Ryan Macklin asked me to talk about how I run Don't Rest Your Head. Well, Ryan, it may take me awhile, but I deliver.

Firstly the game is fast becoming my go-to that i run at the drop of a hint.

Character creation: I start everyone off with a quick overview if they're unfamiliar with it. I change the order of the questions to put "What just happened to you?" at the end. I find it's easier for people to come up with a kicker once they've fully fleshed out their characters.

I try to recommend that they tie their kickers together, but it's never really happened. No matter though, I can usually tie them together through coincidence.

Narration: When discipline dominates I let the player narrate, when pain dominates I narrate, when exhaustion dominates, the player to the right narrates, and when madness dominates the player to the left narrates. This seems to work, and it's my job when someone else is narrating to say "Yeah, it's ok to keep going."

Setting: There are a few things that tend to pop up in play. I like to get the characters running pretty quick and tempt them with the doors that they can percieve now that they're awake. I like to have them enter the mad city on the rooftops. I love the rooftops, they're so wierd and different with the airplanes stuck into them.

Actually it's a particular section of rooftops with lots of doors, a fire escape, and a hot dog vendor down on the street.

The hot dog guy is a recurring character who asks questions like "Are you new?" gives directions to the bazaar, and asks if they want a Coney or a Pismo.

I love getting them to the bizarre bazaar. There are so many answers and questions there. It can definitely be a good place to figure out what the story's going to be about. It's also a good place for them to meet Tim.

Tim is a guy who's been Awake so long that he's really into it. Think Matthew Lillard from SLC Punk. He says things like "I'm a superhero, trust me." Like he might actually believe it, but also thinks it's a terrific inside joke. With himself. you gotta love a guy who has inside jokes with himself.

Then there's Wu Ping's Chinese Eatery. Wu Ping's is a safe place during the thirteenth hour, if you don't go to the bathrooms. The bathrooms are where people start fights with themselves. Sometimes in the mirror, or in one case, a physical confrontation with a double which hurt with every hit. either entity threw or took. I love the cans at Wu Pings. Great pu pu platter there.

Emergent behaviors: One of the things that tends to happen is the players sort of decide who's story is going to be most important and who is going to be supporting cast. A missing kid is an instant catylist. nothing decides what the story is about better than a kid in danger.

Now I haven't run any long term play with this game, so i'm not sure if that would bring out the other player's stories more. I suspect it would. So far no one's complained about not being the central player yet, so I guess that's good. I see a time when two players with strong stories in mind are gonna go head to head, however. Hopefully I'll be able to broker a compromise.

The first game I ran was for Greg and ken at work. Both characters were extremely interesting. Sam, who we started calling Sam the Liar was kept awake by the fear that he'd forget some of his own lies, and Conseula had lost her child to illness, her husband to the stress of a dying child, and her home. She needed someone to take care of and Sam became the candidate. Sam on the other hand, was his own worst enemy. That fight in the bathroom at Wu Ping's? That was Sam. Sam might have killed his best friend. We never got the chance to find out.

Then I ran a game at The Dreaming as a long demo, this story ended up about Dave's character's fight to rescue his daughter from the Ladies in Hating at the High School. There was an awesome katana vs yardstick fight. We really got into the trading narration in this one, and it codified my system of designation for narration.

I ran the third game for a new group that we put together with several people who haven't gamed in a long while, or had never done the indie thing. I'm glad I had a few games under my belt before then. It went well, and Tim became much more defined as having some sot of ability to tell when new Awake were coming.

And then yesterday I ran a quickie at Conquest NW, and had Tim give a character who'd been in a previous game the job of rounding up the noobs and taking care of them. Tim was a little busy dealing with the war he'd started between officer Tock and the Wax King.

These are things I want to do with Don't Rest Your Head.

I would like to run a game where all the awake are in the same sleep study.

I would like to run a game that happens in the Mad Forest instead of the Mad City.

I would also like to run a game where the characters are WWI soldiers kept awake by extended shelling and go to the Mad War.

I would also like to play.

I love your Mad War idea!

WWI would be great, but Vietnam, with an Apocalypse Now vibe, would definitely also fit

DRYH is tight! I really like that game. I think our game the other night with Colin GMing could easily be made into a film, with a few pacing changes. The stories started out as mostly separate plot lines, but by the end they all tied together into a very satisfying whole that none of us expected.

I've run a convention game called "the Asylum" where teenagers with the insomnia driven powers are put in an old cold war military mountain complex for testing and isolation. The goverment pin heads that run the place have the bright idea of removing their meds to see what happens. Nightmares and destruction ensues. A partial AP write up is here: http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=357248

It's fun. Sort of a Xmen meets Sandman/Nightmares. It is in the Mad World as you can see with some of the places they go.

You're gonna be at Game Storm right? I'll run it for you if you do a cast with me. deal?

Saweeet!