I played it. Didn't really have fun.

I could go on about all the other interesting gameplay elements in this game, like the 'Hope' and 'Despair' coin bowls, and the 'Fight or Flight' mental breakdown mechanics.

The enemies are really abstract too, like a policeman with a clock for a face. And dogs with giant needles for heads, which stitch your shadow to the floor to keep you from running away.

Anybody here played it yet? I'm thinking of giving it a go with my group, and advice would be welcome.

Otherwise, DRYH general.

>>14394664
Really? What was bad about it?

i've played this. I chose to make my madness power the ability to make puppies appear anywhere.

ANYWHERE.

Great game for twisted reasoning. The setting isn't written in stone though, so take some liberties. It has to be one of my favorite one-off games. The entirety of the rules can fit on one side of one sheet of paper. Just elegantly simple.

>>14394664
Simple rules, abstract thinking, dark tone. If you were looking for those things and didn't find it in this game, then you'll just never find them.

This game is great. I love how much freedom the player has in choosing their abilities, as difficulty depends on the strength of the opposing side, not on the difficulty of what you're trying to attempt.

As long as you can describe how you're doing something, and have the right dice to back you up, there is a good chance you can do it. Makes for nice cinematic gameplay.

With all the great examples of Nightmares made from insane Awake (the player characters) with different madness powers that they have abused, most of the bosses in my games were insane Awake whose powers have twisted and consumed them. That way, the players had no idea what the next madman could do, except from evidence they picked up like journal entries or clues in the environment.

It became more interesting when I let a player have a power which was especially made for dealing with other Awake. It would allow him to either harvest the defeated Awake's power (also reducing the victim to a whithered husk) or safely send the victim to sleep, and send them back to the real world.

It added a morality dilemna. Bioshock style.

I love this game so much. Ran an absolutely incredible four-session game with it that started with the PCs meeting at the scene of a car wreck and getting pulled into the Mad City, and ended with a nightmare flight across the city from Officer Tock and his Tick-Tock Men to try and get through the Midnight Door back to the real world. I can't even say how fun it was.

>>14394799

I keep trying to post stories about my game, but it keeps telling me "part of your comment is not allowed". What the fuck is up with that?

>>14394798
I noticed the Bioshock in there. I would of used that girl in it who causes disasters by hurting her Teddy.

>>14394814
JESUS FUCK don't get me started on that kid. She is the greatest character in that supplement, and probably any supplement I've seen. I always imagined that nightmare version of her (the Grisly Bear, wasn't it?) as a gangly girl wearing a little schoolgirl uniform stained with blood.

And, you know, the bits of Teddy that she sewed into her flesh. And the face, with the stitches still visible and bleeding. I think she would be armed with a giant needle or something, but I just couldn't think of anything better. Or maybe nasty bear claws.

>>14394807
You're probably using some word which is blocking you. Look through what you've written. Is there anything which would piss off moot?

My brother and I played a game. His character was an architect framed for his wife's murder. I told him that he saw his wife's head was in the sink. He narrates her talking to him. I could tell this game was gonna be awesome. At the end, he brutally murders his wife's murderer and goes insane with the final action. Whenever I run that game again, other players may experience a man who's right side is made of rebar, plaster, and live electrical wires. His name will be "the architect."

>>14394854
He should lurk in an apartment building with a non-euclidean geometry and impossible layout.

This is the kind of thing I meant here. >>14394798
An insane character never really leaves the game. He just becomes one badass new enemy.

>>14394807
Let's try this again.

My players had a lot of fun dealing with a killer they called "the Coupon Cutter" who was slashing his way through the city's Paper Boys. Imagine newsboys but actually made of newspaper. They just about lost their shit when they found this half-alive Paper Boy stapled to a wall through his hands and feet, bleeding ink, and he looked up at them and murmured "Help... wanted..."

>>14394838
Change the girl to a gangly teenage girl, for the nightmare version.
Time has moved on, and the innocence has been replaced with insane malice. Wait, I just realised she's a big sister. If she survived in the Mad City by crawling around in vents and skipping through the alleys, she even behaved as a little sister when she was an Awake.

The Bioshock is overwhelming.

>>14394901

They spent a good chunk of the first session fleeing a living ambulance they called "the Deathbulance," which grew a maw and tried to eat them. The Deathbulance was filled with these nearly-mute almost-identical thugs in blood-spattered white scrubs called DisOrderlies who kept trying to restrain and sedate people to feed them to the Deathbulance.

>>14394901
For non-players, the Paper Boys write stories about people that tend to come true. These people tend to be people who the Paper Boys encounter, and tend even more often to be PCs.

>>14394917
I love the puns this game throws up. The Disorderlies is genious.
But you could probably have done a better one than the Deathbulance. Like the Ambivalence, or the Damnbulance.

>>14394945

"Deathbulance" was actually my players' name for it. DisOrderlies was mine. In another session, they also went to a restaurant where they were served by the Monstre D', an enormous man-lobster who tried to entice them to become cannibals. Man, looking back, I packed a hell of a lot of stuff into four sessions.

>>14394971
Is it a coincidence that the Don't Lose Your Mind supplement gave an example of a character gaining a madness power later- where a food enthusias who accidentally entered the Mad City wondered into a restuarant where the chef planned to cook him and serve him to the nightmare clientel.

He was shoved into a boiling pot of water with some lobsters, and the lid was slammed down. A minute later, he burst out with a half-lobster madness power, and killed everyone in the restuarant with his claws.

>>14395002

Pretty much, yeah. Lobsters (most ocean arthropods, really) scare the shit out of me in real life, and I just included a half-lobster dude because I thought it was scary. I don't think DLYM was even out by then.

Madness power: Bullshitting.

Exhaustion power: Fashion design.

I"m a big fan of this game, even though it runs a little crunch-lite for my usual tastes. A couple of the mechanics in here are genius. I've poached them for other games and improved them immensely.

>>14395221
>dream-based setting
>too crunch-lite

The book gives your heartbeat and your name as examples of things the Tacksman might take. Has anyone thought of any other good ones?

>>14395315
All the pleasant memories of past romantic relationships.

this game seems so fun, but my players aren't imaginative so I'll never get to run it.

They had enough trouble with call of cthulu

>>14395315
the feeling of warmth.
player alwasy felt cold all the time. Went insane and set himself on fire eventually.

>>14395374
Don't worry, anon. Have a hug.

>>14395265
Poor phrasing. I didn't get much sleep this weekend.
Crunch-lite in that there isn't much but reactions to differentiate PC's from each other mechanically. All the differentiation comes from the PDQ qualities, and distinct applications of madness and exhaustion talents.
For example, no skills, no physical or mental attributes, no equipment with mechanical effects, and so on.
This is not a criticism, it's just different from what we usually play. Dresden Files/FATE with aspects was a useful transition point between a group that usually plays WoD/D&D to DRYH.

>>14395416
>I didn't get much sleep this weekend.
Are you an Awake?

>>14395416
>I didn't get much sleep this weekend.
Have you started to notice doors where there weren't any before?

Just finished the final planning session for a game of this. My players have been given their notices in their homes.

The envelopes are quite special; each one was written on extensively, to portray a person going mad. One consists of criss-crossing nonsense, written in several different hands with several different tools. The next is several lines from "Through the Looking Glass", growing slowly more distorted and stained as it goes on. The third is a single chain of text, wrapping around the letter. The final one is a series of interlocking quotations, written in every direction; some text is mirrored, some of it is backwards, some parts change orientation, and it's a challenge to read.

The notices for the game are also tailored to the players; one of them is a heavy smoker. The paper with the date and time is pocked with a number of cigarette burns, holes, and a fine layer of ash covered it. Another is a neat freak; the mis-matched lettering is endlessly crossed out and re-copied in increasingly neat styles, and the whole paper was soaked in a pleasant-smelling cleaning product. A third works outdoors; their paper was buried for two days, and just recently dug up. My last player drinks quite a bit; theirs was soaked in rum, whiskey, and cheap beer, with rings of coffee stained on it in imitation of their usual hangover cure.

The game is taking place in an academic building, and I've managed to get a few good effects. As I know none of them browse /tg/, I can say what I've set up so far for plot and tricks. This has developed from an earlier thread, currently archived on /tg/, and I've already given one of my players a minor panic attack by leaving the introduction letter on their ceiling fan by picking the lock on their door and sneaking in.

>>14395561
I wish I had an insane stalker DM.

>>14395561
>MFW

>>14395582
Insomniac and former housebreaker, actually. All the players agreed to being 'surprised' with the game time, location, and such; I'm just making things a little bit more interesting for them.

Currently, background music is planned. I've set up a radio to listen to some local stations while playing. It's a terrible radio, and because of the location, it's heavily shielded against the actual broadcast. I've recorded an hour of the regular broadcast; that has been tampered with subtly. Slight things, like a little extra echo, some additional static in the background, subtle changes in tempo, and the insertion of several tones near the edge of human hearing. It then switches over to an hour-long self-recorded broadcast, consisting of a brief introduction by a character within the game that is mumbled, terrified, and confused, and then gives an hour of Joy Division songs, which evolves from "subtly wrong" to "completely, utterly horrible". Finally, the recording turns into pure noise music, over which a woman is quietly sobbing. This continues for fifteen minutes, until only the woman and the static is left. One minute of pure static, a final sigh, and then silence.

