Here's another public post from my Patreon about the development of Dream-Quest. Because it's potentially a big change in my approach to the game, I thought it'd be worthwhile to share it more widely. I'm actively soliciting comments on what I've written here and whether or not it's a fruitful way forward. Whether you leave your comments over at Patreon or below, they will be much appreciated.
The Dreamborn should be as transient as the Earthborn: sometimes the dream calls them, and when their players cannot play, they do not attend the dream. To put it plainly: When the Earthborn PC Michael Moorcock appeared in your dream, his player joined the scenario, and sought his goal of gathering the other PCs at the table in his castle, so that he could glimpse beyond the material, commercial aspects of his legacy, and relinquish control over his pending end-of-life. The players of any Dreamborn PCs - the whispering shadows who came to occupy your place at the table, seeking substance and whatever tethers to Earth you may have left when you sought Moorcock himself - have conjured themselves.
ReplyDeleteIn the next session, if Moorcock's player cannot play, then Moorcock is not asleep. If the whispering shadows' players cannot play, then they are not awake.
If they CAN play in the following session, then they pick up their goals where they left off: they can pursue them in any setting or locale. The adventure, for them, has neither changed, interrupted, nor completed.
That's the other cool aspect about your design: PCs can achieve satisfactory retirement mid-game once they have learned what the dreamlands means to them, but they don't have to stop playing. They can roll up the next inhabitant to discover something entirely else.
These rules create a game where the players can collaborate in settings like novels 19Q4 or A Secret History or Brian Catling's Hollow, or the movie They Might Be Giants.
Hollow, especially, seems especially suited to adaptation into the game, sort of the mirror in the mirror.
I hope this survives to playtest. I'd love to read its reflection.