RPGPundit Reviews: Dread: The First Book of Pandemonium


This is a review of Dread: The First Book of Pandemonium, by Rafael
Chandler. The product being reviewed is the print edition of the
game.


While in Buenos Aires, I spent my free time finishing poring through
this book in depth, and I have to say... I'm not sure what it is
about games called "Dread".  I reviewed the other "Dread", which was
barely a roleplaying game at all.  This game is definitely a
Roleplaying game, but in many ways its sort of the diametric
opposite of the other Dread: its a totally whacked-out hardcore game
that straddles the line between cheesy and pretentious; its
inspiration seems to be a combination of heavy metal, emo, White
Wolf games, and gorefest horror movies.  I could see this game
having a certain appeal to people who'd think this stuff is cool; in
the early 90s this game could have been a big hit with the kids, now
I think it might be a bit dated.  The game has some cool elements
(particularly the Demons), but it also has a lot of stuff that made
me roll my eyes, and a few things that I could only classify as
design errors.


The physical structure of the book seems very well-constructed, and
managed to hold up to being carried around my bag through a week of
tripping around Buenos Aires, it came through with hardly a dent.


The cover is a full colour image that isn't particularly
representative of the game itself, showing what looks like a vaguely
apocalyptic city scene with a grim-faced dude firing a gun at the
reader's direction; I think they would have been better off showing
some kind of demon on the cover, since that's what the game mostly
consists of (the PCs fighting demonic forces).  The book's interior
is all an appropriately grim black-and white, with lots of
psychedelic artwork and blood-splatter effects in the background.

The book is thickly laden with in-game fiction, of (in my opinion)
the usual quality that in-game fiction tends to have (which, in my
opinion, is mostly useless waste of space). You don't actually get
into any game material until page 20.  There you are told that "this
is a violent game of horror-action, set in a world of demons and
black magic". That's very true, you certainly can't accuse the
author of making a game that doesn't live up to the claims of its
introduction.  It also says that the game is "gruesome, profane, and
intended for adults"; I would agree with everything except the
"intended for adults" part of it.  I think in fact that the game is
intended for the type of adolescent or superannuated adolescent who
really likes gruesome profane horror-action, and who thinks "demons
and black magic" are really awesome-cool in and of themselves.  


The game presumes that the PCs are a "cabal" of "Disciples", humans
who were "on a downward spiral toward oblivion" (ie. really
emo-depressed for some reason), but were recruited by a "Mentor" (a
shadowy figure with great power) that wants them to be soldiers in a
war against demonic forces that have been unleashed in the world.


These demonic forces made themselves noticed in a few horrific
incidences of slaughter, but for the most parts are still living in
the shadows. Nevertheless, their power and their audacity is
increasing, seemingly en route to a final battle between the forces
of heaven and hell.


Whether or not the premise of the setting appeals to you is really a
matter for your own discrimination, but the system and its viability
is another story. I rankled when the first thing I learnt about the
system was that I was going to need "about twenty-four 12-sided
dice" to play it.  I mean, really... D12s?! And 24 of them??

I can just imagine the thought process that went into that: "Man,
D12s are sooo cool, and no one else uses them in their RPGs! I
know... I should make the game use only D12s, and use a TON of
them!".

Now, I'm a pretty hardcore gamer with decades of gaming experience,
I've bought probably a dozen set of dice in my career as a gamer;
and I KNOW I don't own anywhere near 24 D12s!  How the fuck is the
average gamer supposed to have that?!


The mechanic is a dice-pool mechanic, where you roll a number of
D12s equal to your skill or stat, and beat a difficulty with the
highest die in order to succeed at your task. The average target is
listed as 7.


If using D12s is the first design decision I find dubious, the next
one I find outright stupid: the "being cool" rule. This is where I
knew that we were deep into amateur hour here.  In Dread, whenever
you "describe something in a cool way", you get an extra die; and if
you describe something in a way that makes people be "stunned by
your eloquence", or by "the sheer drama of it all", you get two
extra dice. What this tells me is that every single situation where
dice will be rolled will degenerate into a stupid contest of
coolness, where people try to forcibly milk the "cool" out of every
single library research or bar brawl (both of which are specifically
listed as occasions when you should try to "be cool" in your
description), needlessly slowing down the game with asinine
pseudo-coolness.


