“Welcome to our player made game mode, “RED SKELETONS,” for Dead by Daylight. This mode was created during lockdown a few years back as a challenging and argument-inducing activity. It’s not for the faint of heart – only those seeking a difficult challenge should try it. In this mode, be prepared to end up as a red-covered skeleton, as the name suggests. So gather your friends and prepare for a brutal and bloody game!”
THE CORE GAME RULES
⭕ | THE CORE GAME RULES
We, play 04 games as a “Set”. We call 04 sets a “Match”. So, 16 games in total. You will need 16 Red Keys to play, from across your survivor characters… (Although see ‘Weaved Ring’ below).
A “Set” of 04 games, can mostly be played in well under 2 hours. We find, 16 games will typically take about 05 hours to play. (Around 03 games per hour). But, games can go very short or very long in this “mode”…
In each game:–
– Each survivor must take a “RED Skeleton KEY”.
– No other items are allowed. Only the Red Key, can be taken into the game. (No green keys!)
– Any “add-ons” for the RED KEY are allowed.
– No perks are allowed, by any of the Survivors. (“Perk naked”)
– Any items found in chests, can be used. (You can put the key down, if you dare!).
– You can handle someone else’s key, if on the ground, (e.g. move it, hide it, or use it yourself)
– The Survivors must go out the “Exit Hatch”, USING THE RED KEY, to get a “WIN”.
– The Survivor(s) are allowed to go out of the Exit Hatch or out the Exit Door, (if they are open), but they do not get a win for this! They only get a “LET”.
– You can try to befriend and/or work with the killer if you like…
This game set up will mostly force each game into a: “Last Person Standing”, type of thing. Unlike the main game there is no illusion that this game is cooperative. It is not. This is playing purely as a lone wolf. “There can be only one”, survivor.
In the same way many games end with one survivor left, there will tend to be a mad dash for the hatch at the end, by the killer. The player can join in and try to jump first if they like. But the “key” goal, is use the red key to get more points…and thereby win the “Match” event over all.
In our experience, generators don’t get done. Instead players sneak around, and make noise, trying to get each other found and killed. It is important to note, that to “WIN”, you have to escape through the hatch using the red key, once the killer has closed it. Again, you can leave the game via the Exit Door or Hatch when it first opens, as a choice. But that choice, means no points for you. (but at least you won’t loose any!)
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⭕ | HOW THE SCORING WORKS
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A Hatch Escape using the Red Key (Win) = 05 points
A Door or Open Hatch Escape (Let) = 00 points
Being Dead (Loss) = minus 01 point.
The maximum score, overall, for a “Match” is thus: 04 games x 04 sets x 05 points = 80.
The lowest score is -16. (Losing all 16 games)
We wanted to set that “Total Overall ‘Maximum Score’ possible”, to be 100. So, we also gave:–
02 points for winning a Set, (a max of 08 points over the four Sets in a Match).
02 points for having the highest score in a Set, (a max of 08 points over four Sets in a Match).
04 points for having the highest score overall in total for the 16 games (the Match).
Thus, a player could possibly score a total maximum of: 80+08+08+04 =100.
(= 16 Game Wins + 04 Set Wins + 04 Set Highest Score + Match Total Highest Score)
If players get equal wins in a set. They get one bonus point, instead of two.
If players have an equal top score at the end, they all get one point instead of two.
We established the overall winner by “Sets” won, (not by total score). If two players had the same amount of “Sets” won, (out of 4), by the end of the “Match” (16 games), we then went to overall points, to decide the overall winner!). But you could use total overall score. if you prefer, to decide who won the “Match”.
Actual point scoring will of course be low. It may even go and remain negative. You can keep a record of the high score, to beat in future “Match” events.
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⭕ | NOTES ON, KEY ADD ONS
– “Weaved Ring”, means if you die, you keep the Red Skeleton Key. It helps with numbers needed.
– “Gold Token” means you can see the auras of other survivors. (It is powerful in this game).
– “Blood Amber” doubles the key use time, plus it reveals the killer aura as well.
– You can add 15-20 seconds to the key use time, with the rope or beads add ons.
⭕ | THE KILLER ROLE?
We played this in public games. So we had a random public assigned killer. This means the killer is unaware of what is happening, and so brings no bias to the game.
However, we did play the game with two variations to this. Without using a public killer.
Firstly, we made one person always be the killer. The “Designated Killer Main”. There can still be some personal bias. But generally the killer is still essentially neutral. For the most part they will just play the game as usual. However, its not necessary for the generators to be done to get hatch. Being alive is. So, this means most survivors are likely to set out to avoid the killer, and to get others killed instead. And that mostly means, not being the one working the generators…where they are found.
With this in mind, we gave the Killer perks which would help in finding people. Perks like: Nowhere To Hide, Nurses Calling, Ultimate Weapon, BBQ , etc. We recommend if you go this route, you agree on four perks, to act as a datum, and balance across all the games.
It is of course, possible for survivors to team up. But this is very unlikely to happen often, if at all. It might be used as an attempted block against a player that has otherwise won, Game, Set or Match, if they are the one to escape…
We recommend, setting a hard rule, that the killer must look for the hatch and close it, the moment, they know there is only one player left in the game. And then visit one exit door. But this of course is the weak point in non-public found killers…
Secondly, we played a match, with 05 players in competition, not 04. Here the killer role was rotated between us. We increased the “Match” to be 25 games. (where a set was 05 games). However, we found this introduced a pretty strong bias problem. (e.g. you will probably as killer want to kill the player with the highest existing score, or let the lowest win or another get out. But some might call this a game feature, or a potential equalising effect, lol).
