Quick Apology:
Hi all, sorry, I know it’s been a couple of months since my last update – I’ve been very busy writing short stories, which I’m hoping to get sent off to be published – very exciting indeed! But, it’s great to be back, and I thought I’d do something fresh, something that I haven’t done here yet, and that is dive into the terrific and sometimes terrifying world of tabletop games, and nowhere better to start, than in one of my all time favourites; Dread.
So, what is, Dread? Dread, is a horror RPG, published in 2005 by The Impossible Dream.
Personally, I only discovered Dread, about 3 years ago; as Bob Ross would say, it was, ‘a happy accident’. Soon after I found out that this game is so rare, that only very, very few physical copies of the game book actually exist, but don’t worry, there is light at the end of this particular tunnel. The game manual is still available to buy and download as a PDF – something I have done, and bound together like a book, which is an absolute win.
So, what else do you need to play this RPG? Make no mistake, this isn’t your usual RPG in which dice are rolled to determine where you can go or what actions you can take, like D&D, no, for Dread you will need a stack of wooden blocks, like Jenga or any other plain equivalent.
So, in order to play Dread here is the list of what you will need:
- The game manual
- One Jenga Tower or an equivalent
- 3 – 6 Players
- 3 – 5 Hours of playtime – although this can change and span multiple sessions if you wish
- A prepared adventure
- Character sheets
The Setting
Dread features no fixed, concrete setting, the world can be entirely made up – it does however, have to be in a horror setting in which you would expect most of the characters to not survive. Players who particularly like the role as a DM in D&D may like this, because it allows for you to use your imagination to craft, mould and manipulate the world around you.
That’s not all though – for those of you that would like a more casual game of it without the need for potentially tedious planning, in the back of the game rulebook, there are already 3 pre-made stories available to play. They are: Beneath A Full Moon – a survival horror, Beneath A Metal Sky – sci-fi, and Beneath The Mask – which is based on a slasher film, in which not even the GM knows which of the PCs is the killer.
Character creation involves each character in the game being assigned a part, and each part coming with about a dozen questions, the final one always being, “What is your name?”. To find out more though, I guess you’ll just have to go play the game, won’t you?
System & Mechanics
Dread uses a very innovative device to build up tension and really put the scare into the players. This is accomplished using the wooden blocks. Make no mistake though, this is the Tower of Dread, and the consequences surrounding it for the players are that much more dire.
When playing the game, when it comes to making actions, Dread forces the players themselves to have to use their own physical dexterity to pull blocks from the tower – If successful, the player successfully performs the action they wished to take and then places that block at the top of the tower. If unsuccessful and the player knocks over the tower when pulling a block, that player is them removed from the game – usually through death – however, if the action being performed was a simple one, the player is considered “walking dead”, as a result they will no longer be able to pull anymore blocks and will be subject to death at the next most plausible moment.
What makes this even more dreadful – that’s right, it doesn’t stop there – is that at the beginning of the game and throughout, when built or re-built by the GM, the GM is allowed to remove a number of blocks of their choice, wherever they choose to, and this number goes up, each time it is re-built, just to make the tension of pulling a block, the tower falling and another character dying that much more intense.
Conclusion
Dread, for me, truly was a breath of fresh air – if that makes sense with something that is horror-related? Either way, if you’re looking to play something that really goes against the norm of what most tabletop RPGs entail, then Dread really is for you – it is dynamic and compelling and really will have you and your friends gripped. Not only that, but because of the pre-made stories and the ability to make your own stories, Dread really does have an incredibly fun, replay-ability factor.
Until Next Time, I’m, TticTak. Thanks for reading! 😀
Geek In The Box 