Sweet Dreams: New Skool

[Allan]

Talking and playing Sweet Dreams with the Contested Ground Crew, Emily and John showed me that the game I was running was not the game that I wrote.  And the game I was running is still fun, and I still want to write it.  So, I want to rewrite Sweet Dreams from the ground up, keeping the color and replacing all of the existing physical interaction mechanics with lighter, narrative, simpler rules. 

Premise:  Players develop relationship web between characters and NPCs, and explore the setting, as represtented by the Guide.  Player vs. Player conflict is encouraged, mediated by the Guide.  Note passing, and breaking off into smaller groups for character scenes are encouraged.   Familar setting, but the Guide knows .  It is possible to interact with all aspects of the world in many different ways.  Any choice has consequences, and makes all of the characters' lives more complicated.

Setting:  Exaggerated High School with warring cliques, spies, weapons, magic and monsters.  Teenagers' fantasy lives leak over into their real lives.

Characters:  Exceptional teenagers forced to work together despite their differences. 

Character creation is in the form of a teen magazine quiz.  20 questions. 

1. Clique.  Your public image in high school
2. Fantasy.  Your dream identity.
3. Worst Date / Opposite (Which other character you have a Crush on)
4. Perfect Date / Attraction (Why you are attracted to them)
5. Secret.  If your secret is anything other than being a monster, you are human. 

5 things you like about yourself (you can pick any one trait up to 3x.  For example, Popular x3)
5 things you don't like about yourself. (also up to x3)

Thats only 15 questions.  maybe there will be more.  I can see how choosing a secret could lead to a 5 question mini quiz (Is your secret Real, Magical, Imaginary or Scientific? what does your secret do for you?  How do you protect your secret?  What mystery do you wish you knew?)

Basic resolution system
Player describes an action using any positive trait on their character sheet.  Player rolls 1d6 and adds up to +3 from their own positive trait.  Total is compared to target number (5?). 

The Guide or another player may oppose the action by invoking either one of their own positive traits, or one of the active player's negative traits.  The invoked trait subtracts up to -3 from the die roll.

If the player succeeds, she may write a new positive trait under "things I like about myself".  If the player fails, she writes a new negative trait under "things I don't like about myself".  Possibly with some incentive/reward for taking suggestions from the Guide or the player who blocked you.

During play, characters accumulate temporary positive and negative traits.  There are no hit points, characters may accumulate negative traits such as (I don't like that I'm...) Hurt, Wounded, Bleeding, Missing a Hand, Horribly Scarred, In a Coma, or Dead (all up to x3).  Dead characters can still act normally, but their Dead trait may be called in as a penalty when appropriate.  Killing another character requires that you take an appropriate negative trait, such as Souless, Tortured with Guilt, Haunted, Wanted for Murder, etc.

At the end of each play session, some of these temporary traits become permanent.  You may choose to sacrifice (or heal) existing traits in order to retain more of your new temporary traits.  I'm thinking 10 as the maximum number of positives or negatives.

The rest of the rules will deal with the metaphysics of the setting, how your Fantasy affects the world in Real, Magical, Imaginary (Symbolic?) or Scientific ways. 

Crushes will be measured by an Attraction level compatible with Breaking the Ice.  Pairs  of characters are encouraged to break off from the main group to have Breaking the Ice dates and returning with new positive or negative traits. 

Right now I'm looking for reactions to the basic resolution system.  What am I missing?  What should I be reading?  I'll be playtesting this basic version sometime over the next week, and I'll have a better idea of what I want then.

[Allan]

I forgot to credit Iain MacGregor for brainstorming these mechanics with me. 

[iain]

That's Mcallister, Allan, will have none of this Clan Macgregor stuff round here:-)
Sounds basically like what we talked about at Indy Allan.  You now have slots basically in wihich you can put descriptions, but can be occupied by the same descriptions if you want leading to multiple bonuses.  Is that correct? Initial reaction would be that calling in someone's -ve trait instead of using your own should pose some risk. To dumb it down for a sec for an example if two children are having a 'you smell' conflict and one calls into the conflict the others -ve 'I have low self esteem' trait and still loses the conflict there should be some social fallout of some description.  Maybe the challenger gains a -ve trait or enters into a new mini conflict to protect their own social standing.  Obviously in more physical conflicts the fallou could be different but still use the same system.

I would also make sure that your aother areas like magic etc. resolve in the same, or similar, way.  the new version of Mob Justice now has one resolution mechanic for everything, the conditions changing depending on a physical or social conflict.

