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

[Cassander]

On Labor Day, I ran a Dread game for two other people and decided to try out an alternative resolution mechanic, specifically an idea similar to the stones from a bag idea that was thought up by Cerebral Paladin earlier on this thread.

One of my players who had played Dread once before but died early due to some unfortunate pulls was a bit nervous about the tower and asked about alternate mechanics. So I decided to try out the stone method where instead of pulling a block from a tower, you instead pull a stone out of an opaque bag. If it's a good stone (in this case, blue), then your character succeeds. If it's a bad stone (green), your character must leave the game. Everything else is just like normal for Dread.

I decided I wanted two bad stones so that the bag wouldn't have to be restocked when a player pulled a bad stone. The symbolism of a death stone for each character also seemed to fit. So decide on the number of good stones, I built a spread sheet to calculate the cumulative odds of one or both players dying at each number of pulls. I decided on 65 after looking at the numbers, but didn't tell my players what the cumulative odds were to preserve a sense of mystery.

Alas, the stones didn't really work. The failures (the one that happened and the lack of the second) were spaced about as intended and predicted by the the spreadsheet though the players did get a little lucky. But there was no drama surrounding the pulls. My players, even and especially the one a bit uncomfortable with the Jenga tower, told me that they felt like they had no control over their fate and felt detached from the game due to the lack of the tower looming visually. Because of the small and uncontrolled chance of failure, they felt no reason not to pull. Indeed, one often kept going for a pull even before finishing describing his action and I had to caution him to slow down so I could say whether and how many pulls would be appropriate. And when the bad stone was finally pulled, it had little impact, quite a contrast to the tower collapses I've seen in other Dread games. Both players said that a tower would have worked better and wanted to use it for any future games.

I still have my spreadsheet and can upload it if anyone is interested. It's possible the stones might work for other groups and scenarios. I have seen two-player work just fine, though that scenario (fleeing from a dangerous cult, run by Fraisala) seemed better suited for it than the one I used (defending a keep against impossible odds). And I still have some ideas for alternate mechanics, but I think they must be really special and should somehow visually enforce the doom the game brings. Pulling should be a big deal.

 

[GQuail]

Alas, the stones didn't really work. The failures (the one that happened and the lack of the second) were spaced about as intended and predicted by the the spreadsheet though the players did get a little lucky. But there was no drama surrounding the pulls. My players, even and especially the one a bit uncomfortable with the Jenga tower, told me that they felt like they had no control over their fate and felt detached from the game due to the lack of the tower looming visually. Because of the small and uncontrolled chance of failure, they felt no reason not to pull. Indeed, one often kept going for a pull even before finishing describing his action and I had to caution him to slow down so I could say whether and how many pulls would be appropriate. And when the bad stone was finally pulled, it had little impact, quite a contrast to the tower collapses I've seen in other Dread games. Both players said that a tower would have worked better and wanted to use it for any future games.

I was very interested to read this. I enjoyed the Dread game I ran a lot, but when I proposed doing it for another group one guy complained about the tower just not sounding fun to him. It's interesting to read about someone who tried an alternate mechanic.... only to find it not
working out in practice.

You just can't underestimate the tension the tower generates throughout the game, something that a one-off horror game really feeds off of.

 

[Ginnel]

Wow - that sounds really fun! I'd love to play at GenCon if there's a space available!

Dammit. How can I add Jenga to my D&D game next week?

Well I use "Jenga" blocks to mark out my dungeon on the handy squared paper from the back of the 3.5 DMG and use doors from Dragon Quest the game seems to work well

 

[Cerebral Paladin]

Thanks for reporting on how the use of an alternate mechanic didn't work for you, Cassander. I found your comments very interesting (although also saddening).

The difficult thing is that there is the problem of what to do with the player that doesn't like Jenga. I've now run Dread (actually a Dread-based game for more heroic play) several times, and every time I've had one player who really didn't want to pull-- not because they were scared the way the game wants, but because they perceived themselves as incompetent at Jenga. In one case, they were asking if they could allow another player to pull for them, with them bearing the risk but her actually pulling the blocks.

I've found that some additional thought has identified part of the dynamic with why Jenga works so well. People perceive the tower as being much more likely to fall than it actually is. I've found both as a player and as a GM that players will often say things like, "there's probably a 50% chance of it falling on the next pull," and then having 6 or 10 more pulls before it falls (if at all). The frequency with which that seems to happen makes me think that what's going on is that people are systematically overestimating their chances of knocking the tower down-- exactly the pattern you want for a high tension, exciting game. If you use an alternate mechanism where it is easier to get a feel for how likely you are to fail, people are more likely to accurately think, "I only have a 1-in-10 chance of dying on this pull-- why not go for it?" If people think death is breathing down their neck ("the tower is as likely to fall as not" or "the tower only has about three pulls left in it"), then you get the right feel (and the right incentives to deliberately knock down the tower as well).

