Campaign based around the Dreamworld [longuish]

[Tabarnak Smokeblower]

I was talking with a friend of a friend this saturday about his campaign. I've never played with him but he spins incerdible tales and has one of the most fertile imaginations i'Ve ever seen.

But this isn't about him, it's about the campaign world he told me about, and I'd like to have reactions on it (have you done something similar? How did it go? Does it sound like a cool idea? Would it suck? etc. You know the drill)

(oh yeah, i'm planning on stealing all that he's told me and coming up with my own "version")

The basis of the campaign is that there is the real world, defined as low-magic. There is also the Dreamworld. Unlike the Dreamworld presented in the MotP, this Dreamworld is permanent. Everyone goes to this Dreamworld when they go to sleep.

When in the Dreamworld, the people take on a new "identity" although you recognize people you know in the real world. The Dreamworld is high-magic and high-fantasy (I'm planning on letting my players play whatever they want as a race, energy globes, fish-men, etc. They'll choose their stat adjusments, and other race characteristics will be available to them, like feats).

The basic geography of the dreamworld is essentially the same as the real world, but features would differ. There might be some connections to a certain location in the dreamworld and the real world, or some locations would exist in both worlds.

Everyone knows this is how it works. You can die in the dreamworld, and these traumatic occurances can damage you in the real world. When you die in the Dream world, you have nightmares for a while until you can come back (your avatar is stuck in the Vortex of Nightmares, for example)

I'm not sure how levelling would work. I was thinking that you gain experience wherever you obtain it, and your Dream Avatar levels at the same time your real character levels. I'm not sure about this though, since I wanted to be able to do something in the lines of "oh yeah? well wait till we get to sleep, i'll find you and kick your ass there!" Maybe the real character and the avatar will maintain diffrent XP totals, not sure yet.

I was also thinking that when you enter the Dreamworld, you come back at the same place you left when you last woke up (Your avatar disappears from the Dreamworld when you are awake).

There are people that only want to live in the dreamworld (drug-induced sleeps) while other fear it and try to stay awake as long as possible (narcotics akin to speed, I guess).

There would be creatures native to the Dreamworld that do not exist in the real world. I was thinking maybe elves (for example) since they don't sleep.

So this would be the basis of the campaings. All opinions and comments (and questions) are welcome...

TS

 

[Welverin]

bump for great justice!

Sounds interesting.

I'd say go for different xp for the two different worlds, tentatively at least.

What kind of things would be done in the real world? The dream world?

 

[Bloodstone Mage]

I was thinking of doing something similar.

My world would take place on a modern-era time, where technology was rapidly advancing off of the earth's resources and energy (think Final Fantasy VII, with technology from Final Fantasy VIII). The dreamworld, however, can only be reached through a special kind of substance. The dreamworld would be much like the real world, except that it would have magic, monsters, and other such mayhem. One of the issues in the real world would be the people who are trying to stay in the dreamworld indefinitely (inside a life sustaining bio tank) with no conscious connection to the real world. Political issues would arise about the ethics, laws, ownership rights, and social value of the dreamworld.
I was thinking that a player would have their real world character and their dream world character, alike in most aspects but different in others. The idea is still being kicked around in my head.

I like your friend's idea, Tabarnak. IMO, it's a lot better than mine. I'd recommend some Freud and Jung reading material for stuff on dreams and collective unconscious, along with some dream dictionary stuff, to help explain symbols and whatnot.

Cheers!

 

[Argent Silvermage]

It sounds like a lot of fun.
For reference material you might want to look into Shamanic Visionquests and the Aboriginal Dreamtime.
There are a lot of wonderful possibilities in the story. including having some powerful evil dream beast gain access to the real world. (Like Freddy Kruger)

 

[Blasphemonkey]

Ding ding! Argent just introduced my take on it. I have already been running a campaign set in regular "D&D Land." (My own setting.) This idea I got from a Clive Barker novel called The Great and Secret Show (it's a great read, by the way). Some of the names were changed, and some new ideas added.

There is the world we know (D&D setting - Prime Material Plane), and there is the Sea of Dreams. When you go to sleep and begin dreaming, your soul floats in the Sea of Dreams, which is a separate plane, just like in the MotP (and yes, this one is permanent). The reason nightmares exist (the dreams, not the monsters) is because your soul happens to drift close to the shore of a terrifying land called Sunbane. (I'm not sure if I should keep this on the same plane or make it a demiplane.) There are these horrific towering creatures known only as The Inhabitants (think: good baddies to fight when you're epic level). Just being a few miles from these things causes fright, horror, panic, etc... There is a group of evil sorcerors/wizards/clerics known as the Six Fingered Hand, who want to bring The Inhabitants into this world. So we have six BBEG's to kill besides The Inhabitants themselves. In order to bring The Inhabitants into this plane of existance, these nasty things must first cross the Sea of Dreams. This causes lots of folks to either die of terror in their sleep, or at least just have the worst nightmares of their lives, depending on how close they get to these things as they float in the Sea. As The Inhabitants get even closer, it begins to affect the Prime Material Plane. In short, nature goes berserk. Animals attack for no reason, clouds of insects fill the air, etc...

One thing that I have added is that there is presently a group of defenders of the Sea of Dreams called the Dreamkeepers. These are a group of epic level npc's that will be killed off before they can even help the pc's. The pc's in effect eventually become the new protectors of the Sea, with the new name, Dreamriders (the name of my campaign).

My group will one by one get hints and clues of what is really going on/about to go on, as they find the Six Fingered Hand and their cohorts. How successful they will be remains to be seen, of course. They may kill the entire Hand before they finish their rituals and summonings, in which case they'll fight The Inhabitants in the Sea of Dreams, I suppose. If they fail, then The Inhabitants are loosed upon the world, havok and mayhem will reign supreme, and they'll have to save the day.

What does everyone think? I'm very interested in your opinions, as well as others ideas/side plots I could throw in.

 

[Aeolius]

I suppose "Sea of Dreams" is too clichéd not to be in lots of D&D campaigns. I have one in my games as well. Granted, as my campaign is set underwater, the Sea of Dreams is an actual, albeit malleable, body of water; a demi-plane accessed through the Dreamscape. It is within the dreamscape that the campaign's protagonist NPC, a night hag, communicates with the party.

I also have "Dream Lake" in the campaign, inspired by Luray Caverns in VA and the resulting song by John Charles.