"Pull a block, or refuse — but the tower always falls in the end."
Dread is a diceless one-shot horror RPG by Epidiah Ravachol and Nathaniel Barmore. There are no dice and no stats: a wooden block tower is the only randomizer. When your character attempts something risky, you pull a block. Refuse and you fail; pull and you succeed — until your nerve or the tower gives out. Knock it over and your character is gone, usually dead. Built for a single tense evening of horror.
Dread has no fixed setting. The Host chooses the horror — a haunted house, a derelict spaceship, a slasher's summer camp, a cult in the woods — and writes a scenario to fit. The sample adventures range from werewolves under a full moon to a doomed starship and a masquerade gone wrong. Wherever it's set, the promise is the same: ordinary people, mounting dread, and a night most of them will not survive.
The tower, not dice
There are no dice or stats. A single wooden block tower is the game's only randomizer, and it grows more unstable with every pull — tension you can literally see and hear at the table.
Pull to succeed
To do something risky your character makes pulls from the tower. Succeed and the action works; you can always refuse a pull, but then the action simply fails and the story turns against you.
The Questionnaire
Instead of a character sheet, each player answers a personalised list of questions written by the Host. The answers define who you are, what you fear, and quietly seed the horrors to come.
Collapse means death
Knock the tower over and your character is removed from play — almost always killed. Anyone can also topple it deliberately for a guaranteed success, buying triumph at the cost of their life.
Open in Session Zero to let every player vote and see the results.