Uncle Sam Supports Don’t Rest Your Head

Well, not really, but close — I’m spending a small part of my amended tax return on Evil Hat Productions’ Don’t Rest Your Head. Don’t Rest Your Head is a pen and paper roleplaying game about what happens when insomnia is stretched to the edge of insanity, and then some. Characters have crossed over into a land of nightmares, and they will now live and die by one maxim: Don’t fall asleep. Don’t rest your head.

That’s a pretty fucking sweet hook.

An excerpt from the Don’t Rest Your Head product page:

Don’t Rest Your Head is a sleek, dangerous little game, where your players are all insomniac protagonists with superpowers, fighting — and using — exhaustion and madness to stay alive, and awake for just one more night, in a reality gone way wrong called the Mad City. It features its own system, and is contained entirely within one book.

There’s a PDF preview that’s more of a gaming session narrative than a discussion of game mechanics. You may buy the 84-page 6″ x 9″ softcover copy version for $9.95, or the PDF version for $4.95. The price of the softcopy does not include shipping; even as such my order came to a touch over $15. The PDF version apparently contains a commercial print-quality version and a version more suitable for printing at home. Or the office, if you’re working late and no one is around.

Evil Hat is run by folks with whom I have some online acquaintance, in a two-degrees-of-separation kind of way. It was neat seeing people credited as playtesters, etc that I’ve met in meatspace or spent time slashing up tomte or scorpids online. Readers of the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher will be excited to know that Evil Hat is also responsible for the upcoming Dresden Files RPG. There are two other systems created by Evil Hat, both based off of the Fudge System, which is an open-source RPG system. Way cool.

As I said above, I bought a copy — although my RPG crew is in a sorry state of flux right now. Perhaps my buddy badmagic might find on of Evil Hat’s games a good fit for his regular RPG group. I could also see The Captain’s Friday night posse giving Don’t Rest Your Head a whirl. Both groups have the wit and intelligence required to play in a non-cookie cutter milieu.

Thanks to traceracer for the head’s-up on this product.