There's even a little table! Yes, the author actually includes a
list of descriptions he considers "not cool" and descriptions he
considers "cool".  For example, "I shoot at them" is considered not
cool, while "I flick ash off my cigar, then suddenly drop it, whip
out the .45, and start blasting them" is listed as cool. "I climb
up" is considered most uncool, whereas "I lose my grip then slide
down for a few feet, then reach out and grab at a small ledge
protruding from the side of the cliff.  Slowly I pull myself to the
top" is considered totally wicked, dude. To me, every single "cool"
move reads to me like sophomoric pap of the sort of thing you'd
expect to see in a Jerry Bruckheimer film.


This obsession with "cool", and the sophomoric interpretation of
just what the author considers "cool", extends throughout the book,
including such elements as the selection of the PC's name. We are
told that "disciples don't use first names", and that instead they
go by some kind of cool nickname like "Scalpel", "Texas", or
"Sarge".


There are three attributes in the game: Strength, Sense, and Soul.
Characters are created by dividing 9 points into the three scores,
but one of the three must have a rating of 5 or more.  We are thus
told that in fact, the only possible distributions for a character's
stats are 1-2-6, 1-3-5, and 2-2-5; I couldn't actually find where it
said that 6 was the highest you could have in a stat, so I don't
know why 1-1-7 isn't an option, but apparently it isn't.


Depending on which attribute you pick as your "gifted" attribute,
you also gain a special power.  Characters who are gifted in Combat
get extra points in attacking and defending, and can split up their
dice pools among multiple opponents. Characters gifted in Soul get
to have "Sorcery", letting them choose a bunch of cool spells and
also exorcism powers (the nature of the latter being such that its
basically required that at least one PC have exorcism in order to
fight the Demons effectively). Every character gets some magic they
can cast, but the Sorcery dudes have way more and are way better at
it.


Finally, characters who chose Sense get "lore", the relatively lame
power to be able to piece together clues about the demons that the
PCs are hunting at the moment.  Aside from being the obviously
gimped power in comparison to matrix-like kungfu combat power or
freaking Spellcasting, Lore also uses a mechanic thats totally
different than the regular power (requiring a low, rather than a
high roll to succeed), for what appears to be no good reason aside
from designer whim.

Granted, a PC's skill points are equal to double his sense score, so
a lame Lore-master will have way more skills than anyone else, but
it seems like a poor payback. There are only 14 skills listed in the
game, all of them pretty well standard.


PCs also have to choose a "Drive", a quality that motivates them.
Anytime they justify a check with their drive, they get another die
to their roll.  Great; so now every player will be constantly trying
to be "cool" and to jam in some confabulated reason why their
"computer use" check relates to their Drive.


A PC will also have Contacts, which are people in the regular world
that help them with information or other assistance.  In a nod to
storygaming that comes totally out of the blue in an otherwise very
bog-standard game, GMs are not allowed to kill off a PC's contacts
without the PC's express permission. I mean.. what the fuck is
this?! WHY?!!

Again, its another case where this seems to be entirely the product
of the game designer's whim.


Just to make sure that the PCs are sufficiently ultra-pseudo-cool,
the PCs also get 12 points of something called Fury.  Fury is used
for "kicking ass" (I kid you not, this is actually in the rulebook
as the heading for the description of what you do with Fury). You
spend points of Fury to do stunts and tricks with names like
"Hardcore", "Kill Shot", and "Clusterfuck". I swear, this game makes
Unknown Armies or Savage Worlds seem like they're not even trying to
be faux-cool.


The magic section of the book contains 81 spells (not counting the
Exorcism techniques), which are classified into different groups
depending on their main feature, like Attack, Defence, Stealth,
Crowd Control, and Grotesque. Yes, Grotesque.  We are told that "if
you want your Disciple to be as repulsive as possible go for the
Grotesque".  Sorcerers have access to some special Exorcism spells,
which are used to banish demons and free victims of demonic
possession, usually in strange ways. In one spell, for example, the
victim of demonic possession "splits open, from neck to crotch" and
the demon comes out of him in the form of black smoke, then the
victim reforms.  We are told that this form of exorcism is extremely
"painful for the victim", again apparently just for the purpose of
gratuitous sadism.


