History TabletopGame / DontRestYourHead

* EmergencyTaxi: An anywhere-anytime taxi is one of the Madness Powers a character can develop. There's just always a cabbie nearby who will take you anywhere, getting you out of harm's way — for a bizarre, arbitrary, and more often than not abstract fare.

* PowerBornOfMadness: Madness Talents come from this.

* TheSleepless: The player characters, by definition. You can only find the door to the Mad City by not sleeping for a ''long'' time.

As of yet one supplement to the game exists: ''Don't Lose Your Mind'', which describes in more depth how to use Madness powers and a great deal of examples to use. It also has some suggestions and alternate rules to crank it UpToEleven. There is also a tie-in fiction anthology, ''Don't Read This Book''.

''[[http://www.evilhat.com/home/dryh/ Don't Rest Your Head]]'' is an UrbanFantasy and Horror TabletopRPG created by Fred Hicks and produced by Evil Hat Productions.

* ThirteenIsUnlucky: Every 12 hours, there is a 13th hour. Where you cannot escape from Mad City. And every Nightmare is out for hunting. Good luck.

* AndIMustScream: Lose your mind with the Goblins power, and the goblins come up when you're at your most vulnerable and hollow you out, running your body like a MobileSuitPerson. Except, they leave the brain fully intact - it's just not in charge anymore. You better believe they won't let you scream.

* ThirteenIsUnlucky: Every 12 hours, there is a 13th hour. Where you cannot escape from Mad City. And every Nightmare is out for hunting. Good luck. ''Two'' [[VideoGame/Persona3 Dark Hours]] a day? OhCrap
** There is also District 13.

* HearingVoices: The Ears talent from ''Don't Lose Your Mind'' has you being advised by a group of often creepy voices which only you can hear.

As of yet one supplement to the game exists: ''Don't Lose Your Mind'', which describes in more depth how to use Madness powers and a great deal of examples to use. It also has some suggestions and alternate rules to crank it UpToEleven.

* BoardingSchoolOfHorrors: Mother When runs one of these. It's also the ''only'' school in the Mad City.

%%* TheBlank: The Smothered Folk.

* EmptyShell: The human civilians of the Mad City. If one of them is an accountant, then he is an accountant all the time, and nothing else.

* TheSleepless: The player characters, by definition.
* SociopathicHero: The player characters can swing this way.

* WasOnceAMan: Many Nightmares and denizens of the city.

* YouCannotKillAnIdea: Oh you definitely can, when you are using the [[KnifeNut Knife]] Madness Talent, as the knife can kill ''anything''. There's a ritualistic quality to the deed, dubbed '''memeticide''', but once it's done (for example, slashing Fidel Castro's throat to kill Communism in Cuba), the idea stops being credible, loses all political momentum, and will become a joke of an idea that will never be taken seriously anymore. That being said, the knife can also [[BadPowersGoodPeople cut off flaws, sever unhealthy relationships, and kill personal demons.]]

* VoodooDoll: The Teddy sample power from ''Don't Lose Your Mind'' is a variation on this. If the user damages the teddy bear, the ''environment'' takes a proportional effect. Shake it, and a small earthquake happens; set it on fire, and an city block explodes.

* TyrannosaurusRex: The Dino power from ''Don't Lose Your Mind'' can summon it, and -- should the summoned ''T. rex'' eat you -- become it. The latter effect is thankfully temporary - unless, of course, you go completely insane and your powers [[{{Pun}} literally consume you]].

* BazaarOfTheBizarre: Welcome to the Bizarre Bazaar, where dreams and memories, as well as other oddities can be exchanged for goods and services! Strangely, while those at the Bazaar tend to be at truce, the gathering is illegal. It only occurs at 13 o'clock, when the Mad City is at its most deadly, and can be consider "safer" place at time.

** Madness: as a player goes insane, its Discipline gets converted into Permanent Madness, which ''don't'' count for the "6 Madness dice" limit. Since the amount of Madness required is proportional to the effect you want, Peranent Madness can push your talent to great heights.

