as a mere marketing gimmick, however, is that the Jenga tower actually does something that dice can't easily mimick (namely, organically building tension as play progresses). A completely "gimmick" mechanic doesn't produce results that are any different than those that a straight, traditional, die roll will.

I guess the best example of this that I can think of is the roulette wheel mechanic in Fastlane, which is simply a binary pass/fail mechanic despite all of its author's claims about it being innovative and brilliant (indeed, he even offers a die roll option in the book that produces the exact same end results as spinning the roulette wheel will).

That's a gimmick. Dread's Jenga mechanic, however, not only resolves action but also influences the course of game play by impacting all future action that is resolved. I can't think of a single dice roll mechanic that does this, off the top of my head.

Can someone game the system, and refuse to make pulls? Sure - I've seen it done. And it was done by someone who doesn't get it. And I wouldn't invite him back to play at my table again. But weighed against that one guy, I've played with twenty people who did get it, and the experiences were fantastic.

I do feel compelled to point out that not pulling bricks isn't really gaming the system, as anytime that you opt not to resolve action by taking a pull, the action in question automatically fails (unless something has changed in the rules since the first printing of Dread). There simpy isn't any benefit in refusing to take pulls, unless your goal is simply to ruin the game for other players.

 

[Asmor]

Just as an aside, it is certainly possible to simulate the jenga tower using dice. Not perfectly, mind you, but you get the same end result: early rolls are easy, later rolls are harder.

Start a dread counter at 1. People roll d% when they'd take a pull. Whenever someone makes a roll, increment the dread counter by 1. If someone rolls equal or under the dread counter, they just toppled the tower and it resets at 1.

There are some pros and cons to this. Big pros are that it's not dependent on manual dexterity, and it's a lot more convenient (no need to worry about bumping table, no need for "specialized equipment" since most gamers should have the dice already, no need to set up the tower).

Of course, the big con here is that the tower just has this visible quality that makes it a visible, palpable threat. I don't think a number written down on some piece of paper is quite going to cut it. Also, I suspect that the d% method might be more likely to knock someone out faster.

 

[jdrakeh]

Just as an aside, it is certainly possible to simulate the jenga tower using dice.

Well, in fairness, I didn't say that it wasn't possible, only that I couldn't think of an existing die mechanic that produced the same end result. My point was that this kind of die mechanic is by no means commonplace in the hobby and that the Jenga mechanic actually does bring something completely new to the table in this regard.

When dice mechanics that effect all future action resolution in a given game become commonplace, then people can call the Jenga mechanic a marketing gimmick in good faith. Until then, the Jenga tower mechanic actually accomplishes something unique by organically staging story pacing via action resolution.

So far as I'm aware, no other roleplaying game on the market does what Dread does in this regard. Is there another roleplaying game on the market where the resolution of a single action directly affects all subsequent action in the game, ramping up tension, and changing the direction of play as a result?