At the moment my players are delving into our Kalshtar warlock/sorcerer player's backstory, which happens to involve seeking the ruined remains of a gate to Dal Quor (plane of dreams) buried in the desert. I figured I would pick the brains of other great DMs to see if anyone had any suggestions for dreamy/trippy/unique puzzles or skill challenges I can have my players suffer through and eventually conquer.
One thing I've seen a couple of times in t.v shows and games is having multiple worlds. You could have two maps that they switch between by going to sleep changing something in one world might change something in the other like planting a seed in one to grow or kill a tree in another. It doesn't really need to make sense just have some kind of thematic link.
You can also make silly nursery rhymes and puzzles kind of uncanny. For example the fox and chicken crossing puzzle https://www.mathsisfun.com/chicken_crossing_solution.html . You can make it weird by having the fox and chicken and corn sitting around having tea but if a mistake is made in the puzzle they go savage and eat each other before becoming a combat encounter
A skill check can be anything from winning a fight with an old friend to winning a running race against a fish.
Bit pedestrian, but could you have them unknowingly fall into a dream that loops endlessly as a trap to keep them there forever? The puzzle then being for them to first work out that they're dreaming in the first place, and then work out how to break the cycle and escape it?
Being in that dream loop then gives you scope to do all sorts of interesting and somewhat nonsensical things because the rules of the real world can be somewhat bent or broken.
in dreams time and space aren't always linear. sometimes there's jumps, you might go from one room straight into the same room or another which is not connected. the puzzle could involve trying to solve a puzzle where real world logic doesn't work. there's a good episode of Dr Who, a christmas special where they are in a shared dream and things don't add up " last Christmas"
I might be tempted to play with perspective by having players awaken to different situations at various points in the plot... Establish a narrative, something like, "we have to find the mesa landmark in the desert in order to get to the portal," then have the fighter wake up one morning, and they're with the rest of the party, and the party is at the portal, trying to solve some open-the-way puzzle, and they're looking for the pieces when the rogue wakes up and a fight is happening somewhere out in the dunes... Build in some detail that reoccurs in order to point the party to an eventual solution--maybe a malevolent night hag is the true guardian of the portal, and they've all been trapped in her nightmares this whole time.
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Hi fellow DMs!
At the moment my players are delving into our Kalshtar warlock/sorcerer player's backstory, which happens to involve seeking the ruined remains of a gate to Dal Quor (plane of dreams) buried in the desert. I figured I would pick the brains of other great DMs to see if anyone had any suggestions for dreamy/trippy/unique puzzles or skill challenges I can have my players suffer through and eventually conquer.
Bit pedestrian, but could you have them unknowingly fall into a dream that loops endlessly as a trap to keep them there forever? The puzzle then being for them to first work out that they're dreaming in the first place, and then work out how to break the cycle and escape it?
Being in that dream loop then gives you scope to do all sorts of interesting and somewhat nonsensical things because the rules of the real world can be somewhat bent or broken.
in dreams time and space aren't always linear. sometimes there's jumps, you might go from one room straight into the same room or another which is not connected. the puzzle could involve trying to solve a puzzle where real world logic doesn't work. there's a good episode of Dr Who, a christmas special where they are in a shared dream and things don't add up " last Christmas"
I might be tempted to play with perspective by having players awaken to different situations at various points in the plot... Establish a narrative, something like, "we have to find the mesa landmark in the desert in order to get to the portal," then have the fighter wake up one morning, and they're with the rest of the party, and the party is at the portal, trying to solve some open-the-way puzzle, and they're looking for the pieces when the rogue wakes up and a fight is happening somewhere out in the dunes... Build in some detail that reoccurs in order to point the party to an eventual solution--maybe a malevolent night hag is the true guardian of the portal, and they've all been trapped in her nightmares this whole time.