[Basic] Skill of the week: Dreaming

[johndallman]

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?

[ericthered]

I've used dreaming quite a bit in a game called .... Lost in Dreams. For most of the game the players have used it only to control (or fail to control) their world-hopping abilities.

And then I had a technique called dream combat that got used on one of the worlds quite a bit. It was about aggressively creating hostile elements in contested areas of dreams.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by ericthered

And then I had a technique called dream combat that got used on one of the worlds quite a bit. It was about aggressively creating hostile elements in contested areas of dreams.

What are the mechanics? Contests of skill, or something more detailed?

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by johndallman

What are the mechanics? Contests of skill, or something more detailed?

More detailed. A roll is required to bring something into being. When one construct attacks another, in addition to the normal defense, they may try to neutralize one another. Winning that contest by four causes the construct to be gone -- and the more constructs you have out, the lower the roll.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by ericthered

When one construct attacks another, in addition to the normal defense, they may try to neutralize one another.

This is interesting. Presumably "normal defences" implies that the constructs have normal attributes, skills, active defences, etc? What controls the power level of the constructs?

[Flyndaran]

Lucid Dreaming is Will/E. Dreaming is that plus everything else supernatural commonly associate with dreams.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by johndallman

This is interesting. Presumably "normal defences" implies that the constructs have normal attributes, skills, active defences, etc? What controls the power level of the constructs?

Personal experience: the creator can only create things they have a good amount of experience with without severely weakening the effect. Which limits not only the weapons but the creatures and skill levels that can be used. Creating a swordsman with skill 20 would be possible only if you knew a swordsman with skill 20 -- but creating just a normal swordsman with skill 12 is possible to anyone who has been around swords a decent amount of time. It also takes a bit more umph to create someone that specific (and thus they have a higher chance of being dispelled if you try spamming them).

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by ericthered

I've used dreaming quite a bit in a game called .... Lost in Dreams. For most of the game the players have used it only to control (or fail to control) their world-hopping abilities.

And then I had a technique called dream combat that got used on one of the worlds quite a bit. It was about aggressively creating hostile elements in contested areas of dreams.

I did something similiar for my weird-horror Awakening setting, but being a writer, I kind of went overboard. My rules for dreaming are pretty big stretching in at around 10,000 words and cover everything from getting there to making your own "dream sphere." I expanded Dreaming significantly and made it a very hard skill because it covered so much. Anyone could use the rules, but only "Dreamers" could build domains and create permanent constructs. I'd loved to turn it into a official GURPS product at some point.

[simply Nathan]

I've used this skill in two ways:

#1 Stat Yourself threads/thought exercises.

#2 Background skill for my traveling knight blessed by the moon goddess (domains of sleep/dreaming, love, and hunting).

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Lucid Dreaming is Will/E. Dreaming is that plus everything else supernatural commonly associate with dreams.

Remind me where you got that in 4e? IIRC Update says that 3e Lucid Dreaming -> 4e Dreaming. Maybe there's the option of Specialisation, but that still only drops one difficulty level.