Combat is, mercifully, quite straighforward.
So much so that it only takes up 4 pages of the manual (under the heading of "Die, Motherfucker"). You roll dice equal to your combat score, your
opponent rolls his defence dice; if your highest roll is greater
than the defender's highest roll, you hit him and inflict damage
equal to the difference in the two values, with a bonus for the weapon type you are using. Curiously for a game like this, the list of weapons fits on a single page and is fairly generic; I would have thought that if any game would have been full of a level of gun-fanaticism worthy of a letter of
commendation from Charlton Heston, this would have been it, and yet
we are spared that particular brand of pseudo-coolness, thankfully.


Characters have 12 "life points", which are recovered at the end of
each mission (no complicated healing rules here, and I think that's
a good thing).

But the most interesting thing about the combat system is the
concept of "Retirement": if your character reaches 0 Life Points, he
doesn't die right away, instead he recovers all of his life and
gains 24 fury points.  The character is then allowed to kick ass
with these points until he dies for good this time or, if he
survives to the end of the session he goes out in whatever way the
player wants him to.


In this case, I think the designer gets it right, REALLY right.
This mechanic is an excellent idea for encouraging that a character
shouldn't go out like a chump, and its the kind of thing I was
advocating for the upcoming Doctor Who RPG. I was pleasantly
surprised to see this kind of mechanic in an existing RPG.

After all the basic rules are covered, the game presents you with a
"quickstart" chapter, detailing a scenario to quickly create
characters and play an introductory session where it is assumed that
the characters you play will all die or retire at the end of the
session, so that players can spend one session getting a feel for
the game before making an actual long-term character.  Another
fairly good idea.  Some pregenerated characters are included if you
want the start to be really really quick.


All this gets us to half-way through the book. The second half, the
GM ("Director") section, is where it gets perhaps more useful in
general to those who may not want to run Dread specifically but
might want to mine it for ideas.


The GM advice section details a typical adventure of dread as
containing 5 stages: a trigger when some hint of supernatural
activity comes into play, a phase where the PCs investigate the
supernatural occurance, conflict or opposition during the
investigation, a revelation about the supernatural menace being
faced, and finally the "Takedown" where the PCs fight the Demon that
is behind everything. Pretty standard recipe, really.


There's some typical but basically good advice about playing the
extras and victims of the demon, handling the setting, pacing, etc.

On the whole there's nothing special about the advice; little that
is either great or bad. There's one note that is perhaps
unfortunate, where the author suggests to the GM reader that the PCs
should be "like Spartans: doomed yet kickass".  So apparently the
default in the game is that the characters will fail, but be
ultra-headbanging emo-cool in their failure.


The GM section also contains the secrets of the setting's history
and setup; don't read the rest of this paragraph if you want to be
surprised by what is by now a relatively predictable plot twist.


Obviously, we already know from the story that Demons are real, and
that everything is working toward a biblical apocalypse.  The PCs
could then assume that their shadowy Mentor who brought them
together is actually an Angel, fighting the first salvos of this
war. However, the shocking plot twist is that, in fact, the PCs'
mentor is actually another Demon, representing a minority group
within the demonic legions who believe that instead of harvesting
the prerequisite number of souls to start the final war, this is
something to be avoided at all costs as it is already foretold that
the forces of Hell will lose this war.  Thus they are secretly
hunting down other demons through the PCs (who are their agents), in
order to postpone the final war indefinitely, if possible, to
prolong the demonic dominion over the earth. Again, we're deep in
the level of Jerry Bruckheimer screenwriting here.


The next chapter is perhaps the most interesting of the book, the
chapter on Demons.  There are three types of Demons: Hunters, that
simply violently attack humans; Defilers, who possess humans and
make them commit horrific acts; and Stalkers, who torment human
victims while "hiding in plain sight".


