thread: 2012-04-14 : Jessica Hammer on Dread
On 2012-04-17, David Berg wrote:
My parents bought HTHAM about 20 years ago, and I think they've played it twice. On both occasions, it was an event where they invited two couples over and everyone dressed up for nice dinner. Having two couples over for dinner is something my parents do semi-regularly, and HTHAM was a way to make it a special occasion.
There was a little bit of prep involved—figuring out how to coordinate play with dinner, mostly—but the game itself was vary undaunting. Mostly you just contribute what the prompts tell you you discover. How much you want to flesh it out and roleplay is up to you, but there's no authoring going on; the plot is fixed.
My mom doesn't enjoy being asked to make stuff up on the spot, but she does like the occasional bit of acting, imagining, or playing pretend. This game suits her pretty well.
My sister made some customized dinner invitations for the game. They're quite pretty.
My other experience with the game was my freshman year in college, where my classy senior friend (who also ran D&D for us) summoned a bunch of us to... dress up fancy, eat refined snacks, hang out, and occasionally say something dramatic in character. Those who had a yearning for class and culture in our extremely casual dorm seemed to really enjoy it, and our host loved presiding over the experience.
