Hypothetically speaking, imagine at the end of your last gaming session, your group ended up camping near a "haunted" area, let's say an abandoned monastery with a basement. An easy approach would be to throw some appropriate "haunted" monsters at them throughout the night and let them continue to explore the area the next day and run through the encounters you have set up....
What I am wondering, is what if I added a powerful presence, that as they slept/camped, pulled them into a "dream". So at the start of next session, instead of seeing a ruined monastery, they instead see a monastery full of life. Instead of willowisps perhaps they see actual people, leading them further in, ultimately inviting them towards a BBEG (who orchestrates the dream). That leads to social interactions with things that may not exist... This leads me to questions:
Is a sequence like that fun for a player?
How would they break out of the dream, or notice things amiss?
Would you actually physically move them further into the ruins (ie sleepwalking) or would it be completely mental, so they would wake up where they camped.
How would this affect their exploring the next day, while "awake" ? Is the dream for misdirection purposes only, or does it somehow expend party resources?
What does the BBEG gain from luring them in? or is the goal simply to scare them away when they wake?
Thanks in advance for the help brainstorming. I had an original plan, but think this could be more fun... assuming things like that are fun for players. As a DM I wouldn't mind throwing some weird things at them to keep them off balance, perhaps treating this as a one session "horror" interlude in the normal campaign.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
Dream / Vision sequences are the same as regular content. It just has more symbolic elements that they need to decipher for some use/information in the waking world. And you can throw in more fantastical elements out of nowhere. If you have only 1 PC in this sequence you need to keep it brief or the others will feel excluded. Keep players involved as per usual instead of creating a cut scene where they're just watching what happens.
The Totem Bear Barbarian at my table has a sentient weapon + has shamanic visions. Really messes with the PC's head quite a bit. During his shift to guard the camp at night he's just drinking and staring into the campfire as usual. Next moment he sees a big bear at the edge of the treeline and when the Barbarian gets up it moves into the woods. The player decides to walk towards the bear, but instead of walking the wood rushing towards him. Next the barbarian is deep in the woods following the bear, which at closer inspection looks more spirited and somewhat translucent. leading to next thing etc etc etc.. Then he just wakes up. Realizing, or not, that he had fallen asleep while staring in the fire at some point.
When its a regular dream the PC will just wake up in some way. Either by falling down into a pit or a cliff, drowning helplessly, being shoved by an NPC into a very dangerous situation... each ending symbolizing some feeling of helpless/danger etc that corresponds with the foreshadowing you wanted to achieve. In case of the Barbarian he saw, among several things, village in flames with a big cathedral in the middle. So when the party arrived in the next big city there was indeed a similar looking cathedral. The morning/evening orange glow of the sun touching the cathedral in a way that triggered the memory. Letting this PC seeing everything around him in flames. Even though the flames weren't really there.
Another method is more of Psychic nature. As example a Gulthias tree with a vampiric soul still remaining in it. Allowing the tree to have some of the vampiric traits such as charm. If the PC's can't break free in 3 turns they start seeing glimpses of the past. As the vampire soul is establishing a stronger connection as long as the charm isn't broken. Eventually leading the effected PC's into The Realm of the Vampire's Mind. Bit like vampire diaries where they see the BBEG sitting there. Trying to talk and persuade the PC's to do things and follow him. Which most likely results into the PC's fighting in a way they're used to. But instead its all mental/psychic damage instead of their usual damage types. Wounding the outside tree as they gradually wound their opponent in The other Realm with once again floating platforms and other elements to create an interesting battle arena. So the charmed PC;s can still assist the PC's that aren't charmed and fighting the tree as the usual tree. Once the tree is beaten, the charm ends and everyone is back to their usual self. Although those PC's which were heavily effected by the charm need some time to collect themselves afterwards.
When dreaming you usually go to the Astral Plane. Connecting your spirit/mental self through a silver thread to the physical body. That is another way on how to approach dream sequences. Where players are attacked in their dreams by Astral Sea creatures. HAving to worry about their silver thread not being cut or they'll be floating aimlessly in the Astral Plane forever and ever :P
In your case I'd let the PC's lay where they are and not use any sleepwalking. It could impact their next day of adventuring depending on how intense the dream sequence was. As with the vampire. If it was a deep intrusive connection and jarring/nightmarish situations then I'd say they would only get the benefits of a short rest instead of long rest. Nothing else as used resources since that is part of it already. Or you could distribute some Madness points if the dream sequence turns into something truly horrific later on. I don't know your setting or story thusfar so no idea what the BBEG's motives are, nor what the monastery is about. Not enough information to go on.
