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Josh Bazin
Canada
Edmonton
Alberta
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Don't Rest Your Head's tagline is "A Game of Insomnia in the Mad City". This digest-sized 80 page game is a slick package. The premise of the game is that you were a normal person in society that had some sort of issue keeping you awake at night. Finally, after a sufficiently traumatic event, something clicks and you become one of the Awake. This means the world just got a whole lot more dangerous for you.
The Look
The book itself is fairly appealing. A glossy cover gives the book a nice look. The back cover does an excellent job of capturing the game and drawing interest to the interior. Personally, I feel that the front cover is fairly average It doesn't really draw me into the game the same way the back cover does. The interior pages are well designed with good heading design. Fonts are easy to read and style and font changes make sense and are consistent. Excellent typesetting. The art within the book is taken from a variety of sources, including a stock photo repository. Some of the images are excellent. Some I don't like. All the art in the book is good, I just don't feel that some of the selections really work for my vision of the game. With that said, it would have been nice to see some art representing the Nightmares that were presented within the setting portion of the book.
Overall, the presentation is very good. The shortcomings in the art are overcome through excellent prose to give a feel for the setting. The typesetting is excellent and makes the book easy to read.
The Setting
The Mad City probably sounds like something you've encountered before, especially if you've read or watched Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere or the movie Dark City. You'll find the Mad City existing the the space between the City Slumbering. Strange doorways that you've never seen before, windows out of place and other sorts of portals are all things that a newly Awakened individual would encounter. These portals would take you into the Mad City, where the night never leaves.
Don't Rest Your Head gives you an introduction into what some of the major features of the Mad City and the potential hazards of visiting those locations. Again, like several of the indie games I've read, it appears that the setting is presented in such a way that gives you an idea of what you COULD do with the game, but at no point did I ever feel that the Mad City locations and the Nightmares presented within the book were anything more than helpful suggestions. You could easily take the basic idea of the Mad City and change it to fit what you want it to be like. On the flipside, aside from the locations provided, you are on your own to create the places in the city. In either case, the game master needs to be in a creative mood, which could hinder a 'pickup' style game.
The setting does have a lot of potential. I think I would prefer to see the game provide a bit more setting by way of locations within the Mad City, as this game strikes me more as a pickup game, so it would be nice to have some more 'stock' locations to utilize. Of course, this could be a bias of laziness talking.
Character Generation
Character generation is quite interesting. Set up as a questionnaire, you can quickly develop a character who is about to start his or her adventures in the Mad City. Here are the questions you must answer:
Quote: My Name Is . . .
And I Am . . .
What's been keeping you awake?
What just happened to you?
What's on the surface?
What lies beneath?
What's your path?
The book goes into some detail about different questions to think about when answering these questions. As I give a brief idea of what each question is trying to determine, I will also develop my own sample character.
The first two questions are fairly straightforward. What is your name and what do you do are really the most basic questions for any character. For my sample character, his name will be Tyler Redding and he is an accountant at a public accounting firm.
All characters in DRYH have been unable to sleep for one reason or another. This translates to the question "What's been keeping you awake?" Tyler's been passed over for partner several times. He's unable to sleep because he does not understand why he's continually being passed over for this promotion.
"What just happened to you?" This question sets the first scene of the game for your character. This should be a time of high-stress for the character and is usually when they become Awake. For Tyler, he just had a meeting with the managing partner of the firm and has been informed that he will not be making partner, again.
The next two questions relate to the world's perception of the character. "What's on the surface?" is the general first-impression of the character. This will relate to how others will initially perceive your character. Tyler Redding presents himself as a professional. Suit, tie and all those fixings. Only his eyes show exhaustion.
The deeper question, "What lies beneath?" relates to the character's internal view of themselves and the secrets they might be harbouring. Even with the appearance to the contrary, Tyler is deeply dissatisfied with his life. He wants to quit his job, but he can't bring himself to take a stand for himself.
Finally, "What's your path?" relates to the character's goals. What are you trying to achieve? Tyler is trying to find it within himself to break away from his current firm, take a stand for himself, and start his own practice.
