If you could have any power...

[Glendon]

Hi, I'm new to the forum (so glad it exists!), so I hope this is the right section. Feel free to move the thread if I screwed up. :O

I've been working on a tabletop for a few weeks now (gradually piecing it together...), which literally involves roleplaying activity going on in the dream world. (You're real self would be asleep while your 'dream self' would be doing the roleplaying). Because of the element of the dream making the world so shifting and inconstant, an abundant variety of 'powers' the heroes could have is available.

Realistically though, there is going to have to be a limited number of sets of powers for the sake of not having total chaos, although I encourage variety. Plot-wise (or a short-description of), the heroes will all be 'mutual dreaming' and it will involve going into 'nightmare zones' of a person's dream to solve a mystery, fix something, or possibly destroy a terrible creature that's chasing the dreamer themself, all in order to return the dream to a pleasant reverie. (I swear it sounds more interesting in detail)

Because each dream will have its own set of rules and 'laws', not everything is possible at every moment. A hero will not always be able to fly, etc. I'm not completely sure what will decide the mechanics of the 'dream logic' (although I'm taking suggestions), but one thought was making a chart, so when a player rolls a die in an attempt to do something, the number they roll aligns with a possibility and outcome. Although the problem is I would have to create a *lot* of different charts for different circumstances (investigating a closet, jumping off a bridge into water, fighting something, etc)...

Anyway, I've gone off on a tangent. With all of this said, if you could have a power (feel free to name a few) in this dream realm, what would it be? This can be anything from controlling weather to turning into a wolf to having a mechanical arm that fires lasers.

-G

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

I think you're making some big, unnecessary assumptions here.

Why not have a short discussion with all the players where they determine what kind of environments will be played in, brainstorm a bunch of powers, then pick from that list for each new game? Have each player assign the relative relevance of each power from an identical pool of points (or dice, or whatever), and you'll be cool.

Anyway, the power I'd like to have is to be able to make symbols become the things they represent.

[Troy_Costisick]

Heya,

You need to check out The Pool.  Here is a link to Ron's review of the game: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/reviews/7/

Perhaps you can apply some of its ideas to your game.  I'm with Nikola that you are making some huge assumptions and probably need to take some time to check out a few other games before proceding with your current line of thought.

Peace,

-Troy

[Glendon]

I think you're making some big, unnecessary assumptions here.

Why not have a short discussion with all the players where they determine what kind of environments will be played in, brainstorm a bunch of powers, then pick from that list for each new game? Have each player assign the relative relevance of each power from an identical pool of points (or dice, or whatever), and you'll be cool.

Anyway, the power I'd like to have is to be able to make symbols become the things they represent.

We've already discussed different environments (pulp horror, gumshoe detective, cyberpunk, medieval fantasy). There will be different 'pools' of powers. Like the 'fire' pool could have anything from the ability to create a small flame (about enough to light a candle) or the power to engulf your entire hands in flames without being harmed.

In my PoV as a GM, when you give a list of powers/skills/abilities/whatever, a player is going to pick what they're interested in, what they think will do best throughout the entire campaign. Then, it is up to the GM to take a good look at what everyone chose, and try to create a good scenerio where they we have a chance to put those abilities into play.

I was just asking for power ideas for inspiration, I'm not necessarily going to have powers as unrelated and far apart as I put in my example. Anyway, I like your symbol idea. Thank you :]

[xenopulse]

Welcome to the Forge, Glendon!

There are three ways you can go about doing powers like this (that I can think of):

a) The distinct way;

b) the interpretative way; or

c) the generic way.

For the distinct way, look at D&D. A power (feat, spell) has a specific effect that's calculated in the game mechanics. The advantage is that people know they can do specific things, and they can maximize abilities in certain ways.

For the interpretative way, look at HeroQuest. You choose or make up an ability. It has a certain name. When you encounter a situation, you interpret abilities in a way that they are applicable. For example, you could have "flaming sword" as an ability, which you can then use in battle, but also to create light or drive off wolves. The cool thing about HQ is that you use one power, and then add others as little bonuses if you can interpret how you use them to increase the main effect. This leads to very creative use of abilities.

For the generic way, check out my own Power/Evil. This way simply gives the power a name for description purposes, but all powers work exactly the same way (with different levels of power). That said, you could have categories like attack, defense, etc. The advantage here is absolute balance between powers, something you won't get with distinct powers, so that makes it a good option for competitive games.

For your type of game, I would definitely suggest the interpretative way. That's just so fitting to a dream game. Let your players come up with appropriate powers that they name, and then let them explain how they apply to the specific situation in the dream world. You can then decide if they work, if there's a penalty for not being completely applicable, etc. It's not as mechanically unambiguous as distinct or generic powers, but it's more creative and involved.

The laws of the specific dream world can also be interpretative, to where they counter certain effects as the GM sees fit. The players can then still try to overcome the resistance, but the GM's roll will be very high. And then you can still let players bend the rules every now and then if they come up with a good interpretation or have a high power rating.

Let's say a power has a rating of 2. The scenario's "Medieval Horror" level is 10. If the power wants to do something that's not fitting with a medieval horror world (e.g., mind-create a gun), you make comparison rolls where the power ratings stand for dice, or a bonus to a D20 roll, or whatever. If the GM wins, the power fails. If the player wins, s/he's bent the rules. Then you can double the scenario level for really unfitting things, or halve it for sort-of fitting things.