41 different types of Demons are presented, each of them getting a
one or two page detail of their appearance, patterns of activity,
and how they can be "taken down".  Each demon is quite unique in its
form and function, and many (though unfortunately not all) are
accompanied by very good and often very weird illustrations. You get
everything from classic smash-and-bash monsters, to really unusual
and wild demons with unusual methods and motives.


For just one example, we have the Kinarsette (an example of a
Stalker).  This demon looks like a tarantula but with a torso of a
man, and a featureless face with a round mouth full of small sharp
teeth and two sharp pieces of metal in place of their hands.  This
demon appears to unhinged recluses, preying on their feelings of
inadequacy and anger, promising them power. It fills them up with a
bullshit tale of lovecraftian fantasy, getting them to form up a
cult to perform human sacrifice on innocent victims.


For a very different example, we have the Lunamic (a defiler).  Its
a muscular humanoid demon with pale skin, a scorpion tail, a
featureless face, and an enormous gaping cavity in its chest where
one can see its internal organs, and barbed talons for hands.  It
will possess a regular human victim, then proceed to use its human
host body to slowly stalk men of faith in houses of worship,
feigning to be an interested new convert, then very occasionally
revealing its true form to the cleric for brief instances when no
one is around, and acting innocent and confused at the cleric's
reaction, continuing to reveal itself occasionally to the cleric
until the cleric goes mad before he kills the holy man and goes on
to his next target.


Finally, we have the Merstett (a Hunter).  The merstett begins as a
blob of blue tissue about the size of a human being, hiding out in
lonely places and suffocating lone victims and collecting their
corpses. After about 20 kills, the Merstett consumes the corpses in
its lair, then hardens into an egg; and 10 hours later hatches as a
20ft tall spiny Reptilian quadruped with a pincer tail and a huge
toothless maw surrounded by six-foot barbed tentacles.  It will then
charge into the nearest high-population area (Tokyo, perhaps?) and
go on a spree of destruction.


These are just three examples of the various demon types.  They're
all very creative, and without a doubt the best part of the book; I
could see them being generally useful for any Horror game, and
possibly for other types of fantasy or sci-fi genre games. They are
similar and yet different to both classic demons and lovecraftian
"old ones", and what stands out about them are not stats or special
powers, but the uniqueness of their styles and methods.


Finally there are a few sample scenarios at the end, nothing to
write home about.


So, to sum up, the good about this game can be found in a few areas.
 First you have the demons, which are very cool, and can be used
even if you don't plan to play the game itself.
Second, you could like this game, if you want a game of fairly
adolescent ultraviolence.  You could also strip it of some of its
faux-cool elements and run a wicked game of Supernatural with it.


There's a lot of bad to it as well; the use of D12s is an
inconvenience; the rules about "cool descriptions" and "Drive" are
based on a design philosophy that in my experience always leads to
unending hassles in actual play. There's too much stupid
game-fiction in the book, and "I'm so ubercool emo and/or
headbanging" is just annoying.


The game is worth getting if you specifically want to run a game
like the TV show "Supernatural", or if you want to run a
Bruckheimer-esque action-slasher game. Its also worth getting if you
want to use the demons for some other game. Otherwise, you'll
probably want to give it a pass.

RPGPundit

Thank you for taking the time to review Dread! I really appreciate it. This is a thorough review, and I think you covered just about everything.

I'm a little sad that you drew a connection between my book and "emo", however. I definitely think of Dread as "metal" -- in the inspiration section, I cite Slayer, Napalm Death, and Sepultura as inspirations, after all. Some metal is gory and gruesome and profane, whereas some metal is cheesy and over-the-top. If you think about it, this is the essence of Dread. At least, that's how I see it.

Also, I'm a little shocked that you didn't mention the Lovecraftian rap lyrics at the end of the book. :haw:

A few notes about some of the issues that you bring up:

* In play, the players don't actually try "to be 'cool' and to jam in some confabulated reason why their 'computer use' check relates to their Drive." At least, not in my experience, and not in the experience of those who have posted actual play reports. In play, the cool factor is something that just happens every so often, when the players get inspired.

