Dreamwalker uses the Pd6 system – at its core, a simple attribute + skill percentile mechanic heavily weighted toward the attributes. Rolls of 50 less than the target number are critical successes – a mechanic that prevents an unskilled painter from “accidentally” creating the Mona Lisa, as can happen in roll-under systems with critical ranges based upon a percentage of the character’s ability score.

Margin of success determines both the victor in contested actions and order of initiative in combat – a mechanic made somewhat cumbersome by the double digits involved. I see no reason why the game couldn’t use a Pendragon-like “higher is better” mechanic for the margin of success, with rolls over 50 being criticals and with scores in excess of 100 adding to the margin.

Playtest: As I suspected, the size of the numbers involved, combined with extracting success levels via subtraction, slowed the pace of the game for me. Perhaps it would begin to flow more smoothly for me with practice, but I doubt it.

On the other hand, the system streamlines combat to a degree by requiring only the attacker to roll, with the defender’s Defense score – plus 5 points per skill level, on an active defense – subtracting from the attacker’s ability rating. Damage exclusively uses open-ended rolls of small pools of d6s, so lucky shots may be very lucky indeed. Skill levels add directly to damage, nicely simulating the extra threat of skilled sharpshooters and swashbucklers. A completely average character can take 25 points of damage, and 9mm pistol does 2d6 points of damage, so luck will indeed be necessary to take down a human with one shot. Armor seems a little overly simplistic, with each piece of armor providing 1d6 to reduce incoming damage, regardless of armor type.

Characters are a little on the stat-heavy side, with seven Primary Attributes (Strength, Stamina, Dexterity, Acumen, Appearance, Reason, Perception), six Secondary Attributes (Health, Defense, Reflex, Charisma, Persuasion, Wisdom) derived from the Primaries, three Traits (Creativity, Courage, and Sanity), and Mana (Dreamworld magic power), not to mention choices of Primary Skills (which can be used unskilled without penalty) and Secondary Skills (which incur a -50 penalty for unskilled use). On the other hand, character abilities are pretty clear-cut once they’re down on the character sheet.

The game unaccountably assigns skill ranks from 1-5 that translate into either 5% per rank or 1d6% per rank, depending upon the character creation option chosen. While the actual ranks do see some direct use in the game, such as in the damage mechanic, I don’t see any real reason why the core mechanic couldn’t be streamlined by using a d20 rather than percentile dice. (Which is not to say that the game itself should be d20. There is a d20 incarnation of the game as well, however, in addition to a diceless Active Exploits version.)

Playtest: This, too, annoyed me in practice and left my players frequently confused. I had to keep reminding both myself and them that a rank of 1 meant a bonus of 5%. I'd have been much happier with a simple “1 means 1” setup.

The book divides Dreamwalker PCs into four types, depending upon the source of their Dreamwalking abilities. Dreamwalker type determines a few starting bonus skills as well as the number of dice rolled for beginning Mana and the maximum number of Talents (see below) that the character can ever gain.

• Naturals, as the name implies, are born with the ability to Dreamwalk. They have the lowest starting Mana but unlimited potential to gain new Talents.
• Mystics enter dreams through seemingly supernatural means and have the second-highest scores in both starting Mana and maximum Talents, but at the cost of some sort of restriction based on their beliefs that carry over even into the Dreamworld. (A Hermetic magician might need to speak incantations and gesture to cast his “spells,” for example.)
• Analysts require injections of Black25 to Dreamwalk and start with the second-lowest totals in Mana and maximum Talents.
• Users are drug addicts who enter dreams by using their hallucinogen of choice. They start out with brutal amounts of Mana but the lowest potential for new Talents, making them the flipside of the Naturals. (And, of course, they have the drawback of being drug addicts.)

Players should note that this setup makes Naturals particularly unattractive for short-term games, as their real advantage won’t manifest until other character types have maxed out on their possible Talents. Other than that, their only perk is the best ability to withstand the sanity-threatening “dumpshock” caused from “dying” in a dream. I think it would fit the “prodigy” theme of the character type to make it the only one to start the game with a Talent. Considering their low levels of starting Mana, I don’t see that as particularly unbalancing.

Within the Dreamworld, the Dreamwalkers possess a wide range of Mana-powered abilities. Those common to all Dreamwalkers are called “effects,” and include the abilities to increase attributes and skills (and to gain new skills spontaneously), take extra actions, heal wounds, attack and defend with pure Mana, possess the Unreal or the Dreamer, and alter the Dreamworld or create objects out of nothing.

The system shows its true genius in the way it allows PCs to self-customize to fit any given dream setting without giving short shrift to PCs already suited to the setting. For example, if the dream requires the Dreamwalkers to function as WW2 fighter pilots, all of the Dreamwalkers involved could spend Mana to give themselves piloting skills for the duration of the dream; however, those already skilled in piloting would have that much more Mana left to spend elsewhere. (Or to make themselves even better pilots, of course.)

Playtest: In another nice perk, this skill-adding ability also prevents adventure dead-ends due to all of a groups’ PCs lacking a particular skill. For example, in my playtest game, the group needed to use a motorboat to cross treacherous waters, but nobody knew how to drive a motorboat… until someone gave himself the skill, that is. Likewise, when the group’s one mechanic couldn’t figure out what was wrong with a portable generator, why, he just made himself a better mechanic.

