[Lost in the Dream]

[TheLHF]

Lost in the Dream.

The characters are trapped or stuck in their dream. They are all sharing a dream and they can't get out until they unravel the dream and discover what it's about.

The inspiration comes from how dreams are pictured in literature. In the Sandman graphic novels, Morpheus, Lords of Dreams controls the Dreaming. All dreams happen within the Dreaming. The Dreaming is a fluid place, in which the world is always shifting and growing to meet the needs, wants and desires of the people in the dream.

My rough outlines for the mechanics are as such:

Select a Tone: The players and the GM decide what tone they want to game and dream to have. Is this a funny dream? A light, sunny dream? Or a dark nightmare? The tone is the guideline for what traits you create.

Character Creation: Each play makes a list of (say 5) traits of their character. These are short, simple descriptions of things that are important to the character and that fit with the tone. These are written with impute from other players. You don't want "I'm scared the floors will all go away" and "Fear of being knifed by my father" in the same game.

Dream Creation: The GM then takes the five traits from each character and secretly selects one from each list. This list is then used to create the dream. This dream is the game world that the characters are going to be exploring.

Resolving the Dream/The Game: The goal of the characters is to get out of the dream. They do this by discovering what the dream is about and unraveling/resolving the dream. The characters do this by figuring out which of their traits the dream world is based on. When they think they have it figured out, they bid that trait. If they are correct, and that trait is being used to create the dream, then that part of the dream is over and doesn't exist anymore. (They have figured out it's a dream and thus has no power over them? Not sure about the details yet.) If they're wrong, and the trait they bid is NOT part of the dream world, they lose the use of that trait for the rest of the game.

End Game: The game and the dream end when all the traits used to describe the dream have been discovered. At this point all the characters wake up.



So, problems and possible solutions:

There is no real consequence of failure. If you fail, you stay in the dream, but that's not a consequence, that's just failing. There is nothing to drive the characters onward.

I'm thinking about making all the character have one trait in common. This shared trait is then automatically part of the dream and it's the bad thing they need to defeat to get out. All the other traits describing the dream world need to be dealt with before you can get to the shared trait. This shared trait is also why they are all in the same dream. It should also be something bad, that they are scared of or afraid. Not sure how this is actually going to work.

Also, are the conflicts to determine what traits are used to describe the dream the only conflicts? I say no, because otherwise it gets boring pretty quick. What are these conflicts about and what makes them important? How are they resolved? Or characters traits ranked, or are they just there to be called on or used?

One suggestion so far has been to allow characters, when biding their trait and confronting parts of the dream, instead of defeating that part of the dream, they can choose to make peace with it. Instead of just fighting it, it no longer becomes a threat to the character.

Also, as far as color goes, the game is set in a dream. If you wish it, up is down and black is white and it all makes sense. Doors that lead where they shouldn't, people showing up then disappearing , all kinds of random stuff. But because it's a dream, it all makes sense. As I said to a friend, less D&D, more Alice in Wonderland.

More questions about the game, answers to any of the questions I asked and just general impute would all rock very much!

--Victor

[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