Hypothetically speaking, imagine at the end of your last gaming session, your group ended up camping near a "haunted" area, let's say an abandoned monastery with a basement. An easy approach would be to throw some appropriate "haunted" monsters at them throughout the night and let them continue to explore the area the next day and run through the encounters you have set up....
What I am wondering, is what if I added a powerful presence, that as they slept/camped, pulled them into a "dream". So at the start of next session, instead of seeing a ruined monastery, they instead see a monastery full of life. Instead of willowisps perhaps they see actual people, leading them further in, ultimately inviting them towards a BBEG (who orchestrates the dream). That leads to social interactions with things that may not exist... This leads me to questions:
Is a sequence like that fun for a player?
How would they break out of the dream, or notice things amiss?
Would you actually physically move them further into the ruins (ie sleepwalking) or would it be completely mental, so they would wake up where they camped.
How would this affect their exploring the next day, while "awake" ? Is the dream for misdirection purposes only, or does it somehow expend party resources?
What does the BBEG gain from luring them in? or is the goal simply to scare them away when they wake?
Thanks in advance for the help brainstorming. I had an original plan, but think this could be more fun... assuming things like that are fun for players. As a DM I wouldn't mind throwing some weird things at them to keep them off balance, perhaps treating this as a one session "horror" interlude in the normal campaign.
A session like this would be fun to me after it was revealed to be a dream if the things we did in the dream mattered to the game somehow. Obviously, people we saved/killed in the dream didn't change what actually happened, but did we learn things we didn't know about the plot? Did we solve a mystery?
What you could do is mess with them--make them wonder if it really all was 'just a dream'. For example, depending on what they do in the dream, have them find evidence that something a player did (as opposed to an NPC) really did happen. For example, in the dream, someone was behind a locked door. The rogue has the idea to take the door off the hinges rather than bust it down. When they are out of the dream and exploring the ruins later, they find that door...and it's off the hinges, not busted down. Did they just dream that they did that, or did they somehow actually *do* that? :)
Thanks everyone! I was a bit vague in my opening (just in case my players read this :)
Originally I was going to start with the players simply going to the old monastery. After thought and reading the above, they will dream about the monastery and have a set of encounters "in the dream". Some puzzles along the way will help them figure out they are in a dream. As for having things in the dream matter, my thought is that events there will give them some insights and help them inform their opinions/decisions in some upcoming encounters so that when they visit the monastery "for real" they may know the layout and be able to better understand puzzles/traps/encounters.
Hopefully it ends up fun and engaging :)
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
For a dream sequence to be satisfying to the players it should matter in some way. No matter how fun it is to play through, if at the end you say "it was only a dream, and now you wake up," and nothing changes in the game world you will likely have frustrated players.
If they can earn real experience for what they do in the dream, possibly face real risk of death, learn information that will be useful to them in the waking world, etc, then a dream sequence can be fantastic.
Learning the layout of the monastery, possibly being able to avoid some of the traps, and better understand the encounters is a good idea. It turns the dreams into dramatic foreshadowing and gives them meaning in the context of the rest of the game.
I played in one campaign where the characters experienced two parallel realities, on sin the waking word, the other in the dream world. Events in one could influence events in the other, although the worlds were only similar not identical. One thing that made it more fun was that most of the time we knew if we were playing in the dream world or the waking world. Flipping into alternate reality when you don't know that is what is happening can stray perilously close to bait and switch, and that rarely ends well.
If they can earn real experience for what they do in the dream, possibly face real risk of death, learn information that will be useful to them in the waking world, etc, then a dream sequence can be fantastic.
Very good point. Whatever the case, experience needs to be handed out. If the players remember what happened during the dream, then they experienced things and learned from them, and that should count for advancement.
Edit: the closest thing I've ever done was when my players wanted a brief break to try some different characters. I wrote up a scenario from the world's past, and they played key characters in the events for a couple of sessions. Back in the present, their characters had encountered a spell that zapped this info into their brains. So their regular characters get zapped by this spell, and they suddenly find themselves back in time, experiencing what happened before. But the players and I were figuring out exactly what it was that happened before :) So what really happened and what their regular characters learned depended on what the players and the temporary characters did in the flashback. Worked very well.
Learning the layout of the monastery, possibly being able to avoid some of the traps, and better understand the encounters is a good idea. It turns the dreams into dramatic foreshadowing and gives them meaning in the context of the rest of the game.
I played in one campaign where the characters experienced two parallel realities.
