Draft: 1st
Current Word Count: 134,000
The Setting -
The game is set in the near future, ten years after the Veil between Dreamtime and Reality broke, the world has significantly changed. Beyond over 90% population loss, many new things have been discovered, changing the direction of humanity. Old magics were found to be true, new technology has been made even as others have been lost, and yet it is a struggle to survive. Traveling risks encountering dreamtouched Wilds and nightmarish Penumbra, or falling through the Veil into Dreamtime itself.
This setting allows for plenty of flexibility for storytelling, allowing for nearly any theme imaginable, while having consistent mechanics that keep it grounded in reality. And while it is connected to the real world giving it a basis for Dreamweavers (GM in most rulebooks) to work with. Familiar places, the real world, myth, all can be easy starting points to work with, without needing to create and define setting or use pre-generated locations. However, the rulebook contains numerous areas of the world detailed to give clear direction of its shape and even offering plot-hooks and danger for the Dreamweaver.
However, this game is focused heavily on collaborative storytelling, player input is as important to the story as the Dreamweaver's, and the book provides short stories about characters experiencing the setting first hand, as well as clearly defined but extremely flexible skills to provide them with guidelines of how they might progress through the story.
One of the key storytelling and mechanical elements in the game are Contracts, which are signed with Kami, powerful beings of the Dreamtime that we have named as Gods, or Monsters, or even just Ideas over the centuries. They've received perhaps the most polish and attention in the book thus far and provide plenty to work with from a Dreamweaver and player perspective including conflicting motivations and direction.
The characters may be as diverse as the setting, and the rules allow for customizing characters in both a physical and mental sense to a great degree. There are no races, rather the character builds their character's shape using the traits and flaws, and stats as guidelines. There is also a Shapeshifting mechanic built into the game instead of races, and allowing for coping with the sudden physical changes that can happen when dealing with Dream. The game is skill based and classless, allowing for flexible backgrounds and design and furthermore skills themselves are designed to encourage creativity rather than provide restrictions on what players may do.
The Mechanics -
The game's mechanics are designed to supplement storytelling instead of restricting it. They are there to reduce conflict, and support cooperation instead of competition between the Dreamweaver and players. This is critical for creating a fun game and one of the big problems with existing rules. Only a few RPGs out there have done well in integrating the mechanics with the story, and a problem with many other systems out there is the tendency to create a game, instead of a story. The problem is, most games devolve into dungeon crawls with a majority of players, and differing skill levels of players tend to really stand out and create problems. They also often devolve into a competition between the GM and the players, which can lead to occasional hostility, arguments and encourages Rulemongers and Munckins.
This game is a little softer on the mechanics, attempting less rolling, less math than the popular rules on the market, but by no means is it simple. The game is designed around simple yet deep philosophy of modern gaming, the idea of boiling the system down to root strategies and offering a lot of them without trying to overwhelm players with optimization, numbers and math. While this book hasn't been able to avoid it entirely, and does fall into the occasional bit of it with some of the more advanced mechanics, new players and Dreamweaver's shouldn't be bogged down in them and allow them to focus on the art of storytelling and role playing instead of learning systems. This does mean the system and setting focus heavily on that aspect and it may force shy and inexperienced players to have to interact and think in ways they haven't had to in other systems.
It is the hope of the designer that the book provide a focus on the strongest aspects of tabletop games and might bring tabletop gaming to a wider and different audience than Pathfinder. While the marketplace is full of RPG settings, and even systems, this should and will stand out among them for its design focus. Its about to start alpha playtesting on finishing the first draft, and will receive balancing, revision and initial artwork before it hits Kickstarter. Eventually, the book should be available in both hardcover and digital format.
Completed -
8 Vignettes
31 Contracts
2 Godstones, and 25 Dreamcatchers, 10 Oracle Coins
150 Traits and Flaws
30 Husks
10 Runewords
6 Penumbra
18 Metropolises
4 Pathways
6 Crossroads
Character creation
Character growth
Setting history
Skills thoroughly created, expanded, detailed
To do list -
A few more vignettes
Revise & Redesign one Contract
Three dozen more Dreamcatchers
Guidelines for Husk creation.
Two dozen more Husks.
Wild and Dreamtime examples
More Pathway examples.
Mock Play Sessions
Pregenerated characters with stories
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