Dead of Winter

Crossroads is a series of games published by Plaid Hat Games that tests a group of survivors' ability to work together and stay alive while facing both external and internal crises and challenges. Dead of Winter: A Crossroads Game, the first title in the series, places 2 to 5 players in a small, weakened colony of survivors in a world where most humans are either dead or transformed into flesh-eating monsters. Each player leads a faction of survivors, with dozens of different characters in the game. This means that players work together toward a common goal, but to achieve victory, each player must also accomplish their own secret personal objective, which could be a relatively harmless psychological tic to most other colony members, a dangerous obsession that could compromise the main objective, a desire to sabotage the main mission, or (worse still) revenge against the colony! Games can end with all players winning, some winning and others losing, or all players losing. Work toward the group's goal, but don't let a loudmouth who only cares about their own interests push you around!

Dead of Winter is an experience that can only be truly lived through board games, a story-driven game about surviving a harsh winter in a post-apocalyptic world. Survivors all face their own psychological imperatives, yet must still find a way to work together to combat external threats, resolve crises, find food and supplies, and maintain colony morale.

Dead of Winter forces players to make frequent, difficult, highly thematic, and extremely varied decisions, often forcing them to choose between what's best for the colony and what's best for themselves. The rulebook also includes a fully cooperative variant in which all players work toward the group's goal without having personal objectives.