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

[BSF]

I just read Piratecat's review yesterday (yeah, I haven't been around much lately) and I love what I am reading! This game looks fun. Too bad my players don't want to try it this Friday. Something about wanting to see what they find beyond the bluesteel doors down in Ghul's Labyrinth this next week. *sigh*

Oh well, I will find a way to run this game and see if I can make it work. It sounds terrific. At least with my players begging off right now, I will have time to get a copy of the rulebook.

 

[Chaldfont]

I ran my first Dread game last night. Unfortunately, I only got three players. But we had a great time. I wasn't sure if the two big gimmicks (Jenga and the character questionnaires) would work but they sure did. Even I, as host, was tense as the players pulled blocks from the rickety tower! By the end, the players had to make hard choices: do you try a pull, knowing that there's a good chance the tower will fall or do you accept failure? The stakes are higher, and the chance for success is lower. Very exciting and the tension of Jenga translates really well into fear for your character.

My scenario was a Bigfoot story with a twist. You can find it here.

 

[Asmor]

This is kind of tangential, but what would you guys do if the tower got to the point where there were literally no more remotely safe pulls left? It might sound like an academic question, but a few weeks ago I was playing Jenga with a friend and we actually got to the point where every single pull was taken, and every layer was left with either just the middle piece or just the two outside pieces.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

If you somehow got it to the point where there were no more *physically possible* pulls left and it was still early in the scenario, I'd probably still push things and see if someone either knocked it down on purpose and let them take the 'dead man walking' out. If it just got to the point where there the tower was so unstable that even breathing on it was risky but there were infinitely-impropable pulls left, I'd just keep going. It's Dread, dammit, someone's got to die! Again, though, if it made sense to pull out DMW, I would.

In my (albeit limited) experience, though, unless you have a bunch of nerves-of-steel skilled Jenga players, the tower is going to drop before you get to the point of where there isn't a single possible pull remaining. Playing for fun and playing when your character is on the line are two different things.

 

[Cerebral Paladin]

Re: no possible pulls left: When I have played Jenga before, we've viewed it as acceptable to take a layer with two left and to move one of the two to the center, steadying the tower while doing so, and to then draw the other out. It's risky, of course, and the tower is likely to fall after a couple pulls like that (it could easily fall on the first one), but it means you haven't really gotten to the "no pulls possible" stage until the tower is exactly one block on each level.

Applying that to Dread: obviously, the danger of each pull at that point would be very, very high. But that's to be expected and is rather the point of the game's mechanism. And, as Rodrigo pointed out, that will be a relatively rare Dread game anyway.

But that's all in the abstract-- I haven't played yet, although I'm going to for the first time next Saturday! I'm very excited about giving it a try.

 

[Festivus]

Middle of September is the unofficial word. I'll report back once it becomes official.

Any word on that PDF Epi? I may have to break down and buy the actual book, since I likely have saved enough for it by now

 

[Epidiah Ravachol]

I've seen the PDF proofs, which means it is just around the corner. Unfortunately, producing games is not the day job for anyone at the Impossible Dream, so that corner might be somewhere in December. But as far as I can tell, it is in the tidying up stage.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Ooooo-ooh...

-Hyp.

 

[Asmor]

Thanks for bumping the thread, I completely forgot that I needed to post here!

The other day I took my fiancée to Pandemonium in Cambridge, MA. She's more of a casual gamer, who's trying to get into running games, and was looking for a new system. So I was browsing the board games when she comes over to me and asks if I'd heard anything about "this," this being a small white book in her hand with a bloody hand print.

For a second my eyes focus on the title... "Dread... wait-- DREAD?!?" and I snatch it out of her hands, excitedly telling her that this was the game I'd been talking about so long ago and the reason I'd bought that Jenga set.

So... Sweet serendipity! Sadly, I haven't had a chance to really look through it yet, that same night I got the Starcraft boardgame, which took up all my time in the evening, and now I've got finals to worry about...

But it's sitting there on the bureau, taunting me...

 

[Epidiah Ravachol]

But it's sitting there on the bureau, taunting me...

As long as it is taunting, I know it hasn't forgotten its training.

You Massachusetts people should keep an eye on JiffyCon. I know an insider who tells me the next one will probably be in a couple months and in Boston. I'll be there and if there are enough interested folks, I definitely run a Dread game or two.