Thursday, February 07, 2008

my nerdiest recurring dream

I don't have recurring dreams often, but by far my nerdiest one is my Dungeon Masters Guide dream. Usually I'm at the old brick farmhouse where I grew up and I usually find a 1st edition DMG in my mom's desk. Sometimes those particulars vary, like finding the DMG in a game store run out of the basement of an otherwise abandoned building, or just lying on a table at a game convention. I open this newfound DMG to discover that its contents are radically different from my own copies. Not just "accidentally contains some pages of the Monster Manual" different. We're talking about new charts and rules and Gygaxian rants. In my dream the book always ends up being identified as the lost "original printing". Sometimes I'm told that but other times I just know. The actual contents of this mythical rulebook varies from episode to episode. Last night there was a chart full of lasers and other sci-fi weapons, the Social Level rules from Judges Guild's Ready Ref Sheets, and a lengthy amount of trashtalk aimed at outlining the 'clear inferiority' of Arduin. The last time I had this dream the book contained secret XP charts for the classes in the Players Handbook, with the implication being that the PHB charts are meant to fake out the players. Another time a new, utterly incomprehensible alignment system added a political dimension to your alignment, whereby your ranger could be Chaotic Good Republican or your thief could be Neutral Evil Libertarian. And one time this phantom DMG contained pages and pages of rules about whales.

I don't know what any of this means. I just felt like sharing.

7 comments:

  1. On a not-entirely-related note...

    Your mention of Judge's Guild reminded me about a news nugget I ran into the other day...

    From RPGnet via UncleBear.com...

    Bob Bledsaw Terminally Ill

    Thoughts and prayers for all... RHM

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  2. Man, if only the DMG had as much whale-detail as Unearthed Arcana had polearm-detail...

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  3. "Chaotic Good Republican" is a cryptid, while "Neutral Evil Libertarian" is just plain redundant... :)

    I have those same kinds of dreams, too, though they are oriented on a Gygaxian AD&D 2nd Edition. I dream about the new edition being written by Gary and expanded in classic style, rather than the purged form in which it really was published.

    And then I wake up and remember the reality... :(

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  4. Man, that rocks. The only dream I've ever had more than twice focused on a giant indoor amusement park. Bleah.

    I don't think I've ever had a gaming-oriented dream at all. I've had work-oriented dreams about the industry (which is as dreary and stress-inspired as it sounds) but nothing cool.

    When I'm playing a lot of Doom II (which is often) I get Doom dreams. I like those.

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  5. That is an awesome dream series. I'm jealous. Had a dream or two about finding previously unknown 1st ed. Ad&d books, where they were almost like paizo's adventure path.

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  6. That's funny, my brother's 1EDMG does have laser rules in it...

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  7. Anonymous10:30 AM

    I understand, Jeff. Right there with you.

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