The players will begin the game separate; their characters will be given a brief solo portion, with things switching over to the other players. They will meet each other, and then the true game begins.

>>14395640
>MFW my game isn't as good as yours.

One thing I did do though was convert the audio of this video to MP3, for use in the session.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T5_0AGdFic

>>14395668
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0sQt1AbfN0

The players, insomniacs one and all, will be brought to a room in the building we're playing in. Outside the door, a friend of mine will be standing guard. He'll be dirty, unkempt, and slightly on edge; paranoid of the times to come. He's Slovakian by birth, so his words come with a crisp strangeness that most people find a bit 'off'. It won't be long after the players go before he'll disappear, leaving only a few cigarette butts, each with a number.

Each cigarette butt is made from one of those cigarette tubes. The filter has been removed, and inside each one is a short saying. If they choose to investigate, they'll get a little bit more of the story being told.

Within the game, the players will find themselves at an insomniac's meeting, apparently organized by a man named Charlie. He's a broken mess; he looks as though he's been sleeping on the streets, the tips of his fingers are bloodied and raw, and his eyes are twitching. A stuttered explanation, coupled with paranoid delusions and wild gestures, will draw them in.

The lights die, in game and out. The characters see that Charlie is gone. In his place is a man wearing a white lab coat, glasses, and a surgical mask. He holds a clipboard in one hand.

It is the Doctor. He's here to examine his patients.

>>14395757
You are either insane or lying and either way I love it.

The conversation will begin pleasantly enough. The players will be paranoid, fearful. Running will only bring the Night Nurses, however; grotesque, porcelain-skinned men and women, their fingers replaced by rusting needles, surgical masks stitched over their faces, dirtied and blood-soaked scrubs nearly falling off their forms.

It's time for a collective regression. They will all be transported, bodily and painfully, back into their childhood memories. All together, all at once. The fears and regrets of their youth will be laid bare, in a mishmash of histories and places. Childhood bullies, fused with the street, become Blockheads. Huge canines, their teeth razor-sharp and their tongues long enough to ensnare even the quickest runners, become Lapdogs.

And at the center of this sits the Doctor. Sitting, making notes. He'll have a diagnosis. He just needs to know what makes these madmen tick.

Escaping from this nightmare leads players into the Hospital, a building they unwittingly stumbled into. Their presence in the Psychotic Ward is known, but unwelcome. Corridors are endless; Impatients stalk from the doorways, their infirmities making pursuing the players a difficult thing, at best.

The lights grow dimmer. They see nightmares beaten together out of sickness, mental and physical, into their greatest fears.

>>14395757
The Surgeon General, I assume?

>>14395803
The game is written, the players informed, my other players prepared for the game. It's a fluid shape right now, ready to seep down into the nightmares of my players.

And, of course, my own nightmares. You see, DRYH is how I deal with my own problem of insomnia. I don't have regular insomnia, the difficulty of falling asleep. No, I've got recurring nightmares, which tend to let me get maybe two-three hours of sleep at a time.

I've woken up screaming enough times to piss my roommates off at me.

I've woken up screaming and bleeding from the nose, so loudly that my neighbors beat on my apartment door to figure out what was happening. When I opened the door, they thought I had been doing cocaine and overdosed, creating a three hour argument.

Nightmares are not foreign to me. It seems almost natural to expunge them in this form. It provides a wonderful outlet for this sort of terror, and grants me control over my own mind by letting me remove these events from it and give them to others around me.

>>14395846
So insane then. That's quite alright. Carry on, my merry madman.

Sir, you are a god.

>>14395898
Well, clearly.

Amusingly, it's better to run this sort of game well-rested, with your players off-balance. Get the ideas from insomnia and nightmares, but physically run the game only when you're at a good physical and mental place.

The trick is to tailor things to your players and the people they portray. Give them something to think about. And keep manipulating the environment.

The lights are scheduled to die several times. A timer on the external lights means that they'll switch on, one by one, when I leave after a predetermined signal (at this point, five minutes after a bell that rings every 50 minutes). The elevators in the building are set to automatically re-route to the 1st floor, which is always pitch black at the time that we're playing.

And yes, there's no control on the players part, as I know the building manager, and he's helping me out with this. Always be nice to the people who control your environment; they can do horrible things to you when you're in a bad state of mind.

>>14395936
A few quick questions, if you're still there.

How long did it take you to put this together? And how much did it cost? Because I would really love to do something like this.

>>14396154
Creepy Answer: It has taken me a lifetime of poor sleep, reading, paranoia, and a penchant for excess planning to do this. It cost me sleep, peace of mind, and relaxation. It has taken as much time from me as I care to remember.

Serious answer: Took roughly a week to get all the details sketched out. Most of the stuff was either junk I had lying around (old radio, transmitter, audio editing software, Joy Division albums), or cheap as hell (cigarette tubes, paper, pens, envelopes, dirt).

The hardest part is, of course, convincing the building manager this was a good idea. It cost me a six-pack of good beer to ensure that this happens. Then again, he loved the story and the concept, so that helped. We spent one evening timing it out and testing to see if stuff works; he'll be working the night of the game, and we've scheduled the light thing for 12:05 AM, as that's when the game is due to end. The players will be encouraged to take the elevators, as it's the easiest way down.

Finally, I've managed to switch my roommate's cigarette case with a case of my own. All of the cigarettes have a message spelled out on them. Sample messages:
"MAKE IT STOP"
"CAN'T SLEEP SHADOWS DRAW CLOSER"
"INHALE DIE EXHALE LIVE"
"MADNESS"
"BROKEN"

I've also soaked several cigarettes in wine. This imparts a rather sweet taste. I've been switching them out for three days now. He's grown used to the taste, and so it will be more shocking when he returns to the regular ones.

>>14396226
You are terrifying and I wish I was half as good a GM as you are.

Anyways I'd like to play this game but I haven't gotten my players to even try UA yet.

>>14396226
Ha. Alright, thanks.

>>14396411
Then ambush them with it. Tell them you're playing GURPS or Shadowrun. Then, ask them how they'd like to use the dice. Keep track of their character sheets on your end. Make it slowly clear that you're playing two different games.

I first introduced my players to DRYH through Shadowrun. They thought they were playing a modern-day game using the system. They soon caught on that their rolls had an effect on the game in a different way, and that I was watching their dice. They noticed how I kept looking at the colors of dice, and how the largest ones always seemed to be three white dice they all had.

It was an hour before the hallucinations took things over, and they realized what was going on. When the game turned weird, it turned great. Keep your players in the dark, reveal only as much as necessary, and don't tell them you're playing the game.

Have them over, have the dice, and reveal as necessary. Ask them the questions. Have their talents come up naturally. Freeform. Trick them, confuse them, anger them, frighten them. It's all in how you get the game going.

OMG, BEST GM EVER

>>14396226
well its a good thing you took to GMing instead of serial killing.

>>14396594
Indeed, it is. I once ran a supernatural murder LARP.

The killing was accomplished by having a friend of mine, a theater design major, make a lace collar for herself with squib material underneath, along with fake blood. Upon the predetermined time, she activated it while conversing with one of the dinner party guests. It detonated spectacularly, showering the person she was talking to with blood. As it was a predetermined time, the timers I had connected to the scavenged radios went off immediately afterwards, blasting the house with static.

The players then searched through the house for clues. A single white rose, stained with blood, was found inside an old hollowed-out Bible. The only page not stained with red ink had the verse "I know your works, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead." underlined in the same blood-red ink. The rose rested atop this.

Further evidence was hunted down throughout the house. Random timers attached to electronic devices, a room with extra mirrors, and a white noise generator in the basement all contributed to the horror.

Or perhaps a better example would be when I decided that atmosphere was needed for a Call of Cthulhu game. I released about a dozen Acherontia atropos that I'd raised, all while dimming the lights. They couldn't figure out where the insects were coming from, and the room was large enough that they usually stayed at the edge of their vision.

>>14396698
Dude you need to travel the world hosting these games for everyone. Man, no GM here is ever that good.

Someone archive this mans stuff, because I want to give it a shot if I feel my players need a good mind fucking.

>>14396869
Understanding the psychology of your players is the biggest part. Know their fears. Know their problems. Know what distracts them, what is occupying their thoughts, and then strike using that knowledge.

Say you have a player who is afraid of spiders.

A regular GM, looking for a scare, would simply add spiders into the game, maybe popping out of nowhere and scaring the player. Or just pissing them off.

Understand why your player dislikes them. Is it the legs? Is it a fear of being bitten? Is it their webs, clinging to surfaces and trapping smaller creatures, until they are inexorably consumed by the spider? Did watching a cartoon when they were young scare them? Was it a book? A tarantula, brought to school? A picture of spiders crawling out of somewhere?

Then take the visceral elements that suggest that fear, and remove the object of the fear. Play around with your player. Give the things that suggest the thing they hate and fear the most, but never let them confront it. Keep it in the shadows, nipping at their heels and poking at them.

Silken clothing, draped over chairs, covered in dust. A man with unusually long, spindly limbs and bulging eyes, who moves slowly and carries bundles of string. A homeless man, eyes wide with shock and pain, found tied up and poisoned, his thrashing useless. Motes of dust, pouring out from under a log.

