DREAMSCAPES: The Definitive D20 Guide to Worlds Beyond Sleep

[Crothian]

“Our life is two-fold: Sleep hath its own world,
A boundary between the things misnamed
Death and existence: Sleep hath its own world,
And a wide realm of wild reality,
And dreams in their development have breath,
And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy; "
––Lord Byron, The Dream.


Take your d20 characters to adventure in worlds beyond sleep! Dreamscapes provides rules to help GMs create exotic and unique Dream Planes for their players to experience and explore. It presents a baseline of rules for designing and campaigning within a Dream Plane and is supplemented with a number of variants in order to allow GMs to accentuate whatever facet of the Dream Plane they prefer.

This 157-page PDF, written by Joseph Miller, is packed full of rules for expanding your d20 fantasy campaigns into the Dream realm: Have your characters journey to these planes on an epic quest, or even set your entire campaign in a Dream Realm that would make Morpheus proud.

The flowing is a brief breakdown of what lies within the chapters of Dreamscapes:

Chapter 1––Sleep Hath Its Own World: Provides GMs a plethora of possible planar traits a Dream Plane might have and details the effects each trait has on both the inhabitants and lands of a Dream Plane. It also introduces six example Dream Planes for inspiration and quick use in adventures and campaigns. Finally, the Dream Point System is presented as the standard method of indicating and balancing a character’s ability to exaggerate their abilities in the Dream Plane and even influence the reality of the Dream Plane itself.

Chapter 2––To Sleep! Perchance to Dream: Introduces the various types of dreamers that might be found within a Dream Plane and discusses issues from how dreamers enter or depart the plane to how they live or die in a dream. Each of the six example Dream Planes are also discussed here to give GMs an idea of how the various dreamer types work within specific Dream Planes. Standard templates for each dreamer type are also included for ease of use within a Dream Plane campaign that assumes the standard dreamer rules presented in this chapter. This chapter also includes information on the standard racial dream traits and surreal class features, which are used to embellish characters within a Dream Plane.

Chapter 3––Why Not?: Details the new and incredible dream uses for skills that allow for everything from balancing on thin air to swimming up a waterfall. It describes the dream benefits a character gains when he has access to a particular feat within the Dream Plane. Dream items are also discussed from what they are made of to their symbolism. Interspersed throughout each section are new skills, feats, and equipment made specifically for use in a dream-based campaign, thus allowing GMs and players to create characters that are more focused on adventuring in the Dream Plane.

Chapter 4––Boldness has Genius: Contains information upon how magic and magic items might be affected or altered within a Dream Plane. It presents a number of possible dream spells that characters might be able to use while in a dream world and includes information on spell templates and how they interact with spellcasting in the Dream Plane. This chapter also delves into the question of whether intelligent items dream and provides a number of new dream-oriented magic items for use in the Dream Plane.

Appendix A—Monsters under the Bed: Contains guidelines for altering and creating monsters for a Dream Plane.

Appendix B–– Alternative Dream Abilities: This appendix provides GMs with alternative rules for racial dream traits, surreal class features, skills, and feats that are not based upon the Dream Point System.


THIS PRODUCT IS 100% OPEN CONTENT.

 

[Crothian]

Dreamscapes

Dreamscapes

Surreal gaming. We don’t see much of it as the concept can be hard to explore. It can be tough for the DM to explain what is going on and the players can have difficulty wrapping their heads around what is going on. I have tried different levels of it in the past and usually the result is less then adequate. Some pictures just seem harder to paint. This might be why there are few Role Playing books that deal with the Surreal. Unlike most other topics the surreal requires a bit more from the reader and his ability to understand and follow what is going on. When it is being run the DM has to do a better job of explaining what is going on as the setting and the experiences can be difficult to get across. Communicating the right feel may be the toughest hurdle, but there are plenty of places people can get tripped up on. Dreams are a part of every person and probably the best example of something surreal. It has a commonality that everyone understand and can sort of picture. But I do not think that makes it that much easier to get across the surreal parts of them. Dreamscapes does take us into the characters dreams and the dreams of other creatures.

Dreamscapes is a new PDF by Adamant Entertainment. It is written by Joseph Miller or who I will forever know him as That Privateer Press Guy from the 2003 ENnies. Dreamscapes is a one hundred and fifty seven page PDF though it reads bigger then that. It does not have a lot of art so lots of text. The layout could use a little work there are some extra spaces at some pages end. The book marks are nicely done though.

Dreamscapes is about adventuring in dreams. It is both creative and complex. It is one of the supplements that I think will need to be played for a little while to get the hang of but the ideas in the book make it worth it. The basic idea is that inside dreams people can do things that cannot be done in the actual world. This is represented very well with dream points. Dream points can be used to help skill, feats, and magic all do more then they can normally do. Some of the items are almost epic as what can be done in a dream would be considered amazing in the real world. Like using the hide skill to become invisible, in a dream it makes sense. Having the heal skill be able to regenerate is another example. It would be interesting to an product that uses many of the new abilities in here and turns them into epic abilities and not just dream ones.

The true brilliance of the product though comes from describing the dream realms. The system is pretty flexible and allows for a lot of customization. It even discusses where the dream realms exist and does not tie it down to any one place. It does refer to the basic cosmology of inner and outer planes but it would be easy to switch this to say the plane of dreams like is seen in other d20 books and campaign settings.

There is a lot of information in this book and I know I just hit on a few highlight. The book does present the dream worlds in a very interesting and usable way. The mechanics might be a little tough; it is really hard to say without seeing them in action. However even if someone finds the mechanics not usable the detail and ideas contained within are easily worth owning this book for.