Looking for campaign ideas: dream magic that affects sleeping characters

[MordeanGrey]

After a LOONNNGGGGGG hiatus from running a fantasy hero game, I'm in the early stages of creating a campaign where the characters will eventually be entering the realm of the Dreaming Child. He appears as a young boy (age 12-14ish) who has shiny black skin, hair, and eyes.

 

He's basically a minor Power in the planes that can project himself into the minds of sleeping characters, or create lesser avatars of himself to be physically present in material realms.

 

I'm looking for ideas about how this could work.

 

The dreams for the most part would be non-lethal, but will be a big part of the story and provide clues to what the group should be doing during the waking hours.

 

The dreams may have aspects of dream combat and I would like to have the characters use mental combat somehow to determine the results.

 

At this point, I'm mainly looking for ideas so let me know what you think would work and feel free to share ideas that would be fun/interesting to the characters.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Scott Ruggels]

Sounds like these ought to be treated as a “sub game”, though allowing the dreaming characters assumptions to be the framework of the dreams reality. People often can’t tell if they are dreaming, and navigate the dream environment as if it was real, with fantastical elements taken at face value. So I’d say run it as if it was a separate but related campaign, and have the players have to make INT rolls at -5 to remember events that occurred in the waking world. Different characters may have different dreams or a different emphasis in a shared dream. Use their skills, as is, but throw in Ego rolls and such for non standard events. 

[MordeanGrey]

I like the idea of making it difficult to recall what is real and what is dreaming.

 

In order for this to work, I'm going to have to do a lot of thinking and writing in advance to keep the plot moving forward and making sense.

 

Thanks for the reply. I hope to hear more from you and others on ideas.

 

 

 

[theinfn8]

Solid suggestions already. Personally, I would mostly treat everything from a narrative slant. The combat parts would be exactly the same, since a character's assumed skill level will be the same in dream and out.

 

Depending on your players' skill level with Hero, those that "awaken" to the idea of being in a dream could temporarily gain access to a power framework for "dream powers" that they can change up with an Ego roll (or skill if it seems appropriate, like an archer using their knowledge to say "bows don't operate like that". If they are in the dreaming long enough (like, mini-campaign level long) you could increase the pool size over time as the PCs power grows.

 

Just some thoughts.

[MordeanGrey]

I like that idea of getting a separate "dreaming" skill set that lets them manipulate the dream rather than just being part of it. Of course, it would take a while for them to realize what was happening and then they could slowly build the "dreaming" skills as additional character points they earned.

 

[Duke Bushido]

It doesn't really require the dream,child, but it would be interesting that you entered his real by landing there during a falling dream.