Gamemaster’s Guide
Gamemaster’s Guide is a core rulebook for the post-apocalyptic sci-fi role-playing game Dreams and Machines, written by Chris Birch, Dave Semark, Natalie Whipple, Mari Tokuda, Logan Boese, Jennifer Kretchmer, Bryce Johnston, Daniel Lade, Nathan Dowdell, and Rachel J. Wilkinson and published by Modiphius Entertainment.
By Aaron T. Huss
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Peel back the layers and all will be revealed!
***If you are a player in a Dreams and Machines game and not the gamemaster, do not proceed as it will spoil your games!***
The Gamemaster’s Guide is the forest (if you don’t know what I mean, go read the Player’s Guide review first). It starts by taking a step back and observing the setting from the lens of the omniscient gamemaster as an overview of what’s going on around the PCs. The Player’s Guide is very much designed from the lens of a character without getting into the details about what life is like in the minds and locales of everyone else (e.g., what really makes each faction tick). Simply put, a PC would not know those things and thus they don’t get access to the treasure chest. You have to put all the pieces together to reveal the whole picture. Once you get a sense of life outside the purview of a PC, it then peels the layers of Dreams and Machines one by one.
Dreams and Machines is not the setting you thought it was (you know after reading through the Player’s Guide to understand how to play the game). Nope; it’s much bigger than that! There are literally secrets upon secrets and you finally understand what happened and why it happened. With those secrets in hand, you get to create an incredible campaign where the PCs make discovery after discovery leading them to the ultimate reason why the world has gotten where it has and what could potentially happen if they don’t do something about it. Layers upon layers!
These are spoilers… to a point.
So what do you learn about? First, you’re going to learn about a group of antagonists that dwell underground and think everyone above ground is effectively evil. Then you learn why they are underground. Then you learn how they are connected to the larger metadata of the setting. And then you’ll learn how the war started and why it happened. And finally, you’ll discover what will happen if no one does something about it. My favorite part of all this is the mechs – they too are more than what they seem on the surface and you’ll now learn why they can sometimes wake up and then go back to “sleep”, how they fit into the bigger picture, and how they can be brought back.
Every RPG has flora and fauna that serve as easy conflicts to create roadblocks and combat or outmaneuvering opportunities. But not every RPG has a group of highly intelligent, essentially corrupted humans seeking to oppose everything everyone else does because they think it’s the right thing to do. They’re not evil; they’re not megalomaniacs trying to take over the world. Quite the opposite; in their minds, they’re trying to make things right. As the PCs peel back those layers, that’s what all the secrets should start bubbling to the surface and a lot of decisions will have to be made. This isn’t going to be “seek out the big bad by conquering his minions and saving the world!” No, no, no; this is something completely different.
Another key aspect of the Gamemaster’s Guide is the move from generic overview of the setting to a highly detailed look at a major locale – namely New Mossgrove. This in-depth source material provides substantial adventure opportunities and provides a location for the included adventure (which happens to occur only days after the adventure in the starter set). It honestly only makes you want more source material to find out where the group of PCs needs to go next. This adventure provides the players with a taste of many facets of in-game themes Dreams and Machines has to offer. You’ll get a true understanding of the game’s mechanics and if the players are perceptive, they may start to shave away a thin portion of that top layer.
After getting through the Gamemaster’s Guide, there’s one aspect of this RPG that seems even more important than before – everything matters. The setting is clearly designed with deep secrets hidden beneath layers and layers of other secrets where each piece of information is a vital nugget to seeing the whole picture. It’s not until the players see the whole picture that they’ll really understand. It’s like an archaeologist digging deeper through ancient grounds to find the truth in the stories, rumors, and oral traditions passed down through the generations. And much like a puzzle, once that last piece is put in place, the picture reveals itself and all secrets will be revealed!