Inspired by this awesome map that Benoist shared on Facebook (linked, not embedded because of too damn big).

What's the best system for a game set in the same place as HPL's trippy weird fantasy cycle? OD&D, CoC or something else entirely? And why?

Discuss.

Quote from: The Butcher;597271What's the best system for a game set in the same place as HPL's trippy weird fantasy cycle? OD&D, CoC or something else entirely? And why?

I think it depends on what you want to do with the Dreamlands. If you want to run Mythos-style adventures, I'd probably use CoC. If you just want to use the world for fantasy adventures (and have the mythos be background more than features), any version of TSR D&D with slight mods would probably work well, as would many other fantasy RPGs. The only ones that might not work well are those that concentrate on gritty realism -- too much realism sort of ruins the dream feel. IMHO.

I used the Dreamlands with my AD&D First ed game where you could go through the Dreamlands and then basically your AD&D character would be translated to OD&D stats, and the OD&D rules would be the reality of the Dreamlands (a paladin would become a fighting man, an illusionist a MU, and use the to-hit chart of OD&D and so on). I also used a variant of that with the Outdoor Survival board standing for the Dreamlands with OD&D rules. Worked really well too. The change of pace as well as the commonality of rules worked really well to mark the otherworldliness of the Dreamlands.

With CoC, you could do the same thing by using RuneQuest rules and translate characters into their Dream-selves the way Kuranos was to his real world counterpart.

Currently working on converting the Dreamlands sourcebook from Chaosium to Savage Worlds so I can run it Realms of Cthulhu style.  I'm considering a scenario in which the players have both a "waking world" character and an "avatar" fantasy character when they enter the Dreamlands.

Benoist makes a good point about CoC and runequest. You could also easily use Ad&d as well, incorporating some of the Ravenloft and masque of the red death rules.

I'd probably use OD&D, myself, for something set entirely in the Dreamlands, although Stormbringer would work pretty well, too. You could add Sanity to Stormbringer, if desired. CoC also has the advantage that there was an actual Dreamlands supplement published. I had it, don't remember much except that there were some really weird spells, and a dreaming skill that allowed manipulation of dream events.

For a game that happened in both the waking and dreaming worlds, I'd probably use the InSpectres variant UnSpeakable. While dreaming, any result that causes death or insanity forces the character to wake up; characters that go insane in the dreamlands are still sane when awake, but forget how to dream until they buy off their dream insanity (treat the quest to remember their dreams as an InSpectres mission, with mission dice used to buy off the stress/insanity.) Going insane in the waking world is permanent, though.

I have a real problme with Dreamlands. Only played it once and it was a while ago but we were in a typical CoC game which for us is zero combat lots of fully immersive roleplay and lots of horror and running away. Then in dream lands the party of Actor, history professor, bulter, lord became another D&D party somehow without even noticing he shift we were gettign tooled up with scimitars and crossbows and donning chainmail and going out to find foes to conquer.
Now I think it's because our roleplaying wasn't good enough and maybe the GM didn't do enough to differentiate it from D&D but those old D&D tropes are so heavily ingrained that they slip on like an old pair of slippers.

So on that basis I would use keep using the CoC rules if I did it again deliberatley to link the PCs back to their origins and I would make sure as a GM that I described everything as though I was in the 1920s and highlight those differences more than falling into 'fantasy' speech.

As for just running it as a mythos based fantasy game I would just use Runequest or strombringer and add Sanity

I love the idea of using it as an OD&D setting; it's a set of inspirations from earlier in Lovecraft's career, the Dunsany period, that has little or nothing to do with the later Mythos stories.  So play up the fantasy angle foremost.

A common trope in 50's and 60's fantasy was the real world protagonist that finds himself in a fantasy world - Harold Shea syndrome - you could go all Randolph Carter on the group and make them modern folks thrust into the dream lands as characters.

Quote from: The Butcher;597271Inspired by this awesome map that Benoist shared on Facebook.

That is an awesome map!!!

I would probably use Stormbringer only because of the CoC supplement, but it would be an awesome OD&D game as well...but with OD&D, I think it would become less about emulating HPL's Dreamlands and more of your own creation.

Ultimately, it will work best with whatever system you and your players enjoy most.

Quote from: The Butcher;597271What's the best system for a game set in the same place as HPL's trippy weird fantasy cycle? OD&D, CoC or something else entirely? And why?

Legends & Labyrinths.

But, seriously, between those two options I'd got with OD&D. Lovecraft's Dreamlands are pulp fantasy with a vast underworld filled with cthonian horrors and the main characters go on to rule entire realms. Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath is basically OD&D: The Novel.

Back when Avalon Hill's Runequest was published I used HPL's Dreamlands as my fantasy campaign setting. It took a little work (mostly setting up the different cults of Dreamlands). The players seemed to have a lot of fun with it. I've often thought about revisiting the idea with Mongoose's RQ II or maybe Openquest.

At first I restricted players to human cultures for play, but as the campaign went on I eventually allowed a Cat sorcerer to join the party as well as a Ghoul who had fled the underworld and was trying to live away from his people.

They also had some pretty climactic battles. They wound up going to the Dreamland's moon to help in the struggle against the Cats from Saturn and the Moonbeasts. They wound up chasing down a crazed priest of Hypnos who was trying to drive the inhapbitants Dylath-Leen mad by destroying their ability to dream. They also tangled with a Nyarlathotep cult and lots of other stuff.

The world works really well as S&S fantasy setting, you have lots of strange and gonzo elements, primeval forces and plenty of magical horrors running around

Does anybody know a source to find D&D stats for moonbeasts?  I've been wanting to use them in my AD&Dish game.

Baran_i_kanu, a regular here, has a bunch of Dreamlands creatures statted up over at his blog:

Dreamlands and Mythos creatures

There you go.

Quote from: Beedo;597478Baran_i_kanu, a regular here, has a bunch of Dreamlands creatures statted up over at his blog:

Dreamlands and Mythos creatures

There you go.

Wow, that is just what I needed!  Thanks.

Quote from: Internet Death;597476Does anybody know a source to find D&D stats for moonbeasts?  I've been wanting to use them in my AD&Dish game.

Realms of Crawling Chaos for Labyrinth Lord has them p. 28.