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The Physical Object
The digest sized book is perfect bound with a glossy cover. Off white paper with a heavy black border and black and white art create a stark and pleasing interior that brings to mind woodcut prints. My copy of the game has issues with the border not being perfectly printed but I didn’t even notice until I had a book to compare it to. The game’s art is of mediocre quality, consisting of photos rendered into black and white with no grayscale. The art does a decent job of evoking the setting and mood of the book. The interior layout is easy to read and breaks up the book quite nicely. The fonts used are pleasing to the eye and continue the woodcut motif. Examples are easily differentiated from other text and ideas within the greater sections are easily distinguished from each other. A quick flip through the book does not easily reveal the larger chapters but this isn’t much of a problem in practice.
For your convenience, here is a quick breakdown of the book:
- Table of Contents - 1 page
- Introduction - 1 page
- Play Example - 4 pages
- Character Creation - 4 pages
- System - 16 pages
- Rules Summary - 1 page
- GM advice on characters - 8 pages
- Setting - 16 pages
- GM advice on starting/ending games and long term play - 8 pages
- Sources of inspiration - 2 pages
- Comprehensive Index - 2 pages
- 13 full page art pieces and one half page piece
Character Creation
Character creation is quite simple and consists of answering five questions, choosing a madness talent, an exhaustion talent and spreading three boxes between fight and flight. There are no skills and the only attribute that can differ between beginning characters is the Fight and Flight box choices. All of the character creation decisions a player makes revolve around how they answer the questionnaire and their choices in madness and exhaustion powers.
The questionnaire asks a player who and what there character is, where they begin the story, how they appear to others, who they are beneath the surface and what their goal is for this story. A great deal of the first section of the book is centered on these questions. The first pages of character creation describe to the players what the questions mean and give advice on how to best answer them.
The last thing a player needs to do to finish off their character is to define a madness and exhaustion power. A madness power is a truly supernatural power that is beyond the ability of a normal human being. These could include things like teleportation, the ability to stop bullets or, as used in one game, the ability to summon the band The Scorpions to help you. Exhaustion talents are human abilities pushed to near superhuman levels and can include things like incredible aim, speed, mathematic prowess or strength.
Conflict Resolution
The system used in the game really seems to encourage players to ask “how far will I go?” Each character begins with 3 discipline and 0 exhaustion and madness. Every time a character enters a conflict the player rolls six-sided dice equal to their discipline. The player then has the option of adding a single exhaustion die to their roll or between 1 and 6 madness dice. Exhaustion dice are semi-permanent, they will stay around until certain conditions are met, while madness dice go away after the roll. The GM will then roll pain dice for the opposition. Madness, exhaustion and discipline should each use a different color of dice for reasons I will describe below.
When the dice are rolled there are six possible outcomes. First the number of dice coming up as 1, 2 or 3 are counted as successes. The GM and player compare successes to determine who won the conflict. The next step is to look for the highest die, or the second highest die in a tie. The trait with the highest die is said to dominate and the reason for colored dice is to determine which trait produced which results. The dominating trait colors the response of your success or failure.
The dominating trait plays a heavy role in defining how the scene plays out. If madness dominates things become more hectic or chaotic during narration. The player must also check off one of their three fight or flight boxes and narrate that response into the narration. If there are no more boxes to check off than the character Snaps: all their checked boxes are cleared, they lose one discipline and gain one permanent madness die. If all their discipline is gone than they become a Nightmare and an NPC. If exhaustion dominates the character gains a new exhaustion die and the narrator must include details that describe taxed resources. If discipline dominates, things become more ordered and go well for the character and they may remove one exhaustion die or uncheck one fight or flight box. If the GMs dice dominate than a Coin of Despair is created.
There are a few things that can be used in conflicts. The GM can spend coins of despair to add or remove a six to any trait for that roll causing a different pool to dominate. Each coin of despair creates a coin of hope that can be used to add a success to the roll. Exhaustion talents can be used if applicable: a minor use allows you to get at least as many successes as your current exhaustion and a major use forces you to add one to your exhaustion but then you get to add your current exhaustion to the amount of successes generated. If a madness talent is used the GM decide how many madness dice must be added to the pool for that roll to activate the madness affect.
GM Advice
The book also includes extensive advice for the GM on how to use the questionnaire to engage the characters and their players in the story. Each question has a large section explaining its purpose in game and how the GM should use the player’s answers. Don’t Rest Your Head really shows you how to best use the system presented to make powerful stories that matter to your protagonists.
Advancement rules, Nightmare creation and other general information useful for running a game can be found within these sections also.
Setting
The setting material is presented in broad strokes that paint a rather surreal version of the modern world known as the Mad City and visible only to the Awake, the insomniac characters you play. Authority in the form of clockwork policemen and bureaucracy as a man made of tacks and pins in a suit are two forms of this. There is no map and no detailing of every group just evocative descriptions of several locations and the NPCs that reside there. Most of the characters described are Nightmares, the antagonistic denizens of the Mad City. They often have puns as names and are directly related to a concept in the real world. I found the setting extremely enjoyable as there is enough meat to get strong visuals but enough open space to create anything you want in between.
My Opinion
The book itself is excellent and there is only one major typographical error that I have found. The table of contents and index are wonderfully assembled and finding the information you are looking for should be terribly simple. My only quibble here would be with the example play at the front of the book. It is before any of the rules sections and is laden with page references making it a rather rough starting point. I would recommend reading this example last.
I am thrilled by the idea of running a game in the Mad City. The setting is compact and evocative with plenty of room to make it your own. The system really shines and encourages tough decisions on the part of the players. It is easy to make yourself powerful but at what risk to yourself? How many times can you push yourself to the limit before you snap for good? There is an intense focus on characters and personal struggles in a world gone mad that I find very appealing. With an exciting atmosphere and tight system I would heartily recommend this game to those even the slightest bit interested.
