Dead of Night Complete Mediography

Posted: July 29, 2010 in Dead of Night
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In the appendix to Dead of Night, I present a selected mediography to the game, a sample of just some of the horror movies that I watched and books that I read when writing the second edition of the game. The movies presented in the mediography are those that I felt were most representative of the feel of the game, a whistle-stop tour of the influences and touchstones that give a reasonably good impression of how I envision a typical game.

In actual fact, this list was just the tip of the iceberg, for I must have watched scores of horror movies during the two or three years that Dead of Night was gestating. Most of these came from Scott Dorward’s big bag of DVDs, which he turned up with one Conception, and I must confess that there were some movies within the bag that even I could not face.

As I promised a complete mediography of influences and references in the back of Dead of Night, here it is in its entirety:

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The Mythology of Monsters

Posted: July 22, 2010 in Dead of Night, design
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One of the things I love about TV series such as Supernatural or Buffy is that they have their own mythology, their own way that monsters “work” within the confines of the setting. Movies do that too, but because they’re so focused on a single monster or a single premise, you rarely get to see it develop. There are exceptions, of course.

A demon in Supernatural works in a certain way, dies in a certain way. Likewise a vampire in Buffy. The audience is taught this, expects this, which – later, once this is established – allows the writer to mess with those expectations and create tension and drama in the process.

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Endangered Species

Posted: July 20, 2010 in actual play, Dead of Night, design
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A guest blog by James Mullen.

I’ve wanted to run a zombie apocalypse game for a long time and the release of Dead of Night, 2nd edition seemed like the ideal opportunity to do so. The game I had in mind would riff off Max Brooks’ World War Z and Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead, so it would be a long-running soap opera with Zombies, spanning weeks, months or even years of the characters’ lives in a post-apocalyptic world.

It was readily apparent that no one had ever run any sort of campaign using Dead of Night before, so the question was: would it work? My experience of running and playing in one shots suggested a high mortality rate and the rules only suggest refreshing 2 Survival Points for each character who survives to appear in a sequel session. If I was going to keep the characters alive for more than a session or two, I was going to need something extra to assist their survival.

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What’s Next?

Posted: July 15, 2010 in Dead of Night, design, games
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So Dead of Night has been out for a little over a month now, and thoughts have turned to the inevitable question: what next? Of course there are countless other games on the go, including a couple that will surface sooner rather than later, but that’s not really what’s being asked. It’s what’s next for Dead of Night.

Well, I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought of it, as I have. Quite a bit. In the final stages of Dead of Night’s writing, both James and Scott suggested the same idea, which I’d also been mulling over – a book of scenarios.

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Taking Stock

Posted: July 12, 2010 in conventions, Dead of Night, publishing
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Well, Dead of Night has been out a little over a month now, so this seemed to be a good point to pause and take stock of how the launch went. It seemed to go down well at Games Expo, leaving me with only a couple of books left at the end of the con. I think my last minute panic about not having enough stock proved to be unwarranted, so I’m glad I didn’t fast-track any extra books like I briefly considered.

Print sales are steady enough that I can comfortably handle posting them myself, but books should be on sale at IPR in the States in the next few weeks, and I’ll be glad that I won’t have to fulfil many more to the US. Unlike the first edition, I’ve made a digital download available too, and that’s been a huge success. I’m not sure if it’s folk recognising the name when it pops up on RPGNow and DriveThruRPG, or whether it’s just Paul’s great cover drawing them in.

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Dead of Night in Print

Posted: June 9, 2010 in Dead of Night, publishing
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Hot on the heels of Monday’s release of the PDF version of Dead of Night, I’m pleased to announce that the print copies are now in. For the time being, they’re only available to buy direct from me – you can see a new “Shop” link at the top of the page, and from there a “Buy Now” button. The price is £15 and the link includes £2.50 postage.

Buying a print copy also gets you  a copy of the PDF – if you supply your email address when you buy it I’ll send you a link for the PDF shortly afterwards. You can, of course, still buy the PDF separately.

The book will, sooner or later, be available from IPR if those of you stateside want to wait for it to be available there.

Dead of Night Released

Posted: June 7, 2010 in conventions, Dead of Night
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Dead of Night second edition debuted this weekend at UK Games Expo in Birmingham and it seemed to go down well – I’ve almost ran out of copies, at any rate, which I’m taking to be a good sign. I should be getting my second batch from the printers any day now, and then I’ll open up orders here.

But, if you can’t wait till then, I’ve just put the PDF version up for sale at RPGNow, DriveThruRPG et al. It’s a snip at $10, so go check it out and let me know what you guys think of it. There are some sample pages available here too.

Finally, I’ve uploaded a Dead of Night character sheet, which includes 4 diddy character sheets on one page.

Risky Business

Posted: May 28, 2010 in Dead of Night, design
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With Dead of Night’s release just around the corner – it’ll be on sale at Games Expo on the 5th-6th June, and then available from me on the 7th – you’ll be able to read all about the new changes for yourself soon enough. I’ve saved talking about probably the biggest rules change until last, however – the introduction of Risk Checks.

In 1st edition, the only way to lose a Survival Point was by losing a combat check – i.e. failing an Assault or Protect check. This worked nicely, making combat nasty for both PCs and monsters. But, it didn’t entirely play to genre. After all, in the middle of a slasher movie you shouldn’t have to tool up to take on the big bad. Similarly, it ensured that Survival Point loss was fairly unsubtle, ignoring all the other ways characters can come to a sticky end that isn’t necessarily through being eaten.

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Games Expo preparation

Posted: May 25, 2010 in actual play, conventions, Dead of Night
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In a fortnight’s time it’s Games Expo, one of the UK’s best conventions. I’ll be there as part of the Collective Endeavour for the fourth year, debuting Dead of Night second edition. I’m also running a game of it but the automated booking system shows that games are filling up fast. There are still slots available in the following Collective Endeavour games (including mine), all run by the designers themselves:

Ends & Means (Covenant), run by Matt Machell at 10am on the Saturday

Unhallowed (Dead of Night), run by me at 3pm on the Saturday

Hell 4 Leather, run by Joe J Prince at 3pm on the Saturday

The Fir Tofa (Carnage Amongst the Tribes), run by Gregor Hutton at 10am on the Sunday

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Printing and an art preview

Posted: May 17, 2010 in Dead of Night
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Well, the deed is done. Dead of Night has been sent to print. All being well, the first copies should be with me in a couple of weeks time. If they’re OK, I’ll print more. I’m taking the first print run to Games Expo in three weeks time, after which I’ll put it up for order direct from me. If you’re patient and can wait a few more weeks, there’ll be copies at Indie Press Revolution, which should make the postage cheaper for those of you not in Europe and the UK.

The book clocked in at 186 pages in the end – a good 96 pages longer than I was expecting, and almost as thick as first edition. Not too shabby considering 1st edition was physically half the size. The new edition is a good deal prettier too – I’ll post up some previews of the interior design over the next week or so so you can see Paul’s handiwork for yourself.

In the meantime, here’s a look at another of my favourite pieces of art – Path Lab.

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