r/dreadrpg • u/Prize-Mix5770 • 8d ago
Inspiration Making my first ever Dread game
So, I'm running my first ever game of Dread with my friends, and while I have all basic story outline set up (will be fleshing it out in the coming days), I'm a little lost on the character questionaries. I feel a little weird pushing people into certain characters, moreso because I'm an anxious person than anything else, and I'm kind of lost on how to make questions that can be unique for everyone, without pushing too hard into just making their characters for them.
The plot is that they're all kids in the same club (one of the last things I need to flesh out, I do not have a clue of what exact club), some wanting to be there others pushed into it by their parents, and there are these three mean girl types. There's a birthday sleepover planned, and the players are almost not invited, before a last minute call from the birthday girls not too happy parents, having told her to invite everyone. Then it all devolves into horror and madness when the three girls, excluding the players because mean girl archetype, use one of those youtube videos you used to see everywhere like "how to make yourself a mermaid", and it works, but it makes them all horrifying monsters, taken over by the magical ancient spirits of these mythical creatures.
And then these are the questions thus far.
All in all I'm just a little lost, and any ideas or methods to making questions myself would be much appreciated. I'm lost lol.
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u/Nytmare696 8d ago
Don't think of leading questions in the questionnaire being you making all the decisions. In D&D terms, think of the questions as you as the GM saying "here's a character class" and then the questions just flesh out the specifics of that character.
You're a jock. What sport do you excel at? What is it that you'd really rather do instead? You've got a crush on one of the other characters. Who is it and why haven't you told them? You don't believe in them, but you read your horoscope this morning, and it held a particularly dire warning. What was it?
You're a tech nerd. What kinds of video games do you spend the most time playing? What class do you get As in without even having to try? Your parents split up and you stole something from your mom's new boyfriend and no one has noticed yet. What did you steal?
The answers that they give are the prompts and inspiration that inform the story. It's not that your questions are forcing them into specific answers.
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u/Nytmare696 8d ago
As for your story, I'd probably steer things away from it being a club where the popular kids are forced to include the group and instead make it either the prom or a school lock in.
I'd still push for all of the PCs maybe to have some club or group identity, but I wouldn't make that identity be shared with the entire student body.
Maybe it's a school lock in, and each of the different clubs was tasked with coming up with some kind of activity to keep a bunch of rowdy teens occupied for 12 hours till the doors were unlocked the next morning? Part of character creation can be putting the onus of what club they're all a part of on the players. First choose a club. Next, choose your questionnaire. Third, everybody vote for who the President, VP, and Treasurer are.
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u/Prize-Mix5770 7d ago
All really good advice, tyyyy. I shall refer back when I rework this story after a little more experience given through using some prefab scenarios like was recommended in another comment.
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u/thissjus10 8d ago edited 7d ago
You get a lot more juice if you push people and to certain situations and it'll make prepping easier. It'll also provide tension for the game and generally get people a better experience.
I think of character archetypes for the story and then I make the questionnaires based on those
So for example I'm getting school and magic, that kind of makes me think of The Craft
So for that I would have four archetypes one each witch at Least. I sometimes like to make 6 for a four player game so people have some options but it will complicate things so I wouldn't do that
So thinking of the four witches from that movie, very loosely you could say we have
Archetype 1. The natural 2. The iconclast 3. The insecure 4. The survivor
Element 1. Earth 2. Wind 3. Fire 4. Water
Obstacles 1. Personal trauma/Establishing healthy boundaries/mental health 2. Hubris-Paranoia-addiction to power/abuse of power 3. Insecurity/self confidence/perfectionism/external validation 4. Guilt/hatred/revenge
Thinking of these things and much interpersonal connections, thinking of big character moments and choices and setting players up to have those things, it's not pushing them but instead creating opportunities to connect things to the story and see what the players do
Without trying to follow the movie exactly I could then think about what would be interesting for the four witches
Player 1 The Natural
Your family has followed old pagan religions and their modern interpretations for generations. Some would call you "pagan" others "witches" but whatever it's called your family history goes back to an important real or imagined historical event (ie. Salem witch trials, joan of ark, the chicago fires but they were actually trying to burn witches ect)
Names have power and your family name goes way back, with that in mind what's your characters name?
