I'm just starting p my first Grimm game, but one of the players and I have a different interpretation of the "I Think I Can" ability of the Dreamer. I don't want to arbitrarily discount her interpretation without some further investigation.

I did find a previous discussion of this topic, but it didn't really answer my question, as it also included two different interpretations of this rule.

"I Think I Can" gives the Dreamer the option to "choose two iconic Core traits, one of which is automatically Imagination". My interpretation of this is that the Dreamer would have Imagination as one Core trait, and the second must be chosen from Cool, Pluck, Luck, or Muscle. the benefit of this, as I see it, is that the Dreamer can do things that normally a Dreamer kid wouldn't be expected to do because those things are outside the imagination-based world a Dreamer lives in. An example of this would be a Dreamer who, when faced with a beautiful princess who has suddenly become terrifyingly ugly and threatening, her Pluck would come to the forefront and she would stand her ground.

The player's interpretation is that the Dreamer can choose Imagination twice. I don't see how this could happen, as each character has each of the Core traits only once, and therefore could only choose it once.

I would appreciate any comments, insights, or experiences anyone has to share on this; either to help me understand where she is coming from, or give me a better idea how to explain my reasoning to her.

Thanks!

You are both right, sort of. You are correct in interpreting it as being able to pick imagination along with one other core trait as an iconic trait, thus giving you two iconic core traits. But the other player is right too. Although you don't really pick Imagination "twice", you just pick imagination by itself and don't choose a second iconic core trait. When you do this, you are able to benefit from expending imagination as if you had spent 2 points for every 1 point you actually spend.

In the above example, you can go with Imagination and Pluck, allowing you to cast Imaginings as any other character would as well as expend Pluck in certain situations. OR You can pick Imagination as a stand alone iconic core trait so that when you cast Imaginings each point of Imagination spent counts as if you spent two. (1 point spent = level 2 imagining, 2 points = level 4 imagining, 3 points = level 6, etc).

Laughmask said:

Where exactly says this is possible? I don't remember having read something like that, although my memory is far from perfect so I could be wrong.

It's under the dreamer's "I Think I Can" ability. Their starting one.

This was one of the first things I saw under the Dreamer's archetype that made me go nuts about it, I wonder how people couldn't notice it right away.

Laughmask is spot-on here.

But I'm interested what restrictions you implemented LM, if any?

According to the rules, the imagining level a player could use can only equal to half of their grade level, rounded down. For example, a grade 4 player can only do level 2 imaginings (4/2=2) and a grade 7 player can only do level 3 imaginings (7/2 = 3.5, round down to get 3).

With regards to the dreamer, if she picked Imagining as his only iconic core trait ("2 points for 1" I Think I Can special ability) should we apply the rule to him? I have a 4th grade dreamer with a grade 5 Imagination; in normal circumstances I would limit his imaginings to level 2, but since he can spend 2 for every 1 point spent, it enables him to do level 4 imaginings!! He effectively could do the most powerful imaginings very early in the game, which got his team out of a few sticky situations in entertaining ways.

What do you think> Should I continue enabling him to imagine the impossible or apply a little restriction? To be honest, I think it's more enjoyable letting him do level 4 imaginings, it makes him feel really powerful and special

Hmm, well there's two ways of looking at it. The way I saw this was that it simply allowed the dreamer to save imagination points within the restriction. The view is that it allows players to cast a level 2 imagining at a 4th level (if that makes sense). As long as they enjoy it and aren't blowing through the content faster than you'd like, I don't think it'd be a problem.

Also, I'm interested to hear about your session. If you have time and wouldn't mind, you should post it here .