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[Dread] Jenga beat up my dice! My results from the indie horror RPG.
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<blockquote data-quote="mythago" data-source="post: 6220547" data-attributes="member: 3019"><p>So having run a couple of Dread games with radically different themes - </p><p></p><p>"The Solar Lodge", where the players were tormented artists going to a famous retreat-in-the-woods to get away from it all and work on their art in peace. Of course it turned out not to be quite the peaceful idyll that they were expecting. With this game, I simply told the players they were artists of some sort and were otherwise free to pick what they liked about their characters. </p><p></p><p>"Gold is the Metal", set in 1971, where a group of political radicals, Vietnam veterans and politicos were sent to a remote location in the Solomon Islands to track down rumors of the Philosopher's Stone, with the prize being the ability to save the gold standard and thus rescue the US economy. For this game I gave them less choice: I presented them with a list of 1970s archetype characters, ranging from "Former combat medic" to "Prominent Neo-Satanist" and told them to pick their first and second choices. I also gave each person at least one question that tied them to another character. This is tricky because you can't be sure that the person on the other end of the question is going to have the first clue about whatever they come up with - so the questions were all 'one way' and didn't require the other player to know of it at all, e.g. "You met the helicopter pilot once when you were younger; why do you doubt he remembers you?"</p><p></p><p>It was interesting to see what the players found important and what they didn't, and how they pushed back on the game's plot . In "The Solar Lodge", I had asked one of the players "Where is your little sister buried?" and he replied that she was buried right on the grounds of the aforementioned resort, where he visited her grave every year. O-kay, I had not planned on <em>anyone</em> on this group having been there before, but it didn't seem right to veto this. So the players show up, and the first thing he wants to do is visit his sister's grave. Which isn't there; instead, he finds a stand of maple trees that are clearly a few decades old on that spot. None of the caretakers (who are, by complete coincidence, new from last season) has any knowledge of a grave ever having been there, and there's nothing on the maps....</p><p></p><p>I had intended this to be a throwaway creepy moment, but the obsession about finding what happened to his sister's grave turned into a major plot point for the game, and eventually a huge reason for this character's descent into madness and death.</p><p></p><p>Conversely, I learned that you can have real problems with a player who doesn't pay attention to their character sheet or who needs to "up their metagame," as one friend of mine puts it. One player, who is normally a very creative and involved RPer, has a tendency to procrastinate and waited until after being reminded a couple of times to turn in their character sheet. This player also doesn't seem to get that the questions are a hint to what might be important in the game. So, for example, in response to "Why are you more dangerous than you look?" the player wrote "I'm not dangerous! But I can take care of myself", and when asked "Does anyone else know about your work for the FBI?" gave an extremely vague answer about having been on a watch list. The end result of this is that the player ended up sitting on the sidelines a lot instead of getting involved in the main plot, combat, etc. and I had to stretch a little to find ways that she could take center stage at all.</p><p></p><p>Looking forward to running it again!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="mythago, post: 6220547, member: 3019"] So having run a couple of Dread games with radically different themes - "The Solar Lodge", where the players were tormented artists going to a famous retreat-in-the-woods to get away from it all and work on their art in peace. Of course it turned out not to be quite the peaceful idyll that they were expecting. With this game, I simply told the players they were artists of some sort and were otherwise free to pick what they liked about their characters. "Gold is the Metal", set in 1971, where a group of political radicals, Vietnam veterans and politicos were sent to a remote location in the Solomon Islands to track down rumors of the Philosopher's Stone, with the prize being the ability to save the gold standard and thus rescue the US economy. For this game I gave them less choice: I presented them with a list of 1970s archetype characters, ranging from "Former combat medic" to "Prominent Neo-Satanist" and told them to pick their first and second choices. I also gave each person at least one question that tied them to another character. This is tricky because you can't be sure that the person on the other end of the question is going to have the first clue about whatever they come up with - so the questions were all 'one way' and didn't require the other player to know of it at all, e.g. "You met the helicopter pilot once when you were younger; why do you doubt he remembers you?" It was interesting to see what the players found important and what they didn't, and how they pushed back on the game's plot . In "The Solar Lodge", I had asked one of the players "Where is your little sister buried?" and he replied that she was buried right on the grounds of the aforementioned resort, where he visited her grave every year. O-kay, I had not planned on [I]anyone[/I] on this group having been there before, but it didn't seem right to veto this. So the players show up, and the first thing he wants to do is visit his sister's grave. Which isn't there; instead, he finds a stand of maple trees that are clearly a few decades old on that spot. None of the caretakers (who are, by complete coincidence, new from last season) has any knowledge of a grave ever having been there, and there's nothing on the maps.... I had intended this to be a throwaway creepy moment, but the obsession about finding what happened to his sister's grave turned into a major plot point for the game, and eventually a huge reason for this character's descent into madness and death. Conversely, I learned that you can have real problems with a player who doesn't pay attention to their character sheet or who needs to "up their metagame," as one friend of mine puts it. One player, who is normally a very creative and involved RPer, has a tendency to procrastinate and waited until after being reminded a couple of times to turn in their character sheet. This player also doesn't seem to get that the questions are a hint to what might be important in the game. So, for example, in response to "Why are you more dangerous than you look?" the player wrote "I'm not dangerous! But I can take care of myself", and when asked "Does anyone else know about your work for the FBI?" gave an extremely vague answer about having been on a watch list. The end result of this is that the player ended up sitting on the sidelines a lot instead of getting involved in the main plot, combat, etc. and I had to stretch a little to find ways that she could take center stage at all. Looking forward to running it again! [/QUOTE]
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