 

[GQuail]

The difficult thing is that there is the problem of what to do with the player that doesn't like Jenga. I've now run Dread (actually a Dread-based game for more heroic play) several times, and every time I've had one player who really didn't want to pull-- not because they were scared the way the game wants, but because they perceived themselves as incompetent at Jenga. In one case, they were asking if they could allow another player to pull for them, with them bearing the risk but her actually pulling the blocks.

The time I ran the game, I ran a few "practice games" of Jenga beforehand, and for weeks before I'd been doing so with any mate who was handy - partly to see how long a tower would come up, and partly to get my players a bit more confident in the game.

But yeah, I can see how there might be people who say "I just can't do this game" and get frustrated about their lack of skill impacting their enjoyment. Getting someone else to pull isn't a terrible agreement, since it's still tense when other people pull, but it doesn't sound perfect to me.

I've found that some additional thought has identified part of the dynamic with why Jenga works so well. People perceive the tower as being much more likely to fall than it actually is. I've found both as a player and as a GM that players will often say things like, "there's probably a 50% chance of it falling on the next pull," and then having 6 or 10 more pulls before it falls (if at all). The frequency with which that seems to happen makes me think that what's going on is that people are systematically overestimating their chances of knocking the tower down-- exactly the pattern you want for a high tension, exciting game. If you use an alternate mechanism where it is easier to get a feel for how likely you are to fail, people are more likely to accurately think, "I only have a 1-in-10 chance of dying on this pull-- why not go for it?" If people think death is breathing down their neck ("the tower is as likely to fall as not" or "the tower only has about three pulls left in it"), then you get the right feel (and the right incentives to deliberately knock down the tower as well).

I suppose some people might see this as a flaw, since it makes it harder for players to make informed judgements, but I'm inclined to agree with you. A flat 25% or 70% success chance is easy to parse in your head and can sometimes demistify things - but the tower looks like it could fall on any pull, even if there's a bunch of safe blocks hiding there. Even the safest of pulls could go horribly wrong, which keeps every action a lot more dramatic than most dice rolls made.

 

[Cassander]

In one case, they were asking if they could allow another player to pull for them, with them bearing the risk but her actually pulling the blocks.

When I ran my Dread game at GenCon, I had one player who had never played Dread before and after summarizing the rules, I was asking my players if I had missed anything. Someone brought up a rule that you can ask someone else to pull for you but you tak ethe consequences and there was some discussion about whether this was a standard rule. Some thought it was in the book, some didn't. I checked and couldn't find it, so it's possible it was just posted online somewhere or maybe I missed it.

I think this would be good for people who can't pull due to some sort of disability, but I'm not sure about it for those who think they're not good at pulling. They might just be shy. And it does take away a lot of the visceral feeling. But if someone really just has no manual dexterity and seems to definitely below the standard range of Jenga skill, it seems like the best option, as long as the player is comfortable.

I think there are a few factors that make the tower so good:

1) The visual. You can see the tower right there in front of you and can watch it sway and lean. You can see how close you are to disaster, and as you say, perhaps overestimate how close it is.

2) The control. The tower puts your characters fate literally in your hands. You are responsible, not some die. If it's just chance, you might throw up your hands and say "Whatever, let's roll the dice...". Having the tower there means you have to go up to the tower and do it.

3). Time and enough skill. Most of the alternate mechanics try to take the manual dexterity and skill out of the game. I think this is doomed to failure. The thing is, without the skill, you just have luck. And if it's pure luck, there's no need to be careful. This means that pulls go too fast. You don't have to think about your pull. You don't have to try different blocks. You don't have to sweat. And without that time, you don't have the tension. Plus you don't have the visceral fear of the tower as you have to interact with it.

It may be possible to replace the physical skill with mental skill. Something like a chess game could work, in that you'd want to think about your move a lot, but the problem is you can see check mate coming too fast. Still, if you could find a way to replace physical skill with mental skill in a suitable game, you might have something viable, but then you will probably even have a greater skill range than with Jenga.

4) Not too much skill. No one has complete control of the tower. The tower still has some complexity too it and most players fall somewhere toward the center. You won't have a gigantic advantage by being good. With something like chess, you have a tremendous range of skill that'd probably be too much.

