Character Creation: Dreampunk

In the strangely not-empty list of games with "punk" in the title but no actual punk in the game we have...

The Game: Dreampunk
The Publisher: Xavid
Degree of Familiarity: None, but I've played similar games
Books Required: Just the one, but also a deck of cards

Dreampunk is a simple enough premise. You and the other PCs are Dreamers, you meet up in, erm, the Dream, and you have adventures. The plot is very character-focused; each of the playbooks is designed around a set of goals that the character is trying to overcome or achieve. You could also do a kind of Shattered Dreams setup where there's an overarching threat to dreams or humanity in general, but I'm not sure it needs it. The game mechanics are designed around drawing cards from a deck (there's a deck designed for use with the game, but you could just as easily use Mysterium, Dixit, or any Tarot deck) and using moves to manifest or alter the Dream based on the art on the cards.

I really enjoy dream-walking games, and I'll forgive a lot of mechanical nonsense for a good concept (once again, see Shattered Dreams). I think that Dreampunk would be fun, but I do worry that there's not enough challenge baked into the game as written, because anyone can use a Cut or Awaken move and remove themselves from a situation. But then again, if you cut and run, you're not gonna learn nothing and you'll never get your Graces, so I think the real trick for running the game successfully would be for the players to make characters in whose stories they can get really invested. I have concerns about the in-play aspects of the game, but I'd definitely give a whirl. 

For now, however, perhaps a character! The first thing we do is pick a playbook, and I have to say that the playbooks here are not as flavorful as the ones in, say, Masks or a lot of other PbtA games (Dreampunk is PbtA-adjacent; it actually shares more DNA with No Dice No Masters). But once I started thinking about a few of them, I found the game passes the Chupp test just fine. The playbooks are designed around why you're in the Dream. The Haunted, for example, is about confronting fear, while the Guardian is (doy) about protecting something. I'm going with the Hunter.

Having picked a playbook, the next step is to draw a card and let it inspire me. Just a moment. I get this one!

Two weird alien-ish creatures sharing a milkshake with two straws. Hmm. I get a very Mos Eisley vibe, so maybe my character is hunting something he saw in a bar, or maybe he's on a job he got in said bar. But I don't want him to be a merc, so let's say that he's hunting his Quarry under duress. Maybe it's a family member who slipped off into the Dream and hasn't come back. Actually, I think I'll draw one more card and see where that takes me. 

(Annoyance: There's no PDF of the art on the cards, so getting screengrabs is a PITA.)

OK, so whoever I'm looking for was basically pulling an Into the Wild, going off to live in the woods and wound up in the Dream somehow. I'm here to find him before he fuckin' dies. Let's say that my Elusive Quarry (I'm jumping ahead a little) is my brother Toby (I didn't mean to name him after the baby from Labyrinth, but here we are). The Quarry is meant to be a threat to something in the waking world; I'm gonna twist that a little and say that Toby is a "threat" to our mom inasmuch as if he doesn't come home it'll break her heart. 

Neat. Now I pick 1-3 Leads, which are clues or traces that will help me track Toby. I'll say that Toby thinks he's a master outdoorsman, but isn't. That may be too broad, I don't know. Let's do something more specific for the second one - discarded clothing. I'll leave the third one blank. Not that I'm gonna play this guy, but in situations like this it's good to give the character a little room to evolve. 

Now I pick three Tethers, things from the waking world that help keep me ground. Well, my mother seems like she should be a Tether. I'll say that my character has a backpack that he always has with him when traveling. And then I'll say my third Tether is my brother's journal. It's locked, so I can't read it, and that would be a violation of trust anyway.

And now I just need to answer some questions! 

Name and pronouns. My character's name is Atticus, pronouns are he/him. When he's awake, he's the disappointment. He was supposed to go off and become something big and rich and important, and he did the worst possible thing - he settled for a medium-pay job that he happens to really enjoy. His mother isn't thrilled by that. In the Dream, he's the dutiful son and big brother. He not a merc or a hunter looking for prey, he's a guy trying to bring his family back together. 

What makes you uniquely suited to follow traces through the Dream? Atticus knows Toby and knows the kinds of messes he makes.

What do you know of your Elusive Quarry, always one step ahead? Toby wants to be found, caught, and brought home, but he'd rather jump off a bridge than admit it.

That's actually it, because the only other bit of chargen is connections between characters and as usual, it's just me.