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Old 02-21-2015, 01:10 PM   #1
johndallman
Night Watchman
 
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
Default [Basic] Skill of the week: Dreaming

Dreaming is the Will/H skill of remembering and controlling one's own dreams. This is a fairly realistic skill; it's just much more use in a setting where dreams are significant to more than one's own mental processes. The only default is Will-6, and no skills default to or from Dreaming.

A successful skill roll allows you to experience dreams on your chosen subject and Fortune-Telling (Dream Interpretation) can be used to explain the dreams. This can be a method of recalling forgotten memories, although it isn't reliable: the GM describes what you dream, and the player has to figure it out. This can also be a divinatory technique, although it's not clear what skill you use to interpret such dreams, since Fortune-Telling is a social skill; it can't be a reference to the Divination (Oneiromancy) spell from Magic, since that's disrupted by using Dreaming skill. Dreaming also has potential as a defence against attacks (usually magical or psionic) on you via your dreams. Learning Dreaming might plausibly be helpful in buying off the Nightmares disadvantage.

Bio-Tech has brain modifications that boost Dreaming. DF7 has Dreaming as a skill for priests and holy warriors of night. Fantasy has the realm of dreams as a venue for adventures, and covers the Roman ideas of dreams in the Roma Arcana setting. Horror has Nightmares as an affliction, and another version of adventures in dreamlands, and Infinite Worlds: Worlds of Horror has the Odland, which uses Dreaming. LTC3 has Dreaming as an example of what can be done with other forms of trance. Magic has Dream Sending, Dream Projection and divination via dreams. PU3 and PU7 have a Talent and several Wildcard skills that include Dreaming. Powers has a use for Dreaming as part of mind-reading, Psi-Tech uses the skill for operating a Dreamscaper, Psionic Powers uses it in the Dream Shaping power, and Psis uses if for defence against dream-related abilities. Thaumatology's Path of Dreams has several uses for the skill, and rituals that work better.

I've never used Dreaming skill as a player. I've occasionally sent characters dreams as a GM, but that isn't very subtle. Clearly, Dreaming has a lot of uses in the right kind of game, but I don't seem to have played one of those.

What have you done with Dreaming?
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