madwabbit
First Post
Touché, and well-played, sir.
[Dread] Jenga beat up my dice! My results from the indie horror RPG.
Epidiah Ravachol
First Post
Besides, I hosted that game while choking on my own blood. That's ambiance well above the call of duty.Touché, and well-played, sir.
In most cases, Jenga keeps you honest.
madwabbit
First Post
D'oh! I can't believe I forgot to mention that critical detail.
I'm an idiot, what can I tell you?
Random221B
First Post
Hi there folks!
I just discovered this game, a couple of weeks ago. I've ordered my copy of it, got my Jenga set, and have my first session of the game scheduled for about a week and a half from now.
Anyway, I'm hoping there's still some life left in this topic, because I haven't found any postings or discussions about the game anywhere that are newer than a couple of months old. I'm looking to stimulate a little chat about things. I've registered for the forums over at the tiltingatwindmills.net site as well, just waiting on an admin over there to approve my membership.
In any case, the first thing I'd like to toss out there is, for my first session I'm going to be running the "Beneath a Metal Sky" scenario from the rulebook and website. I was just wondering if anyone who has run that particular scenario has any tips, advice, or just thoughts specific to that storyline?
Thanks for your time.
Best,
~~~~Random
I just discovered this game, a couple of weeks ago. I've ordered my copy of it, got my Jenga set, and have my first session of the game scheduled for about a week and a half from now.
Anyway, I'm hoping there's still some life left in this topic, because I haven't found any postings or discussions about the game anywhere that are newer than a couple of months old. I'm looking to stimulate a little chat about things. I've registered for the forums over at the tiltingatwindmills.net site as well, just waiting on an admin over there to approve my membership.
In any case, the first thing I'd like to toss out there is, for my first session I'm going to be running the "Beneath a Metal Sky" scenario from the rulebook and website. I was just wondering if anyone who has run that particular scenario has any tips, advice, or just thoughts specific to that storyline?
Thanks for your time.
Best,
~~~~Random
Rodrigo Istalindir
Explorer
No advice specific to that scenario, sorry. So far I've run Dread 6 or 7 times (two different scenarios of my own creation).
But, in general, the best piece of advice I can offer is 'stay flexible'. The players in my games will come up with stuff I never anticipated, and had I stuck to my preconceived notion of how the game should play out, they wouldn't have been nearly as good.
Second, stay out of the way. Lay out the situation, be descriptive, but let them drive the action. The sense of uncertaintly is enhanced when they have to decide whether or not an action is worth a pull. Try and avoid saying 'if you want to do X, you need to make a pull' until they ask. Obviously, there are times in any game when the players need a nudge, but I find that in Dread, the more the path seems open, the more creative the players will be and the greater the tension.
Third, keep an eye on each player's 'screen time'. The open-ended nature of a lot of Dread games (see #2) can lead to one player with a lot of initiative dominating play. Similarly, the emphasis on character over stats can lead to situations where a player that gets off on the acting can hog the spotlight. When you're not in especially dramatic scenes, make sure you break off when one player has had a bit of attention and turn your focus to someone else. This is especially crucial if you have new players, or ones that are excessively wary about pulling from the tower. You need to keep them engaged.
Also, decide ahead of time how lethal you want things to be. Once you've gotten close to 30 pulls, it gets really risky, and the likelyhood of a death is pretty high. Pace yourself accordingly, and also be ready with a 'dead man walking' alternative if someone spazzes really early and knocks the tower over really early.
I'll be running two unoffical Dread games at GenCon (after which I'll shelve the MIA scenario), and am already working on a couple ideas for the next one.
But, in general, the best piece of advice I can offer is 'stay flexible'. The players in my games will come up with stuff I never anticipated, and had I stuck to my preconceived notion of how the game should play out, they wouldn't have been nearly as good.
Second, stay out of the way. Lay out the situation, be descriptive, but let them drive the action. The sense of uncertaintly is enhanced when they have to decide whether or not an action is worth a pull. Try and avoid saying 'if you want to do X, you need to make a pull' until they ask. Obviously, there are times in any game when the players need a nudge, but I find that in Dread, the more the path seems open, the more creative the players will be and the greater the tension.