Now that you've got the character concept completed, it's time to move onto the basic statistics. All characters start with three dice in Discipline, zero dice of Permanent Madness and Current Exhaustion. I'll explain what these mean and represent in greater detail in the next section.
Next, you have three responses to distribute between Fight and Flight. When a Fight response is triggered, your character stands tall and fights. When a Flight response is triggered, your character tries to avoid whatever caused the response to occur. For Tyler, I think he will have 2 Flight, 1 Fight.
Almost done! The final step is to create your Exhaustion and Madness Talents. Your Exhaustion Talent is something that you do really (supernaturally) well. So, for Tyler, his Exhaustion Talent will be "Crunching the Numbers". The Madness Talent is something that your character simply should not be able to do. For example, teleportation would be an example of a Madness Talent. I'm going to name Tyler's Madness Talent "Air Wall". The effect of this talent is that Tyler can create a wall of air to block the advance of anyone he wishes. This talent will require 2 Madness dice to operate, if Tyler wishes to block more than 2 people, he must use another Madness die for each person. I will explain how these talents are actually used in play in the next section.
Advanced characters may have Scars, which are a collection of experiences that can help a character in extended play.
My completed character looks like this:
Quote:
My Name Is . . . Tyler Redding
And I Am . . .an Accountant
What’s been keeping you awake? Tyler has been passed over for a promotion, several times and does not understand why.
What just happened to you? Tyler has just been informed that he has will not be making partner this year either.
What’s on the surface? Tyler looks like a professional accountant. Suit, tie, shined shoes. Exhaustion shows in his eyes.
What lies beneath? Tyler wants to quit his job, but is unable to make a stand for himself.
What’s your path? Tyler wants to find a way to get funding to start his own practice, quit his current job, and find the internal strength to make a stand for himself.
Discipline XXX
Permanent Madness OOO
Current Exhaustion OOOOOO
Responses
Fight? OXX
OR
Flight? OOX
Talents
Exhaustion Talent
Crunching the Numbers
Madness Talent
Air Wall - Create a wall of air to block individuals from getting closer to Tyler. Activation requires 2 Madness die. For each individual over 2 Tyler is trying to block, add 1 Madness die.
Scars
Conflict Resolution
The basic system of conflict resolution is opposing dice pools made up of d6s. The player has a dice pool made up of Discipline (white), Exhaustion (black) and Madness (red) dice and the GM rolls a pool of Pain (any color) dice. Not only are successes counted, but the strength of a particular attribute is also determined. The colors are used to help determine what attribute dominates a particular scene. Successes are counted on every die that comes up as a 1, 2, or 3. The strength of a given attribute is determined by the highest value showing on those dice. So, for example:
Quote: In my dice pool, I'm rolling 3 Discipline, 2 Exhaustion and 1 Madness. The GM is rolling 5 Pain. My pool comes up as: Discipline [1,5,3], Exhaustion [6,2], Madness [4]. This means that I have 3 successes. Exhaustion has the highest die, which has a strength of 6. The GM's pool comes up as: Pain[1,4,6,4,5]. The GM has 1 success and Pain has a strength of 6. As the my highest strength is equal to the GM's, we compare the next highest die in the same pool. As my next highest Exhaustion die is 2, Pain dominates because it's next highest is a 5. This means I succeed at my task, but at a painful price...
What do the different attributes represent?
Discipline is your natural ability to do pretty much everything. You always roll your Discipline. Everyone starts at three. When Discipline dominates a conflict, the situation does not spiral out (or more out) of control.
Exhaustion is a measure of how tired you are. Each time you roll, you can add a die of Exhaustion (up to 6, after 6, you crash). Exhaustion die stay with you, so if you add one to your pool, you will always roll it until something happens that allows you to remove it (like Discipline dominating). However, using Exhaustion allows you to activate your Exhaustion Talents and these talents cannot be used without Exhaustion die in your pool. When Exhaustion dominates, you must come face to face with your need for sleep.
