Review: Dread - A One-Shot, Tension Guaranteed, Horror RPG

With Halloween a mere 6 months away I'm sure we're all starting to get our preparations started (no? Just me?), and horror RPGs are a great alternative to a classic party, and arguably considerably cheaper!

Creating a sense of fear and tension in TTRPGs can be a daunting task. Building in appropriate mood lighting, ambient sound, pacing, can all help put your players on edge but after all that work, what happens if they continually roll high and all the fear is taken out of your carefully crafted scenario?

Dread, designed by Epidiah Ravachol and Nathaniel Barmore (publisher: The Impossible Dream), is the answer. 

Dread is also the guarantee.

Dread delivers on the promise of its name by effectively weaving tension through its mechanics. While being rules-light, there is enough structure to support the weight of consequences that will keep players gripping the arms of their chairs. It is perfect for a one-shot adventure, though I am sure with a bit of tweaking it could be extended to a limited run.

The true Tower of Terror

So how does one play Dread?

Dread is (possibly) the first TTRPG to replace dice-rolling with a Jenga tower (other tumbling-tower games are available). 

Just on the off-chance that there are people out there unfamiliar with the game of Jenga, players are required to take turns removing blocks one-handed from a tower and placing it at the top without knocking the whole thing over. This becomes increasingly fraught as the tower grows and stability diminishes.

Dread requires players to use this block removal in place of ability checks. Perhaps a player wishes to make a particularly bold, risky, or daring action? The GM will ask them to pull a block and place it on top. If what they are trying to achieve is considerably risky or difficult they may need to pull multiple blocks.

And should the tower fall? That character has met their demise. They failed, they died. The party is one the less.

Of course there is room for heroics, as all good horror stories allow. Should a character want to achieve what they set out to do (let's say distract the hoard of zombies away from where the group is hiding) but they doubt they will be able to remove a block from the tower without it crashing down, they can choose to push the tower over voluntarily. This results in the action being successful (the zombies are drawn away) but the character meets their grisly fate in doing so (they lead the zombies down a dead-end, there is no escape for them).

Dread by name, Dread by nature

This game is so simple yet so mind-blowingly effective. It effortlessly creates growing tension as the game progresses.

Character creation, free from the burden of stats and numbers, encourages players to consider their character's motivations, dreams, and fears. It allows players to become invested in their creation on a deeper level, which increases the heartbreak when they fail.

At the start of the game, players will tend to be slightly more foolhardy as the Jenga tower stands firmly on the table in front of them. They will take risks that they will look back on with anguish. As the tower grows and sways with the toll of many turns, players and their characters will start to hesitate and worry. Perhaps their next move will spell the end of their story, or even that of their teammates?

Once the tower is toppled, and a character departs, the Jenga blocks are restacked but with 3 extra blocks removed in turn by all players for each fallen comrade. Not only does this help show the heavy toll the deaths are having on the remaining characters, and keep the suspense running high, but if a player should cause the tower to topple during this reset phase, it means their character also died as a result of the action that last caused it to fall.

Oh, and did I forget to mention that an accidental nudge of the table or wave of the arms that causes the tower to fall also results in death? Should a butterfly flap its wings and your tower comes down, that's just too bad.

Actions have consequences and the loss of characters is inevitable.

The quick and the Dread

Although having mood-lighting and an ambient soundtrack will help support the unease and fear in players, I have never played a game that so excellently captures the ominous feeling of dread. As the story progresses from one complication to the next, players will start to wonder how much longer they can ride their luck, and whether their doom is lurking around the next corner.

And then when it comes to the fatal fall of the blocks, time will seem to slow as everyone realises what this means for the character, and the group.

It's a quick game to set up, reasonably quick to play (2-5 hours depending on number of players), but it will take a long time to get over. It is no wonder it won an ENNIE Award in 2006 for innovation and was nominated for both Best Games and Best Rules. 

You can pick up a PDF copy here, which is highly recommended as it comes with a selection of read-to-play scenarios. Or you can get hold of a free quick-start guide here, which will suffice if the GM doesn't mind putting in a bit more legwork pre-game.

Despite the thrill of this game and my high praise of the efficiency of the system in delivering exactly what you need from a horror-themed RPG, I must highlight that sadly it is not a system that accommodates players who would find it difficult to achieve the dexterity required to remove and place the Jenga blocks. At its core, Dread (via Jenga) is a dexterity game so would possibly fail to provide the same accessibility as dice-rolling mechanics. However, I am not an expert on this and perhaps there are ways that the game could be made more accessible to people who would find it prohibitively difficult?

Thinking along these lines I wonder how the giant Jenga towers you can get for your garden might not only accommodate players with fine-motor control disabilities, but also how this might increase the terror of the inevitable crumbling tower?

Despite this, I feel Dread is the perfect game for a Halloween gathering, or with Summer approaching, a late evening spent in the dwindling twilight where ghost stories traditionally come out to play.

What are your experiences of Horror RPGs? Perhaps you have played Dread before and want to share your experiences? We would love to hear from you in the comments below.