Tuesday, January 18, 2011

So what are the best types of D&D games for you to Run.

My best games are

#1 Low to medium level Sword and Sorcery stuff

#2 Humor driven games, D&D as comedy

#3 Low level fairytale and horror games

How about you?


  1. Best ones in terms of what me and my players seem to enjoy the most:

    1. Epic D&D. The fate of the world rests in the hands of the PCs.

    2. Horror D&D. Take all the tropes of gothic horror and drop sword wielding heroes into it all.

  2. I concur with all of your choices. Probably in the same order as well. Most of the time I blend all three together. I find that a little well places humor works well to break the tension built up from the grim sword & sorcery/horror elements that I enjoy using.

  3. Epic never works well for me. I just lack the I dunno, something. I run a lot of horror, probably too much

  4. Also like Shane, I sometimes blend genres the same way although I rarely mix much humor in that.

  5. Just to clarify a bit, I meant 'a little well places humor' in the same vein that Fritz Leiber or Clark Ashton Smith used humor in their works. A little gallows humor goes a very long way, and can actually enhance weird/horrific elements when applied to the game.

  6. I do the same thing and in the same node, Shane.

  7. Most of our games are driven by humor and inside jokes amongst the players.

  8. Humor and inside jokes are one of the great strengths of face to face gaming and a huge part of the fun. While I can understand why people enjoy such things, treating D&D as SERIOUS BUSINESS always perplexes me.

    Ignoring the fact that grown men are pretending at times to be a magical elf princess, gaming itself is a good part comedy.

    Anyone familiar with early D&D can see the humor in the writing and art and despite market-droids attempts to change that back around 2e , the legacy of humor is still there.

    I for one am glad of that.

  9. I actually did low, medium and high level play. I hesitate to call high level "epic", as to me it just offers the players to use some neat spells and superior combat abilities, and fot the DM it lets you pull out all the stops and use some cool monsters and scenarios.
    Humor is very important. It shouldn't take over the game, but this is a very funny game overall, and a game without laughter is kind of a bummer and not so fun.

  10. High level play doesn't work that well for me navi.

    I think its because the first "old school" game that was "mine" was Runequest 2e which is maybe a little too gritty .

    My players seem to enjoy it well enough when other people run it though.