Third, keep an eye on each player's 'screen time'. The open-ended nature of a lot of Dread games (see #2) can lead to one player with a lot of initiative dominating play. Similarly, the emphasis on character over stats can lead to situations where a player that gets off on the acting can hog the spotlight. When you're not in especially dramatic scenes, make sure you break off when one player has had a bit of attention and turn your focus to someone else. This is especially crucial if you have new players, or ones that are excessively wary about pulling from the tower. You need to keep them engaged.
Also, decide ahead of time how lethal you want things to be. Once you've gotten close to 30 pulls, it gets really risky, and the likelyhood of a death is pretty high. Pace yourself accordingly, and also be ready with a 'dead man walking' alternative if someone spazzes really early and knocks the tower over really early.
I'll be running two unoffical Dread games at GenCon (after which I'll shelve the MIA scenario), and am already working on a couple ideas for the next one.
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Random221B
First Post
I'd love to hear some details on the scenarios you've developed so far. I'm looking to try to run one-shots of the game on a semi-regular basis, and although occasionally I will have a whole new group of players, and can thus reuse scenarios, more often I will have at least some--if not most or all--of the same players, so I'm going to need additional scenarios. I like the other ones from the book and the website, but they didn't really *grab* me quite as much as Metal Sky did.
I'm also in the earliest stages of putting together a scenario of my own. It's a Horror Western, tentatively entitled " The Majestic Seven." I'll post more details for critique, as I develop them.
Thanks for your time.
~~~~Random
I'm also in the earliest stages of putting together a scenario of my own. It's a Horror Western, tentatively entitled " The Majestic Seven." I'll post more details for critique, as I develop them.
Thanks for your time.
~~~~Random
Piratecat
Sesquipedalian
Holy crap, yes! I will gladly
Rodrigo offers great advice. My Dread games never go as expected, which is most of the fun. I try to organize them like a 3 act play in terms of pacing, and that seems to work fairly well.
John Crichton
First Post
I've played in both of Rodrigo's scenarios and they were both excellent. His advice is solid.
I've only run Dread once, but I did the same adventure 4 times. I think I posted about it earlier in this thread. The game actually used two towers as I wanted to up the tension and paranoia. It used all the main characters from the Ghostbusters movie plus Slimer (cartoon version) and Louis Tully, Rick Moranis' character.
It was very interesting to see how each of the players filled out the questionnaires considering that each of the characters was not their own creation. One of the players filled out his with such interesting stuff that another player used the same sheet for his run. It was Nareau (who posts here) playing Egon for those interested.
Just to add to Rodrigo's advice:
Don't be afraid to ask for multiple pulls for especially difficult tasks. Each pull represents success of some sort so just be ready depending on what the player wants to do and compare it to what the character's abilities are based off their questionnaire. Something that may not cause one character to take a pull at all may require two from someone else.
The last thing I can think of was stepping away from the group for a quick one-on-one discussion of things the other players shouldn't know. I've found that both as a player and a host that it really ramps up the tension to keep that wall in place as opposed to other games like D&D where it's relatively easy to separate character knowledge from player knowledge. But if you do step away, try and make it quick. I know that a few times I felt like I was taking too long and when we returned to the room a few of the players were having an out of game discussion that I really should have avoided to keep the momentum going. That said, it can be a powerful tool if paranoia is what your are aiming for.
I've only run Dread once, but I did the same adventure 4 times. I think I posted about it earlier in this thread. The game actually used two towers as I wanted to up the tension and paranoia. It used all the main characters from the Ghostbusters movie plus Slimer (cartoon version) and Louis Tully, Rick Moranis' character.
It was very interesting to see how each of the players filled out the questionnaires considering that each of the characters was not their own creation. One of the players filled out his with such interesting stuff that another player used the same sheet for his run. It was Nareau (who posts here) playing Egon for those interested.
Just to add to Rodrigo's advice:
Don't be afraid to ask for multiple pulls for especially difficult tasks. Each pull represents success of some sort so just be ready depending on what the player wants to do and compare it to what the character's abilities are based off their questionnaire. Something that may not cause one character to take a pull at all may require two from someone else.
The last thing I can think of was stepping away from the group for a quick one-on-one discussion of things the other players shouldn't know. I've found that both as a player and a host that it really ramps up the tension to keep that wall in place as opposed to other games like D&D where it's relatively easy to separate character knowledge from player knowledge. But if you do step away, try and make it quick. I know that a few times I felt like I was taking too long and when we returned to the room a few of the players were having an out of game discussion that I really should have avoided to keep the momentum going. That said, it can be a powerful tool if paranoia is what your are aiming for.
