I'm currently working on an idea in my campaign where my players are being drugged by a psychedelic mushroom. I'm planning on letting them make a constitution check to see how "heavy" their trip will be, and then taking private sessions based on the heaviness of the trip.
I am really struggling to create a fitting "environment" for these trips. Has anybody ever done something like this in their campaign? Or could you maybe share some ideas on how you would go about giving your players a psychedelic trip?
I've done this before! My players had to take some mushrooms that caused them to enter a magical dream state. Naturally, the dream was invaded by the BBEG and they ended up fighting for their lives. They first had to obtain the mushrooms from outside a cave occupied by a gorgon, and then bring them to a tribal village who conducted the ritual as part of a celebration of the gorgon being slain.
Mine was in give dream stages, breaking down as follows:
Trippy dream 1: A multicoloured mushroom spectacular with flumphs dropping by and talking in silly voices, and some trippy music playing. At the time the players think this is all that's going to happen. At the end of the dream, an NPC who had not gone on the trip with them emerged into the dream warning them that something was wrong.
Trippy dream 2: The players found themselves in other bodies, on a ship at sea. They saw a key part of the Cleric PC's path (saw him as a baby) and they played as the NPCs with very simplified stat blocks, facing off against the main villain. They all died before an NPC jumps over hte side with the baby.
Trippy dream 3: The players found themselves inside the pages of a book that the Rogue PC carries, and fought single combats against ancient warrior souls trapped in the book. In the centre of the page they found a well of blood, which one of them dove into.
Trippy dream 4: The players moved into a portion of the Far Realm where the Warlock PC's patron is chained. The patron gave the PC key information on how to free him (not a good idea!) before they fled a huge Devourer.
Trippy dream 5: The players find themselves in a crucial battle that happened eighty years before. They are warned that dream death can equate true death. The BBEG shows up, and they fight their way out and escape from him with help from another NPC who appears into the dream.
I used this sequence to build each character's backstory, move the PCs around in time and space, and let them see important historical moments.
Mmm... well your the DM it's really up to you what kind of "psychedelic environment" you want to run could be anything from an Alice in wonderland bizarreness, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas pub crawl to some Hell Raiser living nightmare...
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“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt, It lies behind stars and under hills, And empty holes it fills, It comes first and follows after, Ends life, kills laughter.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
I'm just going to note, Sanvael's model has the whole party participating in the various journeys in their game. That's key. Do that, as opposed to giving each character an individual "trip" that needs to be done in a 1:1. It's just practical considerations. No table is going to want to sit through each players individual psychedelic quest, and doing them truly separately, put a big burden on the party to piece together what's table significant together, and since you fragmented the game like that, it's really on you, so way more record keeping than usual DMing.
If the psychedelic experience is important to advancing the game, I wouldn't let the information or knowledge gleaned from the psychedelic events be reliant on failed CON saves. (Also, a nitpick, but RAW there are no "degrees" of saves, you make it or you don't. You can make a scale if you want to, but some players may balk,. especially since this whole thing may be story crucial). If you want to play around with psychoactive mushrooms, sure CON save, fail is poisoned condition and you get to describe the sensory affects causing the disadvantage.
I also am not sure of the point of having the characters taking mushrooms. Sure IRL some varieties of mushrooms are among a number of chemical vectors that can produce a "psychedelic experience". But you're playing Dungeons and Dragons, and most game worlds embrace illusion magic, the ability to walk other planes of existence with logics radically different from the prime material plane, and while the RAW psionics options are sorta weak sauce, there's some powerful mind bending options out there in 3rd party world. 5e modules have had both "dream time" moments as well as taking place in environments that could be considered "psychedelic." What I'm saying is, you don't really need to have edgy drug use (which actually may be outside players comfort/consent zones unless you've already talked to the party about it) when you have ACTUAL MAGIC in the game.
There's a heavy metal, counter cultural element within the DNA of D&D that is clearly to some degree shaped by impact of psychedelics on the arts. I think you can play the game and get whatever psychedelic aesthetic or narrative effect you're going for just by using those elements as they've come through the game (take them to the Astral Plane and have the lyrics of "Flaming Telepaths" be really important to the Gith, that's in my world) ... saying "ok, you're taking these mushrooms" to me actually dilutes the wonder of that aesthetic lineage and reduces it to a visit to the periodic table, if that's not too "out there" thinking.
