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

[wedgeski]

Experienced Dread-ites can easily fill in the questions in 15-20 mins, but players new to the game can easily freeze up when they see everyone around them writing copiously onto the paper. It's like sitting an exam where you look around and everyone seems to be writing an awful lot *more* than you are.

In any case, I always emit questionnaires prior to the game these days.

 

[John Crichton]

Experienced Dread-ites can easily fill in the questions in 15-20 mins, but players new to the game can easily freeze up when they see everyone around them writing copiously onto the paper. It's like sitting an exam where you look around and everyone seems to be writing an awful lot *more* than you are.

I've played Dread a healthy number of times and there's no way I could create a character that fast. Not one that I'd have any investment in, at any rate. But then again, I'm the first to admit that it can take quite a while for me to find my character's voice. It usually takes at least 2 full readings of the questions before I can get going. That and each subsequent question will often make me go back and alter or complete re-write an earlier question.

I'm not saying that one cannot make a good Dread character in 15-20 minutes or there is "one-true-way" but just like anything else you get back what you put into it.

 

[wedgeski]

I'm not saying that one cannot make a good Dread character in 15-20 minutes or there is "one-true-way" but just like anything else you get back what you put into it.

Fair enough. My personal expectation for any Dread game is that it will last 3-4 hours and the characters only really have meaning in the context of the adventure they were created for. With five players there's only so much characterisation you can do, so when it comes to games I run much more character prep than that is essentially a waste. Of course, that's just our game.

 

[Seonaid]

I can't tell if the discussion veered off intentionally or my intent wasn't clear, but if it wasn't, I wasn't talking about the players at all. I've played in games where the characters were made basically at the table (or a few hours prior) and games where the characters were made days in advance and I've found that the ones made days in advance were better. The players had more time to get into their characters and the GMs had more time to plan quality interactions between the players and the environment. It's awesome when some little thing you mention in your questionnaire comes up in the game.

Of course, an excellent GM can probably do this on the fly every time, but IME it's better to have the questionnaires sent out at least a week in advance so the players can get them back to the GM with at least a few days left before the game.

 

[John Crichton]

Fair enough. My personal expectation for any Dread game is that it will last 3-4 hours and the characters only really have meaning in the context of the adventure they were created for. With five players there's only so much characterisation you can do, so when it comes to games I run much more character prep than that is essentially a waste. Of course, that's just our game.

I agree about only having so much time to play. Every game I've played and run has been ~4 hours. That said, it's never a waste to have more to draw from as a player or giving the host more to work with. Also, it's only a waste if it was no fun writing or reading the questionnaire.

 

[Amator]

I haven't read all 25 pages, but has anyone recorded a session of Dread? I'd love to listen to a game and hear how the tension builds.

 

[Epidiah Ravachol]

For those of you looking for the Pendragon version for Dread I think I found it here: Dread - Pendragon.pdf - File Shared from Box.net - Free Online File Storage

Cheers!

That's the one! Another Internet ghost is resurrected.

 

[Cerebral Paladin]

Addressing Seonaid's point, I've played in a Dread game which essentially wasn't customized to the questionnaires at all, and it made the game feel flat. Sure, there was this werewolf menacing the area or whatever, and there was some tension from the tower, but it lost a lot.

That said, I've had a lot of success running Dread (or technically, a variant "Heroic Dread") with pregenerated characters. You lose the ability of the players to customize the characters and make them your own, but you gain the ability to have the adventure keyed in to the characters without needing the gap between when the players fill out the questionnaire and when the game runs. (I agree that a really good GM can do the customization on the fly, but it's much harder, and the consequences of filling out the questionnaire and then having none of it matter are worse.)

 

[jdeleski]

I've been running a Dread game on Halloween for the past 3 years and it's been a hoot!

The first year, I ran my group through an amusement park scenario where an alien presence was mind-controlling certain employees of the park. The tension built very fast as my players ended up suspecting each other and eventually turned against one another (even though they weren't being mind-controlled).

Last year the team played as scientists and military men who were fighting to survive an existing zombie infestation. Whenever any player died, they became a zombie and pulled jenga blocks to attack the other players. Only one player survived at the end of the night, and that was because she ran away and hid.

This year, I'm plagiarizing the fun-sounding "War of the Dead" scenario where my players start a pleasant cruise to the Bahamas that quickly devolves into madness. No spoilers here. The scenario is written for Savage Worlds, but converting any game to Dread is dead simple. I'll start off the scenario with my players pulling numerous jenga blocks when engaging in contests that are held by the cruise team, such as rock wall climbing, gambling, drinking contests, silly dance contest, etc. After the first night, though, things will get very serious. The icing on the cake will be the handouts: I'll go online and print out actual cruise brochures and deck maps. I expect this to be a lot of fun.

J.

 

[Amator]

Hmm...I've never played Dread, but I'm highly intrigued and I'll be at a large Halloween party.

What's the effective number of players for the average Dread scenario? I'm thinking of perhaps buying the PDF and running a short game at the Halloween party. Any particular scenarios out of the book that you'd recommend? Most of the people at the party have experience with D&D and/or WoD and I'm hoping to keep it 2-3 hours max before everyone is too wasted to play properly. Thanks.