Adventure Writing: Graph Paper Mazes for Fun and Profit

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Ratpick: Oct 9, 2012; And no one ate dinner that night.

Cool, just the thread that I needed.

I've been brainstorming an adventure that takes place in a dream-like environment. Potentially just a weird dimension of dreams, potentially actually taking place in a dream shared by the player characters where they must defeat a big bad, or maybe just as a diversion during an adventure where there are monsters about that might attack the characters in their dreams. Thus far I haven't got anything concrete written down, but I've been thinking of ways to give the scenario a dream-like quality.

First of all, transitions between areas, scenes and moods are really jaunted. The characters might be walking in a forest one moment, come across a door in a tree, and suddenly find themselves at a fancy dress ball.
No inner monologue: you know how in dreams you think to yourself "What the hell is going on?" only to have someone appear and tell you exactly what's going on, even though you didn't actually ask the question out loud? When the players ask the GM questions about the environment or the situation, the questions will be answered by NPCs.
Speaking of NPCs, the NPCs will either be characters drawn from the waking world (in which case their sudden presence in this absurd situation will be really out of place) or they'll be entirely new NPCs whom the GM will introduce as if the PCs already knew them ("It's Gary, that loving guy who keeps hounding you at every possible opportunity.")
The players will eventually figure out that they are in a dream, which is okay. The next obstacle is figuring out why they're all in the same dream and/or getting out. In the meantime, this should be the GM's cue to let the players play fast and loose with the rules, doing poo poo that they normally wouldn't be able to do in the waking world or just summoning friendly NPCs and/or useful objects into the scene just by willing it. The point of the scenario isn't to have the players caught in the dream until they get bored, but to figure out why they're there or how to get out.

That's all I've got thus far. Input would be appreciated.

# ¿ Aug 4, 2014 15:48

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# ¿ May 12, 2024 11:03

Ratpick: Oct 9, 2012; And no one ate dinner that night.

inklesspen posted:

For all that our dreams are wacky places with little coherent logic, people expect that dreams in fiction be related to the plot and somewhat coherent.

I'd recommend sticking to a rule that there needs to be one sort of continuity when switching scenes; if there's a discontinuity in environment, mood should be preserved, say.

Another interesting thing is that a lot of fiction has a risk of being stuck in the dream. Inception, particularly, but I'm also reminded of the dream monsters from The Wee Free Men (Discworld) where eating or drinking inside the dream trapped you there (just like Fairyland, actually).

Yeah, you're right, the dream scenario should still have an internal consistency to it, so even if the scenes and places will vary wildly there will still be a coherent explanation behind the scenes as far as what is keeping the characters stuck on the dream and what its motives are.

The angle I'm probably going for is that there is some malevolent force that has gotten the characters into a shared dream. Getting killed in the dream will probably lead to the aforementioned getting stuck, but there might yet be a way to save someone that does in the dreamworld.

So, the dream is the scenario itself, getting out of the dream without getting stuck in it will be the focus of the scenario.

# ¿ Aug 4, 2014 17:12

Ratpick: Oct 9, 2012; And no one ate dinner that night.

Mimir posted:

Ratpick, you should take a look at Lacuna, in which all player-facing information has subtle surrealistic qualities but only the GM stuff straight-up calls it a dream setting.

Thanks, I'll take a look at it! I've been getting a lot of ideas for really surreal and experimental RPG scenarios (experimental in the sense that they break the traditional mold of how GMs address the players and narrate things to them) and at one point or another I intend to dedicate them to paper and maybe try my hand at self-publishing them. In addition to the above dream-based scenario I've got an idea for a scenario where the PCs get trapped inside a book, which will require the GM to adopt the role of an unreliable third person narrator to relay information to the players. Once I've got something concrete written down and have playtested these scenarios a couple of times I'll link that poo poo over here.

# ¿ Aug 29, 2014 16:07

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