It was great to meet you allan, and I look forward to helping out w. sweet dreams in anyway I can.
Cheers
Iain

[iain]

That's Mcallister, Allan, will have none of this Clan Macgregor stuff round here:-)
Sounds basically like what we talked about at Indy Allan.  You now have slots basically in wihich you can put descriptions, but can be occupied by the same descriptions if you want leading to multiple bonuses.  Is that correct? Initial reaction would be that calling in someone's -ve trait instead of using your own should pose some risk. To dumb it down for a sec for an example if two children are having a 'you smell' conflict and one calls into the conflict the others -ve 'I have low self esteem' trait and still loses the conflict there should be some social fallout of some description.  Maybe the challenger gains a -ve trait or enters into a new mini conflict to protect their own social standing.  Obviously in more physical conflicts the fallout could be different but still use the same system.

I would also make sure that your aother areas like magic etc. resolve in the same, or similar, way.  the new version of Mob Justice now has one resolution mechanic for everything, the conditions changing depending on a physical or social conflict.

It was great to meet you allan, and I look forward to helping out w. sweet dreams in anyway I can.
Cheers
Iain

[iain]

Sorry about that, don't know why that posted twice:-)
Cheers
Iain

[Paul Czege]

Hey Allan,

It was good meeting you at GenCon.

Character creation is in the form of a teen magazine quiz.  20 questions.

I spent some time this past weekend reading one of my GenCon purchases: Dread. And it totally opened my eyes to the incredible potential of character creation via questionnaires. It's very obvious from the guidance offered in the game text that the Impossible Dream guys have spent a lot of time getting good with this method of character creation. I think you need to read it.

Paul

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

Hey, Allan. Read your PMs, ya durn fool.

How do "negative" traits get called into play legitimately? Is it social pressure that makes it so that you can or can't call in one of my negative traits? What if, for instance, someone said that I couldn't see in color because I was dead, and I didn't buy it?

Would it be easier if you called in your own negative traits in order to get bennies for later? I think you might get a bonus for later if you call them in, which you don't get if someone else calls in your traits.

The Teen Quiz is a great idea. Much more to the point than the current character sheet. I also lovity love this sentence:

Dead characters can still act normally, but their Dead trait may be called in as a penalty when appropriate.

That's just 12 kinds of excellent and you win a stuffed bear with fangs for saying it.

[ejh]

Hey Allan!  I'm going to be following this one.  Thanks for the PM. :)

The system you're describing reminds me a lot of Mike Holmes & JB Bell's _Synthesis_.  Which is cool because I always liked Synthesis a lot and nobody ever talks about it anymore.  The "everything is traits" and "damage is getting more traits that you might not like" and "you can pull in other people's traits on your side of a conflict" is all there.

The thing about it that I like (and this is an admittedly Sim factor, not Nar, so it may not really be relevant) is that when other people can use your traits against you (whether or not there is some risk associated with that for them, as was suggested), then everything about you becomes potentially fraught with ambiguity, upsides and downsides.  You may have a x3 Popular trait but that can be used against you in a conflict for the affections of a nerd.  (Familiar situation eh?)

Anyway, I don't have a ton to add here cause I'm not any kind of wizardly game designer or anything but it sounds like I'm gonna be very happy about this Sweet Dreams rewrite. :)

[migo]

I like the questionaire idea. It would be a LOT easier for me to make my Tooth Fairy Boxer with the questionaire system than the current Sweet Dreams. I'm having issues with the ranks I need to get the effects I want costing a lot and giving me additional powers that really don't matter that much to me. It reminds me a lot of high school graduation requirements consisting almost always of some courses you'd really rather not having to take.

Just a test shot with the sample questions.

1. Clique.  Athlete/Crimminal.
2. Fantasy.  Tooth Fairy
3. Worst Date / Opposite - I want to pick several options here, don't like wimps or tough guys, need something in between.
4. Perfect Date / Attraction - Someone flashy/showoffy but not to me.
5. Secret. - I steal people's teeth, if they need my help falling out I'm perfectly willing to do it.

How did that look in terms of the answers you were looking for?

[Malcolm Craig]

I was thinking about the fun we had passing notes around between players whilst playing SD at the Embassy Suites and remembered that you had to see each note as it was passed. Well, that was an interesting aspect of the game (and not one that needs codified by any mechanical rules, heaven help us if we have to have mechanics for note passing!) and one that really helped with the feel of the game. However, why not take it one step further: OK, so the Guide can see the note, but only if he/she spots it being passed. Like the teacher/hall monitor/admin assistant/caretaker etc spotting a pupil passing the note. Otherwise, players can pass notes without the Guide knowing. And it adds to the atmosphere, the sneaky hijinks of the classroom. But if you spot a note being passed, you can read it out to the 'class' and humiliate the writer. or be aghast. Or run screaming in terror. Or whatever.

Just my couple of pence worth of thoughts.

Cheers
Malc

[FarFromUnique]

When I've run Sweet Dreams, and had a not passed, this is usually what happens if I see it: I ask to see it, and either nod wisely, laugh maniacly, or ask the author, "what the heck?"
it seems to work well.