Book 10. Don't Rest Your Head by Evil Hat Productions
Don't Rest Your Head by Evil Hat Productions. Roleplaying Game
77 pages.
I am a fan of Evil Hat Productions. I will admit that I am new to the "Indie" gaming scene, but I had already reviewed Spirit of the Century recently and now I am going to talk about Don't Rest Your Head.
The premise is that you have insomnia for so long you eventually end up "awake". You find secrets entrances to the Mad City and you cannot help but enter that world. Once you are there you try to find what is missing from your life. It could be as simple as your daughter was kidnapped and you have to find her, or you are running for your life because you murdered someone in our world. There are creatures called Nightmares that hunt the "awake", so basically it is a game of survival as well.
You are the awake, and sleep means death.
Horror and RPG’s have not always worked (with a few exceptions like Call of Cthulhu and a few others) that well. Trying to make someone afraid in the world we live in is not as easy as it used to be. I know this cuz I LOVE horror, but rarely does anything (either book or movie) actually scare me anymore. But when I think of this game I think of horror. I think of how easy it would be to create creatures and such based on what your character is going through.
Introduction. A nice introduction that gives you the feel for the game. A setting that gives you why you are in the world and what that actually means. Nothing flashy, but nice.
Creating characters. I really like the approach Evil Hat uses in their games. It is more about what drives the character that stat based attributes. I love those games as well, but with these games there are questions that truly help you get a feel for what motivates your characters to do what they do. It was the same with SOTC, and it is a trend that I am really liking. The questions are:
What's been keeping you awake? Very simply, what has kept you awake to the point where you are now "awake". The Source of the insomnia.
What just happened to you. The first scene of the game (which is up to the player!). I really like this approach. It gets the player involved.
What's on the surface? How people perceive you, whether it is true or if it is all a front.
What lies beneath? Who you really are. What you are hiding from everyone.
What's your path? Goals and the direction the character wants to go.
I think this is a very solid approach to this. It gives you enough of he character to really feel like you are involved. As someone that is making a game myself, I am very aware of how nicely done this is.
Then you have two things called Fight or Flight. Each has three boxes and you have a total of three to split between the two. You can put all three in fight, or all three in flight, or two in fight and one in flight...you get the idea. What this does is determine what you will do in extreme stress.
Next you have two talents. Exhaustion and Madness. The Exhaustion talent allows the player to be exceptional at something they already know how to do (gambling, crunch numbers, shoot a gun), and the Madness talent allows the player to do something you cannot normally do (fly, teleport, read minds).
Mechanics. I cannot get TOO specific or I would be writing forever. :) Here is what I love about this game. You do the normal rolling to see if someone succeeds/fails, but then things get tricky. Once you know whether you succeeded or not, there are four outcomes that can affect beyond that. There are four type of pools:
Discipline (player, up to three white six-sided dice)
Exhaustion (player, up to six black six-sided dice)
Madness (player, up to six to eight red six-sided dice)
Pain (GM only ten to fifteen six-sided dice of any color)
Every time you have roll you have to roll your discipline dice (default amount is 3 six sided dice), plus however many dice of exhaustion you have (start out at zero, but you cannot use your exhaustion talent unless you have at least one exhaustion dice). You can also add Madness dice and tap into your madness talent. The GM rolls pain dice set as a difficulty for the roll. Once the dice are rolled a 1, 2, or 3 is considered a success.
Once you have rolled you then have to determine which pool dominates. Basically whichever has the highest rolled dice is the greatest strength. If that number is equal then ties are broken by the next highest number showing.
If Discipline dominates, this is a good thing for the player (the only one). The situation remains under control.
If Exhaustion dominates then regardless of success or failure, the situation uses the player’s energy and gives him a moment to face his insomnia. Also the need for sleep.
If Madness dominates then regardless of success of failure, the situation has a great emotional strain on the character, often ending up in chaos.
If Pain dominates then the player gets...pain. Regardless of the success or failure, the situation exacts a price on the player.
I think that is awesome! There are also coins called Despair and Hope that both the GM and the players can use spin the game their way.
Talents. This is just a chapter talking about the Exhaustion and Madness talents. It gives examples of each and really tries to stress how you can create your own and should do so. The options of both are limitless and that is a nice technique.
I really like the rules summary on page 28. Just one page telling you everything you really need to know when rolling and playing. NICE.
Conflicts, outcomes, narration. This chapter deals with how to run the game and some suggestions on how to do so. Again you do not really see this enough in a lot of games, and although it is short (but to be fair the book is only 77 pages), it is good stuff. Especially in regards to framing the scene and giving good examples of how to do so.
Running on fumes. A sample of game play.
The Mad City. Chapter talking about the city itself and the potential antagonists (if you so choose) of the game. It talks about different sections of the city such as the Bizarre Bazaar, where you can get anything there from normal food stuffs, to trading for the laughter of your missing child, or a memory of a loved one. A decent amount of characters to choose from if you want to throw them at the players.
Bringing it together. The last chapter (a small one) giving you tips on how to get the game connected. Giving tips on how to make things work and few tips on how to run the game. Also a very system on how to create your own Nightmares. I especially enjoyed how easy that looks.
It was confusing from time to time, but that is more of a difference in game style than I am used too. So it took some getting used too, but once I did...I breezed through it.
My Rating System
My Rating. Amazingly good read. Overall, it was a fun read and I really cannot wait to play this.