The moment they confront their fears, they win. But if you never let them see it, if they're grasping at smoke the entire time, real fear begins to take shape, and your job grows easier.

>>14396950
Once again /tg/ demonstrates that there is a fine line between a good horror game and a mentally-unbalanced likely-to-kill-you GM. You, good sir, straddle that line.

Awake, I would pay money to play DRYH with you. Possibly airfare. Where'd you learn this shit?

I used to have a British punk bloke whose madness power was summoning a shitload of giant amps to blow shit away with static and noise. The noise made sense to him, but not to anyone else.

>>14397377
I've had an odd life. Recurring nightmares ever since I was around 6 or 7. Incredible levels of insomnia from that, so I ended up coming up with strategies to not sleep. I'd read anything I could get my hands on, which involved frequenting the local library and just pulling out books at random.

Developed a stimulant habit in high school; started doing housebreaking to pay for it. I was the weird tweaker, because I wasn't doing it for the buzz, I was doing it because I hated sleep and needed something to combat the horror of my insomnia. Made a set of picks, built up relationships with a few guys who could sell shit.

Left it when someone burned me on a deal and I crashed in a random dealer's apartment. I woke up screaming from a nightmare to find a guy trying to mug me. I thought it was still a nightmare, and ended up nearly getting shot. Finally started taking proper sleeping medication, nightmares calmed down for a while.

Eventually, I had to switch due to a negative reaction it had on my health. This lead to meds which basically left me a zombie. Learned control strategies, which is why I do this. Writing is an outlet, as is scaring other people. If the fear's not in my head, then it has no power. So, I read up on how to get people scared.

I've had a few weird jobs and talents that I've picked up over the years. Best was learning sleight-of-hand from a retired magician while working in a retirement home. Great guy. Thankfully, this was before the time of stimulants; when that happened, I used the skills to rip guys off at cards, which is another story entirely.

Thread archived for posterity. Vote it up.

>>14397636
The original germination of this game was described in another thread, which is also archived, so that you know. Thankfully, this contains more concrete information, and will hopefully help new GMs to run this game.

Preparedness and improvisational skills are everything. Plan for your plot, then plan to throw it all away when your players go differently.

A well-composed horror story has no rails. It is an effective setting, where the players can wander anywhere, and still remain terrified. An example I might give would be from one of my more frequent nightmares, which I tentatively call "The Forest".

The Forest is thick, densely populated with trees. Sunlight streams from between the heavy canopy, creating odd patterns of light and shadow. The world is striped, and any motion at all is easily noticeable. The Forest is eerily silent, though creatures flit at the edges.

As they travel further into it, The Forest grows more oppressive. The gaps grow tighter; light becomes like a series of gossamer curtains, creating strangely striated areas. The first signs of life approach; strangely deformed creatures, like dogs walking on two legs, cloaked in shadow and with a bare skull for a head, watch in the distance. They do not approach.

At the end, there is always the Cave. The Cave's floor is covered in shards of obsidian, so sharp that bare feet are sliced open, shoes are shredded, and nothing should be able to walk through it. But something lives in the Cave. She lives in the Cave, and describing her is the hardest thing in the world for me.

>>14395846

This reminds me of Stephen King actually. By his own account he has frequent nightmares which he wakes up from, jots down a few ideas and then goes back to sleep. Many of the interconnections between the stories stem from recurring elements in his dreams.

Makes me almost wish I was a crazy insomniac who has nightmares, might actually bring out some creativity

>>14397954
Ironically, it would only let you remember your dream creativity. When a person is violently awakened, due to a nightmare or outside stimuli, they remember whatever dreams they had. This is opposed by where if you were to wake normally, your slow ascent from sleep (or whatever you want to call it) makes you forget your dreams.

Or...perhaps it just allows you the opportunity to forget.

>>14398093

Yup, I'm studying psych right now. I guess not remembering even the average dream is a good indicator of having at least a slightly healthy sleep schedule.

But back to DRYH since Awake seems to have left, sorry that I am he has, shall we discuss Madness Powers and Exhaustion Talents? Or other (obviously less awesome) game stories?

>>14398133
Went shopping. Will continue stories later. Eating delicious squid jerky, making ramen, watching a bit of Iron Chef, and getting a little caffeine, as I haven't really slept since Saturday when my girlfriend was over.

>>14398153
You are a mad genius and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

>>14398153

No problem friend, your DMing tips are welcome at any time.

Now on to Madness Powers. I've never played the game, only DMed so I have some that I've always wanted to run.

Mad Hatter: Assorted Hat related abilities. Play up the comical stuff, diving into a giant hat and that kind of thing. Of course, you always have to be wearing at least one hat. And it isn't nice. In fact its a very mean hat, and it knows what you're thinking, it knows, and its prepared to tell you whatever it needs to get you to do what it wants.
Little do you know, that at higher madness levels, the top of your skull is getting thinner and thinner, your skull is being replaced, with the hat. And it will get what it wants, even if that means doing it without your consent.

Couldn't think of a name for this one but the essential idea is to take the usual overly connected teenager (cell phone on and texting all the time, facebook, twitter and myspace is a constant etc) and pervert it. Make the Madness Power have the player distract enemies with information that is irrelevent, force them to hear the inane thoughts of everyone they know. That kind of thing.
As the player gains more and more madness, they can't help but connect to everyone around them. They don't hear important things though, always the inane stupid stuff that bears no importance on anything.
Eventually they become a hollow being that simply regurtitates these ideas back, becoming a parody of the things they are forced to listen to. They are an E-Mote

Awake both terrifies me and leaves me in awe.

>>14398133
Well, since we've been on this kick lately, Exhaustion: Homemade Explosives and Madness: Time Manipulation.

But, I did have one session that ended in a massive Nightmare-conversion spiral when our That Guy refused to see the writing on the wall about resource management and went full dice on Mother When with his last Discipline on the line. So, Mother When is messily devoured by the 13-dice Nightmare Boneworm. We grab the poor dude's daughter from Mother When's school and run like hell. The girl of our party tried to hold it off with her razorwire-launching arteries and acrobatics, but ends up exhausting herself, crashing, and getting eaten by Boneworm. The remaining two of us managed to get the daughter out of the Mad City and go to put down our old friend. We killed Boneworm, but now Hawking Hawk, the flying black hole, is running around.

About twenty minutes ago I was pissed because every program I was trying to use to record the song I was working on inexplicably failed to work.
Right now, after having been awake for the past day with not much sleep, this is the coolest fucking thread I have seen in a very long time.
By the way, on a similar subject as this game, you guys may want to check out Little Fears, it will atleast provide further information if you plan on playing this game or possibly give you another game to mindfuck your players with.

>>14398776
Combination Little Fears/Don't Rest Your Head.

Longer term game. The traumas of childhood move into the adult form. It was played as an entertaining one-shot with Little Fears: "Oh, just make yourselves when you were kids! What were you scared of? Any cool stuff near your house? Any weird neighbors or creepy neighborhood legends?"

Had them play through a few games, until we ended on a cliffhanger of them being chased down in Closetland.

Then, the next session, I hand each of them character sheets for Don't Rest Your Head. Same characters, each with one scar: "Missing Memories of Childhood".

No memories from their childhood. No stories, no games; just vague, hazy idealistic and interchangeable memories of childhood. This had been keeping them awake, as nightmarish visions of what had happened to them to make them completely block off their childhoods started preventing them from sleeping.

Lost a girlfriend over that one, actually. Called me a sociopath and psychotic, flipped the table, and left. Bit too intense, maybe.

>>14398917
The reason behind this little freak-out was interesting.

As you can guess, I'm a big proponent of using music and lighting to control the atmosphere. One of the important leitmotifs I used for one of the monsters from Closetland was a recorded version of "London Bridge is Falling Down", done by a friend of mine. It starts off as pure static, with the sound of her singing it slowly fading in.

The monster, Mad Jack, was based on a nightmare I had as a child. A man in a brown bowler hat, a tweed suit, and with a manic grin would simply appear in my dreams, even if they weren't related. He'd always speak in a whisper with an odd Cockney accent, and his words would be unintelligible to me. They were always vaguely threatening, and his appearance would always mark the point where a good dream would shift into another nightmare. He wasn't so much a monster as an attractor of monsters to me.

The name came from something my dad told me. From the description, he sounded like one of his old neighbors from when he was growing up, Jack. I met the real Jack once, and he was pleasant enough, but his appearance and mannerisms were just unnerving. He died of a stroke when I was ten, and I was there when he the ambulance came to pick him up. He had appeared in nightmares before that, though, so there's no real root cause.

Suffice to say, in the later games, I'd tend to break out with subtle bits of that song whenever things were getting odd. Sometimes, it would be hidden in the music I played. Other times, I'd just whistle it lightly. The night before that game, I'd had it stuck in my head, and had been singing it before heading to bed with her.

When it came up at a tense part the next day, she started yelling, saying that my descriptions seemed like I was trying to force other people to live through my personal hell. After trying to talk her down, things degenerated into the situation described above.

>>14397737

Pick up a Lucid Dreaming manual.

Think of spinning and spirals as you fall asleep.

>>14399920
>>14398917
Okay, that is fucked up.

Seriously.

I hope to Zeus that your relationship was broken BEFORE you had that shit happen. Otherwise you're some kind of madman who values a good game over a personal life. Which is kinda okay for your players.

