History TabletopGame / DeadOfWinter

* HousepetPig: One random event has a dying man bequeath your character his beloved companion pig. It helps you hunt for food if you keep it; otherwise, it contributes [[EatTheDog more directly]] to the food supply.

* VariablePlayerGoals: The whole point of the Secret Objectives. They add to the air of tension, as a player [[ItsAllAboutMe looking out for number one]] is not necessarily a traitor. It also sets the game apart from most cooperative ''and'' most tsocial-deduction tabletop games: in ''TabletopGame/{{Mysterium}}'' the entire team can lose but there's NoAntagonist, and in ''TabletopGame/SecretHitler'' either the liberals win or the fascists win... but in ''Dead of Winter'' it's possible for '''everyone''' to lose, traitor and loyalist alike.

* FaceHeelTurn: What the Traitors do at the very end of the game.

* RaceAgainstTheClock: Once the round token hits zero, the game is lost (unless the goal is to survive a certain number of rounds)

* ZombieApocalypse: The setting.

* AxCrazy: One of the options for a Traitor.

* HarderThanHard: Every scenario comes with an alternate version that ups the difficulty.

** A findable item is a book called ''The Adventures of Dr. Hat Wife," a reference to noted neurologist Oliver Sacks and his seminal work of popular psychology, ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Mistook_His_Wife_for_a_Hat The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat]]''.

* AsskickingEqualsAuthority: Survivors with a better attack score tend to have higher influence.

* GuestStar: Felicia Day is a promotional character. The expansion has Rich Sommer, of Mad Men fame.

* AteItAll: One Crossroads card has a new survivor arrive at the colony with a very fat friend. If the friend is allowed to join, he eats the colony's entire food store. Otherwise, you lose a point of Morale and [[ImAHumanitarian five food tokens are]] ''[[ImAHumanitarian added]]'' [[ImAHumanitarian to the store]]...

* AntiHero: Your Survivors might make some questionable decisions. As a group, the Colony might vote to deny shelter to people seeking help, exile their own, or any number of morally grey acts. However, you cannot kill [[TheLoad helpless survivors]] and being too callous brings down the morale counter.

* DamageTyping: Survivors can suffer regular Wounds, Frostbite Wounds that deal DamageOverTime until they're healed, and Despair tokens. Some effects only affect specific types of harm; in particular, Despair can't be removed by normal healing, but can [[DeathByDespair kill]] a survivor just like other wounds.

* ExposedToTheElements: The game is set in winter, and frostbite is a serious concern that can occur when the survivor moves or attacks. Some crisis cards cause things like hailstorms and other problems.

* HarmlessFreezing: Averted. Players with frostbite will suffer more wounds until healed or dead.

* ThenLetMeBeEvil: With the Long Dark expansion, an innocent exile can become the leader of the Raiders.

* ZombieApocalypse: The setting.

[[SimilarlyNamedWorks Not to be confused]] with the [[IncrediblyLamePun chilling]] 1987 GothicHorror [[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092842/combined film]].

* EveryoneIsBi: A crossroads card implies that two characters are lovers and can spend their time either arguing (creating noise for the zombies) or having sex (preventing them from searching). This is regardless of the genders of the survivors, they just need to be alone together. (It can be especially embarrassing if one of the partners is a dog, monkey or Forest the Mall Santa.)

* LuckBasedMission: The game offers a remarkable number of ways to recover from, or at least mitigate, a stroke of bad luck... yet you can still get screwed by, for example, too many food-related Crises in a row (since you always need to feed your people ''in addition'' to spending Food cards to avoid the Crisis), or by a "bitten" result on the Exposure die, or... Hell, the way the first player marker rotates can screw you over! [[labelnote:explanation]]Turn order goes clockwise. The first player marker rotates counterclockwise, which means you will play two back-to-back turns, sooner or later. That may sound good, but if one of your characters gets a frostbite wound (take an extra wound at the beginning of each of your turns), they will end up taking two wounds without any other player being able to help them, and since the maximum number of wounds most characters can take before dying is three...[[/labelnote]]

* TheLoad: Helpless survivors, which take up space, attract zombies, eat your food, and contribute nothing to the betterment of the colony. Implied to be either small children or the elderly, depending on what the scenario calls for (or players' interpretations).