On the other hand, the base difficulty and Mana Point cost of object creation and alteration depends first and foremost upon object size, with such factors as complexity and electronic components giving flat penalties. This leaves both effects very much open to player abuse, as there’s simply no reason for PCs to create anything other than the most powerful item possible in a given size category. Aside from concealment concerns, why whip up a cheap .22 revolver when you can have a .50 semi-automatic with a laser sight?

Talents are the Dreamwalker equivalent of superpowers. They require no Mana Points to use – just a single roll to successfully manifest the power for the duration of any given dream. (Some Talents boost effects, however, and so require Mana Points indirectly.) Talents come in minor and major varieties, with the former including bonuses to attributes and skills (with superhuman levels possible), wall crawling, and super-senses, and the latter including shapeshifting, flight, teleportation, and even the ability to “cross over” permanently into the Empyrean upon waking world death.

Playtest: To put my theory regarding Naturals and Talents to the test, I first decided to go with the “free Minor Talent for Naturals” idea, then decided to test out a broader range of Talents by giving every character a choice of one Minor Talent and every Natural the choice of an additional Minor Talent. As it turns out, even Minor Talents are awfully potent. The majority of them give +25% to some ability – a whopping big boost on a percentile scale. Strangely, though, it was the most subtle of the Minor Talents that proved to be the most potentially powerful: the Gift of Sand. This ability gives a Dreamwalker a +25% bonus to Join (merge) with the Dreamer and a +25% to the Dreamer's Courage roll to resist waking up in the face of violence while Joined. That takes a lot of the impetus away from the Dreamwalkers to seek nonviolent means of dealing with Dreamworld issues, and could have cut the adventure quite short if the players hadn’t decided on an alternate course of action.

Despite their varied abilities, Dreamwalkers cannot act with complete impunity, however. For one thing, the Unreal act like whatever passes for normal people in the current dream setting, so flashy powers may get some unwelcome attention. For another, such displays – as well as gratuitous violence occurring before the resolution of the dream or running counter to the dream’s general atmosphere – may alarm and awaken the Dreamer, thereby rendering the entire Dreamwalk pointless. So, immediately “nuking the site from orbit” upon entering a Dreamworld may be relatively easy, but it is not “the only way to be sure.”

Playtest: In retrospect, this is probably the best reason why PCs might not want to create the most powerful weapon possible – the greater the damage caused, the more likely the Dreamer is to wake up. Still, even that limitation doesn’t apply after the dream's denouement. Indeed, when my PCs finally started creating weapons for themselves post-denouement, I realized that any man-portable weapon would fall into the same size category. So, it wasn’t so much a question of a .22 revolver vs. a .50 pistol as it was a choice between the .22 revolver and, say, a rocket launcher or a flamethrower.

The game takes a rather inconsistent approach to the statting of NPCs. Human antagonists always get a full range of stats, while animals get a single holistic Attribute Rating for all rolls and size-dependent damage and health points. Taeniia, on the other hand, also have size-dependent damage ratings but have fixed health points regardless of size. (In addition, Taenia may possess vulnerabilities appropriate to their form – sunlight and stakes for Taeniid Drones in vampire form, for example.)

Playtest: I thought the abbreviated animal stats would bug me the most. As it turns out, though, it was dealing with those long strings of human stats that slowed me down – especially when combined with the need to translate those skill ranks into 5% increments.

The Unreal are easier to hit (no Defense score) and damage (1/2 normal Health), unless they're possessed by Taeniid Larva – in which case, they have their standard attributes. As a result, barring GM-mandated rules specific to a particular Dreamworld, Dreamwalkers will never encounter a completely “normal” human or animal in a dream. They will be either weaker than normal or Taeniid-infected.

Playtest: In this regard, I found myself a little unsure of the “flashiness” of the Mana Bolt effect when used by touch rather than at range. Why? Because this power can burn a Taeniid Larva out of its Unreal host by either a called shot at range or by touch. Because infected Unreal display obvious signs of possession, the PCs immediately identified the troublemakers out of the “friendly” neighbors surrounding the Dreamer. They proceeded to use touch-ranged Mana Bolts to kill off the infecting Larvae. I gave them the benefit of the doubt that the touch attack wouldn’t draw that much attention from the Dreamer or the Unreal, but in so doing, they no longer had to try to outsmart the Larvae in their attempts to derail the dream. Although it didn’t come up in my brief playtest, I can see this tactic as being also quite attractive when in combat with infected Unreal beasts of various sorts. While the creature will have its full “real” abilities while infected, the Larva within will be instantly destroyed on a successful Mana Bolt attack targeting it. That done, the Unreal’s Defense score will drop back to zero and its Health will drop back to ½ normal. (And if the Unreal in question isn’t a naturally hostile life form – like, say, an herbivore – it may lose interest in the Dreamwalkers altogether.)

In general, the rules start out with real-world assumptions and overlay Dreamworld surrealism as needed, as opposed to making the basic rules themselves dreamlike. This allows for the seamless integration of game play in the real world needed for adventures involving government intrigue or Broodking hunts, for example.