>>14400368
Always a good. If you're talking about my sudden trailing off, it's because I try to keep that dream out of my mind.

Picture a woman. Dirty, unkempt. Shaggy hair. Unnaturally long fingernails. Thin, joints appearing as bulges on her otherwise stick-like frame. Large eyes, bloodshot and dilated to an inhuman degree, with a light film covering them. A mouth full of needle-sharp teeth. Her throat has an ancient wound, crudely stitched shut.

Much like the rest of The Forest, you can never really see Her. Instead, you catch the motion at the edge of your vision, flickering in and out. Her voice is a guttural cry, inhuman and piercing. When you hear it, all you want to do is run, hide, scream, move, do anything.

Don't. Because Her vision only works when something is moving. Much like your view of The Forest, the only thing that Her sight registers is movement. Stumbling upon Her cave, feet bloodied and raw from the shards of obsidian, the only hope is to move slowly, slowly, slowly, and grab the longest shard you can. Grip it until your hand bleeds. Then attract Her attention.

There's only ever time for one shot. Her inhuman cry sounds afterward, freezing blood and evoking pure panic. A mad charge, simultaneously directly towards me and at the edge of vision in a flickering, blinking mess.

I've never managed to do anything but wake up, throat raw and body aching from Her claws and teeth, when that happens. My palm is usually pained from gripping that shard so tightly, but the wounds from my nightmare linger on as a memory.

Run your players through it. If done wrong, they'll hate it. If done well, they'll be terrified. If done properly, they won't want to sleep for a few days.

>>14400467
Well if you ever want another player to give visions of terror to, I volunteer. I'll play in any horror game you wish to inflict upon me.

>>14400568
Strictly a live GM. Control is the essence when doing horror. You can't get that same control over IRC or webcams.

Does this make me a worse GM? Possibly. I require specific tools to evoke a feeling of fear in my players. Words are just a part of it. Then again, consider the nature of fear; it's a whole-body feeling. I use the natural advantages of this.

Then again, I haven't run a game over IRC in several years, so who knows? Perhaps my writing abilities have increased. I may give it a shot at some point on suptg, see if people are interested. This would require writing things out, though, and I've always preferred the personal touch of voice.

If anyone would like, I could also dump one of my "fun" recurring nightmares. It's like having a version of /x/ right here in /tg/, except without the copypasta, trolls, /b/-tards, or delusional self-important tripfags.

>>14400746
By all means, do share some dreams with us!

>>14400370
He did a creepy game, his girlfriend freaked-out, he tried to comfort her, she just freaked-out even more, and leave. I dont think he valued anything over his relationship. Dont think she broked up with him just because of that game neither.

All right. My apologies ahead of time for spamming /tg/ with this story, but I suppose it gives a good idea of my storytelling abilities, composition, and what sort of dreams I usually have.

-------------------------------------
The dream always begins the same. I'm standing on the front steps of the house I currently live at. The streets around me are deserted, with even the usual midnight travelers nonexistent on the street. The feeling of isolation is complete.

The colors are wrong, as well. Rather than the vibrant colors of the city, everything is in washed out sepia tones, as though taken from an old photograph. The life has been filtered out of this block. Fog obscures my vision beyond the end of the street, and the sky is clouded. Despite those clouds, I can see the stars, shaped into unfamiliar patterns and glowing with an angry red color. They stand out, bright and clear, from the dull tones of the rest of this world.

After a few moments, it begins to rain. Even the rain is wrong. Rather than streaking down to the ground, it flutters and drifts in an unseen wind, almost like errant snow particles. There is no sense or direction in how this rain falls; conflicting currents create swirls and half-shapes in the gloomy air. When this strange rain reaches the ground, it acts as it should, spattering and dancing in gigantic drops that fill the streets with muddy-looking water. The sidewalks are dripping with it, the streets are full of tiny rivers which flow in strange, contradictory direction. It is completely silent, like snow falling at midnight.

Despite this rain, I am completely dry. It seems that each drop freezes me, rather than clinging wetly to my body and dripping down. It's a nearly unbearable sensation; being dry, yet freezing. No matter how I turn or shield myself, the cold penetrates every part of my body, chilling me to the absolute bone. My heavy coat provides no protection; rather, it seems to make the cold cling to my body even more. Undressing would be suicide, but it almost seems a better alternative to this sensation of ice stabbing into my whole body.

The fog recedes slightly at this point. I see that there are still cars on the street. Every single one is rusted out; the windows are smashed in, the bumpers are falling off, and the tires have long since rotted away. It's a graveyard of dead vehicles, as devoid of life as the street. The strange rain soaks them, flitting in the absent windows and filling the cars with its wetness. The more distant cars have been defaced; a panel van is covered in odd graffiti. I can never seem to make out the symbols that cover it; they are as alien to me as the rest of the scene, but the logical parts of my mind seek something to make sense of.

The buildings are visible as well. The familiar shapes are twisted, distorted, taller than usual, looming almost up to the strange sky with its crimson stars. The half-light and rain distorts them even further; in this sepia world, they seem like ancient ruins, crumbling away with each drop of rain. The few signs I can see have been defaced, scratched into oblivion.

The windows on these buildings are intact. Blackness comes out of them almost like light; it seems to change the appearance of the rain in front of them. Unpleasant shapes, half-human and made of a deeper blackness, move from behind them. The sensation of being watched deepens; in a way, the earlier isolation was better. The rain falls harder, obscuring their shapes even further.

Finally, a figure appears at the edge of my vision. It almost appears to be made of blackness, wearing a long coat and a wide-brimmed hat. It is short and rotund, looking like an overstuffed man. Its head and hands are the only color; a sickly, pale white, blurred by the strange colors that fill this dream-world. It smokes a cigarette, occasionally pausing to exhale great gouts of greenish smoke. The rain seems to avoid it; wherever it steps, the ground is dry, and the oddly-falling droplets veer out of the way of its head. I cannot make out its face at the distance, but I know that I don't want to.

Panicking, I turn to my front door. The windows spill forth the same blackness as the other buildings, but I somehow know that I'd rather be safe inside than out here with that thing. I frantically push at the door, scrambling to work the handle and push my way inside, to retreat to my room and hide from this nightmare world. It is locked. The panel where I would enter the code to unlock it is gone, replaced with a blank steel panel, rusted and discolored by the odd palate of the dream. I beat at the door, trying to break the window, screaming soundlessly at my helplessness.

It is to no avail. A few shapes gaze out at me, repelling me with their alien appearance. They are of a deeper black than the shadowy light pouring from the windows, with no facial features. I almost feel as though they are pitying me, stuck outside. I know that this building is my only hope, but the door is locked, barred to any entry. The doors of the other homes will be the same way; I cannot seek shelter elsewhere.

The figure is now closer, the rain still diverting itself around the figure. It is at the edge of the driveway now, picking its way slowly through the falling water, waiting for the streams to divert themselves so that it might stay dry and away from the cold. I can make out its face now.

I wish I couldn't.

>play top-quality indie game
>don't support the small company that made it; instead, just use the pdf you pirated off of /rs/
>wonder why the industry is in such a sorry state

There are no eyes, no ears, no facial features save an immense mouth, stretching across the face grotesquely. The glow of the cigarette washes the face in yellowish light, making it even worse. It reaches the bottom of the steps and pauses for a final drag on the cigarette, exhaling an immense cloud of green smoke, obscuring the sky and making me panic even more.

It is short, its arms stubby. The fingers, though, are long, with wicked nails, colored like rust. The mouth, its only source of expression, is a thin line, opening and closing slightly. The cigarette is parked off to one side, casting that sickly yellow glow over everything. The rain beats down harder, freezing my bones even more.

Finally, the creature walks forward, its arms raised. It begins to smile, its teeth the same rusty colors as its nails. It walks slowly, with the same careful gait. I huddle in fear, rooted to the spot, unable to move, still emitting a silent scream. I'm incoherent with terror, unable to do anything but watch as it approaches in the strange rain and half-light of the red stars.

>>14397636
Where is it archived? I never find any thread.

The fog rolls back in, covering everything but the steps. It reaches the landing. Almost gently, it takes the last step forward, and delicately places its long fingers around my neck. The sensation is horrifying; it is the only warmth I have felt since the dream began, the change in sensation only causing me to further concentrate on what it is doing.

The grip tightens slowly. It begins as a light pressure, almost like a feather, but begins to clamp down harder. I begin to feel pain, filtered through some unknown agent. It is a dull, steadily increasing feeling, as though the pain was filtering down through a funnel. It grows tighter and tighter. I can still breathe, but the feeling is terrible; my neck is caught in a vice.

My eyes are locked on its face. No expression, no familiarity, nothing even remotely human can be found on that blank expanse of flesh, illuminated by the flickering light of a cigarette. It exhales once while strangling me, the thick green smoke merging with the fog. I am beyond sense at this point; pain collars my throat, driving me insane.

I begin to black out. My vision fades; I can still breathe perfectly, but it reminds me of choking, my vision narrowing down to a pinpoint, focused on the horrifying expanse of its mouth.

Just before the blackness takes me, its mouth edges into a slight smile. It has won.

Finally, I awaken, incoherent and terrified, unable to sleep. The images are vivid, burned into my mind. There is nothing I can do but stay awake, for fear that it will happen again.

