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Dread: The First Book of Pandemonium

Dread is a modern day horror action roleplaying game, in which the players take on the roles of so called Disciples. Disciples are people recruited to fight against the forces of Hell. The game features very simple rules and some very good writing makes it a delight to read. The game is owned and published by author Rafael Chandler himself. "indie" as it is, the book compares favourably to many big industry products. This is the "Unrated version" or second edition of the game.

The book itself

Facts: 280 pages, 8.5" x 11", perfect binding, black and white interior ink The book is a big black paperback, looking nice and sinister on the shelf next to my WoD books.The cover comes in two versions, one is a screeming yellow face on a black background(my personal favorite), the other is a wounded man kneeling behind a wall. The book is full of very nice artwork ranging from ok to superb, all of it does help make the setting come to life. Everything about the book looks professional, I wouldn't have guessed that this was self published at all.

Setting

The player characters in Dread are called Disciples. Disciples are all people who had nothing left to live for. Their lives turned around when one day they were attacked by a demon and subsequently saved by a mysterious stranger. This stranger hooked the Disciples up with others like them in teams called Cabals and taught them to fight demons using fists, guns and magic. See, recently the barrier between hell and earth came down, just for a couple of seconds and all kinds of demons came through. Now, the demons have infiltrated human society. The nature of the mentor is never revealed(in the player section), but many Disciples assume that they are angels who have given up their wings to walk the earth and combat the forces of hell.

The setting is not so much horror as action. The demons are very very nasty(and very well described), but the player characters are also very powerfull and never seem to be completely at the mercy of these supernatural predators. Speaking of the demons, the book has over forty of them written up and described beautifully. They range from the brutish Vouzire, a beast who feasts on the teeth of small children(!), to the subtle Phakalix who posesses the body of coma patients and sets deadly traps for others. Some of the demons are so disturbing that I would actually think twice about using them in my game.

Characters and System

Characters have three attributes. Strength wich is the Disciples power in combat as well as physical prowess. Sense, which is the intellect and senses. Soul is a measure of the spiritual power of the Disciples and helps in casting and resisting magic. Each attribute ranges from 1-6. Normal humans have values from 1 to 3, so in some areas Disciples are superhuman. In fact, every Disciple character will have one value that is either 5 or 6. Depending on wich attribute is high, the Disciple will master a certain Discipline. If a character has a 5 or 6 in strength, he is a warrior and can make multiple attacks in a combat round. If it's Sense he is an investigator and can deduce things about demons from the clues they leave behind. A high score in soul makes him an excorsist and gives access to excorsism spells.

Characters also have skills at various levels. Skills are always related to something the character did in their pre Disciple existence. Each character can dristribute points to skill equal to double their sense score, this makes investigators the most skilled. The skills are knowledge based, that is, they are used when a character needs to know something. Military for example, is not about fighting, rather it lets the character know something about hierachy, explosives and such.

All Dread characters can cast spells, they start the game with spells equal to double their Soul score. A Disciple can cast a number of spells safely each day equal to their soul score, trying to cast more than that puts the Disciple in danger. Some spells are more usefull than others, but all of them are dark and disturbing. Nodule, for example, causes a cancerous growth to emerge from the Disciples neck, this can then be ripped off and thrown as a flash bang grenade. Nasty. The list of spells is huge, but the rules for each one are simple and easy to remember.

Each character starts the game with 12 fury points that can be used to power different stunts. These stunts are outrages maneuvers, such as BOHICA(Bend Over Here It Comes Again), a suicide maneuver that takes all but one of the Disciples life points for the possibility to inflict major damage on the opponent. Fury also lets the character buy back life on a one for one basis. Fury really helps keep the game on track as an action game, inspiring players to do all the stuff that action heroes are supposed to do.

Each character has 12 life points, when down to zero, the character doesn't die but is instead retired a the end of the session. I like this, as it means there will be no pointless deaths. The character can go out with a bang.

The game uses 12 sided dice, a LOT of 12 sided dice. To perform an action a number of D12s are rolled equal to the characters relevant attribute or skill . The highest die rolled is compared to a difficulty or opposing characters highest die. If in combat, the difference is the damage done. Thats about that for basic system.. There are rules for driving, weapons, armour and more, all of them simple enough that I can remember it all after just two read throughs of the book. That says quite a lot about the simplicity and elegance of the system.

Verdict

I don't like rating games, really I don't. Instead I'll list my likes and dislikes about Dread. I can only encourage you to check out the game at www.dread-rpg.com if anything I have said intrests you. I'd also like to note that I received a review copy, free of charge from the author, just to be up front about it. On to my likes and dislikes:

I don't like

-The sample scenarios in the book don't really do much for me. Furthermore, I find it very difficult to write my own. Each session should feature a Demon that needs to be killed, fine. Investigation to find the Demon, well ok, but the system is really combat and action oriented and I don't see a way to put much action in to it until the Demon slaying at the end. Disciples can drop normal humans, with no trouble at all. It practically screams for hordes of mooks to be slaughtered, but it seems difficult to find a reason for the characters to fight anything but demons, unless you shoehorn some random drugdealers or crooked cops in to the mix. This might be just me. I believe that the upcoming supplement Scorn: The Second Book of Pandemonium goes into detailt about demonic cults and such, I will be picking that up.

-That Dread doesn't bring much new to the table. It's a very traditional RPG, with some very elegant rules, thou nothing new under the sun.

I like

-The simplicity of the system. I don't have to look up rules much, the core rules are easy to remember. Also I don't have to prepare a lot of crunch, NPCs can be statted up on the fly with no problems what so ever. If you are a crunch junkie, this might not be for you.

-The Demons. Each one of them a nasty piece of work, that needs to be put down.

-The writing. Clear crisp writing from a guy that's clearly very enthusiastic about his work. Great game fiction, that reads well and clearly shows what kind of game this is supposed to be.

-Nasty evil spells to throw at enemies.

-Great art, I love it.

Dread is something I plan to run. I don't have a lot of time to play or prepare. I want the good stuff from the start, I believe Dread will deliver just that. Sometimes you just want to relax by blowing shit up, it certainly seems like Dread will deliver.