Author Topic: Have any weird dreams you would like to share?- Game design help please!  (Read 2445 times)

Offline MorningDarkness

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I tried to post this earlier and for some reason it didn't work   ???

I have been looking around to join a Dresden game, but to no avail.  There aren't any groups currently playing that I can find, and those who are interested in running a game are either currently running a different system, or are nowhere near being close enough to running one.  So yesterday afternoon I was struck by lightening and an entire story line created itself in my head in less than a minute.  That was fun.  It is a relatively short story line that shouldn't run more than 12 games (hopefully), but I still need some help.  I need a bunch of weird/scary/random/disturbing dreams:  10 per player would be nice.  I will probably have at least 5 players so that means I need 50 dreams...PLEASE HELP!  I want to have them all written out and ready before I start the game.  Don't get me wrong, I have a number of my own that I am throwing in the mix, but being overly prepared is a lot better than having to come up with so many dreams all on my own. :P

I don't want to go into too much detail of the game right now because I know at least 2 possible players frequent these boards.  However, I would be happy to share what starts to happen and I would also be more than happy to share my notes in the future with people who are interested and who have shared their dreams.  This game has a definite beginning, middle and distinct end, whither or not the players succeed... Muahahaha!  For once I get to be a creepy DM with plots and plans of doom ^_^!  I still want to play in a game, but this will have to do for now.

Offline Lanir

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Re: Have any weird dreams you would like to share?- Game design help please!
« Reply #1 on: September 05, 2010, 12:02:37 PM »
Sounds like you'd do better with some sort of chart to roll on. Probably a couple charts actually. Maybe one to tell you what's happening in the dream, another for who's involved. You could also have your players help you with this. Tell them they're having a dream and they get to choose one thing about it. Where it's happening at, what's happening or who's with them.

Action:
- falling
- flying
- going to work/school
- landing in a fantasy world
- life with changed personality/gender/friends/intelligence/athleticism


People:
- real friends
- relatives
- faceless crowd
- no one, you're alone
- imaginary friends/relatives
- enemies
- people you knew who are dead now
- powerful people (presidents, faerie queens, etc.)
- people from history/stories
- presence (you're not alone but you never get a clear sense of who's there either)


That should get you a rough start? Modify the lists and you should be able to get each one down to something you can handle by rolling a die or two.

Offline Becq

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Re: Have any weird dreams you would like to share?- Game design help please!
« Reply #2 on: September 08, 2010, 02:07:37 AM »
I found something that might interest you:

http://www.dreammoods.com/dreambank/
http://www.dreammoods.com/dreamdictionary/

I hope this helps!

Offline SkywardEyes

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Re: Have any weird dreams you would like to share?- Game design help please!
« Reply #3 on: September 08, 2010, 02:29:06 AM »
Have I got a few suggestions for you. my dreams are really frakked up at the best of times. Ill leave out specifics but suggest some general fun twists to throw into the mix:

changing perspective of the player, as is shifting personas and viewing the world through other people's eyes on a second-to-second basis. (yes this has happened to me on numerous occasions most of which I wasn't even involved in the dream as a person but was being say my friend, or a stranger, or an old aquaintence. and it all made sense at the time, I switched viewpoints once progressing further in the dialogue was no longer possible from that perspective. )

in one dream i shifted from an average day at college, to a zombie apocalypse, to a skirmish aboard a starship troopers cruiser against big bugs both of which was filled with a great deal of pain, fear and triumph and not just something out of a video game, i lost count of the number of times I "died" from various perspectives. Then it jumped to having a great time at a comedy club hearing jokes iv never heard before in my life (whats that saying about you know your crazy if you tell yourself a joke you've never heard before?) and ending with starting to hook up with a really hot girl (of course that is when I woke up because that seemed strange to my subconscious and once i say "thats wierd" that dream collapses...god I hate my life sometimes.)

