Making a scenario dreamlike?

[NRSASD]

Hey Playgrounders,

The final scene of my long running campaign is approaching, and I was looking for some help and suggestions. The party has traveled so far into the east that the laws of reality are starting to get a bit fuzzy, resulting in the boundaries between the Prime Material and the Feywild beginning to blur. The Feywild is less traditional Feywild though, and more like the Australian Dreamlands from mythology. I have this image of a blisteringly hot early dawn in the Outback, with ancient, alien ruins revealing themselves in the distance as the sun rises.

Anyways, my question for you lot is how have you handled dreamlike events or encounters in game? Anything you did differently to differentiate them from standard encounters?

As always, any and all help is appreciated!

[JoeJ]

This would be a bit hard to do in a game, but one of the best ways to make something seem dreamlike is if the character's actions/reactions don't match the circumstances. For example, the building is on fire and the character is annoyed because they're trying to sleep and the light from the fire is keeping them awake.

[Sorceress]

You could use super-fantastical terrain. Floating islands. Solid clouds to walk on.

Distances between things could be variable as well, not as set in stone.

Talking animals or objects are always weird and dream-like.

Just a few minor ideas, anyway.

[Bohandas]

Maybe keep Enter Sandman or TheLong Song (The God Akhaten) playing on a loop in the background

[S@tanicoaldo]

So it's not actual dreams, but weird dream like reality?

[NRSASD]

@S@tanicoaldo- Yes

[JoeJ]

Playing games with distance and movement can make things seem very dreamlike. For example, randomly varying the amount of movement it takes to get anywhere: one moment a character moves across the room in a single step and the next it takes their full movement just a go a couple of feet.

Also, you can change measurements in ways that defy logic. Maybe the party is in a 10 foot high passage and they encounter a 18 foot tall giant, who somehow fits without difficulty even though neither the passage nor the giant have changed size.

[Bohandas]

Playing games with distance and movement can make things seem very dreamlike. For example, randomly varying the amount of movement it takes to get anywhere: one moment a character moves across the room in a single step and the next it takes their full movement just a go a couple of feet.

Or taking it further still, travel time is handwaved because there explicitly is no travel time. They step out the door (or even just around a corner on their way to get to the door) to embark to some distant place and this unexpectedly takes them directly to their destination (or possibly to a small, room sized representation of the area that should be between the two places, on the other side of which is their destination).

Crossing this area may make them fatigued as if they really had traveled a long distance.

The intervening area probably expands back to full size after they're where they're going

EDIT:
Also buildings that are unnecessarily large and arranged in a nonsensical, maze-like, Winchester Mansion-esque fashion (although it could be argued that this is how most dungeons are already laid out)

EDIT:
Also

*Small details change whenever anybody looks away
*Some things are consistently described using the wrong name.
*Items get inconveniently lost from inventory inexplicably and have to be found while others just as inexplicably appear in inventory

[Honest Tiefling]

Messing with heads is harder to do with players as they sorta like their free will.

But if you have ruins, perhaps force them to make fear checks (or whatever is appropriate) when they look at them...Or try to leave them. Their eyes keep getting drawn to them and they have to roll to force themselves to look away. Details of the ruins shift and change but they never SEE them change, they just do. Something might be lurking in the corner of their vision, but they can never quite make it out.

And no matter what, they cannot get farther from the ruins. Other aspects of the landscape might change to suggest that they are moving, but those ruins are always THERE. Never getting further away, but they can approach them, of course...

[Kaptin Keen]

Use elements from the past.

Use fallen enemies.

Scenes out of childhood.

Your mother. No, not the PC's mothers. Your actual mother. Ok, maybe the PC's mothers make more sense, but is that a good thing? =)

[Harpier]

Another fun thing is to calmly give crazy or impossible descriptions, acting like they make complete sense.

"The ruins tower above you, the tip piercing the sky. Wind rushes though the rip. There dosen't seem to be much else here, I guess you guys could set up camp if you wanted to."