It always does.

------------------------------------------------

This one recurs rather frequently, to the point where I'm usually a mess by the time it's started coming up. Copied from a blog I keep as a sort of online nightmare journal. The stuff that's been posted is my more public stuff, and less with the more personal nightmares, like most of the stuff involving Mad Jack. The first half of the nightmare involving The Forest is there, as well, but I hate spamming links online, because it makes it seem like I'm trying to get traffic and people interested. I just need to write these things, in a way.

>>14400865
You, sir, are delightfully twisted.

Please continue.

>>14400865
At least give us something to find that blog. My nights are very long(5:23am here), and i have been looking for a very, very long time some written tale that can make me feel fear, and what's better than nightmare.

>>14400746
I kind of figured. It sounds like half the fun of one of your games is being there, letting the game bleed out into reality just enough. That's something I can really appreciate. Regardless, if you're interested in giving it a go.
Meat000Bag@gmail.com

>>14400941
There's another DRYH at the archive, which is where I first posted the immersion ideas for this upcoming game. It should still be in the archive. I can post one of the remaining stories from the blog, along with a few of the 'ghost stories' from my childhood. Basically shit that happened to me when I was young.

>>14400835
Not everyone here is a pirate. Picture related. Materials for the upcoming game.

---------------------------------------
It begins in a room. The colors are simple, restrained; wood panels cover the walls and floor, all of them stained a deep brown. The hues are reminiscent of good, old wood; deep, worn, and speaking of a time when they were well-used. A single door leads out, to where things will begin. The urge to go forward, to explore what's behind that door, darker than the rest of the room, is urgent.

Opening the door presents a corridor, with walls identical to those left behind. More doorways, dark and empty, stretch along this hallway; some still have the same heavy wooden doors, while others are merely open frames, filled with a thick, inky blackness.

The light is dim, almost like it was filtered through a thick curtain before evenly coating the world in its secondhand illumination. It comes from no visible source; no ancient lamps line the walls, no hanging light bulbs sway from the ceiling. The patterns of light simply appear, as though a light bulb was removed from the world, and the light it shed remained. This creates a number of odd shadows and hidden corners; although the corridor is straight, the panels covering the walls become more and more jagged the further away from the original room it goes. They seem to shift unexpectedly, creating an atmosphere of unease.

Sometimes, a shadow will seem to take the shape of a person, silently going about some business. These shadows flit from door to door, moving with some definite, unknowable purpose. Concentrating on them seems to slow them down; a particular man-shadow will move slowly when it is watched, then dart away the moment that transfixing gaze is lifted. When watched, some of the shadowy silhouettes seem to turn and face the gaze, the heads becoming sharper with each passing second.

Looking for too long would not likely end well.

Moving forward, a door is chosen at random; it opens to an identical corridor, filled with the same shadowy forms. Here, a new sensation begins; the feeling of being followed by something. It almost feels as though something is watching.

Following.

Hunting.

Sight is not the important part of this dream, however. It presents torments of a different variety. Here is where the music begins, and where the true nature of this nightmare becomes clear.

At first, it is pure discord; imagine a man slamming on a piano, attempting to find the most jarring combinations. Crazed arpeggiation over crashing bass chords, all played with frantic, arrhythmic timing. It is a pure assault of noise, staggering through sounds that the instrument should not be able to make. The low tones rattle the entire hallway, making it shake and shiver in a pattern that is indescribably far from any sort of rhythm.

The sounds cut to the center of the mind, setting the seeds of panic. The world narrows; the only thing to do is to run, to get away from the awful cacophony filling the air. The hallways, once wide, seem to darken and narrow. The shadows grow deeper. The light seeps away. The doorways loom threateningly; to pass them by is to invite something to spring out, grabbing its prey and returning to the lightless depths.

No matter the direction, the noise grows louder. It changes slowly; melodies appear, the tone mellows and sweetens, becoming bearable. Other sounds join it; whispers, fragments of conversations, screams, moans; every noise imaginable creating a tapestry of sound from which there is no escape.

The sensation of being watched grows greater as the corridors change. Whatever is following has grown bolder; occasional scratching noises are heard like gunshots through the horrible music flooding the hallways. Half-glimpsed figures twitch at the corner of the eye; figures seem to dart out of doorways.

The shadowy figures have changed, as well. Rather than running or going about their business, they stand and watch, rank after rank of silhouettes adorning the walls, watching this flight with interest. For each shadowy eye that stares, the exhaustion from running grows greater and greater. They are here to aid the pursuer, to help it catch its prey.

The sounds grow discordant again; whatever is beating out this unholy music has grown angry again. The piano still dominates, but it is joined by screams, curses, snatches of foreign language, gunshots; anything that can threaten and terrify is present in this blanket of noise. It spurs the mind onto new heights of panic; the only way to wake up is to escape this noise, which has grown louder and louder.

Soon, it is painful, so loud that there is no space in the mind for anything else. When that time comes, the next door is the last one. It is always light; a sudden rectangle of brightness in a hallway so dim the edges fade to nothingness. The shadows have fused, turning into a giant mass, the mouths of the silhouettes now open in silent screams. Or perhaps their screams are lost in the noise; it is impossible to tell.

The next room is brightly lit. A figure sits at a piano, hands moving so fast they are a blur. The piano is made of the same wood as the hallway; a dark, warm brown that has been worn down by the centuries. The keys are yellowed, and one of black keys is missing, broken off and lying on the floor.

The figure is indistinct; it is human shaped and vaguely female. Brown hair falls down its shoulders, and its clothing is unkempt, jarred out of place by the frantic motions.

As soon as the room is entered, the music changes. It slows down, changes to something bearable. A slow, cold melody that halts. The last note always hangs, an unresolved chord that would make all the cacophony go away. The figure's hands move to hit the final note, resolve the tune.

The last key is always the broken one. Its hands fall gently to its side, and slowly, the figure turns towards the door. Its face is female, generic; the features are far from memorable. Slowly, the corner of its mouth teases up slightly, moving into a faint smile. Its gaze is almost pitying, the eyes filled with a strange sadness.

This sadness turns to triumph soon enough. Its lips open, and speak two words, the earlier blanket of noise somehow returning behind the words, making them impact like a lead weight.

"Found. You."

Suddenly, there is a freezing, stabbing pain, as though a beast with claws of ice has pounced. It always begins at the kidneys, slowly moving upwards. Collapse is the only option. The figure grins, revealing rows of perfect white teeth which stand out from its face so clearly

The noise begins again as the pain intensifies, building to a crescendo alongside the sensations of anguish. It acts as counterpoint, becoming too much to bear as the final chord, so discordant that it hurts worse than the physical pain. The world falls apart at that final moment, allowing a return to reality and another sleepless night.

Only the memory of that awful noise remains.

----------------------------
End of the second story of rather terrible nightmares. I'm terrible at keeping a proper journal, unfortunately, but I have a few stories from childhood I could dredge up. Most of them are more weird, semi-fictional ones that I write when I can't sleep; a few things to blur who I am, and a few things to keep myself from going nuts at night.

Once again, sorry for turning /tg/ into /x/, but I believe that this is somewhat relevant to the game being discussed, and interesting.

>>14401086
/tg/ does /x/ better than /x/, don't worry. your nightmares are awesome (as someone who doesnt have to experience them himself).

Awake, are you aware that you're dreaming of The Place Between?

Have you ever seen angels? Have you ever heard a lady sing? Wrong singing, as the red sun's rise is reflected in the sea of black glass, fallen from shattered buildings overhead?

>>14401178
Never seen angels. I'm afraid to say that my dreamspace is populated solely by demons, hence my insomnia and reliance on mental discipline. If I remember a dream, it was a nightmare.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to take a little while to feed my moths. I'll be around to answer anything people want answered, and help those seeking to run this wonderful little game, as well as enter the wonderful world of nightmares.

I once had a recurring nightmare that involved being trapped in a building that was slowly being flooded with murky, cold water.

Need to find a way to fit that into a game somehow.

I'm willing to bet you could run a game of Kult that would end in people clawing their eyes out and attempting to cut their own heart from their chest so their character could get more XP.

I usually don't get nightmares, but there's one that I remember quite well, probably because it's so simple.

I dreamt that I couldn't fall asleep no matter how hard I tried. At least, I'm pretty sure it was a dream.

The session I ran ended up being a bit of a dud. I think we played it too much like a D&D-game; too much GM control, too many rolls. It didn't seem quite that way while it was going on, but, looking back, it didn't really feel like I think it should have. Had some great punny monsters that I made up though. I think for DRYH to really succeed, you need to have players take things into their own hands and really run with what they're doing.

The problem with this game is that you really can only play it if you are a) depressed as shit, b) havn't slept in like a day and half and really are experiencing insomnia, or c) just fucking twisted. Now I'm only like half C, so the problem is if I'm not tired as hell, or otherwise stressed out of my mind, it's easy to loss interest in the game.

On the other hand, when you're one of a,b, or c (or even better, some kind of combination) the shit is fucking awesome

>>14401329
It takes a certain degree of player/GM cooperation, yes. Rolls should be rare and spaced-out; each one has a chance of going catastrophically wrong for the players. Increase in frequency, let the players know the risks, and keep it abstract. This is a narrativist game: you want to avoid making it an exercise in dice rolling.

