[Lost in the Dream]

[TheLHF]

hr]

[Darcy Burgess]

Hi Victor,

I'd like to hear a little more on what "bidding" entails.  Describe the process involved -- is it simply a "guess" on the player's part? or is it something else?

Cheers,
Darcy

[Bailywolf]

You could do something GM-free and competitive... players take turns framing weird dream scenes to confound the other players' characters, accumulating Wakeful points (or something) measuring how close they are to waking up... points can be wagered on the outcome of these scenes, and figuring out the other characters' foibles and fears lets you frame scenes that exploit them.

The winner is the one who reaches a certain threshold of Wakefulness.  They wake up, and everyone else vanishes- they were only part of the winner's dream all along.

-Ben

[Sane]

Concept-wise, that's almost identical to my game 'DreamCatcher' except that in my game it's other peoples' dreams that you're tasked with solving.

Ash

[TheLHF]

Concept-wise, that's almost identical to my game 'DreamCatcher' except that in my game it's other peoples' dreams that you're tasked with solving.

Ash

I'm glad you mentioned it. One of the reasons I posted here was to see if anyone had done anything like this before. I'm thinking of going the direction the Bailywolf suggested and make it a competitive game with no formal GM.

If you feel that it's too close to DreamCatcher, let me know. I definitely don't want to write a game that's already been done.

--Victor

[Sane]

If you feel that it's too close to DreamCatcher, let me know. I definitely don't want to write a game that's already been done.

Well, let me define DreamCatcher and you can decide for yourself if it's too close.

In DC, the players take the parts of Lucid Dreamers, people capable of controlling their dreams to a certain extent and of leaving their own dreams to explore the dreams of other people. Some go out of their way to resolve the bad dreams, because this in turn helps the dreamer to resolve their own personal issues and get on in life. Some create nightmares, either out of spite, to artificially create prophetic dreams, or to steer the dreamer away from a waking-world decision they are pondering. Some even sneak into those dreams looking for idea seeds, the little bits of inspiration that new theories and inventions come from, which they steal and plant in their own dreams so that they can have those ideas instead. And then again there are people who set out to stop the Dream Thieves from doing so. How they do so is a little complicated, but it all revolves around Enyas, which are symbolic entities that represent problems in the real world. Enyas can be both positive and negative, and whether a dream becomes a nightmare is based upon how many negative enyas there are compared to positive ones. An Enya can be destroyed in a number of ways, all of them very much symbolic and dream-like. If all the negative ones are disposed of, then the dreamer awakens feeling wonderful, and with a much more positive attitude towards the subject of the dream they were having. If all the positive Enyas are removed then the opposite is true.

The main difference between my game and yours is therefore that DreamCatcher presents a more open basis for exploration. Rather than being trapped in a dream, the players can explore whatever dreams they like. Rather than having to resolve them, they might be required to turn it into a nightmare for the good of humanity. Or they might just want to steal ideas, bum around and have fun. Your game as you describe it presents a narrower focus, but focuses more sharply on that. Thus while my game is pretty light-hearted, yours might have a more horriffic atmosphere.

Hope that helps. I can't and won't ask you to change the plans you have for your game based on mine, because I don't own the idea of an RPG based in peoples' dreams, and I think that is as it should be. If you fancy taking a look at DreamCatcher sometime, you can find it at Lulu on the following address: http://www.lulu.com/content/489650

Ash