Dread Host — a host tool for the Dread tabletop RPG

What this is

Dread Host is a companion for exactly one person: the host running the game. It has two halves. Before the night, it builds the story, its scenes, and a separate questionnaire for every character. At the table, it shows one thin screen — where you are in the story, who is still standing, and how many pulls each player owes once the tower has come down.

It runs in a browser and installs to a phone or tablet home screen. The session screen keeps working with no signal, because the back room a game of Dread happens in usually has none.

The game it serves

Dread is a horror roleplaying game published in 2005 by The Impossible Dream. It has no dice. When a character attempts something that might fail, the player pulls a block from a tower and balances it back on top. Pull cleanly and you succeed. Knock the tower over and your character leaves the story.

Characters are made by answering a questionnaire the host wrote for them — a page of pointed questions whose answers become the person. That is where a host's preparation actually goes, and it is the part this tool is built around.

You need the book to play. This tool does not contain the rules and is no substitute for them.

Why it exists

Dread asks for a dark, quiet room where nothing competes with the story. A host juggling loose paper, a laptop and a live tower is the thing competing.

So the work is split. Everything that needs a keyboard happens during prep, days earlier, on whatever screen is comfortable. What is left for the table is small enough to run one-handed in the dark — including the one moment that genuinely needs help: the tower has just fallen, a character has just died, five people are watching, and somebody has to work out the new pull count without doing arithmetic in their head.

Prep — the story, its scenes, and one questionnaire per character.
Print — player questionnaires and a host reference sheet, so the evening survives a dead battery.
Table — scene progress, character status, and the collapse and restack numbers.

What it is not

Not a virtual tabletop. Everyone is in the same room, which is the point.
Not player-facing. Players get paper and a real tower.
Not a virtual tower. The mechanic is manual dexterity under social pressure, and simulating it removes the whole game.
Not a copy of the rules, and not a way to play without the book.

Credits

Dread was created by Epidiah Ravachol and woodelf, written by Epidiah Ravachol, and developed, edited and published by The Impossible Dream. Every good idea in the game is theirs. This tool only carries the paperwork.

Original concept: Epidiah Ravachol and woodelf
Writing: Epidiah Ravachol
Development, editing and additional writing: The Impossible Dream
Copy editing: Jere Foley
Layout and cover design: woodelf
Illustrations: Christy Schaefer, Taylor Winder and Jill Krynicki

The Impossible Dream is Nat "woodelf" Barmore, Akira Barnes, Dan Bongert, Rebecca Kinraide and Epidiah Ravachol.

Dread Host is an unofficial tool. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to The Impossible Dream, and it contains none of the book's text. If you are going to run this game, buy it from the people who made it.