Then again, it's entirely possible to use it in a non-serious fashion. You can do lighthearted superheroics with this system, you know; alter the penalties, remove the "Death by sleep or madness", and change it to make an interesting narrative. Players love it.

>>14401285
Never ran Kult, but I read about it back when Riksdagen was discussing cutting the funding for SVEROK. I'll have to look into it someday.

Finally; moths are a wonderful distraction for insomniacs. I really suggest that any bored gamers raise some. It's pretty easy to get the eggs, and having a bunch of them flitting about a room can really freak your players out.

...see, the trouble for me is that if I'm having a nightmare, right before shit hits the fan or I REALLY want to change the events taking place, I can.

Like 'OH NO, ACID MONSTERS! Oh, how I wish this was like in old video games where the hero died after touching the monsters except I have the death-touch.' And so it was, I ran amok in Elder Thing-run medieval Baghdad, killing only those who tried to hinder my escape.

I had that one junior year in high school.

Or 'touring super-soldier-making facility as one of the last but experienced baseline human soldiers, high incidence of psychosis among supers and oh dear wouldn't you know all of them went crazy at once. supersoldier tour guide I'm following through facility looks like he's about to go PTSD about probably being next, so I quietly cap him in the back of the head so he can die sane and mostly human.' I was about to effect my escape, possibly through an army, but I had to wake up for school.

I had that one when I was ten.

So yeah.

Here's a mod for the game.

>>14401497
If I ever had a dream that I was a little pony with a tattoo on my ass, upon waking up I would probably walk into a Toys'R'Us with a loaded gun and a duffel bag full of ammunition.

>>14401557
To shoot the toys, the staff, or yourself?

>>14401590
All.

I haven't had nightmares since I was a little kid. Until a few months ago, that is.

A lot of my more memorable dreams involve me observing events from a third-person perspective. This one started out much the same, I was watching a room with dim, red lighting, old furniture, and one bed that had two figures on top of each other, moving under the sheets with occasional sounds of pleasure emitting from the tangled forms.

Naturally, I assumed sex was going on, then I realized that only the top figure was moving.

And that there was blood everywhere.

And that with an almost audible "thunk" like a sliding door being placed back in its position on the rails, I now found myself in the same room. And now I could see the one moving... thing clearer now, and see something unnatural moving and shifting just underneath its bare back. Moving towards the door on the side as silently as I could, I got a better look at what else was under the sheets.

A gnawed-on corpse.

And just as my shaking hand came to rest on the doorknob, the monster looked up from its gruesome meal.

Right at me.

The last thing I remember seeing was a gore-spattered human face, well, mostly human, with a twisted Cheshire Cat grin filled with drooling, bloody razor sharp shark teeth.

>>14401497
This causes such a boiling hate deep in my gutty works. I think I may have problems.

>>14401689
Just so you know, the guy who posted this actually ran a game based on it.

Apparently, the players enjoyed it.

>>14401706
Please for the love of god stop, I'm to young to have ulcers.

>>14401721
The guy who made it did stop.

So he could work on it more and make it better.

Almost all of my nightmares involve only one thing. Falling down and being unable to get up. As if I'm on skates I continuously attempt to stand up, but fall down again. It doesn't sound particularly frightening, but I'm always panicked that I can't get up for some reason, I never remember the details though, so I don't know if something is chasing me, or if I have somewhere to go.

>>14401721
People enjoying things I don't like? NOT ON MY WATCH!

>>14401645

>cont.

I screamed and ran out of the room, down a flight of stairs, and found myself in an old house, one of those with wood paneling everywhere, and narrow hallways and narrow staircases. But this house was full of people, people I knew and cared about, all enjoying themselves at a seemingly-fabulous house party.

I couldn't join them. Somehow, I knew the monster that I ran from was a shapeshifter, and was coming for me next, now that I had discovered its secret. I hid under a table, for I don't know how long in the dream, dreading each pair of feet that walked past me that it might be the skin-stealing monster coming for me.

Then I heard a voice that turned me into a relieved little kid - almost literally. It was my dad, come to give me a ride home and hopefully away from this nightmare! He pulls me up by the hand and I urgently whisper to him, explaining the dire circumstances I have found myself in. He nods somberly and we quickly walk out the front door.

Outside is a cold, clear night, with a large parking lot adjoining a quiet city street. The lot is empty. I follow my dad still, asking him where his car is parked.

"Oh, just a little ways up the street."

Fine. I shrug and keep following him...but my doubts continue to grow deeper.

"How much farther?"
"Not too much, sweetie-pie, just keep behind me!"

No. No. Not my dad. The bastard took my dad's face. He's tricked me. The realization hits me and I sink to me knees, crying. The once-kindly face of my father twists into that awful, bloody, fanged grin, and I scream one last time and the shapeshifter just laughs and laughs...

Then I wake up. Terrified not so much about the dream, but that my mind could create something that FUCKED UP in the first place.

>>14401743
Nah, bro, don't worry about it. Just posted this because it was a DRYH thread.

Though I'm tempted to try and make a character based on this. Up for it?

I barely remember the one nightmare that scared me the most. All I can piece together is a single image of a creature that was turned inside out, it looked similar to a horse, but I can't be sure exactly what it was. Did any of you go and see Body Worlds? The exhibition where the bodies were injected with plastic so the veins and muscles were preserved but other parts weren't? It looked similar to that.

What effected me most about this nightmare though wasn't the image exactly. It was an extreme lingering paranoia. I sat in my room with the door shut and my light on for 2 hours staring at the door waiting for whatever I thought was on the other side to open it.

Finally I ran at my door, yanked it open and ran down the hallway flicking lights on as I went. This all seems fairly average for a young kid, but I was 17 at the time, and normally very level headed. Freaked the crap out of my parents in the next room too

>>14401769
Sure, why not.

Well, fellow insomniacs, I'm off to work. Should this be here tomorrow, I'll be sure to post a bit with more suggestions on how to create an atmosphere of terror in your games.

Remember; we write these horrors so that we do not have to face them alone. Could you imagine that? Alone, in a room, no one to speak to. Everything is just a hallucination of the nightmare engulfing you. All those once-friendly voices turned to silence and scorn, driving you deeper into yourself. Your thoughts, seemingly sympathetic to your cause, soon shift over to darker visions of horror.

Thankfully, we're not alone out here. There are still others awake, willing to listen to everything that makes you wake up in a cold sweat, screaming, or worse. The more people learn of your terrors, the less of a hold it has over you.

Don't Rest Your Head is a wonderful tool for this. It makes that horror so real for your players that it's like a weight has been lifted. You transfer the shadows to them.

And that's the way it's going to be.

>>14401791
>Body Worlds

That was a fascinating exhibit. I can imagine why you wouldn't want to see that in your dreams though.

>>14401791
Nightmares like that are the worst. I'll post up a story tomorrow if this is still alive, about my experiences involving the weird blurring between dreams and reality you get when you haven't slept in roughly a week.

It's always just little lingering images, and it's always terrible.

I've only had one experience of lucid dreaming. And I used it to escape a nightmare.

Trapped in a dark warehouse, surrounded by mindless humanoid monsters that glow an unearthly shade of blue and want nothing more than to capture me and use me for some dark purpose. But I have an ace up my sleeve.

I know I'm in a dream.

I laugh as the world turns white around me, my pursuers disintegrate into oblivion and I open my eyes to my dark room. Awake.

Contented, I fall back into the best dreamless sleep I've had in years.

I'd be the fella who made that My Little Pony/DRYHooves thing. I kinda wanted to run a game based on Friendship is Magic, and decided it would be fun to try and slam the setting headfirst into one of my favorite systems until I broke something.

Could do a short, sharp, shitty storytime of the game I ran with some internet buddies if it wouldn't disrupt the thread. The plot itself was pretty boring due to being a mediocre GM on my best days, but the player reactions to the whole deal was fun at least.

>>14401823

The strange thing is, it didn't come to my city until way after this dream. I had no prior exposure to it. Before I saw the exhibit I had nothing to equate that image to, just "an inside out horse"

>>14401927
Post it, this is a Don't Rest Your Head Thread and it's night time.

>>14401927


I'm so tempted to oneshot this for my friends, so yes please.

>>14401927
Probably make a separate thread. I know I'm interested, but it would probably be a disruption.

>>14401927
Make a new thread, and link it.

>>14401611
I laughed far, far too hard at this

New thread might get me banned since it's MLP outside of /co/. Not sure how strict mods still are about that, but I'll just make it short and unsatisfying (like everything I do).

Game was done over IRC, had a couple people trickle in after I threw out a call to play/watch/troll, few friends, few new people, nice mix of folks with varying interest in MLP.

Final group ended up being a female pegasus with music powers named Medley (wandering bard, ended up having to leave before play started properly), a neurotic fashionista unicorn who was some bizarre mix of Fluttershy or Rarity named Caprinae, a tinkerer engineer unicorn named Grippy Gears, a chef Earth Pony named Elijah, and a borderline insane conspiracy theorist Earth Pony named Smoky Hooves.

The whole group ended up having some reason or another to want to leave the starting city (Canterlot), Fashionista had dresses to deliver, engineer wanted to study architecture elsewhere, and so on. Did a couple intros for them, wherein Dischord dominated almost uniformly, giving me a heaping helping of the Despair Coin analogues for the rest of the session.

