Any clever ideas for a dungeon mapped onto a sphere?

[practicalm]

I was pretty sure there was an adventure in a Dungeon Magazine where the map was inside of a sphere. But I wasn't able to find which issue it was in.

 

[Lanefan]

Hmmm - the problem with trying to map a sphere on to any flat surface is distortion. The only thing I can suggest is to grab a cheapass world globe from your local thrift store, slap a coat of white paint over it, and rough-map your dungeon on to that...the problem then becomes how to hide this "map" from your players while running the game*.

Damn cool idea, though - I might try this myself at some point.

As for how to get them in and-or out of it, there's two deep holes into the "floor". The party is somehow unexpectedly teleported to the bottom of one of these holes, climbing out of which puts them on the surface of the sphere. The second of these holes, which the PCs will at first doubtless think to be an unconcealed pit trap, leads to another teleporter that takes them back whence they came.

* - if you're running online this isn't a problem at all, but will be replaced with the problem of having to use a 2-D map on the VTT and thus hitting the distortion issue again.

 

[Eltab]

The dungeon looks suspiciously like the Death Star. In particular whenever you go to a lower level.

If the PCs are supposed to be on the surface of the sphere, then the PCs should see a too-close horizon. Running along a straight flat passageway means you go 'over the horizon' from your starting point.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Space Mapping

 

[cimbrog]

You could always use the Paint 3d app that comes with Windows 10 to make a map.

 

[Lanefan]

The dungeon looks suspiciously like the Death Star. In particular whenever you go to a lower level.

If the PCs are supposed to be on the surface of the sphere, then the PCs should see a too-close horizon. Running along a straight flat passageway means you go 'over the horizon' from your starting point.

Given that the scenario proposed in the OP is specifically that of a dungeon, the sphere's "surface" is here just the dungeon floor, I think; there's still a ceiling and who knows what else above the rooms/passages/etc. the PCs are to be exploring.

That said, the whole point of the illusion would be lost if a straight flat passage didn't look like a straight flat passage...which also isn't much of a problem given that most light sources are only good for a few tens of feet and - unless the sphere is really tiny - the horizon will be somewhat farther off than that.