Any clever ideas for a dungeon mapped onto a sphere?

[solamon77]

I'm running a dungeon in a couple days that is mapped onto the surface of a sphere. For ease of use I'm internally going to have it mapped on to a cube, but from the players perspectives it will be a sphere. While inside the dungeon, the party won't able to tell that they are moving through a three-dimensional space. This will be kept secret from them. The floor and walls don't curve or anything like that, but eventually the dungeon wraps around on itself no matter which direction they walk.

So basically I'm looking for a couple of interesting ideas to utilize the unique nature of this dungeon. Has anyone on here ever done something like this before? And if so what do you have to say? If it matters this is a sci-fi/sci fantasy game using the Starfinder rules. Thanks!

 

[John Dallman]

I've played in a dungeon that was a tesseract - a four-dimensional space. It was confusing. The temple built inside it belonged to a cult of stupidity, who weren't aware of its nature. They frequently got lost in ordinary buildings, and hadn't noticed that this was worse.

Will the characters in your game have equipment or abilities that tell them they're in a severely distorted space? If so, playing up the horror potential of the place is worthwhile. It might be worthwhile giving them something which tells them about the "increasing stress-tensor" every room or two, just to keep them worried.

 

[aco175]

You could use a do-deka-d20 map if you want to have something the players might guess at. There would also be middle rooms that go through the center to the other side and those can be long tubes.

I'm not sure what the secret is keeping it from the players unless something is an a-ha moment in the end. I find the more the DM is saying, "That is just the way it is.", the more the players are getting bored or frustrated. If that is the case, you could just have teleporting doorways and make anything you like.

 

[Dioltach]

It would be interesting if they started falling off the bottom of the sphere.

 

[Richards]

How do the PCs originally get into this recursive space? And is there a reason they can't get back out again through that entrance? And if so, do you have a different way they can eventually get out of it?

The closest thing I've ever done is a couple of campaigns back, I had a trap that dropped most of the PCs into an "ethereal ring" - kind of like what you're describing, but only along the equator of your sphere (it was a line of rectangular rooms that eventually met back up to the first room without giving any indications ahead of time). They had each dropped through a different extraplanar gate in the ceiling of their individual starting rooms that was too high to reach on their own, and only by defeating the skeletal guardians in the rooms and meeting back up together could they form a human pyramid to get back up to a gate on the ceiling to climb their way back to the Material Plane. (And just to make it more interesting, I had a magical silence effect and an illusory effect throughout the "ethereal ring" so that only the PCs' bones and gear was visible while in those rooms, so they could easily mistake each other for undead guardian skeletons if they weren't careful.)

Johnathan

 

[aramis erak]

I'm running a dungeon in a couple days that is mapped onto the surface of a sphere. For ease of use I'm internally going to have it mapped on to a cube, but from the players perspectives it will be a sphere. While inside the dungeon, the party won't able to tell that they are moving through a three-dimensional space. This will be kept secret from them. The floor and walls don't curve or anything like that, but eventually the dungeon wraps around on itself no matter which direction they walk.

So basically I'm looking for a couple of interesting ideas to utilize the unique nature of this dungeon. Has anyone on here ever done something like this before? And if so what do you have to say? If it matters this is a sci-fi/sci fantasy game using the Starfinder rules. Thanks!

If you don't mind triangular panels and hexagons instead of squares, both octohedra and icosahedra are alternate viable mappings. (octohedron: d8. Icosahedron: d20).
The dodecahedron (d12) would have odd edges with any of the perfect tilings (triangles, squares, hexagons) on the faces.

 

[Guang]

I'm picturing a chase scene in my mind going down a long hallway that just keeps on going as they all go around and around and around and around......

 

[Dioltach]

I'm picturing a chase scene in my mind going down a long hallway that just keeps on going as they all go around and around and around and around......

Even better if it's the PCs being chased, and as the DM narrates them slowly drawing away from their pursuer: "Up ahead you spot a [whatever they're running away from]. It appears to be chasing someone, and boy does it look angry!"

 

[uzirath]

I like the idea of a pit that goes through the middle. If the sphere has gravity, the pit could have a zero G zone in the center.

 

[cimbrog]

I ran Dyson's Lost Ossuary once. Unfortunately the way I ran it might not work for a sphere - for example whenever they moved to a new side they would have the sensation of missing a step.

Some fun things to do might be letting them see their own backs in a hallway that runs from one end to another. Or having missile attacks seem to curve upward and hit the ceiling from the party's perspective.