Hey, this thread is eight years old! And I STILL love this game.
Want to see me run it? I filmed a time travel-themed horror game for the website Gamers With Jobs, running Dread for 5 exceptional players. Here's part one:
http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/120154
Just watched this whole thing, and I really enjoyed it. All the players were great, but Jason and Dr. Clark were both particularly killing me. "I've never been in space before, do whatever it is you do. Space darts, f-ing space poison, I don't give a $#!+."
The confessional was particularly interesting. I know you've mentioned it in this thread before, but I can't remember the specifics, and don't have the time or mental fortitude to go back through the whole thread looking, so do you mind if I ask about it? From what I could tell, people could make a reality-show-style "confession" in place of making a pull. but are there any limitations on when or how often they can do that? I realize good players aren't going to take advantage of that to avoid ever having to make a pull, but just wondered if there was any more structure to the way you use it than just "make a confession in place of a pull"? It seems like something I might like to adopt in my own runs of Dread, and I'd love to know if there is...well...more I should know.
The other thing I found very interesting is that each of the PCs had sort of an "archetype counterpart" on the mission crew; Top level company exec (Jason/Jack), pilot (Chad/Kasami), mathematician-physicist (Patrick/Irene) medical doctor (Valentina/Seiji), and station astronaut (Annifer/Curt). Was this just to give each PC a direct connection to one of the crew members? Or was there a deeper intent to it, like, were the crew members supposed to each be some kind of symbolic reflection of the PCs...like they could see themselves in their counterparts, as a way of bringing the horror home more? Because before the mission happened, I was expecting that the PCs would end up having to become some sort of backup crew, since they filled all the same roles as the people who were going. That there didn't ultimately seem to be an obvious in-story reason for the "archetype duplication" started me wondering what the meta/themeatic-level reasons might be. Just curious.
Thanks!
~~~~Random