Madness represents madness, or the desperation of the player in a situation. You can roll up to 6 Madness die on any roll. Madness die don't stay with you, but when Madness dominates, a response box gets checked off, which forces you to respond in a certain way to the conflict. If you have no response boxes to check off, you snap, which means you gain permanent madness (at expense of Discipline). If you gain 3 permanent madness, you become a Nightmare.
Pain is the GM's dice pool. It represents the hardship and difficulty of the task the player is trying to complete. If Pain dominates, the GM gains a coin of despair, which are used against the players.
Coins of Despair are used to increase the strength of an attribute (but not Pain). When a GM spends a Coin of Despair, it turns into a Coin of Hope. Coins of Hope can be used by players to improve their situations by removing exhaustion, removing a check mark from a response box or even remove permanent madness.
The book does provide a table that summarizes what happens when, which would be very helpful in your first few sessions.
Conflicts are resolved by the roll of the dice. Basically, if a player succeeds, they perform the action they wanted to. If they fail, the GM gets to add exhaustion or check a response box off. If a player goes over 6 current exhaustion, they crash and fall asleep for at least 24 hours. This is dangerous for the player, as Nightmares can smell and hunt these individuals who are unable to defend themselves. Once they awaken, the player is not out of the woods. They must survive while their powers slowly return to them.
The rulebook does define two sets of narrative styles. A more story-game approach is suggested, which is to say that the winner of the conflict is the one who narrates the outcome, but the game is still easy to administer as a traditional GM narrative model. There are also several sections on various types of scenes one can have (for instance, flashbacks), which do provide tools to keep the game fresh and interesting. Also, it is suggested that every player run through their opening scene as described in the question "What just happened to you?".
Overall, the system is interesting, but definitely not suitable for a first time player. There are many very interesting ideas in this book and I think that players that like this style of game would be able to take many sessions of enjoyment out of these pages.
Final Thoughts
This game is a slick, easy read. Does take some time to digest and understand how the various pools interact and the like, but once you see how things 'click' together, you have a fairly straightforward system that allows for some very cinematic storytelling. There probably isn't enough setting here to run a game without much thought about things before hand, but there are a few very well defined areas and characters that might be encountered in the game world for someone that wants to put some time in to create an intriguing game.
If you're looking for a game that borders on the horror genre, with many unknowns and characters who have been transplanted into a world that is completely new, give Don't Rest Your Head a try.
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Marshall Miller
United States
Medford
Massachusetts
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Bazin wrote: There probably isn't enough setting here to run a game without much thought about things before hand...
You might mention Don't Lose Your Mind here. While its not a campaign setting, per se, it does give additional hooks and setting ideas.
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Rhiannon D
Australia
Sydney
Until I see a footnote, that's just an opinion.
All the fine traditions and the skill/ Come from my elders from the long line down/ Are mine to use, to raise our craft's renown/ And mine to teach again with reverent will.
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This is a lovely review. I've played and enjoyed DRYH, so really nothing new to me here, but it has made me want to play again.
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Josh Bazin
Canada
Edmonton
Alberta
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Mease19 wrote: Bazin wrote: There probably isn't enough setting here to run a game without much thought about things before hand... You might mention Don't Lose Your Mind here. While its not a campaign setting, per se, it does give additional hooks and setting ideas.
I was aware of DLYM, but I have not read it (or had much knowledge of what it covered), so I couldn't make that comment. So, it sounds like DLYM is definitely something to look at for anyone interested in DRYH.
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Josh Bazin
Canada
Edmonton
Alberta
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regency_rhi wrote: This is a lovely review. I've played and enjoyed DRYH, so really nothing new to me here, but it has made me want to play again.
I'm glad you liked the review! Thanks for the complement!
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In my experience it is really easy to set adventure "on the fly", there is enough setting to understand how mad city is and so you can imagine the perfect nightmare for THAT player.
First time player are imho enough comfortable as long as their GM knows the game (and let them PLAY without throwing to him every single nightmare he can imagine...) 
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