I might be getting too fancy with this...

I recently watched the movie Oculus. It's about a strange mirror that consumes the life force around it AND creates a zone of enigma to protect itself and trap its prey. A great idea for a monster.
It's similar to movies like Jacob's Ladder, 1408, Uzumaki and Stalker in that the protagonists spend most of the tale not being able to trust their senses... and most of their actions are thwarted or invalidated somehow.
It's a pretty common setup in horror/fantasy/scifi media... to have the characters trapped in a mirage/dream/nightmare/alien projection.

The thing is, I'm not sure how to pull such a thing off in-game and not have it come off as a total railroad, really annoying or both.
Such a thing seems like a great way to represent the strangeness surrounding some Lovecraftian entity (I have a pet theory that the mirror in Oculus is an avatar of Yog Sothoth)... and inflicting it on one PC for a brief span of time usually goes fine... but putting the whole group into such a space, for an extended period (an entire session?)... even with plenty of clues of how to escape... I dunno... it involves giving them false/misleading information and taking away huge gobs of their agency.
In the past I've only tried it for short flashes.
I end up thinking that a setup like Oculus, 1408, Stalker, etc. won't really work in an RPG very well... that being that confused, alienated, topsy turvy... over the rainbow and through the looking glass... is just going to annoy Players rather than intrigue or scare them.
I could give them lots of chances to break free of the mental affects of the thing... at least for short durations before they're sucked back in to its mirage... but that seems, insufficient/lame... too much dice rolling.

Any thoughts on this stuff? How do you run zones of enigma and/or dreams in games? Or do you avoid them altogether?

Quote from: Simlasa;758035I might be getting too fancy with this...

I recently watched the movie Oculus. It's about a strange mirror that consumes the life force around it AND creates a zone of enigma to protect itself and trap its prey. A great idea for a monster.
It's similar to movies like Jacob's Ladder, 1408, Uzumaki and Stalker in that the protagonists spend most of the tale not being able to trust their senses... and most of their actions are thwarted or invalidated somehow.
It's a pretty common setup in horror/fantasy/scifi media... to have the characters trapped in a mirage/dream/nightmare/alien projection.

The thing is, I'm not sure how to pull such a thing off in-game and not have it come off as a total railroad, really annoying or both.
Such a thing seems like a great way to represent the strangeness surrounding some Lovecraftian entity (I have a pet theory that the mirror in Oculus is an avatar of Yog Sothoth)... and inflicting it on one PC for a brief span of time usually goes fine... but putting the whole group into such a space, for an extended period (an entire session?)... even with plenty of clues of how to escape... I dunno... it involves giving them false/misleading information and taking away huge gobs of their agency.
In the past I've only tried it for short flashes.
I end up thinking that a setup like Oculus, 1408, Stalker, etc. won't really work in an RPG very well... that being that confused, alienated, topsy turvy... over the rainbow and through the looking glass... is just going to annoy Players rather than intrigue or scare them.
I could give them lots of chances to break free of the mental affects of the thing... at least for short durations before they're sucked back in to its mirage... but that seems, insufficient/lame... too much dice rolling.

Any thoughts on this stuff? How do you run zones of enigma and/or dreams in games? Or do you avoid them altogether?

Years ago, I wrote an RPG called Dreamwalker: Roleplaying in the Land of Dreams and later converted it to d20 Modern (Dreamwalker Revised) that tackled most of these issues.

The thing you have to keep in mind is that the dream world/enigma zone/whatever cannot be topsy turvy and make no sense or else it will get aggravating for the players. The dreamworld (let's just call it that) should have some type of overarching theme and everything in the dreamworld should represent some aspect of the dreamer/dream object. The effects may look topsy turvy and random to the player, but you as the GM should know how it all fits together. A lot of this can be hashed out during the item's backstory and you may want to foreshadow some of it to the players.

Let's say you're dealing with a hotel room where people have mysteriously died. Among the more notable deaths over the years are a married couple, a police officer, and a toddler. This information could be disseminated through newspaper articles, maybe a lost journal, etc. The PCs begin to experience random supernatural effects that have something to do with these entities if they for whatever reason find themselves staying in the room.

Maybe they hear a child's laughter one night. Later that night, someone knocks at the door and leaves a piece of wedding cake and a bottle of champagne. Maybe one of the characters suddenly finds himself in possession of a service revolver and is pointing it at his own head. Of course at a certain point if the PCs stay, they become trapped in this nightmarish room and must eventually face the real entity that is causing all the mysterious deaths.

In Dreamwalker, I've got a whole race of creatures (Broodspawn) that are able to generate a "blight" in the real world which is essentially a nightmarish realm that surrounds them. I've got a lot of other suggestions and tips for making dream adventures work including "systemless" dream design guidelines that can be ported to any system. If you PM me your email address I'll send you the PDF.

The main thing to remember is that dreams have structure, even if they seem random, there's an underlying reason as to why someone is dreaming something in particular. The GM should know this, but the players don't always have to.

Exactly, just because it is likely esoteric and symbolic does not mean it has no logic. Dream logic is a touchstone concept to ground the shifting sands of the ethereal plane. The ethereal is the world of thoughts and feelings. And though showing and not telling thoughts and feelings will confuse easily, they will have their own logical basis.

Meh... I'd avoid it. I've seen this sort of things in various novels, characters walking through a bizarre dream-world to find Enlightenment or discover their future or some such thing. It never seems to come off well and usually just drags a story down. (If I recall correctly the third Sunset Warrior novel ended with a gigantic battle between good and evil and the concluding blow was the hero walking through a strange spiritual world.)

There's gotta be better way to spend your time.

Quote from: Simlasa;758035I might be getting too fancy with this...

I recently watched the movie Oculus. It's about a strange mirror that consumes the life force around it AND creates a zone of enigma to protect itself and trap its prey. A great idea for a monster.
?

Oculus was a great old-school creepy, atmospheric, slow-burn classy horror movie... produced by the WWE wrestling people.

Sometimes the most unexpected persons can step up to the plate and just knock one right outta' the park.