D&D General Using dreams to plant adventure hooks or provide motivation

[robus]

I follow Critical Role and Matt Mercer uses dreams very effectively to give adventure hooks to his players, or if not that then at least provide motivation to follow up on some part of their PCs backstory. It works very naturally (when he does it) and helps to keep the PCs goals and stories central to the adventure.

I regret that I have never used this trick once for my players (and really if you run published adventures you’d not have much call to). But whenever I kick off another campaign I plan to try and feature it for the same purpose.

How about the rest of you? Do you let dreams influence your players? If you do, how has it worked out for your table?

 

[jasper]

I have and am currently use it. How successful it was depended on the player. Some 1E goobers hated it. Some 3e players thought was cliche. My 5E players have not given me any real feed back.

 

[iserith]

This technique isn't for me. It feels a little too heavy-handed in my view as it's basically getting inside the characters' heads and pushing them toward something I want. I'm sure I've likely done something like this in the past, but it's out of my repertoire now and that I can't remember using it is likely some combination of age, drink, and it not being all that noteworthy as an approach.

(Notably, I would differentiate this from something like a night hag affecting a PC or a curse or the like.)

 

[robus]

I can see that it would perhaps require a table that was open to that type of suggestion.

And I don’t think it’s necessarily pushing them toward something I want if it is dealing with elements of their backstory? It’s stuff they want in the story surely?

It seems easier than a long lost acquaintance showing up to recount a tale of woe. Or a letter or some such.

Adventurers being wracked by dreams or premonitions seems like a classic trope (or even cliched as Jasper notes).

 

[ninjayeti]

I've used it a couple of times and think it can work well. It is very genre appropriate and certainly feels more epic than the "adventurers wanted" bulletin board in the town square. Sure it is a bit of a trope - but so are most of the other adventure hooks out there. Besides, part of the fun of the game is having YOUR character experience the cool stuff that happens to heroes in books and movies. As long as you don't go to the well too often, I really don't see it as problematic.

The two pieces of advice I would give are:

1) Use the dreams as early as possible to foreshadow a later adventure. Let the character have the dreams for a few sessions with no obvious way to act on them - then when they are least expecting it have them encounter something they saw in the dream that sparks the adventure. The earlier you can plant the seed, the more rewarding the payoff will be.

2) Dreams should be vague and confusing, rather than giving explicit directions. A dream where their dead father tells them "Go to Wave Echo Cave and defeat the Black Spider" isn't much more interesting than having a generic quest giver NPC tell them the same thing. Instead let them have a recurring dream where a giant black spider eats all of their friends and family - when they hear in passing that the leader of the raiders is called "the black spider" you will have their full attention.

As an example, I had a character have a recurring dream about a terrified woman trapped in a golden cage. Several sessions down the road they met the local ruler - who the character recognized as the woman from the dream. Except she wasn't in any apparent danger and looked at him like he was crazy when he told her he could protect her from whatever danger she was in. As it turns out, the real countess had been kidnapped and replaced with an imposter, which the PCs figured out once they started to dig into the situation. I could have set up the same adventure with the "rumors that the Countess has been acting strangely" approach, but I think this got them more invested in solving the mystery and rescuing the countess.

 

[iserith]

And I don’t think it’s necessarily pushing them toward something I want if it is dealing with elements of their backstory? It’s stuff they want in the story surely?

I think if they really want to pursue something about their backstory, they'll just do that on their own. Not that I put much stock in PC backstories - I discourage anything longer than a Tweet. I find it gets created and explored just by playing off each other over time with no special effort by the DM. Basing games strongly on PC backstory also comes with some inherent risks.

 

[robus]

I think a reason this resonates with me is one of my favorite fantasy books, Lord Valentine’s Castle, has the protagonist plagued by troubling dreams that hint that things are not quite as they seem. What a fantastic world Robert Silverberg conjured for that series.

 

[HJFudge]

I have had players specifically wanting to play Diviners, or Oracles, or otherwise wanting some sort of foretelling ability.

I found the best way (for me) to give them that was through the Dream Sequence. It allowed me, the DM, to give them a very flavorful way to do what they wanted and also it allowed me to control what information they got without seeming like I was controlling it.

I would always keep the dream pretty vague, but it made a great foreshadowing tool.

I also once opened an adventure with a shared dream sequence that all the PCs received, and when they woke up at the tavern (everyone had suddenly passed out, and everyone awoke, but only the PCs remembered the dream) and boom...instant connection and reason to adventure together.

I like the technique.

 

[Wishbone]

This technique isn't for me. It feels a little too heavy-handed in my view as it's basically getting inside the characters' heads and pushing them toward something I want. I'm sure I've likely done something like this in the past, but it's out of my repertoire now and that I can't remember using it is likely some combination of age, drink, and it not being all that noteworthy as an approach.

(Notably, I would differentiate this from something like a night hag affecting a PC or a curse or the like.)

I like Critical Role but would agree in that I'm generally not a fan of Matt dictating the reactions of the PC's like he does in dreams or visions. I know they all trust him and prefer it that way but it's not my preferred style since it verges into affecting player agency over their characters' reactions without calling for a roll or asking for their direct input.

 

[billd91]

I tend to do it more to give impressions of what's going on, foreshadowing, or how things relate to one another - more like cut scenes in a way. But I also tend to make them kind of obscure and indirect too.