Long story short, they all end up making the "Pain" and "Madness" analogues dominate multiple times, leave the city in a hurry after pissing off several of the city guards (Grippy ended up picking a fight with one over searching through the dresses which set Caprinae off on a passive powertrip, fun stuff).

The party gets the hell out of dodge, starts forging their way through the wilderness towards faraway Las Equus, crossing rivers, diplomacying with Roc-sized Magpies, and constructing shelter before a downpour caught them out in the open on a mountainside.

Things that I enjoyed were how the players took way more risks than they should have with the dice. Part of this I put down to unfamiliarity with the system, but asking some of them afterwards got responses like "I didn't want anything bad to happen to the Ponies." I hadn't considered that the setting would goad players into taking risks to preserve their character's sense of innocence.

The Smoky Hooves player in particular had difficulty keeping his Spark dice down. Considering he made a character who was supposed to be dour, grim, and very wary of friendship and all that, it was doubly entertaining to see his character's rapid descent into the "good end" of having your Pony make peace with the world. He played this out as a worsening schizophrenia as his naturall cynicism clashed with the overwhelmingly positive nature of the universe, eventually combating it by sitting out in the rain thinking violent thoughts and trying to force himself into situations that couldn't be resolved peacefully enough to trigger more Spark gain.

All in all, it really seemed to get under some of the players' skin. They didn't want "bad" things to happen to their character, and got pretty unnerved when they let their powertrips or rising Spark get the better of them. The DRYH system made for an excellent contrast with the MLP setting. Having players consciously choosing awful things to happen so they could maintain control over their character, and using huge amounts of Power dice to protect their character's innocence was fascinating to me from a GMing perspective. I'm still getting requests to run another session so they can continue being ponies, which I wasn't really expecting since it was supposed to be a joke-game, but hey, if they like it they like it I suppose.

>>14402313
You should, getting people invested in characters is hard.

Take advantage of what you got.

>Music becomes more bearable
>"Found you"
You really ARE dreaming of The Place Between.

Fuck.

Dreams are always a weird subject with me. If I'm not lucid in the dream, i either don't remember it, or...

Well, imagine being locked inside a lucid dream, but with no control. You're conscious, you can control where you're going, and what you're doing, but nothing more than that, like real life. This isn't too bad really, just by itself. An exercise in what the dream world feels like without the mind-altering drug of total control.

Now imagine the worst dream you've ever had, and apply that to it. Suddenly, you're in a lucid dream gone terribly wrong. The things, whatever they are, that your nightmare is about are the ones in control. They're the ones with the, "cheats," the ones that can warp reality around themselves.

The dream quickly becomes a horrorscape once your inner demons realize that they have control. Right up until they push just a little too hard and your eyes shoot open, and there's the briefest instant where -nothing- about your body works; you can't blink, you can't breathe, you're not sure your heart's even still beating.

Just you, laying in bed, staring straight up at the ceiling in the light of a couple hours' time before your alarm clock goes off. You don't even have the presence of mind to remember the dream before all but the barest traces of it fade away into nothing.

You're very much not prepared for the next round, and so you just lay awake until your alarm goes off, watching as the numbers count themselves off, eyes wide in uncertain terror.

... I'm so glad I don't remember more than a few dreams a month. I wake up like that every - and I mean EVERY - day. I couldn't function if I had dreams like that every night.

What are you doing all the way back here on page 15?

I hope everyone's okay with me using some of these ideas and driving my players through hell.

>>14403601
Do it. Ideally, you'll end the game somewhere between "players scared" and "That one guy refuses to leave his room with a flashlight, a knife, and three bibles".

The latter is always fun when it happens. Bit messy, though.

Anyone familiar with Server Crash? It's a /tg/ homebrew from a couple years past, with shitloads of awesome fluff but which died when we tried to develop crunch. Later it turned out DRYH was perfect for it, and we used it to play through an entire adventure. This was a long time ago.

>>14405410
I absolutely remember server crash, tried to get together a game a loooong time back.

I can see how DRYH would be good for it though. After trying to bend several systems around it it seems like you want a setting where being able to apply some major willpower (or computing in this case!) towards a goal is possible, and also to have a slowly growing inner power that eventually fucks you up bad when it goes over a certain limit.

How'd you convert that sucker, just rename the stats or do a more in-depth overhaul? Got any quick stories about fun stuff that happened?

>>14405556
The conversion was incredibly simple: all you had to do was to rename or slightly revamp some concepts, remove the threat of sleeping, give the party gear that's really just a bunch of computer programs (gun.exe etc.), and make all the powers computer-related and have the characters be threatened with gradual loss of humanity when they use them, and integrate fully to the system and collapse in a cloud of random data when it happens entirely.

Also you could remove some now-useless stuff, to make you somewhat stronger in some regard, but risk losing your humanity all the more. Run a long time from a bunch of monsters, have to stop to catch your breath? But this is cyberspace, and you're no longer flesh, you don't even NEED to breathe! Surgically remove your lungs, run like a motherfucker and dive in great data oceans with no worries! Just as one example.

It was fun.

Whoa. This is still up?
Impressive. Truly an Awakened.

>>14402450

>Place Between
>Why does this sound so familiar...

Don't make any deals until it makes sense. Don't leave anything of or tied to yourself behind unless you've broken through to a happy, nice place, where you are reasonably safe, and can breathe a little.

we can't let this thread go, it must stay up
It must stay awake.

I'll contribute nightmare fuel for DRYH ideas:
I'm 9 or so years old and I'm trick-or-treating with my cousin and two other kids I don't know. We're all carrying the orange pumpkin pails for our candy, and the sidewalks have been lined with those paper bag candles all over the entire neighborhood. The moon is huge, really impossibly glaringly huge and detailed. As we go along there's a siren and cop cars go by and suddenly there's a T-Rex stomping around eating children. Whole huge mouthfulls of fleeing children, all my age. There's suddenly hundreds of us kids in the street, like the dinosaur kicked an ant hill or something.
My cousin grabs my hand and begins pulling me but I can't take my eyes off the things mouth and all the little arms/legs hanging out. I stare and of course, the T-Rex notices and locks eyes with me. I'm instantly more terrified than I've ever been, it's clear that this thing is tearing up the neighborhood because it's looking for me, and me alone. We run and I'm panicking, completely unable to do anything but get dragged up to this treehouse where we all huddle under the open windows. I can hear it's footsteps drawing closer, but it never roars so I never know EXACTLY where it is or how long I have, I just know it's getting closer, closer, closer still. Impossibly close. Then everything goes silent. There's no sirens, no screams, not even my own breathing or racing heart. Dead fucking silent and I know, I just KNOW that it's right outside the window.

Of course this agonizing silence will drag on for ever and ever and eventually I cave and look out the window, only to be face-to-giant red eyeball with the thing. It blinks once and begins to move in a flash and I wake up.

Server crash with don't rest your head as the engine...yes. I like where this is headed

>>14401791
I've also had nightmares about skinless horse-things...

>>14406757

I've never repeated that one, and all I have as a memory of events is that one image. What was it about? Or do you want to remember that?

I had some really wierd fever dreams when I was sick in my mid teens that I could never explain properly. Jump to 15 odd years later and I nearly shit myself when I see some of the pics in the Codex Seraphinianus as they are very close to the fucked up dreams I had when sick.

Man, I love this shit. If your players ever want to do a WoD-esque setting, use DRYH instead. It's like Dark City, or Return to Oz, or The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus.

You can run nearly any kind of theme you want--all with Myst-like strangeness. Really helps people get into character. And emphasize to them that they'll fail and die unless they start using madness. That'll break them out of the D&D mold real fast, and then you can lay off.

But have the first encounter be something like the Ludovician, or have them get caught up in a House of Leaves haunted house and force them to madness themselves out of it.

And into the Mad City you go!

recesct and

A question most people have when running this game is usually "How do I have larger groups play this?" It's not mechanically designed for larger groups, and if you get them too huge, then players can do some truly stupid bullshit; if you've got the typical D&D size of four players, by the basic rules of co-operation, they can swing 12 discipline dice at something through co-operation, which is a fairly hefty amount.

Always make sure that, if you're attacking your players with something that forces dice rolls, that you're separating them. They may be together, but they're together with lunatics, who all have their own morals and goals and are all willing to betray each other to the Nightmares if they can find the one thing they're looking for.

Additionally, I've seen new GMs of this afraid to do solo portions, for fear of the other players getting bored. This is something I've never had a problem with; storytelling is one of the oldest human arts, and a narrative that doesn't involve you is as interesting as one that does. Don't be afraid to have solo sections, tear players apart, and get them drawn into their own stories. Some of the best "Oh Shit" moments come when you've been separated.

Story explaining this to follow, as I'm running out of room.

>>14408897
In a game with three players run a couple years ago, one of my players had just gone into a flashback. I cut the lights, and began the story.

"Years ago, when the nightmares first started, you kept having one dream, over and over again. You'd wake up in your apartment, and stand over your sleeping body, halfway between waking and dreaming. Walking out in the building, you notice the decor is different, the signs of an older occupant.

