The tower: philosophy and fundamentals

The tower: a psychological tool, not a mechanical one

• The tower does not determine whether you "succeed" or "fail" an action. It serves to materialize tension. It's a psychological tool, not a statistical one.
• Dread is not a Jenga game "with a horror scenario"; it's a horror game that uses Jenga to make you feel the stress, the fear, and the helplessness of your character.
• The real stakes: not "succeeding at an action," but how far you're willing to go before everything collapses.
• A fundamental difference: randomness mechanic (dice) vs tension mechanic (tower). Dice don't stare you down. Dice don't make your fingers tremble. Dice don't make the other players' fear rise. The tower does.
• The tower is the players' fate, nothing else. The GM merely observes, fans the flames, and chooses when to call for a pull.

The Dread triptych

Three fundamental levers, to be combined and recycled:

• Isolate -- separate the group, cut off resources, create loneliness
• Threaten (suspense) -- set a trap, build up pressure
• Punish (consequence/loss) -- inflict losses, injuries, ambiguity

This triptych applies both on the narrative level (characters) AND the meta level (players/GM).

Core principles

• Trust your players: in Dread, they do 80% of the psychological heavy lifting on their own. Your role is simply to guide them toward the dark corners of their minds and the scenario.
• The rules are breathtakingly simple. Everything rests on atmosphere.
• Nurture tension and ambiance. You have no rolls to make, so you give players "freedom" -- as if they were truly free.
• Character creation is diabolically effective: it bonds the player to the character as tightly as possible and steers their thinking.
• It's pure tension theater: everyone around the table is in the scene, body and soul... and especially body. The tension is made physical.