Let's say you're fighting someone in a dream, and you're completely lucid. For instance, you're facing down Freddy Kreuger and you've realized that imagination is your playground. What sorts of things would you do?

A few I've come up with are:

• The ground turns into ants that try to eat the other guy alive.
• The landscape turns to a tsunami
• creating cages out of thin air or wrapping them in barbed wire

The context of the battle changes, identity becomes fluid. One moment you're having a life or death Hellraiser style struggle (as described above) the next you're having a philosophical debate with your old university professor, or being scolded by your mum in the kitchen of the house you grew up in. Each combatant is trying to wrongfoot other by drawing on their subconscious fears and desires, so that when they pull out the barbed wire torture harness it's completely unexpected.

Maybe you could handle that with some kind of belief mechanic. The idea is to suborn your opponent so that he or she becomes little more than a character in your lucid dream, and thus vulnerable to whatever sick creativity you're inclined to.

Quote from: James McMurrayLet's say you're fighting someone in a dream, and you're completely lucid. For instance, you're facing down Freddy Kreuger and you've realized that imagination is your playground. What sorts of things would you do?

A few I've come up with are:

• The ground turns into ants that try to eat the other guy alive.
• The landscape turns to a tsunami
• creating cages out of thin air or wrapping them in barbed wire

For Dreamwalker (soon to be re-released as Dreamwalker Revised) I use a point-based "mana" system that does exactly what you describe.  You can envelope him in a wall of fire, but of course, he can drench the fire with a sudden rainstorm. Makes for some interesting combats sometimes. One of my favorites during the playtests was when a character turned an enemy knight's suit of armor into an iron maiden.  Ouch.  

Pete

Interestingly enough, I had that same kind of dream (fighting Krueger) waaay back in the day.

He was all sorts of surprised when I shoved the shotgun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

There's always the Toon-esque "wave goodbye as gravity shifts and the floor they were on becomes a cliff" maneuver.

Wow, a SoTC aspect-tagging system would work really well for something like this. Anyway, off the top of my head...

Turn him into your grandma
Remember that you have a pet T-rex named Fluffy that can eat him
When he does get his claws into you, you bleed Jello
Mob him with stainless steel kids that he can't hurt
Stretch the terrain so he's a couple miles away
Flip places - now you're Freddie and he's you
Drop both of you into The Simpsons

I should probably be more specific. This is for use in a epic fantasy game (the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Final Fantasy setting of Exalted). Freddie was just a reference, and something I've used to get my brain juices flowing when thinking about it.

The characters are going into dream combat with both sides wanting the death of the other. Hiding away isn't an option, at least not for very long. I'm wanting to have a cataclysmic and epic battle across the landscape of the mind, not a hide and go seek game. Not that HaGS isn't a bad use of the dreamscape, but the campaign has had a lot of that already and needs a big fight scene for this arc's finish.

As dreams go, there aren't a lot of physics. Basically it boils down to two things:

1) You cannot metamorphose your opponent, only the environment.

2) Everything you try to do can be opposed by someone else. Harming them requires using the dreamscape or "physically" hitting them. "I point my finger and he dies" would only work if your skill check beat his defenses by enough to kill him.

Opposition is handled using skills. For instance, your Craft (metals) check to impale the opponent inside a spike-filled adamantium cage could be opposed by their dodge to jump out before it closes, resistance to bounce the spikes off their manly chest, or melee to chop the cage apart. You counter gambit that realigns gravity and turns the ground under them into a cliff uses Survival and could be opposed by Athletics to find a handhold, Lore to envision a First Age flying machine that takes the form of mechanical wings sprouting from your back, martial arts to grab your ankles and hang like Spidey from the Green Goblin, or Craft (Stonework) to project a staircase from the wall.

Basically it'll be attack rolls opposed by defenses, with the attack and defense based on whatever skill the player can realistically tie to it. And since realism is so fluid in a dream, I can't think of anything that won't be allowed as long as the visuals tie to the theme of the skill (i.e. no Conjuring swarms of ants with Linguistics unless they put on an especially convincing show).