We assigned no scoring system for the killer role in this case. The scoring rules for survivors remained the same as before, with a public game
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We think with a bit of work, this idea, could be made into a proper mode. We also played with a number of variations. These are outlined in the next section, and you may prefer some of them to those outlined above…
D. 🟧
S. 🟥
K. 🟪
Red Skeletons “Mode” concept created in 2019.
(Last Updated @ 04.07.24)
VARIATIONS, & WHY PUBLIC FOUND KILLERS ARE BEST!
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In games against a public killer, agree one or more of the following:–
– Allow players to take the perk “Plunderer”.
– Allow players to take the perk “Ace In The Hole” (Ace)
– Allow players to take the perk “Left Behind” (Bill)
– Allow players to take the perk “Appraisal” (Elodi).
– Allow players to take the perk “Built to Last” (Felix)
– Allow players to take the perk “Sole Survivor” (Laurie)
Since we played this in 2019-2021, quite a few more characters have been added. So, its possible that other perks could reasonably join the list now. The key issue (pun intended), being that not everyone has access to these perks, so really only a perk everyone has can be agreed for use!
You could allow 1, 2, 3, or 4 perks. Set them to specific named perks, or allow a choice from say 6 or 8 possible. (Or fix some and allow flexibility in others). We settled on using: Plunderer, Built To Last, Appraisal and Ace In The Hole, as a fixed set, for our later games. We like to maintain the idea of equality in the game, so that everyone had the same basic ‘chance’…
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⭕ | THE “UN-RANDOM KILLER, BIAS PROBLEM”
There is of course a glaring issue in games where the killer is known to the survivors, and more so, if they are one of them. The killer obviously, will know the nature of the game is to get the hatch after it is closed, using the Red Key. Whereas a public found killer will not understand the importance of a closed hatch. So, they will probably go patrol the exit doors in most cases, as we al regularly see, we few exceptions. But, if a killer understood the goal here, it would make best sense for them to simply close, and then stand on the hatch…
To address this problem, we agreed on a basic rule: Once the killer closes the hatch, they must immediately go to one of the exit doors, before they can return again to the hatch. There is an element of trust in this, but we made is so they had to bump into the exit door opening mechanism, before they return. This is what we did. And, whilst it is heavily reliant on RNG, we found it worked quite well, in creating tense endings, that mirror those in more ‘watchable’ games. On this basis we like the “Designated Killer Main” Matches as workable concept.
By comparison, putting each of the survivor as the killer role, in rotation, has the additional flaw, that it can be a great advantage for the killer to avoid finding the hatch, and to let the clock timer run down!)
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⭕ | THE “BUBBA VARIATION”
We made the “Designated Killer Main”, play, using Bubba’s: “Franklins” perk. This created extra mayhem over the Red Keys. More so, since once dropped, their charge quickly disappears. So, this can also lead to players stealing each others keys when they are dropped… It also potentially adds a “hiding the key” factor. But, note how the “Plunder’s Perk” if allowed for use by survivors, will allow survivors to see the dropped or “hidden” item locations!
In the original games, we agreed on setting the Killer perks as:–
Franklin’s, Overwhelming Prescence (Doctor), Nurses Calling, Territorial Imperative (Huntress).
If we were playing this now, I think we could consider adding to the Killer fixed perk set:–
Vecna’s: “Weave Atunement”, and also the Twins, “Hoarder”.
(By, removing Nurses, and Territorial)
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⭕ | THE “FELIX VARIATION”
Once we gave the “Designated” Killer “Franklin’s”, we did also try playing a few games, where only one survivor took in a Red Key. Players take it in turns being the one who starts with the Red Key. (So, everyone gets the red key at the start of a game once).
This can lead to bonkers games. Where players want to steal the only red key, to be the one to escape using it later on. We found it worked better, if all the players, had “Plunders”, and “Built to Last”. (Hence we referred to this as: “The Felix Variation.”
You can probably see, how adding or subtracting certain perks can effect how the game works, once these basic changes are implemented. Elode’s perk adds a wild card, that another key may be found. Ace’s perk means found items may have important add ons, or not.
⭕ | RANDOM NOTES
(1) The Red Key Charge lasts for 30 seconds standardly. So, if its dropped under Franklin’s it will run out quick. And, more so if people are fighting over it. So, the “Built To Last perk” if added to the game, allows the drained key to be re-charged. Otherwise its possible to have no working keys left in the game. Again, this might be a funny feature for some games!
(2) The perk “Plunderers, allows you to not only see the chest locations, but also the auras of any items which are dropped or left on the ground!
(3) It is possible to find a Red Key in the chests. If Ace’s perk is allowed, “Ace In The Hole”, this could lead to adds being on the key. And Elodi’s “Appraisal” perk allows for almost twice as many searches.
(4) It is possible to find a purple key in the chests. We allowed use of the purple key to count as part of the Exit. With no changes to scoring.
(5) Note that there are adds to increase the number of chests in the game, by 1 or 2. We allowed these, since the players are “Perk-less”, and it offers no direct benefit to any one survivor.
(6) We did not allow map offerings to be used, as some maps are more well known to some survivors (players), than others. So, the map was RNG allotted.
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Take Care…Stay Safe…Maybe See You In The Fog…
D. 🟧
S. 🟥
(Last Updated: 24.06.24)
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And that wraps up our share on Dead by Daylight: “RED SKELETONS” — “A Game Mode” (Player Made). If you have any additional insights or tips to contribute, don’t hesitate to drop a comment below. For a more in-depth read, you can refer to the original article here by Gloom Cookie, who deserves all the credit. Happy gaming!