Creating an Escher-like room

[Rechan]

So, I was wondering how to create the effect of an M C Escher type room for a dungeon.

Be it with portals every few squares, or gravity effects, or a maze-honeycomb.

Part of my interest in this is to get the party split up, tactically, but for them to still be visible. Most of the party doesn't have ranged support, so this would be potentially very effective. The other part would be an interest in a running battle of sorts (although monsters that fly could certainly be involved).

To add one more layer of complexity, how about a sort of clue as to the sequence or mapping it out? That way I can drop a clue (or the code, so to speak) early on, so the PCs can try and crack it. This way, the room is a puzzle. Even with a reward in the center, possibly?

I am actually starting to think that there might be rooms off the Escher room. Maybe this is a defense to keep people away from the treasury (the door to the treasury in the center? The key to the treasury in the center?) but I'm not sure.

 

[Vorput]

Eugh, this won't be easy.

Escher's achievement lay in creating physically impossible constructions and objects. I'm not sure how one can create (or more to the point, describe) such a room.

Escher's art isn't really what I'd imagine from Lovecraft's (cthulhu) descriptions, but those kind of descriptions may be what you're going for. Try to get across the completely impossibility of comprehending the room, even if you still manage to create a way to represent it physically.

(Sort of) like this (From Lovecraft's 'Call of Cthulhu')

The very sun of heaven seemed distorted when viewed through the polarising miasma welling out from this sea-soaked perversion, and twisted menace and suspense lurked leeringly in those crazily elusive angles of carven rock where a second glance shewed concavity after the first shewed convexity.

&

Johansen said, like a great barn-door; and they all felt that it was a door because of the ornate lintel, threshold, and jambs around it, though they could not decide whether it lay flat like a trap-door or slantwise like an outside cellar-door. As Wilcox would have said, the geometry of the place was all wrong. One could not be sure that the sea and the ground were horizontal, hence the relative position of everything else seemed phantasmally variable.

But as to representing something like that... maybe have several different maps (or battle maps [or battle map sections]) with random portals which lead to another one. You can see each level from wherever you are, but can't obviously get there. To do so (maybe) requires a perception/intelligence check? At which point the DM would point to a random place and say that leads there.

To keep it random, maybe have the walls and staircases (and what not) shifting?

I dunno, just some random (and possibly un-helpful!) thoughts.

Vorp

 

[cougent]

So, I was wondering how to create the effect of an M C Escher type room for a dungeon.

Be it with portals every few squares, or gravity effects, or a maze-honeycomb.

Part of my interest in this is to get the party split up, tactically, but for them to still be visible. Most of the party doesn't have ranged support, so this would be potentially very effective. The other part would be an interest in a running battle of sorts (although monsters that fly could certainly be involved).

To add one more layer of complexity, how about a sort of clue as to the sequence or mapping it out? That way I can drop a clue (or the code, so to speak) early on, so the PCs can try and crack it. This way, the room is a puzzle. Even with a reward in the center, possibly?

I am actually starting to think that there might be rooms off the Escher room. Maybe this is a defense to keep people away from the treasury (the door to the treasury in the center? The key to the treasury in the center?) but I'm not sure.

I have done something like this many years ago in AD&D, and yes it is very tricky to pull off. That is one of the reasons I have often thought of but never tried it again.

I (for better or worse) used DM prerogative to just make it work with little explanation behind it.

My room was at the center of a complex of paths and tunnels that came in at different positions and angles to the room. All of the paths were non-magical regular up/down corridors; but the doors into the room changed your actual orientation. As you entered the door into the room your sense of up/down and actual gravity was altered to fit the door you were entering. So it always looked like YOU were at the correct orientation and all the rest of the room was off. If you entered Door A at one orientation then someone entering Door B which was 180 degrees offset from Door A would then appear to be walking on your ceiling; but for that person you would appear to be walking on their ceiling. You also could not transition from one to the other either because orientation was determined by your entry door and remained constant until you left the room. Upon leaving the room you were oriented back to the true up/down. So if you entered multiple times you could walk all the various paths and orientations. This requires a great deal of DM upkeep if your party actually does get split up and comes in multiple doors. Not to mention flying, jumping to another path, leaving through a sideways door, etc.

 

[The Grumpy Celt]

Be it with portals every few squares, or gravity effects, or a maze-honeycomb.

All of the above. In every room of the place. There are no rules for this sort of thing… at least not, short, simple, coherent rules. You are on your own. I’ve wanted to do something like this for a long, long time…

 

[RFisher]

You also could not transition from one to the other either because orientation was determined by your entry door and remained constant until you left the room.

That was a suggestion from the Tesseract article in Dragon. That “gravity” could be considered a property of each individual. “Down” for you could be different than “down” for someone else.

Re-watch the end of Labyrinth for some inspiration.

 

[grodog]

Tesseracts would be a good addition to Escher-inspired dungeons, as would some good non-Euclidean geometry. Tesseracts were covered in three articles (in issues 17, 27, and 38; all in the Dragon Archive as well, of course), and there was a short primer on non-Euclidena geometry in Dungeon #4's "Forbidden Mountain" scenario, which is apparently OOP and not available from Paizo. Hmm. I'll see if I can post a scan of the relevant rules content once I'm back from our long weekend in Cancun.

I haven't gotten around to designing my Castle Greyhawk dungeon level inspired by Escher and non-Euclidean Geometry and Borges, but will one day

 

[Tonguez]

Re-watch the end of Labyrinth for some inspiration.

Lol I discovered Escher as a result of the Labyrinth scene and tried to use
the very M C Escher type room for a dungeon

All I'll say is I failed miserably. But I basically used the picture as the map and manually plotted where PCs were as they moved around (including climbing from one side of the stairs to the other and upside down fights with people below you)...

 

[frankthedm]

There are no rules for this sort of thing… at least not, short, simple, coherent rules.

I'd suspect coherent rules would defeat the purpose of such a place where earth and sky is not always parallel.

A random thought: Character chooses 'intended move', DM rolls on this chart, adding +1 if the character is running. Characters may take a "10's" result if not in combat.

Roll 1d12
1: You got there. You only take AoO's based on leaving your starting space. You did not even use your move action
2. That was quick: You got to where you wanted to go and can move a few more squares as part of this move action {= to your speed]
3-6: Move normally
7-9. You only take AoO's based on leaving your starting space. You arrive 1d10-2 squares away from your intended destination in a random direction. If you were charging a foe, you wind up in a randomly determined space adjacent to the foe from which you can make your attack.
10. Mild time distortion Every square moved counts as two. You probably fell short of the destination.
11: You only take AoO's based on leaving your starting space. You return to your stating position.
12 Overshot. Place your mini as if your entire movement began in the square you wanted to move to. You only take AoO's based on leaving your starting space.
13: You are swallowed up by an angle of masonry which shouldn't have been there.

 

[Zaukrie]

The EXCELLENT Dragon Compendium put out by Paizo contains two articles on tesseracts. I cannot picture 3D items in my head - it's some kind of genetic weakness - so I have trouble with the articles. However, others have said they now get it from reading those.

 

[Engilbrand]

Do you want the entry ways to decide orientation, or do you want every square to do something different? You could have a large room with treasure in the very center. Along the way to the middle, though, most squares that you step into put you in a different part of the room. If monsters know where everything is, it would make combat crazy. The Orc 15 feet away swings his axe to his left... and into your shoulder!