5) Fuzziness. This is what Cerebral Paladin brought up. You don't know the odds and will likely (especially new players) overestimate the odds of the tower falling. This, actually, seems to be the biggest advantage of "good"/"experienced" players... they know when they can get away with pulling and are willing to try it when other characters stand in fear. But I myself have made the opposite mistake and been overconfident which lead to me knocking a tower over during what I thought was a safe pull.

6) The falling tower. This kinda goes back to the visual, but I'll emphasize it again. The sound and feel of the tower collapsing emphasizes the importance of the character being removed from the game. It also makes sacrifices look realy dramatic.

There are probably others I've missed, but I think just covering these bases as well as Jenga would be very difficult for another system. I think you'd really have to think about the trade offs and be willing to lose some of these and somehow compensate with something else if you're gonna get something that works. I still have some plans like this, but it does seem like the loss is felt when using something else.

 

[John Crichton]

There was talk down-thread about alternate mechanics using the Dread system. I just ran a Dread game using a two-tower mechanic. It went shockingly well.

The players filled out the questionnaires normally and the game began as normal: Fresh tower and 6 characters, no pre-pulls. The scenario was set up for more player vs. player action than normal. It was also set up purely as a one-shot. It also featured the Ghostbusters.

I wasn't sure the second tower was even going to come into play. I first thought of the idea as a way around an early tower knock-down; a backup plan. Then it mutated. What would happen if the pull frequency increased (purposely) to get the tower to fall in under two hours? Now, this didn't HAVE to happen but it was in the back of my mind.

Turns out that the tower fell between the 90-120 minute mark. It didn't get terribly high (or at least as high as I've seen previously) but there were a healthy amount of pulls. So the second tower came into play! Since the tower was not knocked down intensionally, the character became immediately possessed by forces opposing the players. The player immediately gained the power listed under the "If you could have one supernatural ability, what would it be?" question of the questionnaire. The player kept his entire personality but from that point forward had the singular goal of destroying the party, or at least stop them from completing their mission. There was certainly still an element of self-preservation (the possessor ensured that) but the rest was left up to the character.

The next two pulls attempted by this character were still made from the original (fresh) tower but all subsequent pulls, which included any use of the newfound supernatural ability, would be made from the second tower. This set up a very interesting dynamic (outlined below) the minute the second tower came into play. Had I realized it ahead of time, I would have settled on a few more solid numbers of the pre-pulls and who got to make them on each of the towers.

First: The rest of the (non-possessed) characters would keep looking over a the other tower with the "WTF Face". Classic. Kept the spirit of the adventure right on ticking.

Second: The moment the possessed characters started making opposed pulls from the second tower with characters using the first tower, the action really started flying. Could this part get a little meta-gamey? Yes. And it did to a degree. Did it take away from the game? If it did, it was negligible.

Third: When things turned bad, they turned bad REALLY quick (same as normal Dread!). The player vs. player aspect ramped up exactly as I expected it to, but it stayed focused on the game and not for the sake of PvP. The players did an excellent job of being true to their characters until the time it became painfully obvious that their teammates had betrayed them and direct actions had to be taken.

Last rule: If a character sacrificed himself (knocked over the tower purposely) they were not forced to be possessed. They were given the option of sacrifice for good. The one example of this resulted in severely hindering one of the possessed characters for a bit which meant more pulls from the second tower. At the time, there were 2 possessed characters vs 4 non-possessed characters.

You can start to see how this can skew the numbers. If you have more people pulling from a tower, the less they can do before failure. So you get a certain amount of attrition which means ramped up anticipation coupled with a smattering of cockiness from the "possessed" using the second tower.

I'd love to tweak this idea further for future runs. Thoughts?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Never having played or seen Dread, I still find this "twist" interesting.

In a way, it seems to fulfill the typical horror movie cliché - once someone snaps and goes on his killing spree (in whatever fashion - obvious or not) - he tends to become super-effective and succeeds at stuff the rest just doesn't.

 

[John Crichton]

Never having played or seen Dread, I still find this "twist" interesting.

In a way, it seems to fulfill the typical horror movie cliché - once someone snaps and goes on his killing spree (in whatever fashion - obvious or not) - he tends to become super-effective and succeeds at stuff the rest just doesn't.

I hadn't thought of that. Nice.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I hadn't thought of that. Nice.

I'm sure it's some kind of trope - all serial killers and psychopaths gain superpowers like invisibility, silence, precognition, regeneration (remember: If you don't check the corpse, the killer is probably not dead.)