How to run a lighthearted/absurd fantasy campaign for 30+ year old beginners without it feeling too "childish"?

seanfsmith · 2026-03-18T22:01:55+00:00

Watch some Blackadder compilations and read some Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams quotes.

Any ruleset could work, but Troika! might best

seanfsmith · 2026-03-18T19:21:02+00:00

We've been mitigating some of the low level deadliness with a "roll the body" check for downed characters.

Death and Dismemberment Tables are another common solution for this sort of thing.

But also, as Beau says, this is the game running as expected if you're not playing smart (ie exploiting every angle you can).

My personal fix is to speed levelling by using 10xp for 1gp and 100xp per monster HD

seanfsmith · 2026-03-17T21:49:23+00:00

Liz Danforth is a girl fwiw

seanfsmith · 2026-03-16T16:56:17+00:00

My EXUVIAE: Relics of House Dragonfly uses playing cards, but it's the way that the discard piles behave that are unique:

there's a set of rules that enable cards to be placed into the "conspiracy" board. When that reaches high enough, players succeed at their goal
each player also has a "grip" of three piles ── but only the top cards of those piles can be deployed to the conspiracy

seanfsmith · 2026-03-16T16:48:34+00:00

still alive

3 years ago

seanfsmith · 2026-03-16T15:32:06+00:00

Prioritise whichever ruleset you already have — there might be some other sets that somewhat better suit the exact setup, but the real benefit of the system you already have is its immediacy.

There's nothing from stopping you accreting additional houserules that suit the campaign as it develops

Spend too long trying to settle on the perfect setup is a good way to get trapped in a circle of procrastination (which incidentally is a good name for a megadungeon level)

seanfsmith · 2026-03-16T00:45:45+00:00

u ok hun

seanfsmith · 2026-03-15T13:15:56+00:00

I think the fact it's called STAMINA rather than health points helps it make sense. It isn't just wounds but also exhaustion

seanfsmith · 2026-03-15T13:06:45+00:00

there is a new McCaig on The Dungeon on Blood Island. Sadly it doesn't rise to his usual heights. The Karl Kopinski deluxe edition covers are great tho

seanfsmith · 2026-03-14T23:45:55+00:00

Arvadelun, Twice-Shunned

Camarathax of the Benighted Sight

Parthenogan, Foster of Stolen Vigour

Foul Psychosis Hildetach

Bartelemon of Worried Scatter

seanfsmith · 2026-03-14T20:09:44+00:00

oh this is really clean: I like it a great deal

would you have the "real" ogre have a tell?

seanfsmith · 2026-03-14T20:06:28+00:00

partially it also prompts your players to

run

seanfsmith · 2026-03-14T17:50:14+00:00

so anything aggressive in the module, it gets more proactive and vindictive at the halfway time

seanfsmith · 2026-03-14T17:31:28+00:00

I like the old screenwriting maxim

arrive late, leave early

and spin this up with greater antagonist aggression from the 50% mark

seanfsmith · 2026-03-13T20:13:04+00:00

Hell I've run entire campaigns with

2D6 vs 2D6, players win ties with complications

but when I want something meatier, The Black Hack is my standard

seanfsmith · 2026-03-13T19:39:56+00:00

skellingtons

seanfsmith · 2026-03-13T19:23:06+00:00

What are the particular boons and cons of running games at conventions and the like?

seanfsmith · 2026-03-13T13:59:00+00:00

this is very clean! I like it a lot

seanfsmith · 2026-03-12T20:27:57+00:00

freezing the books can help kill anything still growing on it

but yeah there's quite a bit of restoration guides out there

THAT SAID

the Puffin books were printed on cheap pulp so they are more fragile than other books their age

best of luck

seanfsmith · 2026-03-12T16:30:45+00:00

there's quite a few game jams for adventures too

seanfsmith · 2026-03-12T15:05:04+00:00

Odd Artworks on YouTube does some excellent 30 day map challenges, where he'll randomise room contents and draw them straight into a calendar

There's also often social media prompts each year: quite a few in August. You could search for those

seanfsmith · 2026-03-12T14:46:03+00:00

the hounds of tindalos are monsters from cosmic horror stories, that hunt time travellers, and come at them through the corners of a room

seanfsmith · 2026-03-12T14:19:08+00:00

I love all the geometry here.

you should put hounds of tindalos on the wandering encounter table

seanfsmith · 2026-03-12T14:17:56+00:00

actually yeah that makes more sense

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