[DRYH] Playing Nightmares

[RPL]

Has I was explaining my game to my girlfriend and went on about the effects of Madness Dominance she came at me with this "cool, so if I became a Nightmare could I continue playing has opposition to the other players?", has I explained to her to purpose of the possibility of turning a PC into a Nightmare was to make sure people didn't just went all over the Madness dice and think that if they did so they could lose their character.

On the other hand we also discussed how a player playing a Nightmare would be so very awesome. I think a story could really develop into something very interesting if a former Awakened became a Nightmare, one that the other characters would know and had some sort of relationship with, it's an endless stream of conflicts just waiting to overflood with feelings and emotions, I think it would be a blast for the players go up against a former friend of theirs.

There are no rules for this in the book, so is it an option that just breaks the game or could something be improvised, like giving the Nightmare player a static pool of Pain dice and let her create her own minions, how would her Talents and Nightmare powers if such was the case?

[iago]

My general feel here is that you've just created one more GM and one fewer players, and to have fun with that.

I may have to put rules for this in a supplement at some point!

That said, I say this:

1) Remember, the Nightmare you become has dice equal to the total dice you had in your pool at the time you had your final, worst moment of snapping.  If that was 1 Discipline, 2 permanent madness, 4 madness, and 3 exhaustion, you're now a 10-pain Nightmare (and, normally, an NPC).

2) Your madness and exhaustion talents should *definitely* get folded into what your Nightmare is about, as well as whatever it was you were doing at the time you transformed.

3) I'd say that a "played" Nightmare should be able to have up to half of his or her Pain in total minion pain dice whenever acting through his minions/lieutenants in absentia.  Feels like a proper guideline to me.  Minions and Lieuts should "riff" on the theme suggested by observation #2, above.

As a rule of thumb, I'd say the "non-Nightmare-specific" GM controls the use and expenditure of Despair coin, and anything outside of the player-Nightmare's scope, while the player-Nightmare drives a section of the plot concerning her Nightmare until defeated (or whatever) by the protagonists.

The trick to recognize here, I think, is that when you become a Nightmare you *stop* being a protagonist.  Your job within the greater story of the game is to facilitate the exploration of the protagonists' stories.

But I see no problem with splitting up the GM duties at such a juncture.  Hell, maybe even it's time to "tag out", and let the GM create a new protagonist Awakened, and let the Nightmare-transformed player take on the whole job!

[RPL]

The trick to recognize here, I think, is that when you become a Nightmare you *stop* being a protagonist.  Your job within the greater story of the game is to facilitate the exploration of the protagonists' stories.

Witch brings me to another question, probably to Setting-specific-based and with a "do it as you will" ansewer attached to it, can a Nightmare revert back into an Awakened? The thing here is me looking back at the questionnaire and the "What's your path?" question, do Nightmares have Paths of their own and if no is that the reason they stop being protagonists? and if they do can the path be "became human again?" (sorry if this sounds like something out of Vampire, The Masquerade).

[iago]

Witch brings me to another question, probably to Setting-specific-based and with a "do it as you will" ansewer attached to it, can a Nightmare revert back into an Awakened? The thing here is me looking back at the questionnaire and the "What's your path?" question, do Nightmares have Paths of their own and if no is that the reason they stop being protagonists? and if they do can the path be "became human again?" (sorry if this sounds like something out of Vampire, The Masquerade).

Well, from *my* perspective, Nightmares are the tools of the GM to drive adversity in the protagonists' stories.  They aren't there to explore their own stories.

That said, how *you* choose to answer those questions for *your* game is just as valid.