* TheDreaded: ''Don't Lose Your Mind'' notes that if you've recovered from Permanent Madness, many Nightmares will be terrified by you. It means you have seen abyss and come back whole, which is exactly what they failed and why they become Nightmares.

* HearingVoices: The Ears talent from Don't Lose Your Mind has you being advised by a group of often creepy voices which only you can hear.

* HumanoidAbomination: Almost all the nightmares are human-like, except for some characteristics that makes the impression that they all came from a surrealistic painting.

* IntangibleTheft: The Tacks Man attacks his victims stealing intagible concepts from them, like their names or their heart beats, then later adding those "stolen goods" to his private collection.
* InverseNinjaLaw: Another sample Madness Talent described in ''Don't Lose Your Mind'' plays with this. You can summon a legion of ninjas to do your bidding, but being a ''legion'' of ninjas, they are all MadeOfPlasticine -- their usefulness is mainly in their ability to ZergRush anything. Playing the trope a bit straighter, you can instead summon a single, highly competent ninja specializing in anything from explosives to [[WhatKindOfLamePowerIsHeartAnyway dancing.]]
* KillerGameMaster: Encouraged or even ''required'', as every Despair coin the GM uses to fuck you over will turn into Hope coin, which can be used to turn things into the players' favor, most vital of which is [[HealingPotion regaining Discipline.]]

* NobleDemon: The Wax King may be trying to drown the city in wax, but he is very nice compared to the other faction leaders. This is to the point that there's some debate over whether he's actually a Nightmare at all -- some suggest his similarities to a Nightmare are superficial and he's actually one of the Awake. Certainly a remarkably old and powerful example, and a bit changed by his time in the Mad City, but certainly not a Nightmare.
* NonHumanHead: Some nightmares, such as Officer Tock and the Tacks Man, have this characteristic.

* SurrealHorror: The whole setting, from the nature of the Mad City and the Nightmares and even to the own powers of the protagonists.
* ThirteenIsUnlucky: Every 12 hours, there is a 13th hour. Where you cannot escape from Mad City. And every Nightmare is out for hunting. Good luck. ''Two'' [[VideoGame/Persona3 Dark Hours]] a day? OhCrap.

* TyrannosaurusRex: The Dino power from ''Don't Lose Your Mind'' can summon it, and -- should the summoned ''T. rex'' eat you -- become it. The latter effect is thankfully temporary - unless, of course, you go completely insane and your powers [[{{Pun}}literally consume you]].

** Fill up your Madness quota, and *whoosh* -- Nightmare. They are invariably extremely bizarre fusions of Victorian citizenry and the art of Salvador Dali. It doesn't help that they're suffering as much as everyone else.

The game mechanics use a dice pool system that incorporates three different colored dice for the protagonists to represent their three stats: Discipline, Madness and Exhaustion. The GameMaster uses only a single color of dice for the only stat of all Nightmares and obstacles: Pain. Any dice rolled three or under counts as a success, which are added up, but whichever color comes up highest dominates. The two effects are separate and have separate effects, almost always bad. This leads to Protagonists slowly wearing themselves down to the point of death, collapse (a FateWorseThanDeath), or becoming a Nightmare (a fate even worse) even as they become more powerful.

* GoneHorriblyRight: The dice rolling system can result in this sometimes. For instance, if the player's dice pools gets the highest amount of successes (getting 1-3 in a D6 dice), but the GM Pain dice pool gets the highest numbers overall, it means that the player's character is able to do what he intended, but it will not be efficient as he thought or it will have some bad and unexpected consequences.

* GoneHorribleRight: The dice rolling system can result in this sometimes. For instance, if the player's dice pools gets the highest amount of successes (getting 1-3 in a D6 dice), but the GM Pain dice pool gets the highest numbers overall, it means that the player's character is able to do what he intended, but it will not be efficient as he thought or it will have some bad and unexpected consequences.

* VodooDoll: The Teddy sample power from ''Don't Lose Your Mind'' is a variation on this. If the user damages the teddy bear, the ''environment'' takes a proportional effect. Shake it, and a small earthquake happens; set it on fire, and an city block explodes.