Random221B
First Post
I am more than happy to have my ideas
Seriously, if folks like my ideas enough to swipe them for their own games, I'd be thrilled. That's part of why I want to put my ideas up here, and get people's input...to make it into a scenario that works not just for me, but for other folks as well.I posted some stuff about my ideas so far over on the tiltingatwindmills.net message board, but I'm going to go ahead and copy the info here, so folks here can look it over and give me thoughts.
First, a post about the overall premise of the scenario...
The scenario is a horror western, tentatively titled "The Majestic Seven." The plot is inspired by the computer game "Nocturne," the novel "The Haunted Mesa," and Hopi and Mesoamerican mythology.
The very basic outline is that the PCs are seven people of various western genre archetypes, who are all on a train traveling to (or through) the town of Majestic, NM one night. Just outside of the town, some sort of accident derails the train, and these seven characters are the only survivors. They will be the heroes (and some of them also the victims) of the town of Majestic, thus, the Majestic Seven (obviously a play on the Magnificent Seven.)
They make their way into the town, and discover it seemingly deserted. Eventually, however, they will discover the possessed/zombified husks of many of the inhabitants, and will need to fight through them to survive. They are the result of attacks by spider-like humanoids from the Hopi "Third World"--a previous world to this one (the "Fourth World") which fell into wickedness and death, and which Hopi myth says the people of this world "climbed up out of" to escape into this new and better world. I am also associating this "Third World" with the Mayan underworld Xibalba, which was supposedly inhabited by a race of beings who worshiped death. The lords of this realm are the Twelve Lords of Xibalba (also known as the Twelve Majestics, in my scenario) and they are ruled by the two greatest of them, known as One Death and Seven Death. For purposes of my scenario, it is Seven Death that is responsible for the troubles the PCs are dealing with. Thus, he is the seventh Majestic...or, Majestic Seven.
In any case, in the Hopi myths, all life was created by a goddess known as Grandmother Spider (or Spider Grandmother, or simply Spider Woman...but I'm staying away from that last one because it sounds like a superhero.) They initially inhabited the First World, but most of them fell to wickedness and evil, and so Grandmother Spider led only the best of the people up into the second world. This was repeated into the Third World, and finally into the Fourth, with the people undergoing physical transformations with each migration. For purposes of my story, the children of Grandmother Spider looked much more like spiders in the first world, and have gradually become more human with each ascension, thus the inhabitants of the Third World below this one are horrifying spider-humanoid creatures.
Somehow Seven Death and his Xibalban spider-demons (known as the Anasazi--or "ancient enemy") have found and opened the "sipapu"...the hole through which the people first rose up into the Fourth World from the Third, and are making their way through, trying to open the way for Seven Death to come through and extend his evil domain across the earth.
So, the escalation for the PCs is, they face and fight the zombie-husks of the townsfolk, who have been implanted with young Anasazi parasites, so they can grow to full form here in this world. Then, they discover and have to fight a couple of full-grown Anasazi--the ones responsible for what happened in the town. Finally, they have to face and stop Seven Death, and close the sipapu. I am thinking that the story will take them through town and out the other side, to a nearby mesa with a recently uncovered ancient Hopi kiva (a Hopi ritual room) where the sipapu is located. I'm thinking maybe a series of caves and tunnels in/under the mesa to get to the kiva, and that's where they deal with the Anasazi. Then through the sipapu, to the Third World, where they confront and (hopefully) defeat Seven Death, back out the sipapu, and close the door behind them. (Or rather...whichever of them survive do.)
Ok, so that's the overall plan. What I need now is advice and suggestions for breaking it down into acts, and some events to throw into it. Right now I'm thinking "Act I: Zombies..." (set in town, dealing with the husks), "Act II: ...And Spiders..." (set in the desert/badlands and the caves/tunnels, dealing with the Anasazi), "Act III: ...And Gods, Oh My!" (set in the Third World, and dealing with Seven Death.) But I'm not sure if that sounds too big and sprawling, or what. Any thoughts would be appreciated.
The other thing I need to figure out is exactly what the Anasazi are doing, besides just growing more Anasazi in town, what Seven Death's specific goal and plans are, how the PCs stop him, and how they close the sipapu.
Anyway, that's it for this post. I would love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or comments. I'm going to follow this up with another post going into what I have so far for the characters.
Thanks for your time.
Best,
~~~~Random
