![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Dread Postmortem
Feb. 22nd, 2023 08:38 pmA couple weeks ago, I ran the horror RPG Dread for the same group I played Drink Me with. Dread is a horror and suspense game from the 2000s with a core mechanic: Jenga. You (the group) build a Jenga tower. You (the host) create a horror storygame narrative. Every time the players would roll in a different RPG, they play Jenga. Try to do something uncertain? Pull a block. Contend with a challenge? Pull a block. The tower starts looking rickety after a while, and the question becomes, is this block really worth it? --Because you really don't want the tower to fall.
It's pretty great.
Here's what the game's blurb has to say about it: Explore hostile worlds of your own creation with Dread, a game carved from the intense emotions buried in your favorite horror stories. Through individually crafted questionnaires, players are coaxed into revealing their characters' abilities, shortcomings, personalities, and fears. These characters are plunged into macabre tales devised by the host. When moments of conflict and peril arise in the story, it is the players' nerves, rather than the whims of dice, that determine the fates of their characters.
This PDF, a few friends, your own sick imagination, and one set of Jenga® blocks is all you need.
The scenario I ended up running took place on a British Royal Navy ship circa 1805 in the middle of the Napoleonic Wars--a tightly knit claustrophobic world, dependent on constant and well-coordinated teamwork and surrounded on all sides by an unsurvivable alien environment. In the end the creepy tale of HMS Centurion took us 2 (long) sessions--we photographed and rebuilt the tower the second time--and we spun a great tale of superstition, conformity, bad French, and hostile work environments.
( Dread )
It's pretty great.
Here's what the game's blurb has to say about it: Explore hostile worlds of your own creation with Dread, a game carved from the intense emotions buried in your favorite horror stories. Through individually crafted questionnaires, players are coaxed into revealing their characters' abilities, shortcomings, personalities, and fears. These characters are plunged into macabre tales devised by the host. When moments of conflict and peril arise in the story, it is the players' nerves, rather than the whims of dice, that determine the fates of their characters.
This PDF, a few friends, your own sick imagination, and one set of Jenga® blocks is all you need.
The scenario I ended up running took place on a British Royal Navy ship circa 1805 in the middle of the Napoleonic Wars--a tightly knit claustrophobic world, dependent on constant and well-coordinated teamwork and surrounded on all sides by an unsurvivable alien environment. In the end the creepy tale of HMS Centurion took us 2 (long) sessions--we photographed and rebuilt the tower the second time--and we spun a great tale of superstition, conformity, bad French, and hostile work environments.
( Dread )
