A Positive Apocalypse II

Dreams and Machines is a post-apocalyptic future set on another planet. One that has suffered not one, but two calamitous events. The world is Evera Prime, settled as one of Earth’s colonies following the establishment of the Gateway that enabled relatively fast travel between the Earth and Evera Prime. The first disaster the colonists faced was when the Gateway stopped functioning, cutting off contact with Earth, forcing them to adapt and survive on their own. The second would come centuries later, after the colony had prospered and developed, establishing Project Builder, a programme to develop resource and power control that was so successful that it would usher in a golden age of post-scarcity and rapid scientific advancement. Then the Builder and its connected systems began to glitch. It stopped anticipating the needs of the people of Evera Prime, and worse, when scientist tried to fix the problem, it turned on them, unleashing its Mech servants and its armoury in a conflagration in which cities would be destroyed, the landscape pockmarked with craters, populations atomised, and worse. Two centuries have passed, and the people of Evera Prime survived and then thrived, hoping one day that a way would be found to make contact with the Earth again. The broad background to the setting are detailed in the Dreams and Machines: Player’s Guide, which also includes the rules for character creation and action, as well as some of the technology of the setting, a mix of high-tech nanotechnology and low-tech scrap, the former almost having magic-like properties.

The Dreams And Machines: Gamemaster’s Guide expands upon the Dreams and Machines: Player’s Guide, both in terms of setting and rules, as well as guidance for running the game. Published by Modiphius Entertainment, this is a post-apocalyptic roleplaying game of exploration and hope, in which the Player Characters delve into the ruins of the past, examine old technology, and protect the many surviving communities against attacks by the Wakers, the robots still working after the events of the apocalypse, and waiting for the moment they detect survivors and the use of advanced technology, to activate and stalk and attack as the last fragments of their programming dictate, the creatures mutated by the affects of the apocalypse, and the Thralls, humans wrapped in loops of wire and marked with ash and paint, who boil up out of the ground to aggressively raid and steal food and technology from the communities.

The Dreams And Machines: Gamemaster’s Guide begins with an exploration of the setting, its history and timeline, its geography, and its factions. There is an overview of technology in the setting, the stats and details of individual devices given in the Dreams and Machines: Player’s Guide. Overall, this expands upon the material given in the Dreams and Machines: Player’s Guide, most notably in developing and detailing more of the factions’ backgrounds. This covers their origins, views on technology, what others think of them, and so on. The various views on technology vary widely from faction to faction, such as the Everans accepting, but not developing technology, the Archivists actively searching for new old technology, and the Dreamers loathing technology. The one faction that is in effect, new here, are the Conduits and the Thralls, barely mentioned in the Dreams and Machines: Player’s Guide. Here they are greatly expanded upon. ‘Thralls’ are the name that the surface dwellers, that is, the Player Characters and others, give to the Conduits. The Conduits are a highly religious group who worship and embrace technology and believe that the Builder saved them from the worst of the war, their fanaticism driving them to raid the surface. They work in secret to restore the technology of the past and the Builder’s network, working from their secret base in the Dark City. Only a very little is known about the Dark City, the Archivists having some knowledge as to why the Builder’s War started, but not necessarily knowing if that is connected to the Dark City and the Conduits.

These are only some of the secrets explored in Dreams And Machines: Gamemaster’s Guide. Also detailed is the history of the Builder and why it was built, and what its current status is now. This is as fragmented and widely dispersed pieces of code, attempting to make contact with each other and rebuild. For most people on Evera Prime, the Builder was intrinsic in triggering the war, and whilst the environmental effects of the war can be found everywhere, the most obvious holdover from the Builder War are the innumerable robots which litter many parts of the landscape, nothing more than mouldering heaps of junk until they receive the right signal, activate, and go on murderous rampages. Such occurrences are rare, but this does not stop most people on Evera Prima fearing the Wakers, as such robots are known. Dreams And Machines: Gamemaster’s Guide also reveals two further hidden aspects of the setting. One is the human involvement in the Builder’s War, whilst the other is the involvement of another ‘agency’. Although the book talks about this ‘agency’ and its involvement in events leading up to the war, it does not actually reveal the identity of what the ‘agency’ is, and nor does it examine how the Player Characters might eventually discover that and other secrets of the setting.