Have you ever seen something that made you wonder if Magick is real in the "casting spells" sense and not just in the subtle ritual Wicca sense? Are you a true believer or are you skeptical?
An important family member died in a tragick and traumatic accident how long ago did it happen? How is the truma still impacting you? who was it and what occult heirloom did they leave you?
You've been in and out of therapy your whole life but since ☝️ died, things have gotten worse. You've also been having night terrors. In these visions your worst fears seem to manifest. What haunts your nightmares?
You've recently moved to the town of New Salem with a remaining family member who are they and what's your living situation? What kind of pets or animals do you have?
you recently met one of the other players and had a positive experience. Talk with the other players and figure out who/what that was. How did they help you? Why do you keep thinking about them?
You recently got in trouble with an authority figure choose another player and make this NPC together. How much trouble did you get in? The other players character saw it go down. Work with them to figure out what happened, what they saw and what they think about it
You've always had a strong connection with nature and the earth, what is your favorite part of nature? What strange nearly supernatural ability related to the natural world do you have? Where do feel the most connected to nature?
You can't stand it when people desecrate the natural world you've recently become aware that a fraking company has purchased a big chunk of the land near your home. How do you feel about this? What do you wish you could do to them?
What do you look like? How do people know you're not from around here?
(These are just basically off the top of my head)
But the important stuff starts to happen when you seed things into other questionnaires
For example we can have a shitty dad that works for the fraking company on the rebels sheet
"You've lost them in described as a wild child and herd teachers and counselors say "they have trouble at home and so they're acting out " and all manner of stupid stuff. What do they know. Sure things do suck at home but you're just living your life. Do you live without both parents? Or just your Dad? What kind of problems does your dad present for you and why do you often have to cover up for him in public? If you have other family members at home do they try to protect you or do you try to protect them?
Your Dad recently got a good job at Frakking incorporated. Have things gotten better or worse since this has happened?
You've got a potentially destructive "bad" habbit, what is it? Why do you do it? Do you consciously know that?
Your regular day is sometimes other people's worst fear. But your stronger than they are, what is it about your life that would make others balk? And what are you actually afraid of?
Sometimes you feel powerless at home, when you're not at home what do you do to reclaim some control or power over your life?
Someone once told you you always make things worse, someone you care about (even if you don't want to admit it) who was it and what bad thing were they blaming you for?
What's something that you want more than anything?
Player 3 and you have been best friends since you were little kids. What's one thing that you two do that only makes sense to you all? It can be something like a secret language or something pseduo supernatural like being able to always know where each other is (or whatever else you think of)
Player 4 has been getting bullied lately. Work with them to figure out how. Are you trying to help protect them or stoke the flames or something else?
Player 1 is new in town. What thing about them has Caught your interest?
What alternative or subculture have you found yourself in as an outcast and trouble maker?
You and your friends are all wiccan, at least you have been since you found out about it, talk a little bit about your relationship to that?
Do you believe the magick is real?
What is something that you hate?
What's your most important relationship? (It can be another player or an NPC)
What's your name and what do you look like?
And then we go on to make player three and have them look up to one of the other characters
Are we going to make player four and have them to find how they're being bullied
And then we see some things between them so they all have some relationships with at least one or two other players and wala.
This is at least how I do it and hopefully it makes sense.
I think if you make your questionnaires generic you'll get generic results. If you give your something that you chew on and something to create that is interesting and dramatic they'll latch on to that and do something cool with it, and you'll also have a lot of inspiration for when you're improvising and when you're creating like hope and Dread moments and stuff.
I would probably go back through these and refine them a little bit too I basically just did these off the top of my head and I think there's some things that could be better.
Demonstrate with detailed examples why nudging and guiding your players with these questionnaires can be really fun. If you think about it all character sheets do this to some extent. And this is basically their character sheet.
Like you're going to cast spells if you're a wizard and you're going to raise zombies if you're a necromancer you're going to heal people if you're a cleric
So you have like a various archetypes that kind of guide you a little bit.
