Let's Dread: The Recap (Take Two)

Today was another fun-filled Recess event sponsored by NerdNYC.com, and once again I ran my Disney Zombies scenario.

It's the same one from last September (the survivors of a zombie apocalypse, holed up in Scrooge McDuck's Money Bin, are drawn out of their refuge by a mysterious message of hope) only this time with different players and characters.

This session saw Statler (one of the old Muppets who hangs out in the balcony), Wall*E, Eeyore, Quasimodo (The Hunchback of Notre Dame) , Launchpad McQuack (DuckTales and Darkwing Duck) and Abu (the monkey from Aladdin) struggle to decipher this message... and survive.

Not a bad bunch... but with Dread, it's never a bad bunch. It's all in how you play the character, really. Launchpad filled Gonzo's role of being a heroic person who screws everything up yet saves the day, and Wall*E was played with incredible sincerity.

Statler went out in a blaze of glory about halfway through the game (since every action is resolved through Jenga, players can choose to purposefully knock over the tower. This ensures their success in the action... but they die in the process). I suspect he did this because he was bored. Maybe the game wasn't to his liking or he felt frustrated with playing an old man Muppet, and that troubled me a bit.

On the one hand, you can't please everyone, and we still had five people who seemed to be having fun, but on the other, I hope my game wasn't that bad that he just couldn't take it anymore.

What was interesting is that someone from the September session (the awesome player who kicked so much ass as Mushu) wanted to play again, which means I kind of have a following, but he backed out when I explained it was the same scenario as last time.

I'm running this scenario at least one more time, next weekend with the folks who played the Ghosty Teens game (two characters have been selected: Mary Poppins and Basil of Baker Street, AKA The Great Mouse Detective). Having run it twice now, I'm pretty confident with the narration and stuff, and, more importantly, I'm not bored with it. Hell, I'd probably run it two or three more times. It's fun to Dread, after all.

I did, however, decide to run a different scenario at the next Recess. Still Disney Zombies, still Dread, but next time (and get ready for the awesome premise), it'll be about the poor souls who go on a suicide mission issued by Professor Ludwig von Drake (the leader of their refugee camp), to rescue (or destroy, if necessary) the single most important person to the survival of humanity.