Role Playing and story telling

Dread Role playing discription:

https://www.tiltingatwindmills.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/dreadstandardexcerpt.pdf

Quick rules explanation:

The game uses blocks from the familiar family game Jenga and the rules of Dread are quite simple, as shown below:

• Character creation: Dread uses a unique questionnaire method of character creation. The character questionnaire provides the skeleton of a character, while the player gets to add the flesh when they answer the questions, thus creating the character they want to play. In this way, characters are guaranteed to fit into the story, and yet players are invested in the characters, lending weight to the decisions they make.
• Game play: Throughout the game, the host describes what happens to and around the characters. Players contribute by declaring what their character is doing. The game ends when the story comes to a conclusion, or when all of the characters have been removed from play.
• Mechanics of play: Dice, cards, or other more-traditional randomizers are replaced by a tower of blocks. When a character attempts a task beyond their capabilities, the tower determines their success. They can succeed by successfully pulling a block, or choose to fail by not pulling. Tension builds as the tower becomes more and more precarious.

• If you knock over the tower during your turn, your character is removed from the game, never to return. Your character’s fate could be death, insanity, cowardice, imprisonment, possession, or some other horrible fate.
• If you knock over the tower by accident, the host decides the fate of your character, as the story dictates.
• If you knock over the tower on purpose, you can choose your own heroic or dramatic exit.

That’s pretty much it. Time to grab a Jenga and go scare your friends.

Dread themes:

Fairy tale

Steampunk

Mafia//werewolf

Fairy Tale story idea:

The king calls together a band of misfit adventurers to help him reclaim his forest from various forces of evil.

As the adventure goes on; the adventurers interact with various increasingly powerful creatures in what seems more and more like a suicide mission and struggle just to stay alive . . .

Act 1:

Adventurers meet at a royal tournament

They are called together and sent on a quest by the king to “reclaim the royal forest from various monsters terrorizing the forest”

If asked for detail, the king with describe malevolent magic beasts and unnatural spirits

Refusal could result in blackmailing, imprisonment, or the character(s) being run out of the kingdom into the forests

The characters are given an inaccurate map, and a set of camping materials including a poisoned water filter

The characters meet the princess--the king’s only child, beloved by the people and next in line for the throne. She warns them that there are unexpected danger in the forest and that not everything the face may be as it seems, but seems afraid and won’t tell them any more (if any character makes a particular impression--write this down for further use

Act 2:

The adventurers meet various forest monsters

In order of encounter:

• Bandits--hired by the king, the number of bandits should be n+1 more than the number of players, they were originally prisoners of the king and given the choice of death or this mission, if captured, unless stopped, they are instructed to commit suicide with the capsule of arsenic in their sleeves
• Griffins--the players, unless they successfully perceive the nest, come between the mated pair of griffins and their children and get attacked by the griffins, one of the griffins should have a sheep in its claws, if the players don’t make a note, they won’t see the baby griffins, there is a small chance of pet griffins (adult or baby)
• Will ‘o the wisps-- lights carried by more employees of the king (wizards), designed to lead the characters off the path and into quicksand, the characters will have to pull to resist the lure but if they’re successful, they skip the unicorn encounter, a sense magic will reveal if the wisps are human created but no more than that, if characters escape the quicksand they will find themselves in a ring of fire in the middle of the unicorn’s territory
• Unicorn-- pissed off by humans setting fire to its territory, its first few are designed to miss and scare off the humans, if humans attack the unicorn will then act in self defense and only kill if necessary, humans can successfully placate the unicorn by putting out the fire or through another show of good faith that puts their own life on the line--most of these actions would require a pull, if placated it will weep healing tears that will disable the poison in the water filter (the unicorn is not a possible ally)
• Encounter with the poisoned water filter--any character that drinks from it has to make a pull and loses strength, knowledge of nature can heal the poison or knowledge of magic can sense or heal the poison
• Werewolf--set in the adventures’ path by the king, the wolf form of the werewolf is a mindless beast that wants blood with no regard to its own safety, if the adventures can kill him, he turns into a naked dead man who looks “oddly vulnerable”, an investigation pull will and the adventurers will find the seal of the king freshly burnt into the wolf’s palm, if the adventures can successfully hide, trap, or in another way not kill the werewolf until morning, the werewolf will turn into a man again, be hostile and disoriented, he will complain of pain in his hand and his brand will be visible, when pressed for his story he will claim to have been kidnapped in man form, he remembers extreme pain and then being dropped in the forest as a wolf (the werewolf could be a possible ally)

Act 3:

At this point the party can turn back to the castle or go on to meet the goblin army

If they chose not to go back to the kingdom they’ll meet the goblin army more directly

If they chose to go back they might get lost, and they will encounter the goblin army but it might not be direct

• Goblin army--the goblins are eager for bloodshed and can definitely kill any or all adventurers unless they are stupidly good at jenga, the army is around 300 individuals and careful observation will reveal a mixture of goblins, orcs, werewolves, vampires, and other hulking creatures. Their leader is a giant and misshapen orc named Grunt near the front middle of the pack. If the leader is defeated the battle isn’t over but will pretty quickly resolve after only a few more pulls. If the band approaches the goblins in a friendly way, the goblins will be initially aggressive but if the adventures continue to be non-threatening and agree to putting down their weapons, the band will reveal the purpose is to overthrow the king and invite the adventurers to join them
• King--the king has an army of about 500 folks but only about 150 are well armored and well armed, assassins could also off the king, and the king’s people will be convinced by the sight of the king’s dead body or if the king’s flags were lowered over the castle, the king will beg for mercy and the adventurers could also switch to his side at the last moment for money or power or whatever reward the king offers, Grunt may try to install himself as a new king, the adventurers can install themselves as the new king, or they can install a democratic government. The princess can be killed, seduced, convinced to join the rebellion, bribed, or forced to join the rebellion (she will commit suicide shortly after being forced to do anything)

Characters:

• Highborn fighter--Your character has strong morals; what are they? Which of these morals has your character broken in the past and why? In what way does this still haunt them?
• Scholar (magical)--Why is your character so driven to discover knowledge? What knowledge did they discover that should have stayed a secret?
• Con man OR pickpocket--Who holds some big secret over your character’s head? What is that secret? What was the first illegal thing your character ever did?
• Lowborn fighter--Where does your character come from? Why is it such a deep secret? Why does your character want to socially climb so desperately?
• Healer--Why are is your character so deeply afraid of the king? What keeps them up at night? How do they cope with that fear?
• Wizard-- Why was your character so driven to master magic? What sacrifice did they make to get closer to mastering magic? What still stands in their way of mastering magic?