That's just my suggestion, of course. Let me know if you don't use it, so I can eventually make a game out of it :)

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

This seems like an excellent place to use Dogs traits. Their relevance is determined by the player saying how it's used. How effective it is depends on narration, and how relevant it is depends on how many dice (or whatever resource) are applied to it.

[FzGhouL]

If its a dream world, you should also have the arbitrary rules changing, you know, things flow incoherently yet have some distant link..awesome.

As for moves...
A cool way to make up moves is to split up elements as much as you can think of. Split up every subcategory you can think of, and keep going until they seem indevisable. Then make moves for each category manipulating awesome effects.

Example: A high pitched Sound that disorients the character to be afflicted by messing with their ears.

If you've taken Bio or Physics, you can just think of cool manipulations.

If you split the moves into "Element" categories, you should have 40 categories atleast. Thats as far as I've been able to break it down myself.

You should also let your players make moves by looking at the element categories and thinking of what theme they'd like etc. It works really well, my players generate 20-30 possible moves for their characters before deciding which ones to choose.

[daMoose_Neo]

I'm more with xeno and nikola.
Dreams are such a wonderfully fluid medium, and the game should reflect that. Relevence can have a lot to do with a dream, especially when you attach something ELSE to it. The ability to make up your own abilities is wonderful as well.

Unless you feel like crunching a system down to the point no one can do something to "brake" it aside from ignoring the rules, I suggest going with a system where the rules treat the abilities as generic levels of "power", and allow the players to define what means what.

[FzGhouL]

A cool power would be to cast the person from their own dream ;)

[groundhog]

You may want to look at Shattered Dreams, which is an RPG about nightmares. Also, Dark Conspiracy has a great section on dreams, dream powers, and many dark minions which deal with terrorizing people in their dreams. Games that deal with virtual reality or astral projection might have some things which work well in the alternative reality of dreams, too.

As for a mechanic that determines what powers are available in what dreams, there are several ways to go. I'll list a few off the top of my head below...

You could have schools of powers, and have one school dominate a dream. Any aligned with that school get bonuses, while those opposed are unusuable or severely limited. These could be tied to totems. One character could be guided by a bird of some sort, giving him the powers of flight and powerfully keen eyesight. Another could be guided by a bear, which gives strength and the ability to become a bigger size or something.  A zodiac might be good, either a real Roman/Chinese zodiac or a custom one you design. Maybe a combination off two zodiacs, in which a year and a month are signifigant. That way, a Cancer/Rat would be different from a Cancer/Monkey or a Gemini/Rat. In both Roman and Chinese astrology, certain signs are extra compatible, incompatible, and marginally okay with each other. The person whose mind hosts the dream (which may or may not shift during the course of a group-shared dream depending on your mechanics and goals) determines what signs work best and worst. You could also tie the schools of powers to elements, in one of the four or five element models (earth/air/fire/water, metal/wood/water/light, earth/air/fire/water/void, etc.).

You could have different areas in a dream world have randomly drawn characteristics for limiting or helping certain powers. If you have powers of perception and sensing be spades, powers of great physical feats be clubs, powers of controlling the world around you (pyromancy, telekinesis, etc.) be diamonds, and powers of empathy/telepathy be hearts, then you can just draw a few cards and somehow determine how high the functionality of each are going to be in that dream world (or that region of it). Or, if you're looking for something more tied to the character than the setting, you could even have a mechanic based on playing cards the characters draw in some way. You could, say,  have the player draw five cards, and draw five for each NPC. Add the numbers together, and work up a scale for how effective powers are under a certain level of input from the cards. You could then go about having a dice mechanic for the skill with that power that determines the application of the power and let the cards determine the extent of the power. One draw of cards could work for the whole one dream, for different parts of a dream, or could be played at the time of the use of the powers and redrawn, depending on what style you want and the handling time you're willing to accept.

Here's an idea that just occurred to me: You could have each character have a permanent set of power scales set for the effectiveness of different types of powers in their own dreams. That is, in Alice's dreams, flight works well, superhuman strength is awful, telekinesis is so-so, etc. Bob's dreams are really good for people who talk to animals, poor for people who fly, and kind of better than average for people who forecast the future. Each character has skills and/or power levels with different powers, but when they go into someone's dream other than their own, different rules apply based specifically on the main dreamer's mind and spirit. Each character, naturally, would practice to become good at what works best in their own dreams and avoid using/learning powers at a disadvantage in their own dreams before they meet up with other dreamwalkers and start going into other dreams. Simple +/- or multiply/divide for either target numbers or effectiveness/extent of successes could be determined simply by who's hosting the dream or the current part of it (again, in case adventures can drift from one person's mind to another in a group dream).

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

You could also do this with elements.

When someone makes up a power, have them align it with an element (zodaic, whatever) - any will do - and make it so that, in realms high in that element, it has the most story relevance.

More interesting, though, might be where you say "My mind-reading powers (from the realm of Air) when in an Earth realm, make it so that I can move matter."

The point is, deactivating the interesting part of a character is just a way to keep the players from keeping their relevance to the story. Make things get more complicated, not less powerful, if they use their powers out of context.

... and certainly don't punish the players for using their powers out of context. That's where the interesting stuff is going to happen.

The zodiac/elements/hudjerbunkus might correlate with different types of power, so if you have Air powers, you get, I dunno, powers of information. Earth powers are power over matter. Fire powers control passions and souls. Water controls fate.

That way, you can combine them in interesting ways, rather than just making it so the players can't play.