Dread: Welcome to Night Vale

Lately I've been obsessed with the Welcome to Night Vale podcast, and it occurred to me that it would make the perfect setting for Dread. I got to steal a lot of flavor text, in italics below, from the show itself (specifically the episode "Pyramid"). I also recommended that each player listen to a few episodes if they hadn't already, so they could get a general idea of the background and tone. I'm still working on getting the characters right for this game, but I'm planning to post those later.

The System: Dread is a role-playing game that uses Jenga® instead of dice. Pull from the tower and you succeed. Refuse to pull and you fail. The choice is yours. But if the tower falls, your character will be eliminated from the game!

The Setting: "Welcome to Night Vale is a twice-monthly podcast in the style of community updates for the small desert town of Night Vale, featuring local weather, news, announcements from the Sheriff's Secret Police, mysterious lights in the night sky, dark hooded figures with unknowable powers, and cultural events. Turn on your radio and hide." 

School Daze: BtVS

Hey, friends - here's my latest contribution to Wednesday Night RPGs at my FLGS. It's a game of School Daze set in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer universe. Some of this was borrowed from the BtVS RPG. Check out the bottom of the post for my Playtest Notes.

The System: School Daze is a role-playing game in a high school setting. High school is an exciting time. Everything in your life is in flux, and no matter what, nothing will be the same again. What better place to set a story? Each player takes on the role of a high school student, with all of their hopes, dreams, problems, and challenges. The Administrator facilitates the game using Group Projects as frameworks for the game sessions. School Daze is collaborative and functions best when the Students and the Administrator work together, developing the story and the world together.

The Setting: Buffy the Vampire Slayer follows Buffy Summers, the latest in a line of young women known as Vampire Slayers. Slayers are chosen by fate to battle against vampires, demons, and other forces of darkness. Like previous Slayers, Buffy is aided by a Watcher, who guides, teaches, and trains her. Unlike her predecessors, Buffy surrounds herself with a circle of loyal friends who become known as the "Scooby Gang".

Existential Dread

Anyone who loves story-driven games and experiences mounting terror while playing Jenga will love Dread, my new favorite gaming system. I have written a couple of games for Dread at this point, and I thought some of them might be good enough to share with y'all.

Attempt Number One: Marvelous Marvin's Circulating Circus. This plot was a bit too railroaded - the actual game play didn't go anything like I planned. The character questionnaires were modified (*cough*stolen*cough) from ones posted online, so I can't really take any credit for them.