This week we’re releasing Wakeside: What Dreams May Run, a dream-themed PbtA-storygame for PocketQuest 2025!
As you may know, we love dreams! Some of my favourite stuff we’ve done is our line of 5e Dream Adventures, so I’m extra-stoked to be back in the collective unconscious. Wakeside is about chasing down fugitive dreams with a motley crew of psychic bounty hunters: Wishes, Figments, Nightmares, and Lucid Humans.
Check out the backpage text:
It started with a Dream.
You were talking to your dead uncle in a circus when he said the DreamSide had a job for you and handed you a mylar balloon. You woke up with it tied loosely to your ankle.
Now it’s 4 a.m. and you’re about to break into a billionaire’s mansion with three extra-dimensional bounty hunters to arrest a fugitive Nightmare. The mylar balloon doesn’t come off. You haven’t slept in forty-nine hours. You’re starting to hear other people’s thoughts.
Failure means reality collides with the dream realm, driving the whole human race insane.
Success means capturing a psychogenic alien thought-form.
Can you catch What Dreams May Run?
Interested?
You can check out the game here, but if you want a little exclusive, see if this example of play strikes your fancy:
Example of Play: the Riot
A Runaway Nightmare exults at the centre of a riot. The surging crowd, mounted police readying tear gas, and the scissor-fingered ogre the Nightmare has manifested from its Passage’s fears are all in the Dream Agents’ way. The PCs leap into action!
Lucy, the Lucid, has the Educated Aspect; she decides to try a legal argument to stall the mounties. Her Aspect counts, so she rolls two dice and gets two 1’s! That’s bad! Lucy’s law degree has provoked police brutality. The DM replaces Lucy’s Attractive Aspect with the Injured Aspect.
Fiddler’s Green, the Figment, focuses on the nightmare manifestation. He grabs a nearby comic book and tries his Character Development power to bring the superheroes within to life, thinking that they’ll be capable of battling the manifestation. Naturally, Fiddler has 1 die to roll for this power, but the DM agrees that somewhere among the crowd and police are plenty of people who’ve imagined themselves as superheroes; Fiddler gets a +2 bonus for this, but he wants more. He runs to a nearby park bench and flops on it. Does this count as a Place of Rest? The DM agrees it does.
Fiddler rolls 4 dice, the highest of which is a 6! The Superheroes burst from the pages and begin restraining the scissor-fingered monster. The DM marks two sections of the Barrier’s ‘Riot Clock’.
Nightnoise, the Nightmare, uses their Fearscent ability and discovers the mounties are afraid of being imprisoned. They try using Manifest to create a jail around the cops. They’re not in their place of power, but their Scary Aspect applies here. They roll two dice: a 2 and a 5. Nightnoise takes the 5 for a Complicated Success. The DM decides that enough of the mounties are captured to mark another section of the Riot Clock. However, the complication has unleashed a wave of paranoia into the rioters, making the situation even more dangerous.
Wilgrow, the Wish, is last to act. Three of the riot clock’s four slices are filled. She decides to go for broke and use her Strong Aspect to muscle through the rioters and smack the Runaway Nightmare with the Oneric Lock (a fishbowl, in this adventure). She rolls a pair of fours. The DM fills the last slice of the Riot Clock, but determines she’s been injured in the attempt. She gains a new Aspect (a Fear of Crowds) and the Showdown begins!
Go check out Wakeside! Let us know what you think; we’re always taking feedback. We’ve also got 5e Dream Adventures, a PocketQuest entry about an apocalyptic summer camp, and blog posts of Dreamy Magic Items!