Sorry I was a bit coy in my postings (just in case my players were reading).
I did end up creating a dream/parallel reality setting for the players. They started the session in it, quickly realized things were "different", then I gave them clues to escape. In this case, I used scrabble tiles and had them encounter "blocks of letters" as they were in a BBEGs "dream". I segmented the blocks into words, so they knew they needed 3 words, and they knew which letters were in each word. My degree of difficulty for the puzzle was that it was latin. As they got close, or had good table talk, I let them use google translate some to help them. In hindsight, that may have been a bit too meta, but I thought using english would have just been too easy. I thought it was fun, but I ended up tossing a few hints to keep things from bogging down too much.
In the parallel reality, the players saw the monastery/area as it was/could have been. They learned some clues and received some foreshadowing as to future events. When they then encountered those events post-dream.... much to my surprise the players actually remembered the clues!
All in all, I think it worked, but I had to make sure it was self-contained, didn't last an entire session, and had a few ways to "get out".
Thanks all !
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
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Howdy everyone,
Hypothetically speaking, imagine at the end of your last gaming session, your group ended up camping near a "haunted" area, let's say an abandoned monastery with a basement. An easy approach would be to throw some appropriate "haunted" monsters at them throughout the night and let them continue to explore the area the next day and run through the encounters you have set up....
What I am wondering, is what if I added a powerful presence, that as they slept/camped, pulled them into a "dream". So at the start of next session, instead of seeing a ruined monastery, they instead see a monastery full of life. Instead of willowisps perhaps they see actual people, leading them further in, ultimately inviting them towards a BBEG (who orchestrates the dream). That leads to social interactions with things that may not exist... This leads me to questions:
Thanks in advance for the help brainstorming. I had an original plan, but think this could be more fun... assuming things like that are fun for players. As a DM I wouldn't mind throwing some weird things at them to keep them off balance, perhaps treating this as a one session "horror" interlude in the normal campaign.
"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
Dream / Vision sequences are the same as regular content. It just has more symbolic elements that they need to decipher for some use/information in the waking world. And you can throw in more fantastical elements out of nowhere. If you have only 1 PC in this sequence you need to keep it brief or the others will feel excluded. Keep players involved as per usual instead of creating a cut scene where they're just watching what happens.
The Totem Bear Barbarian at my table has a sentient weapon + has shamanic visions. Really messes with the PC's head quite a bit. During his shift to guard the camp at night he's just drinking and staring into the campfire as usual. Next moment he sees a big bear at the edge of the treeline and when the Barbarian gets up it moves into the woods. The player decides to walk towards the bear, but instead of walking the wood rushing towards him. Next the barbarian is deep in the woods following the bear, which at closer inspection looks more spirited and somewhat translucent. leading to next thing etc etc etc.. Then he just wakes up. Realizing, or not, that he had fallen asleep while staring in the fire at some point.
When its a regular dream the PC will just wake up in some way. Either by falling down into a pit or a cliff, drowning helplessly, being shoved by an NPC into a very dangerous situation... each ending symbolizing some feeling of helpless/danger etc that corresponds with the foreshadowing you wanted to achieve. In case of the Barbarian he saw, among several things, village in flames with a big cathedral in the middle. So when the party arrived in the next big city there was indeed a similar looking cathedral. The morning/evening orange glow of the sun touching the cathedral in a way that triggered the memory. Letting this PC seeing everything around him in flames. Even though the flames weren't really there.
Another method is more of Psychic nature. As example a Gulthias tree with a vampiric soul still remaining in it. Allowing the tree to have some of the vampiric traits such as charm. If the PC's can't break free in 3 turns they start seeing glimpses of the past. As the vampire soul is establishing a stronger connection as long as the charm isn't broken. Eventually leading the effected PC's into The Realm of the Vampire's Mind. Bit like vampire diaries where they see the BBEG sitting there. Trying to talk and persuade the PC's to do things and follow him. Which most likely results into the PC's fighting in a way they're used to. But instead its all mental/psychic damage instead of their usual damage types. Wounding the outside tree as they gradually wound their opponent in The other Realm with once again floating platforms and other elements to create an interesting battle arena. So the charmed PC;s can still assist the PC's that aren't charmed and fighting the tree as the usual tree. Once the tree is beaten, the charm ends and everyone is back to their usual self. Although those PC's which were heavily effected by the charm need some time to collect themselves afterwards.