* I know, I know, the d12 is a pain in the ass. You're right about that. What can I say? It's perfect for the concept. Player characters are Disciples (of which there were 12), and the d12 features a pentagon with the number 12 on it. Besides, though you may not have enough of them, you probably have a few. Get your gaming group together and pool your d12s, and you've probably got enough. If not, you may have to buy a few extra. I did the same thing when I started playing d6-based games, back in the day. After emptying out all the board games in the house, I still didn't have enough...

* I'm really glad you liked the demons, and Retirement. I didn't submit this game to you to be ironic. I figured there were going to be a few parts of it that you really enjoyed (and I understood that there would be things that you didn't like at all).

Again, I really am grateful to you for taking the time to read the book and write the review.

Best regards,
Rafael

Thanks Rafael; while the rest of the premise of your setting felt a little contrived and unoriginal, you certainly saved up your creativity and in an amazing way for the Demons.

As for your players and "cool description"/Drive; your players are doing it wrong, then.  Its a player's responsibility to try to scam whatever benefits he can for his character; if your players are NOT trying to do this, they're not being good players.

What's more, if you didn't create this rule in order that people be CONSTANTLY doing "cool descriptions" or tying things to their Drive, then you made the rule wrong. If you didn't WANT it to be overused, then you should have put some kind of limits on how often it can be used.

RPGPundit

Hi, Pundit,

That's an interesting point. Though I would point out that I have no objection to the players using cool descriptions with every roll of the dice.

In fact, this brings up another question -- what's wrong with players "constantly doing 'cool descriptions' or tying things to their Drive"? Although I've yet to play a game -- or hear of a game -- where the players did that constantly (and we're talking about six years of play), I think it would be better than hearing "I attack" over and over again.

I agree to Pundits objection - in my brief experience with Wushu and Sorcerer, as self-respecting powergamers everyone tried to grab the narration bonus dice all the time.
If it's a good or a bad thing depends on your preferences, but it can definitively get exhausting and after some time repetitive, especially with tasks that don't offer much variation as library search.

Quote from: RChandlerHi, Pundit,

That's an interesting point. Though I would point out that I have no objection to the players using cool descriptions with every roll of the dice.

In fact, this brings up another question -- what's wrong with players "constantly doing 'cool descriptions' or tying things to their Drive"? Although I've yet to play a game -- or hear of a game -- where the players did that constantly (and we're talking about six years of play), I think it would be better than hearing "I attack" over and over again.

The "objection" would be that its an artificial attempt to generate coolness that usually falls on its face, because the players are more interested in getting the bonus die than anything else, and because frankly, you just can't fake cool. Cool is something that happens spontaneously, its not something that happens with a bunch of people posing.

Its the reason why committee-derived movies or bands or whatever that try to scream "LOOK AT HOW COOL WE ARE!!" at every turn and with every step usually suck.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPunditthe players are more interested in getting the bonus die than anything else

I see what you're saying, Pundit, but I must say -- I've played Dread with 50-plus people. No one's ever done what you describe. I've talked to other people who've played the game, and they've posted their experiences, and the abuse of the 'cool rule' just doesn't seem to be an issue for them.

Now, if someone were to use the rule every time he rolled the dice, I think I might actually enjoy it. Hearing "I attack" over and over again can get a little monotonous.

However, I understand your objection to it. Just wanted to let you know that in practice, it seems to be working.

Nice review overall.  I've run Dread (first edition) twice and had a lot of fun.  The d12s were actually kind of fun to toss in a novelty sort of way and the cool rule wasn't a problem--the players used it mainly in combat situations, but they did it creatively.  I can't say how the rule would play out long term, but it worked great for the 2-3 session one-shots I ran.  

Pete

Quote from: pspahnNice review overall.  I've run Dread (first edition) twice and had a lot of fun.  The d12s were actually kind of fun to toss in a novelty sort of way and the cool rule wasn't a problem--the players used it mainly in combat situations, but they did it creatively.  I can't say how the rule would play out long term, but it worked great for the 2-3 session one-shots I ran.

Awesome. Thanks, Pete!

I remember your actual play report -- the one with the Benassim demon that preyed on alcoholics and junkies. It was a great read.

-- Rafael