Broken Dream is a roleplaying game where each player is assigned a "mask" (an area they have influence over; for example, the grey mask gives authority over all the tribes) and a warrior (a more traditional PC, defined by descriptive title like "The Eager Youth", and the accompanying "silhouette", or special move). The game is played as a series of scenes, with alternating "owners". The owner chooses another player's warrior to be the focus of the scene, and the other players remain involved as masks. The sacred stone/diagram is used to determine the theme and to resolve challenges (the warrior's player rolls dice to determine their "ink", which is used to move a stone on the diagram).

From the introduction:

Broken dream is a game of wonder and beauty, a game of peril and hope, all at the end of the known universe. Humanity escaped the dying earth ages ago and landed on a new world, which they named Sabak. Its a water deprived desert world for the most part, but its climate is nearly earth-like and its atmosphere and near match. When they could find no other way to travel on across the stars, they finally settled here and then the great division began. There were those that succumb to the power of Sabak, as it can corrupt the weak of mind. These people began to forget what was important and then they encountered the first of the intelligent inhabitants of this new alien world, the watchful eyes. With their help they constructed the pleasure domes that restored some humanity and ease to their lives. However, not everyone was willing to pay the price to work with the watchful eyes. They took the memories of the past and the drive to explore in exchange for their services and now humanity broke into two peoples. The Saban were those that refused to cooperate with these new friends, and instead remain in the desert lands of this harsh world. They tattoo marks of the things that were on their bodies, and in this find the strength to survive on a new brutal world hell bent on their deaths.

If you think this is all vague and unclear, good. This is the point of the game. You won't get a clear definition of who or what the watchful eyes of Sabak are, or the sand dragon, or the desert hound. I'm sure you get the point, so I won't continue. Instead you use your imagination as a player to fill in these holes, and make each game of Broken Dream your own. When the question of what the sand dragon looks like comes up, bring up a cool description from your creative mind and offer it to the playing group. Oh, did I mention you need a group to play this game? Gather up two or more of your friends first and then you'll have enough to play a game of Broken Dream. Besides a spark of creativity and a few friends, you will also need a couple twelve sided dice, some pencils, a least one print out of the sacred stone (but more would be nice), some counters to measure tribal ink, and a risk marker to place on the sacred stone. This sacred stone is a diagram needed to play the game... [diagram snipped]