Figuring out what to do with Don't Rest Your Head

Remembering that the last game I ran at Concrete Cow that wasn't Firefly-related was Don't Rest Your Head got me wondering why I've never run that game again. I've only run it once before that, as a one-off Halloween game for the home group.

I really love this game. I love the character creation, and the stories it inspires. I love the unique dice rolling mechanics and the hope and despair currencies. I love how it rivals Call of Cthulhu when it comes to sanity spirals. So why don't I run it more?

It's because I don't get on with the setting.

DRYH's setting is the Mad City, a twisted realm accessible only by the Awake when the clocks strike thirteen. Which is a pretty good setup, but the Mad City itself is just too wacky for my tastes, full of punny named entities that I struggle to turn into anything resembling horror. Pretty much everything I could come up with went into those two one-off games.  If I'm ever going to run this game again, I need something else.

So since Marc and me had a long drive recently, we spent the time hashing out a whole new setting for DRYH. One that plays to my strengths, and will allow me to run the kind of game I want to run, while still staying true to the game's fundamental concept of superpowered insomniacs.

We also came up with the basis of a convention scenario for it, which needs some fleshing out but is conceptually there. By next year I should be able to offer this one in addition to Firefly based games.