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

Epidiah Ravachol

First Post
I know you're all waiting on news about the PDF. Sorry, I've got none to share at the moment. But I do have this project I've been working on with the fiancée that I think you all might be intrigued by.


(Wow, that cover really goes well with the forum's color scheme.)

It's a roleplaying board game designed for kids and adults to enjoy together. And of course it's a horror game because, well, deep down I think I just really like scaring kids.

Though, after the first few playtests, I learned very quickly that kids are far better at scaring me.

The game is very much inspired by Dread. You need a Jenga (or reasonable knock-off) to play. It's a haunted house scenario in which you all play a group of teenagers who've all dared each other to spend the night. There are six characters to choose from: an athlete, a gossip, a nerd, a bully, a scaredy-cat, and an artist. Each has there own set of special abilities.

You have a map of the house, some tokens, character sheets and a couple decks of cards. As you go exploring the house, the player to your left plays the host, drawing from a deck of spooky events and describing what horrors you face in each room. Then you have to pull from the tower to avoid fleeing--like the little chicken you are--to the rest of the kids in the house.

Throughout the house there are useful items you can pick up. Some of them have special abilities depending on which monsters you face and which kid has them.

Unlike in Dread, no one dies in this game. If you knock the Tower over, your kid runs out the front door and all the way home to mommy. Which sucks. But then you get to play one of the monster that lives at Dread House, like Eddie Sparkle or Lady Glub Glub here.
eddie-sparkle.jpg
lady-glub-glub.jpg

We designed it to be played by a wide range of ages. Younger kids are able to just ignore the rules they don't understand or remember, but there's enough depth there to keep older players interested in the game itself.

This whole thing was sort of inspired by a brief conversation I had at GenCon a couple years ago. A guy came to my booth asking if we had any games for kids around ten or eleven years old. I almost recommend Dread to him, because of how simple and easy it is to learn, but I thought better of it because of the inherent violence. I had nothing for him that day. But the idea stuck with me.

So eventually I started gathering kids to test my designs on. And that doesn't sound creepy at all.
. . .
Anyway, if you've got kids you need to scare, and you happen to be at GenCon, stop by the Design Matters booth (#2100). I'll be at the booth Thursday afternoon and Sunday morning if you want to say hi. I'll be the handsome looking one.

And if you want to play it, I'll be at Games on Demand Saturday morning. That's at the Grand Central Ballroom "B" in the Crowne Plaza Hotel. Again, I'll be the handsome looking one.
 

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Rel

Liquid Awesome
That sounds mighty cool!

I think I may have just figured out what to get my daughter from GenCon this year...
 

Piratecat

Sesquipedalian
I'm absolutely in. So many of my friends' kids want to play D&D with us when we start the game in the evenings; this is a great way to let them occasionally have their own game.
 


fett527

First Post
Why aren't we playing any Dread in the CM Gencon games (formerly known as ENWorld GenCon games)? I was surprised that it had disappeared this year.

2 Savage Lands rules set games
2 D20ish (Can't recall what Rel runs Sky Galleons on)
1 CoC as usual
1 Mutants n Masterminds
1 Old Skool OD&D



Does Dread not have the staying power? I REALLY love it, so I hope not.
 

John Crichton

First Post
Why aren't we playing any Dread in the CM Gencon games (formerly known as ENWorld GenCon games)? I was surprised that it had disappeared this year.
A few other folks said the same thing at the con. I know that Queen_D has mentioned a Alice in Wonderland Dread game recently. I think it's just one of those things where no one was running it from the ENW/CM crowd.
 

Rel

Liquid Awesome
I picked up Dread House for my daughter and she is begging to play it already. It looks really cool.

As for why there were no Dread games, I'm not sure. I think it's probably just a coincidence or the fact that people wanted to try running stuff that had come out more recently. Not to worry. Dread will be around for a long time to come. My wife is working on two separate Dread games to possibly bring to the WNCGD.
 


I picked up Dread House for my daughter and she is begging to play it already. It looks really cool.

As for why there were no Dread games, I'm not sure. I think it's probably just a coincidence or the fact that people wanted to try running stuff that had come out more recently. Not to worry. Dread will be around for a long time to come. My wife is working on two separate Dread games to possibly bring to the WNCGD.

I picked it up, too. I''ll likely never play it, but any chance to throw some money at Epidiah is worth it. I've gotten far more than my money's worth out of Dread.

I've had a Dread game percolating in my head for a while now, but I haven't figured out how to make a couple key plot points flexible enough to handle 'contact with the enemy' and still maintain cohesiveness.

I did run a (mostly) Time & Temp game at GenCon based on the old Simon Hawke Time Wars novels.
 

Piratecat

Sesquipedalian
Oh, Dread's here to stay. I only didn't run it because I thought other people were! I have a nifty scenario planned - "Separation Anxiety," with the PCs as six people on a reality TV show about divorcing couples - that I think may be incredibly fun. I'll be running it over the coming year.

House of Dread was the first thing I bought at GenCon. i'm showing it to my niece tonight.
 

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