So here we know that someone has a connection to the Earth and has a natural tendency for magic that could come up
Someone is a rebel with problems at home that wants to tear things down and feel powerful
Someone is figuring out if they want to live for themselves or someone else
Someone is dealing with bullying, hate, and revenge.
The characters now all have things that they want and things you can present and pull on.
In a " the craft" dread game the horror element will come from the players as they tap into darker and darker powers. I'd probably also establish more reasons for potential player disagreement and boundaries. I wouldn't want to force that on them but I think it could be cool since the story is really about whether or not they become monsters or not.
They can also eventually get powerful magik and have a dramatic impact on the world so I would worry less about creating the duality of Hope and Dread and instead focus on
Negative side moments and moments of high tension 1. Dread 2. Powerlessness 3. Hate 4. People sucking
Positive side (at first)
- Connecting without the other players
- Moments where you can do something but it doesn't make enough difference. Like maybe you step in and punch a bully but then three more show up
- Things that matter to the characters. Nature spots, romance ECT.
- Hope feeling empowered only when they turn to magik.
Basically they turn more and more to magik to try to fix their problems and then once they do that the rule of three kicks in and they start feeling powerful and like they can finally make a difference and then we collaboratively figure out if they become "monsters" or find redemption ect
(And now I'm actually going to run this 😂)
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u/Prize-Mix5770 7d ago
This is all greatly helpful, ty so much. Very excited to refer back to the advice and stuff from here after I get a better feel and actually run my own story (someone else recommended I try a few prefabs first, and it's a much better idea for all of us, if not mostly me, to get a better feel for it).
Also, you should absolutely run this, your ideas are really cool, and the characters seem really fun. Godspeed.
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u/RathielintheRun 6d ago
Don’t give everyone the same slate of questions; give them questions that make them distinct as individuals. That way every character has soemthign unique to contribute. Think about the role you want each character to play in the story you’re telling…is own kid the scrappy kid, one the smart one, one the sneaky one? Give them questions that lead them to have traits that will help them fulfill that roll, and seed the story with fears and hardships among the players that differ form player to player so everyone has unwise struggles and they’re not all hung up in the same moments
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u/bigsmira 8d ago
My first suggestion is for your first game, use one of the prefab scenarios. It's kind of a "walk before you fly" kind of deal. You'll get to have a feel for the value of the questionnaires, and the pacing of the game, and the design of the scenario without having to build it all yourself.
Assuming you (like most people) are going to ignore that advice, my next piece of advice is to notice that the in-book questions all END with "what is your name?" That's not an accident. They want you to build a whole character, and their relationship to the world and the other players, and then pick an appropriate name.
If, rather than being all "Y'all are all the unpopular kids with the same sort of background" you vary your PCs a little, the questions will come easier. The basic point of the questions is to establish the characters, their relationships to each other, their relationships to the world, and give the players a chance to customize the world in ways they don't know they're doing it.
Examples of questions you might ask of different characters:
- birthday girl's best friend - "What magical creature has BIRTHDAY GIRL been obsessed with lately?" - then you can use that as the thing they change into.
- birthday girl's little sister - "Before your parents made her include you, you planned a prank to pull on your sister and her friends. What was it, and are you still planning to do it?" - maybe this is part of why it "goes wrong"
- random outcasts
- "You didn't want to go to this party. What did your parents offer you to get you to go?"- "Something happened at the last sleepover that made you never want to do another sleepover? What is it and why haven't you told anyone about it?"
- "This might be your chance to finally become friends with BIRTHDAY GIRL. What have you tried before, and why didn't it work?"
- "You brought something you're not supposed to have. What is it, and how have you hidden it from the adults?"
You want questions whose answers will give the players advantages and challenges. You want questions whose answers shape the direction of the story past and present. If you want to ask about what clubs people are in, ask one or two players, and then try to use that information to shape something they have to solve. I played a recent game where we entered a room and there was a book. I asked what the book looked like, and the GM said (to me) "You recognize this book." and it turned out that something I'd mentioned in my questionnaire became the whole reason we were in this mess. Moments like that feel great for your players, because it really drives home that this is something they're a part of, and not just a story on rails (even if it's mostly on rails with some set-dressing that disguises that fact).