All that said, I'll say I very much enjoy the psychedelic old school counter cultural trappings lurking within D&D for DM exploitation, whether it just be for trippy wild colors or actually get at the entropic and empathy paradox union recent psych research suggests are at the mechanical core of the psychedelic (or transcendental meditative state ... hmm, if only there was a class whose tropes we could pin meditation to) I'll point you over to this thread/post to show how, in my opinion, psychedelic logic can actually be used in game world development/revelation.
Thanks Sanvael and MidnightPlat, these are very valuable answers.
In reply to MidnightPlat, since I'm playing with a relatively new group, the main goal I have is for them to start experiencing the game in another way. At this moment whenever they encounter an NPC that is not the town elder, they just grap for their weapons and start killing it. My aim is to create an experience where they will need to be creative and really use their environment instead of just hacking and slashing their way through everything/everyone.
The group has decided to be accompanied by an NPC druid they caught "dealing" so this was where the idea originated. Basically I wanted to challenge the players a bit by creating an environment where throwing a spell is just as effective as throwing a hand of leaves - which they'll basically will be doing.
I thought about ending the session when the players had "taken" and plan individual session in the week to follow, so nobody would be sitting out the others experience, but I can see your point when it comes to keeping record.
Annyway, thanks for your answer and sharing your thoughts, I'll certainly be able to continue working with this.
One way of doing this is by unlinking the players from their characters/sheets and have them in a sense inhabit "new" bodies... a "psychedelic environment" could very much lend itself to this... I do have the feeling that with new players you'd want to emphasise teamwork but I know the attraction of little 1 on 1 sessions especially when one considers the real life difficulties of getting multiple peoples free time to overlap...
example of a silly psychedelic new body senario... You sip at the cup of wonder tea the druid passed round wondering what you've let yourself infor and watch as it is passed to the others... Then The world starts to swim before your eyes starting a in slow clockwise kaleidoscopic swirl which speeds up with every step drawing you in....
...That crazy old coot! mixed his potions wrong! he's schrunk and transmognophised us! The Bard into a fork! the wizard into a spoon and the fighter into a butter knife! with little hands and legs! and now that Crazy old fool is just snoring on the sofa! we got to get the antidote! before the maid comes and clears us up with the cutlery!!!
“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt, It lies behind stars and under hills, And empty holes it fills, It comes first and follows after, Ends life, kills laughter.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
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I'm currently working on an idea in my campaign where my players are being drugged by a psychedelic mushroom. I'm planning on letting them make a constitution check to see how "heavy" their trip will be, and then taking private sessions based on the heaviness of the trip.
I am really struggling to create a fitting "environment" for these trips. Has anybody ever done something like this in their campaign? Or could you maybe share some ideas on how you would go about giving your players a psychedelic trip?
Thank you in advance!
I've done this before! My players had to take some mushrooms that caused them to enter a magical dream state. Naturally, the dream was invaded by the BBEG and they ended up fighting for their lives. They first had to obtain the mushrooms from outside a cave occupied by a gorgon, and then bring them to a tribal village who conducted the ritual as part of a celebration of the gorgon being slain.
Mine was in give dream stages, breaking down as follows:
Trippy dream 1: A multicoloured mushroom spectacular with flumphs dropping by and talking in silly voices, and some trippy music playing. At the time the players think this is all that's going to happen. At the end of the dream, an NPC who had not gone on the trip with them emerged into the dream warning them that something was wrong.
Trippy dream 2: The players found themselves in other bodies, on a ship at sea. They saw a key part of the Cleric PC's path (saw him as a baby) and they played as the NPCs with very simplified stat blocks, facing off against the main villain. They all died before an NPC jumps over hte side with the baby.
Trippy dream 3: The players found themselves inside the pages of a book that the Rogue PC carries, and fought single combats against ancient warrior souls trapped in the book. In the centre of the page they found a well of blood, which one of them dove into.
Trippy dream 4: The players moved into a portion of the Far Realm where the Warlock PC's patron is chained. The patron gave the PC key information on how to free him (not a good idea!) before they fled a huge Devourer.
Trippy dream 5: The players find themselves in a crucial battle that happened eighty years before. They are warned that dream death can equate true death. The BBEG shows up, and they fight their way out and escape from him with help from another NPC who appears into the dream.
I used this sequence to build each character's backstory, move the PCs around in time and space, and let them see important historical moments.
Mmm... well your the DM it's really up to you what kind of "psychedelic environment" you want to run could be anything from an Alice in wonderland bizarreness, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas pub crawl to some Hell Raiser living nightmare...
