Comparison: Dread / kill puppies for satan

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

I've now played two pretty intensive sessions of Dread, and I've just completed yet another guffaw-punctuated read-through of kill puppies for satan, in prep for an upcoming game.

So list #1 goes like this:

DREAD ... KILL PUPPIES FOR SATAN
The player-characters are losers with no clout, no credit, and no hope. ... The player-characters are losers with no clout, no credit, and no hope.

They have magic powers ... They have magic powers.

They have a sinister angel mentor ... They have Satan, more-or-less.

They have Contacts which occasionally, if not willingly, help them out ... They have relationships which help or hinder them.

Loyalty and determination matter greatly ... Loyalty and determination matter greatly.

But list #2 goes like this:

DREAD ... KILL PUPPIES FOR SATAN
They are very likely grungy, dubious in their standards of right and wrong, but are not degenerates ... They are degenerates and sadists, and those are the better ones.

They are given missions, which define the basic Situations of play ... They are mainly on their own, hooked into Situations via their relationships.

Play is violent and occasionally depressing ... Play is repulsive and hilarious.

Pathos regarding NPCs is expected to underlie each scenario ... Contempt and satire regarding NPCs underlie each scenario.

Redemption is available, at great personal risk, in small bits ... They get more Evil (unredeemed scum, and they like it that way).

They try to do good ... They routinely commit atrocities and cruelties.

The adversaries are unequivocally foul in both metaphysical and basic-human-moral terms ... The adversaries are whoever's in the characters' way.

MY QUESTION
Has anyone who's played either game experienced it differently from my generalizations above?

Has anyone yet played both games? Which is more marked between them, the contrasts or similarities?

I consider them both to be Simulationist High-Concept games with a strong emphasis on Character and Situation (not Setting).

And anything else anyone wants contribute regarding the games is welcome as well.

Best,
Ron

[Maurice Forrester]

I've run both Puppies and Dread for my group.  While there are similarities between the two games, I found the contrasts to be much more significant.  In particular, this one:

Play is violent and occasionally depressing ... Play is repulsive and hilarious.

For us, any similarities between the games took a backseat to the attitude we brought to each game.  Puppies was played for laughs while Dread was played seriously.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

I've run both for my group, and the similarities in beginning characters is amazing. You could easy run the same characters through both, with a decidedly more upbeat vibe on the characters in Dread, of course.

However, in play, we found Dread to be depressing and actually a little too much for our group, while kill puppies for satan made us feel like better people by the end, which is opposite of what you'd expect. In kpfs, you're just about the worst thing in the world, and you're pathetic. It gives a nice perspective that just maybe, all the awful things in the world are kind of sad and stupid. Dread, on the other hand, presented a worldview where the awful things in the world are seething, never stopping, and barely fightable.

[Maurice Forrester]

Interesting comments. Clinton.

I can't imagine using the Puppies characters in my Dread game or the Dread characters in the Puppies game.  For us, it wasn't just the "vibe" that was different.  Both sets of characters were "losers with no clout, no credit, and no hope" as Ron describes them.  But the Puppies characters were deliberately over-the-top, rotten individuals while the Dread characters were basically decent people who had been screwed over by life until they were completely beaten down.

Our Puppies game felt like an underground comic from the early 70s.  The Dread games have felt like a Andrew Vachss story.

[rafael]

Wow, I took too long to collect my thoughts.  Forgive me if this is deemed thread necromancy -- I hope I'm not too late to throw in my two cents.

I must say, my experiences with Dread have been almost identical to those described here.  One thing that I found interesting during gameplay was this: during the all-female session that I ran a few months back, the game's tone was one of light in the darkness, a sense of surviving the horrors of the world.  Most of the mixed-group or all-male sessions that I ran (and when I said all-female, I excluded myself, the Director, natch) were either dark, bleak, insanely bleak, or hopeless.  There was a kind of grim mirth to it, occasionally, but by and large, the tone was pessimistic and sordid.  With that one exception, as noted.

Dread's got one or two things going for it that (in my estimation) keep it from getting utterly hopeless.  First, the heroes are heroic.  Sure, demons are insanely powerful, and they seem to be everywhere.  But the human enemies they face can be easily squelched, even by a group of less physical Disciples.  If even one of the members of the Cabal has any kind of decent Spirit score, a room full of adversaries can be crushed pretty quickly through judicious use of spells.  Second, there's typically a victim or innocent to be rescued, and each episode offers the chance to set things right, or to aid the helpless.  I agree, there's an underlying pathos that imbues much interaction with NPCs, but it's ameliorated somewhat by the fact that the Disciples can actually save lives, make a difference, that sort of thing.  At least, this is what we've found while gaming.

Right now, oddly enough, I'm running a Star Trek game with Dread rules, and the tone of the game has been unlike that of our traditional Trek campaign.  There's a sense of desperation, of great and ineffable evil on the horizon.  There's crime and filth and corruption, and the heroes are outnumbered, outgunned.  Like Maurice said (bless you for this), it feels like a Vachss novel.

I've yet to play Kill Puppies For Satan, but it's on my to-buy and to-do lists, respectively.  Can't wait to do a compare-contrast.