It’s unsurprising that horror is a popular theme in tabletop roleplaying games. After all, roleplaying is all about immersing yourself in a world or scenario and some people just really enjoy being scared – myself included. Hence the likes of Call of Cthulhu, Vampire: The Masquerade and Dread.
An indie roleplaying game released way back in 2005, Dread was designed by Epidiah Ravachol and was something a little out of the ordinary when it came to TRPGs. Whereas RPGs such as Dungeons & Dragons 5E have specific worlds for players to explore, Dread doesn’t have an official setting. Instead, the book contains a set of rules for the games master and the players portraying the main protagonists to use within a variety of horror settings, from haunted carnivals to derelict spaceships and beyond.
Horror roleplaying games have always stalked their own unique design paths, but Dread is especially odd in that – unlike D&D and its ilk – it involves absolutely no dice rolling whatsoever. Instead, the majority of the players’ interactions are driven by the looming presence of The Tower. Using an official Jenga tower – or otherwise unofficial ‘wobbly tower’ – players perform actions such as sneaking, fighting and whatever else they may need to do to survive by pulling blocks and placing them on top of the tower. Success and failure is entirely decided by whether they are able to do this without knocking the tower over.
Let’s play DREAD – With Asmodee Live! Watch on YouTube
Why use a toppling tower instead of dice rolls? It’s all about the build and release of tension.
Just as the tower rises and falls, so does the feeling of tension in a session of Dread. It’s a genius technique of getting the players to actively engage in the pacing of the story. As more blocks are gradually removed, actions become harder to perform without the threat of the tower falling. Dread is rather merciless in this regard, as any player that causes the tower to fall spells instant death for their character – with no exceptions. Players can even choose to voluntarily knock the tower over to perform a heroic self-sacrifice of some sort, perhaps to leap in front of an incoming bullet or to engage an obnoxious sphinx in an eternal riddling match.