In terms of running the game, the Dreams And Machines: Gamemaster’s Guide provides the Game Master with some excellent advice. It not only covers her responsibilities, but also examines the uses of Truths in play, how to frame scenes and action, handling Threat and how to spend it, and more. In particular, it notes that Threat—the means by which the Game Master can enhance the actions of her NPCs, monsters, and villains—can be used to cajole characters into action when their players are dithering, such as when coming up with a plan, and that it is in the interest of players to give the Game Master points of Theat. This is done when the players have run out of Momentum to give their characters an advantage, and whilst it obviously benefits any opposition that they might face, what the Dreams And Machines: Gamemaster’s Guide makes clear is that it benefits the story too, building tension and making confrontations dramatic. There is advice too on the use of Safety Tools and of Spirit, a Player Character’s inner reserves of concentration and stamina, typically only used in desperate situations.

The advice for the Game Master is both slick and helpful, even well practised. Which should be no surprise given the number of 2d20 System roleplaying games that Modiphius Entertainment has published. Where it disappoints though, is in the lack of advice in terms of what stories the Game Master will tell, what type of scenarios she should be creating for her players. Obviously, the Game Master can draw heavily from the post-apocalyptic genre, but the Dreams And Machines: Gamemaster’s Guide does not explore what makes a Dream and Machines post-apocalyptic story different from that of any other post-apocalyptic story.

The Dreams And Machines: Gamemaster’s Guide does provide a range of NPCs, creatures, adversaries, and other threats. This includes flora and fauna native to both Earth and Evera Prime, as well as mutants. Only the one Earth creature, the Horse, is given stats, though others like the Tiger are mentioned, whilst native fauna includes the Akriti, a nomadic tree that migrates in herds. The arachnid Cryptid, the Prowlcat with its overlapping plates instead of fur, and the wolf-like Snarlback with its extendible mouth, are examples of the Mutant creatures found on Evera Prime. Technology comes in the form of the Nano-Geist, a nanogram capable of interacting with the world as part of its programming, and the Locus, a nanogram tied to an individual location or building. There are random tables for nanogram actions, as there are for Waker functions, which are also detailed in the book. Lastly, there are stats and details for NPCs, including Thralls.

The Dreams And Machines: Gamemaster’s Guide provides a broad overview of the continent of Nedrestia, but goes further in describing a region where the Game Master and her players can begin play. It focuses on New Mossgrove, a trade and exploration hub located in the Regid-Kasteel region, near Kasteel city ruins. Both the ruins of Kasteel and of the mini-city, Sanktejo, provides environments to explore, whilst New Mossgrove serves as a base and source of rumours and possible tasks. It is also the starting point for the included adventure, ‘Secrets in Lost Rios’. This is a sequel to the scenario in the Dreams and Machines Starter Set, but ‘Secrets in Lost Rios’ can be adjusted so that the Game Master need not have had to run the scenario in the Dreams and Machines Starter Set. It opens with New Mossgrove having suffered a Waker attack, a rare occurrence that puts everyone on edge. (This attack is actually the climax to the scenario in the Dreams and Machines Starter Set.) The Player Characters are hired by an Archivist to search for a friend who led an expedition into the wilderness who is missing and is presumed dead. The only known survivor of the expedition was killed in the Waker attack on the town. The expedition was investigating a laboratory in the former resort town of Los Rios, once standing between two rivers, but now between two ravines. There is scope for some decent encounters between New Mossgrove and Los Rios, but when they get there, they discover that someone has already got there before them—a band of scavenging Thralls! The Player Characters will need to drive them off in order to investigate the laboratory fully and confirm that the missing friend is there. The scenario includes some rather ideas as to what happens next and also some ideas for some further adventures. Overall, it is a decent adventure, but probably better as a payoff for the scenario Dreams and Machines Starter Set.

Physically, Dreams And Machines: Gamemaster’s Guide is well presented, the artwork is good, and the writing is really easy to read. Like the Dreams and Machines: Player’s Guide, it has been scribbled on as if it was a child’s journal or diary.

The Dreams And Machines: Gamemaster’s Guide, as intended, completes the core of the roleplaying game with the Dreams and Machines: Player’s Guide. It decently expands upon the information given in the Dreams and Machines: Player’s Guide, coupled with well-practised advice, but the extra information only goes so far. There are still secrets to the setting to be revealed, and there is a lack of advice for creating adventures specific to the setting of Evera Prime that would have been helpful too. That though will have to wait for the Dreams And Machines: GM’s Toolkit. In the meantime, if the Game Master wants to create her own content, Dreams And Machines is probably best suited to someone who already has experience of writing her own adventures. Overall, the Dreams And Machines: Gamemaster’s Guide is a nicely accessible and solid book for the Dreams And Machines Games Master.