A girl in the living room is crying. Her hair is long, curled, and brown, a dark contrast to her pale skin. Her clothing is old, worn, and tattered; rents and tears cover it. She is weeping into her hands. Moving closer, you hear that she's muttering, endlessly repeating 'He's coming, he'll be here, run, he wants you, go, run . . . '"

"A heaviness overtakes you. A figure, made of shadow, and curling smoke, appears. It's shaped like a man, but blurry, out of focus, halfway between this reality and the next. The woman is gone, and the room has changed; it is now the apartment as you know it."

"What do you do?"

Played through the scene five times. Each time, it was different. Each time, the player tried something different, building more exhaustion. In the final session, he traded "Respite from these horrors for a favor in the future".

The players, upon hearing this, realized where things would be going with the session. Wish I hadn't taken that dream from life, to be honest; it was a shitty series of nightmares, and one of the ones that would end with me bleeding from the nose.

>>14409008
>>14408897

Ah your back. This will be a good night.

Hmmm, I've never run DRYH before, but players frequently get bored if I ever do side things with one player. Maybe its a consequence of the heroic non-horror aspect of DnD or maybe its just my poor narration abilities. Will have to keep that in mind, last night inspired me to start thinking up a general plot, figure I'll work on it off and on and do a holiday one-shot around halloween

Is it wrong that the surrealities of the setting, and especially the punny names, more remind me of The Phantom Tollbooth than evoke any kind of fear?

>>14409317

Have you ever played it before? If you really get into it the punny names and surreality makes it almost all the more terrifying. Perversion of humor I think is the key. Taking something like a joke and making it something that you have to run screaming from or die horribly

>>14409317
Not at all. This can work for lighthearted games, and you can run it that way. I try to avoid excessive punning, and instead build characters around archetypes or generalities. I let the players name them, as well. A cheesy pun you came up with yourself is nowhere near as fun as letting your players freak out and name the monstrosity that just walked in.

Might type up another nightmare, dump it to give people a bit more inspiration. Either that, or just creepy stories of games being run and players freaking out.

>>14409385

I would enjoy both of those things

I grew up in an ancient farmhouse, someplace in Pennsylvania. It was an old building, with a few fairly obvious additions here and there. The core of the building, a rather large central room with an impressive fireplace, was well over two hundred years old; other parts were significantly younger, and I can say that my parents did their part in adding to the renovations this home had.

Sometimes, though, age has nothing to do with how scary a house can be to a young kid. The basement was relatively new; it had apparently been expanded in the mid-sixties, with the owner at the time finishing a second room down there. The best way to describe it would be as a pair of parallel rectangles, touching along the longer edge, and separated by a single door.

The original, somewhat less finished room wasn't that bad. The stairs led down to it, and we had a freezer sitting at the bottom of the staircase. It's where we'd always put stuff like ice cream, so I learned to like the times when I'd go down to the basement and grab something from it. We also kept the model train set down there; my dad would tinker for hours on his track set up, getting it to look as nice as possible. He'd teach my brother and I how to make foam mountains, how to paint water, and a whole bunch of other tips I still use today when playing miniatures games.

No, the second room was the bad room. It was all those mysterious pipes and fixtures that, as a kid, I assumed existed only to make weird noises and scare the shit out of me during late nights when I couldn't sleep. There was a big, heavy storm door that lead off to it from the main room; I remember struggling to open it one time when I needed to grab the cross-country skis so that my dad and I could go out one winter day. The room had no windows, and was illuminated by a few poorly-installed fluorescent lights that would always flicker.

It's also where the cages were.

You see, when my family bought the house, my parents were excited at getting such a great deal on it. Then, halfway through buying it, my parents came back from one of the interminable real-estate talks looking annoyed and arguing. My mother still liked the house, but my dad had found something out that he didn't like. Years later, I learned the real reason it was so cheap; the guy selling it had been convicted of animal abuse, and was selling the house to pay off his legal fees.

I didn't know that when I was young. But I did know about the cages. There were six of them, and until I was in fourth grade, we used them for storage. In that dark, windowless room, there were six cages, all along one wall. The first two were normal enough; the concrete was a bit stained, but not horribly so. The next two had pretty bad stains on the floor, stains that wouldn't come out no matter how many cleaning products we used on them.

The last two were the worst. The wire had been ripped open from the inside. Chewed open, but a pair of half-starved dogs looking to get out of that hellhole. Imagine that; no light, locked in a cage, starving, and so desperate to escape that you'd chew through wire and drag yourself through a tiny hole, one that left scratches across your entire body. I don't even want to talk about the stains on the floor there; my parents painted the floors gray to match the rest of the room, just to cover them up.

This room was scary. It was also next to the trains, so my brother and I never went down to play with them on those dark, scary nights where you just spend the whole time feeling nervous and freaking out. Don't go into the basement on bad nights. Don't open the door to the cage room. Don't play with the trains if you're home alone.

It started as a childish superstition, but it grew into a habit as we both got older. We got a dog, a friendly labrador retriever who loved everyone and would always climb on the couch if he thought he could get away with it. He was a great dog; hell, he helped me get over my crippling fear of dogs, if that tells you anything.

One night, my brother and I were home alone, the parents having gone out for the evening or something. We honestly didn't mind; we had the TV for entertainment, and it's not like we were so young that we couldn't be left alone.

After a healthy dinner of pizza (successfully ordered by my older brother, who was in 7th grade at the time), we were both chilling in the living room, watching cartoons like all well-adjusted middle-schoolers. It was a shitty night out, the wind and rain battering the big glass doors in the living room, and occasional flashes of lightning lighting up the sky. Being the mature guys that we were, we sure as hell weren't scared, and even headed out for a short walk with the dog before settling in for the night.

It really was bad out. You know how the sky sometimes turns weird colors during bad storms? Well, it was a weirdly dark red color; I'm not sure what to call it, but all I know is, it was the kind of sky that made you want to stay inside.

Late in the evening, lightning struck something, and a fuse blew in the house. As sitting around without power wasn't that appealing to either one of us, we needed to head down to the basement and hit the fuse box. It was right at the bottom of the stairs, something that wouldn't have troubled either of us on any other night, but let's face it; when you're a kid and it's a terrifying night out, you don't want to go any place scarier than a well-lit room.

We grabbed flashlights and headed to the stairs, bringing the dog with us for comfort. He was relaxed, and acting like his usual self; maybe a little more self-satisfied than usual, because my brother had him on the couch. He came down with us, shoring up our resolve as we hit the fuse.

Relief. The lights switched back on just fine. We both started to head back up the stairs, but the dog wasn't coming. Instead, he was staring at the door to the cage room. His hair was standing on edge, and it looked like he was ready to jump on something. My brother, thinking the dog was just being slow, grabbed for him, but the dog just ran closer to the door, hair still raised, and started growling; a low, menacing sound, coming from the gentlest dog I'd ever met.

The lights chose that moment to shut off. I panicked for a second, but then realized that it must have been another lightning strike. I didn't hear any thunder, which was weird, but whatever. It was pitch black in that basement; no light, and my flashlight wasn't too effective. My brother was standing next to me, and started to say something; probably a joke about how I was so scared.

Suddenly, there was a little noise. Kind of like something was scratching at the heavy door to the cage room. I thought it was nothing at first, until I heard the first thump. It started off fairly light, but then got louder and louder.

*THUMP

*THUMP

*THUMP

The door was practically rattling. It sounded like something big was throwing itself at the door, again and again. Our dog started barking; not the normal kind of bark you get from a lab, sort of friendly and interested, but that deep-throated, fear-triggering bark that dogs sometimes give when something is legitimately wrong. The door was shaking even harder now, the rattling a terrible counterpoint to our dog's frenzied barking.

Suddenly, I heard the sound of that heavy door bursting open, slamming against the wall and sending out a loud crashing noise. My brother bolted upstairs, knocking me over and making me freak out. I saw something in that pitch-black darkness, something that looked like a pair of glowing eyes. Our dog stopped barking, and began to growl; a low, menacing sound that put me on edge even more.

The glowing red eyes started moving towards me. I was paralyzed with fear. It was like looking into the worst moment of your life, over and over again. I knew our dog would protect me, would keep whatever that thing was from hurting me. Or at least I hoped.

Suddenly, the lights snapped back on. I was sitting on the floor, scared out of my mind. Our dog stopped growling and wandered over to me, giving me a quick lick, and then padded up the stairs, apparently satisfied with his work for the evening. The storm door was closed and locked.

Ever since then, on dark nights like that, our dog would get paranoid. He'd wander around, barking at certain doors in the house; especially the basement door, but sometimes at the back door. Occasionally, I'd see flashes of motion, like something was trying to get in. He did this even after we tore out those cages, even after we moved to a different house.

He died recently. So I'm a little worried. Especially on those dark nights, when I feel like I can see something outside.

------------------------------------
Old story from a couple years ago. Fictionalized bits of my childhood. The majority of that stuff did happen, though, and I'm not kidding about the cages. Makes for some wonderful inspiration, and perhaps it's what inspired some of my love of horror.

That certainly put me on edge anyway.

I lived in the same suburban home for my whole life, there really isn't anything particularly frightening about the place, the only thing it does that was even slightly heart thump inducing is the bang when the furnace turns on.

Although I have always been nervous of the basement when no one is home, its dark at night and the lights are out. I've always dismissed it as normal fear of the dark, but I can't help but look carefully at the shadows before reaching around the corner to turn on the lights

This thread is gold. How the shit have I not played this game before?