{"id":398,"date":"2014-09-08T19:06:02","date_gmt":"2014-09-08T19:06:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/gming-dreams\/"},"modified":"2023-02-26T17:52:55","modified_gmt":"2023-02-26T17:52:55","slug":"gming-dreams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/gming-dreams\/","title":{"rendered":"GMing Dreams"},"content":{"rendered":"

About a month ago, someone on Reddit<\/a> asked for tips on using dream logic in games. He or she planned on introducing a trickster villain whose presence twisted reality into a dream-like state. I posted some suggestions<\/a> and thought \u201cthat would make a good blog subject,\u201d then promptly forgot about it. Now I\u2019ve remembered that dreams would make a good blog topic, so you\u2019re going to get an expanded version of the post I just linked.<\/p>\n

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Full Disclosure:<\/strong> I\u2019m not sure if I\u2019ve ever tried the \u201csubtly let the players figure out it\u2019s a dream\u201d route. When I\u2019ve used dreams in games, they\u2019ve usually either been obvious \u201cyour character is dreaming, probably so I can re-iterate some clues you missed the first time\u201d dreams; \u201cHoly shit! That session went south fast, let\u2019s just ret-con it\u201d cop-outs; or cases when the players end up in a surreal alternate dimension where dream-like stuff goes on, so when I give suggestions about the pacing of the dream elements, keep in mind that I\u2019m mostly guessing.<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the major difficulties of using the kind of dream sequences we see on TV shows in RPGs is the fact that television can focus on a single character more easily. The actors who aren\u2019t involved in the scene can go back to their trailers and those that are in the scene will do exactly what the writers and director want them to do. In RPGs, the other major players need to be kept interested and might not act in ways that make the dream go where and do what the GM wants it to. Unless you\u2019ve got some kind of Dream Warriors<\/a> set-up where the players are sharing a dream, you\u2019ll either want to keep the dream sequence short or let the non-dreamer players know what\u2019s going on ahead of time and give them an idea of how you need them to interact with the dreamer.<\/span><\/p>\n

If there\u2019s a core characteristic of dreams, it\u2019s fluidity. Time, space, and pretty much everything within them are unstable in a dream. One minute your best friend from high school is driving the truck, the next minute it\u2019s your next-door neighbor behind the wheel of the van. If you don\u2019t want the character(s) to realize what\u2019s going on too soon, start making small changes that the player isn\u2019t likely to question or even consciously notice (change the color of an NPC\u2019s shirt or make a minor change to some landmark or set piece that was only described once several sessions ago), then make bigger and bigger changes as the game goes on. A good mid-level change might be replacing a generic NPC with a similar NPC that the character knows in the middle a scene. For example, if the player is talking to a city guard, start out by treating him as a generic city guard not even worth describing, then halfway through the conversation refer to him by the name of a city guard who the player knows. If the player asks about any of these changes, try to avoid acknowledging the change or admitting error. Say things like \u201cRight now you\u2019re looking at a guy in a purple shirt\u201d or \u201cNo, it\u2019s not just some generic guard. It\u2019s Jimmy the City Guard.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Keep things in the present. Don\u2019t acknowledge or clarify the past.<\/span><\/p>\n

Another common aspect of dreams is the feeling of being rushed. You\u2019re late for your math text, which is probably why you forgot to put on pants. If the player has things he needs to do in the waking world, use one of them as the the thing he needs to do in the dream. If not, just make something up, or treat some previously-completed goal as unfinished, or just have NPCs (and other characters, if you\u2019ve got them working for you) urgently prod the PC towards some person, place, or thing without telling him what\u2019s going on. And of course, since dreams are fluid, you can change the \u201cmission\u201d periodically so the dreamer isn\u2019t quite sure what he\u2019s doing. In addition to making the dreamer anxious and confused, rushing the dream can keep him from spending too much time analyzing minor details that might give the dream away too early.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dreams can be symbolic, and the most common use for dreams in fiction, from A Christmas Carol<\/a> to My Name Is Earl<\/a> is to reveal something important to the dreamer. How subtle or overt you need to be depends on the player, but it\u2019s probably a good idea to plan for possible dream interpretation attempts (internet or library research, visiting a fortune teller, etc.) after the dreamer wakes up, just in case the player misses the symbolism. Since there plenty of books and web sites dedicated to dream symbolism, I\u2019m going to leave the details of this one to the reader and Google.<\/span><\/p>\n

The final major characteristic of dreams is that they\u2019re weird. A lot of the weirdness comes from fluidity or symbolism, but some elements of a dream are just weird for weird\u2019s sake. Out of place or incorrectly used objects (like the guy carrying a fish I mentioned in the Reddit thread is a little of both), anachronistic or impractical costumes, talking animals, strange characters, and anything else weird you can think up. If you\u2019re trying to reveal the dream slowly, confine the weirdness to previously-unknown characters and places at first, then slowly introduce weirdness to familiar people and places as the dream progresses.<\/span><\/p>\n

In fiction, especially when characters have multiple dreams during the story,<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>recurring motifs are sometimes used to let the reader or viewer know that the character has entered the dream world. For example, if you\u2019ve ever seen the Nightmare on Elm Street<\/a><\/span>\u00a0movies, you know that an object with a striped pattern that matches Freddy\u2019s shirt means the character is dreaming. Even when they\u2019re not used as such a signal, recurring motifs can add to the surreal quality of the scene. If you\u2019re running a game where dream imagery will be common (like the one the Reddit poster asked about), you might want to come up with some recurring motifs. For best results, make it something out-of-the-ordinary enough to be noteworthy but not so obvious that the players will pick up on it immediately. They should probably notice the pattern after two or three dream sequences.<\/span><\/p>\n

Below is a list of slightly more specific variations on the themes described above.<\/span><\/p>\n