I just watched this really interesting video regarding the architecture of the Overlook Hotel in The Shining.
https://youtu.be/0sUIxXCCFWw

Do you ever intentionally use impossible architecture when designing dungeons?

Yeah, I've got a vast haunted mansion thing that rearranges itself on a whim and randomly opens onto different times and places. Kind of like the Winchester House crossed with a Tardis. I never thought of it as a dungeon, though I suppose it could be looked at that way... it started out as a rogue Navigator for my short-lived Whispering Vault game but now it's a location for my urban fantasy setting.

Baba Yaga's Dancing Hut.

I always have some explanation for what's in my games, even if the explanation sometimes invokes magic or techno/cosmo/spritual/hallicino-babble. I also often have things that seem inexplainable, but that's often a clue that, if someone notices it seems inexplainable, hints at some interesting thing, such as a semi-mad architect, or that there is some illusion or magic involved. In The Shining, too, there is an ongoing escalation of surreal experiences showing that all is not as it seems. Clues that start out so subtle they probably won't be noticed and slowly build are great because often that's how being observant actually plays out naturally.

Quote from: Cave Bear;912916Do you ever intentionally use impossible architecture when designing dungeons?

Frequently, but I always have a rationale. Stable extra-dimensional spaces, passages that shrink the party, mechanical transforming dungeons, whatever. I think the key is that the players need to be able to investigate the anomaly, reach a firm conclusion about it, and then use that information reliably if necessary. I'm very concerned about doing anything that could be perceived as half-baked improvisation or poorly thought-out filler.

Perhaps not on topic but I spent the night in the Stanley Hotel last year, the one that inspired Stephen King to write 'The Shining'. Very creepy place. We were right across the hall from the room he stayed in and experienced the haunt that inspired the book. Not much sleep that night.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;912959Frequently, but I always have a rationale. Stable extra-dimensional spaces, passages that shrink the party, mechanical transforming dungeons, whatever. I think the key is that the players need to be able to investigate the anomaly, reach a firm conclusion about it, and then use that information reliably if necessary. I'm very concerned about doing anything that could be perceived as half-baked improvisation or poorly thought-out filler.

Agreed. It's definitely something you want to build up to. I wouldn't put such extradimensional trickery on the first level of a dungeon, that's for sure.

But there's ways to make it really subtle. Players only map the dungeon from a top-down perspective; I've never seen players map verticle cross-sections of the dungeons they were exploring. You can use that to hide anomalies. For example you could have things like two pit traps on the same level that drop hapless victims to the next level down, but one pit is deeper than the other even though the tops and bottoms of both pits are at identical heights. Or you could do the old "two rooms occupying the same space" trick with a deep pit that exists in the exact same spot as a room on the same level that would be accessible only by stairs. Players can be quick to pick up on spatial abnormalities on their map's XY axis, but not on the Z axis.
But, obviously, you should only use these tricks sparingly but consistently to highlight something important.

Quote from: rgrove0172;912961Perhaps not on topic but I spent the night in the Stanley Hotel last year, the one that inspired Stephen King to write 'The Shining'. Very creepy place. We were right across the hall from the room he stayed in and experienced the haunt that inspired the book. Not much sleep that night.

Neat!

I did that with the Sky-Blind Spire, which is ostensibly a tower, but on the inside it's a 2D grid of rooms that wraps at the edges. In one case, I crossed two of the wrapping corridors, which breaks the pattern, something I only did after regretting the way that the wrapping put the most dangerous encounter adjacent to the entrance. Dumb!

I don't do this sort of thing lightly. For many years I built adventure areas on a MUD, and it was beaten into me (via Zork, too) that "mazes" (arrangements of rooms that connect unexpectedly) are some of the easiest, laziest and most annoying challenges you can make on a MUD.

I indulged myself this time because a) it's immediately obvious that something is up, so players aren't halfway through the adventure when they realize their map is buggered, and b) there are windows, which are both a second clue that something weird is up, and (I thought) a novel way to break out of the arrangement.

Quote from: Cave Bear;912916I just watched this really interesting video regarding the architecture of the Overlook Hotel in The Shining.
https://youtu.be/0sUIxXCCFWw

Do you ever intentionally use impossible architecture when designing dungeons?

Yes. I used non-Euclidean designs for both Halls of the Mad Mage (winner of Best Geometry in the One Page Dungeon Contest) and The Lost Hunt (winner of absolutely nothing, but I like it).

I did try the toroidal space from "Hunt the Wumpus" once. The thing that made it intersting was that the space actually curved, so an arrow shot down a hallway would follow the curve of the hallway. There was an inner ring hallway that was actually short enough to put an archer within his own longbow range. That was a great trick. The arrow flies down the corridor, around the bend, and...

After traveling & living overseas, been through far too many modernist/post-modernist monstrocities, and having the Winchester Mystery House less than 20 miles away from where I now live, there is extremely little that I can point to and say is "impossible architechture."

I have pissed in a 2' deep x 4' wide tiled, squat toilet "bathroom" at a sitdown restaurant. At this point, it's just about all believable to me.

(edit: Curious about that experience I actually "remeasured" my wee bathroom estimates using memory of relation to my body size proportions and an actual ruler. I'm sorry, I was wrong. It was closer to 1.5'x3'.

It's rather surreal to close a door behind you and have a tile wall immediately before you. That and trying to plie to piss as downward as one can onto the tile wall into the squat toilet without too much backsplash. Interestingly it doesn't make my top 5 worst bathrooms — likely top 15, possibly top 10.

The world is rich with mysteries and hellish experiences.)

I've seen a few of those kinds of toilets myself.