When dreaming you usually go to the Astral Plane. Connecting your spirit/mental self through a silver thread to the physical body. That is another way on how to approach dream sequences. Where players are attacked in their dreams by Astral Sea creatures. HAving to worry about their silver thread not being cut or they'll be floating aimlessly in the Astral Plane forever and ever :P
In your case I'd let the PC's lay where they are and not use any sleepwalking. It could impact their next day of adventuring depending on how intense the dream sequence was. As with the vampire. If it was a deep intrusive connection and jarring/nightmarish situations then I'd say they would only get the benefits of a short rest instead of long rest. Nothing else as used resources since that is part of it already. Or you could distribute some Madness points if the dream sequence turns into something truly horrific later on. I don't know your setting or story thusfar so no idea what the BBEG's motives are, nor what the monastery is about. Not enough information to go on.
A session like this would be fun to me after it was revealed to be a dream if the things we did in the dream mattered to the game somehow. Obviously, people we saved/killed in the dream didn't change what actually happened, but did we learn things we didn't know about the plot? Did we solve a mystery?
What you could do is mess with them--make them wonder if it really all was 'just a dream'. For example, depending on what they do in the dream, have them find evidence that something a player did (as opposed to an NPC) really did happen. For example, in the dream, someone was behind a locked door. The rogue has the idea to take the door off the hinges rather than bust it down. When they are out of the dream and exploring the ruins later, they find that door...and it's off the hinges, not busted down. Did they just dream that they did that, or did they somehow actually *do* that? :)
Looking for new subclasses, spells, magic items, feats, and races? Opinions welcome :)
Thanks everyone! I was a bit vague in my opening (just in case my players read this :)
Originally I was going to start with the players simply going to the old monastery. After thought and reading the above, they will dream about the monastery and have a set of encounters "in the dream". Some puzzles along the way will help them figure out they are in a dream. As for having things in the dream matter, my thought is that events there will give them some insights and help them inform their opinions/decisions in some upcoming encounters so that when they visit the monastery "for real" they may know the layout and be able to better understand puzzles/traps/encounters.
Hopefully it ends up fun and engaging :)
"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
For a dream sequence to be satisfying to the players it should matter in some way. No matter how fun it is to play through, if at the end you say "it was only a dream, and now you wake up," and nothing changes in the game world you will likely have frustrated players.
If they can earn real experience for what they do in the dream, possibly face real risk of death, learn information that will be useful to them in the waking world, etc, then a dream sequence can be fantastic.
Learning the layout of the monastery, possibly being able to avoid some of the traps, and better understand the encounters is a good idea. It turns the dreams into dramatic foreshadowing and gives them meaning in the context of the rest of the game.
I played in one campaign where the characters experienced two parallel realities, on sin the waking word, the other in the dream world. Events in one could influence events in the other, although the worlds were only similar not identical. One thing that made it more fun was that most of the time we knew if we were playing in the dream world or the waking world. Flipping into alternate reality when you don't know that is what is happening can stray perilously close to bait and switch, and that rarely ends well.
Very good point. Whatever the case, experience needs to be handed out. If the players remember what happened during the dream, then they experienced things and learned from them, and that should count for advancement.
Edit: the closest thing I've ever done was when my players wanted a brief break to try some different characters. I wrote up a scenario from the world's past, and they played key characters in the events for a couple of sessions. Back in the present, their characters had encountered a spell that zapped this info into their brains. So their regular characters get zapped by this spell, and they suddenly find themselves back in time, experiencing what happened before. But the players and I were figuring out exactly what it was that happened before :) So what really happened and what their regular characters learned depended on what the players and the temporary characters did in the flashback. Worked very well.
Looking for new subclasses, spells, magic items, feats, and races? Opinions welcome :)
Sorry I was a bit coy in my postings (just in case my players were reading).
I did end up creating a dream/parallel reality setting for the players. They started the session in it, quickly realized things were "different", then I gave them clues to escape. In this case, I used scrabble tiles and had them encounter "blocks of letters" as they were in a BBEGs "dream". I segmented the blocks into words, so they knew they needed 3 words, and they knew which letters were in each word. My degree of difficulty for the puzzle was that it was latin. As they got close, or had good table talk, I let them use google translate some to help them. In hindsight, that may have been a bit too meta, but I thought using english would have just been too easy. I thought it was fun, but I ended up tossing a few hints to keep things from bogging down too much.
In the parallel reality, the players saw the monastery/area as it was/could have been. They learned some clues and received some foreshadowing as to future events. When they then encountered those events post-dream.... much to my surprise the players actually remembered the clues!
All in all, I think it worked, but I had to make sure it was self-contained, didn't last an entire session, and had a few ways to "get out".
Thanks all !
"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"