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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mythago" data-source="post: 6138673" data-attributes="member: 3019">While the Jenga mechanic really is innovative (and was blown away by the point about how it shows results over time), for my money the less innovative, but far more useful mechanic, is the character questionnaire. As a player it's an incredibly useful tool for brainstorming ideas about your character, and it's amazingly fun when a throwaway bit on your sheet turns out to be a huge part of the game. As a GM it's an absolutely unprecedented way to set the tone of the game and to steer your players. Of course, players often go in much different directions than you expect when you steer them! But still.(warning: blather ahead)I ran Dread last time we played, and I didn't find the questions hard exactly, but I spent a lot of time crafting them so I'd have a good mix of questions. I find a good way to think about them beyond a distribution of who/what/where/when/why/how is whether they're open ended vs. leading and neutral vs. intrusive, because they accomplish different things:Open-ended/neutral: "<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?194714-Dread-Jenga-beat-up-my-dice!-My-results-from-the-indie-horror-RPG&p=3482076&viewfull=1#post3482076" target="_blank">Where'd you get those shoes?</a>" A good way to get players to think about their character and give you a glimpse of their personality that might not have much to do with the game per se. These are fun to repeat across character sheets to see what different answers you get. They don't elicit game-specific information and aren't terribly useful to shape the character, for the most part. I try to avoid slipping into yes/no questions, which even with good players seem to prompt a limited response; "Do you wear underpants?" is not going to get as good an answer as "Boxers or briefs?" (to which you know That Player is going to answer "Boyshorts").Open-ended/intrusive: "What would you die of embarrassment to have anyone know?" Better at shaping the character, especially if your intrusive question goes to the theme of the game (e.g., the players are trapped in a modern version of No Exit).Leading/neutral: "Why have you stayed at your job as long as you have?" Not intrusive or offensive, probably, but you're now dictating facts to the player; she's got a job, she's been there for an unusually long period of time for that job, and there's a reason for it.Leading/intrusive: "Who else knows what you really did to your father?" Dictating facts to the player again, and in a way that leans heavily on them to either embrace something unpleasant or deny it. It's easy to overdo these questions because they fit so well with the horror theme.I found it worked best (both as a player and GM) to have a light touch with leading things, and tone can make a huge difference in how you shape the character. Say I want to imply that a character is a collector. "Good grief, how many of those things do you even have?" is very different than "What object do you collect as a hobby?"; "What's your worst habit?" is much lighter than "You know that's going to kill you someday, so why can't you stop?"You effectively have only 12 questions per character since one of them will almost certainly be "What's your name?" and others will have to establish facts relevant to the game setting. It's surprising, after slaving over a whole passel of questions, how quickly they go when you start to divvy them up. Here's a few questions I threw at my group of 'tormented artists':<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Why do you take such pains to conceal how much money you really have? </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">She didn’t make it big, but you did. How do you feel about that? </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Isn’t there anyone you can talk to about your fears? Anyone at all? </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">What milestone or accomplishment did you complete many years after most people do? </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">What one question are you always asked in interviews but always refuse to answer? </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">You wish you could go back and apologize for what you did; why can’t you? </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Don’t you think you should stop doing that to yourself? </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Where were you, exactly, when you received that phone call? </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">How do you react when someone tells you they’re a fan of your work? </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Who gave you that scar? </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Everybody says it wasn’t your fault. Are they right? </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Don’t you miss him, even a little bit? </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Why do you lie about your ethnic background? </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">What’s in the shoebox? </li> </ul></blockquote>

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