Dreamscape.pdf

This is a 24 hour role-playing game, a competition that started at The Forge, but has

now spread further afield.

www.indie-rpgs.com

www.24hourrpg.com

My previous entry was 1940 - England Invaded.

www.geocities.com/simonwashbourne/1940.html

It didn’t win.

This entry was started on 14 July 2004 at 6 pm. I had two short breaks and stopped

writing at 3.30 am on 15 July 2004. I had about 4 hours sleep and went in to work for 5

hours. I then recommenced writing at about 2.30 pm and finished in a rush at 6 pm on

Thursday 15 July 2004.

This game was heavily influenced by the Nightwarrior novels of Graham Masterton

and several horror films, one of which shares the same name as this game.

I had a thought about writing this game about 12 years ago, but just never got around to

it. This seemed a good opportunity. I wanted to include a scenario, but didn’t find the

time.

Simon Washbourne 15 July 2004

The Beginnings

their past exploits and all it needs is some-

body who knows how to bring that sub-

conscious memory to the conscious thought.

In the late 15th Century, Gideon Crane a

scholar, philosopher, mathematician, as-

trologer and poet (and some say sorceror)

found, by experimentation that he could en-

ter the dreams of his subjects, if certain con-

ditions held.

Demons are beginning to creep insidiously

back into the dreams of 20th Century man.

A strange, enigmatic man called Gideon

Crane starts to track down descendants of

the Dreamscapers ..........…

After further experimentation he perfected

the method, and began to use it to expel de-

mons which possessed many people in those

dark times, and become an exorcist (to add

to his many other qualifications).

What is this?

Dreamscape is a fantasy-horror role-playing

game, set in the real world and in the world of

dreams.

In his travels, both in the realworld and in

Dreamscape he encountered others who had

the ability to enter another person’s dream,

either themselves or more often, with help

from him.

Players take the role of characters in the game,

much like characters in a book, only in this game

the players make the decisions, not the author.

One of the players has a different role in the

game. Her role is to help create situations and

events, describe places and people that the char-

acters meet along the way. In a way, she is an au-

thor or director but one who shares the story with

the other players rather than having total control

of the narrative. In this game, she is called the

Dream Master (DM).

He set up the order of Dreamscapers, whose

sworn duty was to rid the world of the de-

mons of the night. It was found that the peo-

ple who had this ability to venture into the

dreams of others, most often came from or-

dinary walks of life, but in the Dreamscape ,

they became warriors of extraordinary capa-

bility.

The characters in this game have two identities,

with very different abilities. The first is the real-

world character, who will be a normal everyday

person, with few special skills and little that

could be considered remarkable.

It was also found that there was a tendency

for Dreamscapers to fall into one of 4 main

classes, which became named, by Crane as

follows:- Chargemaster, Dreamshaper,

Dreamwarrior, and Gadgeteer. With this

specialization, the Dreamscapers began to

hone their abilities and found their powers to

be seemingly limitless.

However, the character has one thing that does

set him apart - the ability to enter Dreamscape ,

where he becomes a super-human with fantastic

powers and is able to fight the demons and night-

mares that invade mankind’s dreams.

Throughout the ages descendants of the

original Dreamscapers continued their bat-

tles against demons of sleep. The period of

the thirty years war across Europe and the

English Civil War were particularly busy for

them as indeed was the time of the Salem

Witch Trials across in New England.

Much of the story develops as a discussion be-

tween the players and the DM, and as the charac-

ters do things these will either succeed as de-

scribed or the DM might call for a dice roll to be

made. Dice used in this game are mainly ten-

sided (d10) and six-sided (d6). Dice are rolled

when the outcome of an event is uncertain or

when the DM (or player) feels that it would be

appropriate and/or interesting.

After this time, however, apart from one or

two minor surges of demon plagues’ the call

upon the Dreamscapers diminished, until at

present there are no Dreamscapers . How-

ever, the descendants of the original Dream-

scapers still have a sub-concious memory of

Realworld Character Creation

find high Action scores useful.

Characters in the game are defined by sets of at-

tributes and skills. These characteristics are rated

as numerical values that will help a player see his

or her characters strengths and weaknesses easily

and role play the character accordingly. In the

game Dreamscape there are 4 attributes. Body,

Action, Mind and Appeal. Each of these attrib-

utes has a realworld value of between 1 and 6. A

value of 1 in any attribute is deemed to be poor,

2 is below average 3 is about average. Anything

over 4 is deemed to be correspondingly better

than a normal person.

Mind

This provides a good indication of the characters

IQ, initiative, wits, logic, reasoning, memory and

knowledge. It is useful for anyone whose job re-

quires constructive thinking, a clear head or gen-

eral astuteness. A good Mind score is important

to many characters including scientists, business-

men, teachers and stage magicians.

Appeal

Charm, eloquence, attractiveness, sociability and

presence are all aspects of a characters Appeal.