And I know I can go on and on but I can't recall more at the moment. Hope these help.
« Last Edit: September 08, 2010, 02:30:37 AM by Gantrithor22 »
"I serve a clan whose morals change with the seasons. I killed a man who may have been my father. I do not know who I am, but I know that my path is mine and mine alone." Yoritomo Eriko

Offline Haru

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Re: Have any weird dreams you would like to share?- Game design help please!
« Reply #4 on: September 08, 2010, 02:15:59 PM »
Let's see, I think I never had any normal dreams, I would consider all of them weird. Or most at least. Maybe you can use some of them.

Anyone remember the lemmings? In one game, I think it was Lemming 2: the Tribes you had about 100 different jobs you could let your lemmings perform to get them to their goal. In one of my dreams, I was with a few friends at a house we had been a few times before in the summer vacations, although not everyone gathered there had been there in reality. Now the weird part was, that there was a huge building (think storage depot) right next to that house, when in reality the house itself was surrounded by forest. Inside this building was only one large room that contained showers on the walls, like you would find in a waterpark. However, you could chose a shower and then be transformed into one of the Lemming Jobs, depending on which shower you used. I went back to the house to find everyone there had chosen the same, which was a different one that I went with. I went a couple of times back an forth, everytime the others had changed as well, but I was never able to match up to them. Finally I woke up.


Another dream, I had this one quite frequently for a while, always started out the same. I was just about to drift to sleep but was not quite there yet, when I was suddenly sitting on my bike, riding it along a path that was maybe 2 inches wide and falling down endlessly on either side. To both sides was nothing for miles, below me were thick clouds that almost looked like the floor. After a while the path was twisting more and more, and it became harder and harder to stay on track. Eventually I fall down, which took quite a while, but when I finally crash on the clouds, I kinda crash down on my bed as well.

In yet another dream I am wandering through a forest. After a while the trees change, because now there are some trees that grow swords. A few steps further a hovering sword suddenly appears in front of me and starts attacking me. I pick a sword from one of the nearby trees to defend myself. The attacking sword disappears after I hit it hard a few times, and I continue my journey. The forest ends in a huge city, huge skyscrapers to all sides. After a while one of them is hovering in front of me, like the sword did and starts attacking me again. I grab the nearest skyscraper to defend myself again, and I always wake up before the fight really begins.

I realise, I never thought about my dreams this much. Good Lord, I think I need therapy  :o

anyway, I hope you can use some of this. And I would really be interested to know how you are going to use dreams in your game.
“Do you not know that a man is not dead while his name is still spoken?”
― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

Offline MorningDarkness

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Re: Have any weird dreams you would like to share?- Game design help please!
« Reply #5 on: September 09, 2010, 04:21:04 PM »
Thank you so much to Lanir and Becq for the references.  I will certainly be able to use them in a pinch and they will certainly help me to create a few, but I am not going to be involving the players in getting to chose what they dream about.  Thank you Gantrithor22 and Haru for your dream contributions!  Keep em coming if you can!  The reason why I was hoping more for that sort of thing is that I could have NEVER come up with something like the Lemmings dream!  That is fantastic. 

Why I was hoping for outsider contributions is that dreams tend to have a lot more detail than we give them credit for.  It is for this reason that many people try to see meaning/read deeper in their dreams.  I don't think I can come up with that many details on my own.  At least, I can't come up with any that wouldn't make sense.  In a way, I want my players to read into their dreams.  I want them to look for the meanings.  I want them to start talking about their dreams with each other.  I want them to become worried and paranoid about what is happening when they sleep.  I want them to ask other, more far reaching questions.  There will be other things going on in the world that may or may not seem to have anything to do with their dreams ^_^.  Haru, I will email you with more details!

Offline Lanir

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Re: Have any weird dreams you would like to share?- Game design help please!
« Reply #6 on: September 10, 2010, 05:25:53 AM »
To be honest I'm a little afraid to spill the beans on actual dreams I've had. Most of the ones I remember stuck with me because they were really odd or had very disturbing elements. I read constantly and the stories I've encountered have all manner of circumstances, challenges, and clever inclusions of very disturbing real world problems in them. So rattling off the handful of dreams I remember would make me look like a deranged psychopath who's one wrong twitch away from becoming an axe murderer.