“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt, It lies behind stars and under hills, And empty holes it fills, It comes first and follows after, Ends life, kills laughter.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
I'm just going to note, Sanvael's model has the whole party participating in the various journeys in their game. That's key. Do that, as opposed to giving each character an individual "trip" that needs to be done in a 1:1. It's just practical considerations. No table is going to want to sit through each players individual psychedelic quest, and doing them truly separately, put a big burden on the party to piece together what's table significant together, and since you fragmented the game like that, it's really on you, so way more record keeping than usual DMing.
If the psychedelic experience is important to advancing the game, I wouldn't let the information or knowledge gleaned from the psychedelic events be reliant on failed CON saves. (Also, a nitpick, but RAW there are no "degrees" of saves, you make it or you don't. You can make a scale if you want to, but some players may balk,. especially since this whole thing may be story crucial). If you want to play around with psychoactive mushrooms, sure CON save, fail is poisoned condition and you get to describe the sensory affects causing the disadvantage.
I also am not sure of the point of having the characters taking mushrooms. Sure IRL some varieties of mushrooms are among a number of chemical vectors that can produce a "psychedelic experience". But you're playing Dungeons and Dragons, and most game worlds embrace illusion magic, the ability to walk other planes of existence with logics radically different from the prime material plane, and while the RAW psionics options are sorta weak sauce, there's some powerful mind bending options out there in 3rd party world. 5e modules have had both "dream time" moments as well as taking place in environments that could be considered "psychedelic." What I'm saying is, you don't really need to have edgy drug use (which actually may be outside players comfort/consent zones unless you've already talked to the party about it) when you have ACTUAL MAGIC in the game.
There's a heavy metal, counter cultural element within the DNA of D&D that is clearly to some degree shaped by impact of psychedelics on the arts. I think you can play the game and get whatever psychedelic aesthetic or narrative effect you're going for just by using those elements as they've come through the game (take them to the Astral Plane and have the lyrics of "Flaming Telepaths" be really important to the Gith, that's in my world) ... saying "ok, you're taking these mushrooms" to me actually dilutes the wonder of that aesthetic lineage and reduces it to a visit to the periodic table, if that's not too "out there" thinking.
All that said, I'll say I very much enjoy the psychedelic old school counter cultural trappings lurking within D&D for DM exploitation, whether it just be for trippy wild colors or actually get at the entropic and empathy paradox union recent psych research suggests are at the mechanical core of the psychedelic (or transcendental meditative state ... hmm, if only there was a class whose tropes we could pin meditation to) I'll point you over to this thread/post to show how, in my opinion, psychedelic logic can actually be used in game world development/revelation.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Thanks Sanvael and MidnightPlat, these are very valuable answers.
In reply to MidnightPlat, since I'm playing with a relatively new group, the main goal I have is for them to start experiencing the game in another way. At this moment whenever they encounter an NPC that is not the town elder, they just grap for their weapons and start killing it. My aim is to create an experience where they will need to be creative and really use their environment instead of just hacking and slashing their way through everything/everyone.
The group has decided to be accompanied by an NPC druid they caught "dealing" so this was where the idea originated. Basically I wanted to challenge the players a bit by creating an environment where throwing a spell is just as effective as throwing a hand of leaves - which they'll basically will be doing.
I thought about ending the session when the players had "taken" and plan individual session in the week to follow, so nobody would be sitting out the others experience, but I can see your point when it comes to keeping record.
Annyway, thanks for your answer and sharing your thoughts, I'll certainly be able to continue working with this.
"experiencing the game in another way"
One way of doing this is by unlinking the players from their characters/sheets and have them in a sense inhabit "new" bodies... a "psychedelic environment" could very much lend itself to this...
I do have the feeling that with new players you'd want to emphasise teamwork but I know the attraction of little 1 on 1 sessions especially when one considers the real life difficulties of getting multiple peoples free time to overlap...
example of a silly psychedelic new body senario...
You sip at the cup of wonder tea the druid passed round wondering what you've let yourself infor and watch as it is passed to the others... Then The world starts to swim before your eyes starting a in slow clockwise kaleidoscopic swirl which speeds up with every step drawing you in....
...That crazy old coot! mixed his potions wrong! he's schrunk and transmognophised us! The Bard into a fork! the wizard into a spoon and the fighter into a butter knife! with little hands and legs! and now that Crazy old fool is just snoring on the sofa! we got to get the antidote! before the maid comes and clears us up with the cutlery!!!
“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt, It lies behind stars and under hills, And empty holes it fills, It comes first and follows after, Ends life, kills laughter.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again