Politicians, entertainers, salesmen and con men

would all find a high score in this attribute use-

ful.

Once your attributes have been generated, you

get to decide the skills that your characters real-

world persona has. You have 12 points to ‘buy’

skills with. The highest level of skill is 6, repre-

senting a highly skilled individual, near the top

of the tree but not enough to make her remark-

able. Each point spent is one level of skill.

A value of 6 is not the highest that a human be-

ing can attain. It is however the highest that a

character can have in the realworld, because

Dreamscape characters are not Olympic athletes

or remarkable in any particular field. A 7 in an

attribute would represent a superb talent say a

world superstar, renowned scientist or similar. In

Dreamscape however, things are different.

To generate values for attributes, simply roll 1d6

for each one and record the resulting number

alongside the attribute on your character sheet.

Do not despair if you roll really badly as this

represents your realworld persona. In Dream-

scape y our character will be one of the best.

Even then, if you prefer and with the agreement

of the DM, you can roll again if the combined

total of your rolls does not equal 8 or more.

Skill Descriptions

Body Skills

Climbing

The skill of getting up walls, cliff faces, trees or

similar surfaces. Can be aided (using ropes etc)

or unaided, simply finding and using foot and

hand holds etc.

Attribute descriptions

Body

This represents the general toughness, strength,

health and physique of the individual. It is

mostly used in physical pursuits such as climb-

ing, fighting hand to hand, as well as surviving

blows and other physical harm. Useful to boxers,

athletes, soldiers and jobs requiring heavy lifting.

Melee Combat

Fighting up close and personal. This represents

the skills of boxing, martial arts, wrestling or just

plain brawling. Whatever it is, if your character

has the skill, he has some ability to hurt people

with his feet, fists, head, elbows and so on.

Swimming

At its basic level, this is the skill of not drowning

in water. At higher levels, it is moving at sped

through water and swimming underwater and be-

ing generally very adept at manoeuvring in a wa-

tery environment.

Action

This is a measure of the characters overall skill,

precision, co-ordination, reflexes, speed and agil-

ity. It is a useful attribute for characters who re-

quire steadiness of hand, for example for firing a

gun or a degree of quickness for things like driv-

ing and dodging out of the way of things. Racing

drivers, fencers, circus acrobats and footballers

Action Skills

Appeal Skills

Driving

The ability to handle a motor vehicle skilfully

and at high speeds.

Contacts

Although classed as a skill, this is really a

broader term for the ability of the character to

make friends and acquaintances all over the

place and be able to get in touch with them for

help often at a moments notice.

Fire Combat

This is the skill of shooting guns in combat or

simply target shooting. The guns concerned may

be handguns like revolvers or automtics, subma-

chineguns , rifles or shotguns. Usually denotes

some military or police training but not necessar-

ily.

Persuasion

The skill of making somebody do something that

he probably was not intending to do. Often this

persuasiveness is in a friendly way but it can also

be with threats and/or bribes if that is what it

takes.

Stealth

The skill of being able to move around quietly

and without being noticed.

Streetwise

The knowledge of the people on the streets and

ways of dealing with them, without attracting un-

wanted attention.

Mind Skills

Computers

Everything to do with computers, from finding

stuff on the web, to hacking and adding hardware

or software etc.

The skills lists are by no means exhaustive, how-

ever they are representative of the sorts of skills

that characters in Dreamscape might need in

their realworld adventures. If you want a particu-

lar skill for your character that isn’t listed, sim-

ply add it. Make sure though that another skill

cannot be used, especially if the skill is very spe-

cific, say ‘hacking’, which would be adequately

covered under the computers skill.

Electronics

Knowledge of how electronic equipment works

to repairing and using such stuff.

Languages

Knowledge of a broad language base and how to

make oneself understood even if the specific lan-

guage is not really known that well. Includes a

broad literacy base of most common languages.

Using skills

When a player wants her character to do some-

thing for which she has the appropriate skill, she

can usually do it without difficulty, especially

where her attribute and/or skill level are better

than average, she can spend a bit of time doing it

or she is otherwise not under any pressure.

Mechanics

A good knowledge of how most types of ma-

chinery works and how to repair common me-

chanical equipment, cars in particular.

Medicine

Knowledge of first aid, pharmaceuticals and per-

haps even surgical procedures. Usually denotes

training in the medical profession.

However, occasionally there will be added pres-

sure or the possibility of complications. This is

where the dice come in.

Observation

This is the ability to notice things, spot some-

thing out of place and a general awareness of

ones surroundings.

All skills are listed under an attribute - called the

‘governing’ attribute. Add the score in the gov-

erning attribute for the skill being used and add

the character’s score in the skill. This will result

in a total from 1 (where the character has no skill

and the attribute is only 1) to 12 (where the char-

acter’s attribute and skill scores are both 6).

More likely it will be in the region 4-6 or so.

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