Dread has won the 2006 ENnies Innovation
Award -- that means the judges think we're the most
innovative game of the year, that they've seen. And we're still quite
proud of having made the cut to be nominated in the categories of Best
Rules and Best Game, and receiving Honourable Mention for Best Product.
Click on the image at right to find out more, and to see who else was
nominated, and who won.
Wondering why we won? Check out the free sample linked below, which
contains the complete rules chapter and more; the free Quickstart Rules; and the
free scenarios on the Get Free Stuff page. In fact, if you download the
free samples and one of the
free scenarios, you've got everything you need to
play the game yourself, and see how awesome it is! Or, if you prefer
to let others do the research for you, check out this review of
Dread.
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Diceless, numberless horror
Dread is a game of horror and
suspense. Those who play it participate
in a mutual telling of an original
macabre tale. The goal of the game is to
sustain the delicate atmosphere that is
necessary to produce the hand quivering
emotion that lends Dread its name. The
thrill lies within the tension between
desire and loss. You will take on the
role of someone trapped in a story that
is only as compelling as it is
hostile--someone who will find
themselves making the sorts of decisions
we hope never to face in real life.
Dread uses a unique questionnaire
method of character creation. The
character questionnaire provides the
skeleton of a character, suitable for
the story or campaign, 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.
In play, dice, cards, or other
more-traditional randomizers are
replaced by a tower of blocks, such as
the Jenga® game. When a character
attempts a task beyond their
capabilities, the tower determines their
success--they can succeed by pulling a
block, or choose to fail by not pulling.
But if the tower falls, their character
is removed from the game, never to
return. Their fate might be death,
insanity, cowardice, imprisonment,
possession, or something else, as the
story dictates. Players prone to
martyrdom can mollify this somewhat by
deliberately knocking over the tower,
resulting in a heroic or dramatic
success, despite their character exiting
the game.
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Check out the Dread Quick Reference, in
either tabloid
or letter
format.
Also, we have a 24-page excerpt of the book online.
Once you've whetted your appetite, you can
buy the book, which explores the rules in
greater depth, and includes extensive advice for
the player and host, including how to create
character questionnaires and how best to answer
them, how to design stories, and how to tailor
your game for various subgenres of horror. It
also includes three complete, ready-to-run
stories to get you into the game right away.
Follow the link at left to buy Dread, or any
of our other commercial products.
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