Carnival Session
I don’t know about you guys, but I find Quest Giver’s eyes far more unsettling than Thief’s. That concealing hat brim is all that separates “wizardly counsel” from “stabbed by a carny.”
Any dang way, despite today’s lampoonery, I am by no means above this trick myself. Tutorials are hard to get right, and the structured yet low-consequence nature of carnival games make for an ideal setup. You even get to tack on worldbuilding elements by explaining what the locals are celebrating. Sure we’ve seen the setup once or twice or thrice before, but it’s always a fun change of pace from the usual goblin cave or bandit camp.
That said, the classic “tutorial session” is by no means the only use for carnivals. From One Day at HorrorLand to Five Night’s at Freddy’s to the Carnival of Chaos over in Warhammer, the creepy carnival is its own trope. Horror has followed midways around like an extra corndog trailer since the seminal cinematic creepfest of Freaks (1932) and the capital-C Carnival setting in “The Cask of Amontillado” (1846). Making a corresponding abandoned theme park in an RPG is an easy next step.
If you stop to think about it though, we owe a lot to carnivals and theme park designers in general. One of my favorite articles on the subject comes from media scholar Henry Jenkins. It’s called “Game Design as Narrative Architecture,” and I’m looking in particular at this passage:
Don Carson, who worked as a Senior Show Designer for Walt Disney Imagineering, has argued that game designers can learn a great deal by studying techniques of “environmental storytelling” which Disney employs in designing amusement park attractions. Carson explains, “The story element is infused into the physical space a guest walks or rides through. It is the physical space that does much of the work of conveying the story the designers are trying to tell….Armed only with their own knowledge of the world, and those visions collected from movies and books, the audience is ripe to be dropped into your adventure. The trick is to play on those memories and expectations to heighten the thrill of venturing into your created universe.” The amusement park attraction doesn’t so much reproduce the story of a literary work… as it evokes its atmosphere.
Jenkins is thinking about video games here, but the same logic applies to tabletop dungeon delving. Whenever you create a labyrinth, populate it with loot and liches, and then let your players wander through, they activate story by progressing through virtual space. So you better believe that I pay attention when I find myself standing in line at Universal or shuffling through the local haunted house at Halloween. These are full-scale dungeons that I get to explore IRL. And I’m always sure to take notes.
Question of the day then! What is your relationship to RPG carnivals? Do you use them as dungeon inspiration? Low-stakes tutorials? Maybe you trade on the horror tradition? Whatever your take, tell us all about your own favorite carnival games/dungeons/inspirations down in the comments!
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Don’t forget the Pathfinder 1e module, ‘Carnival of Tears’ as well. Or the Pathfinder 2e module where the PCs ARE the carnies, Age of Extinction.
https://aonprd.com/SourceDisplay.aspx?FixedSource=Carnival%20of%20Tears
*Extinction Curse I mean.
https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Extinction_Curse
…Or four times, or five…
Careful, Whack-A-Gnoll is Blizzard’s idea too.
https://art.hearthstonejson.com/v1/render/latest/enUS/512x/DMF_705.png
Pretty sure the Simpsons did it too.
Ahh, NeverWinters night 2 comes back to mind, though thinly veiled is giving it too much credit.
No, I haven’t used carnivals. But I did use boot camp in Starship Troopers to show differences between DnD 3.5 and ST. The warhammer games, especially Fanyasy, I could work one in, of course it’s going to be either a chaos cult(the jolly nurglite warband from Mordheim is good example) or hiding mutants, because it’s warhammer where nothing nice is ever allowed to exist… or at least that’s how it used to be.
I’ve played through that sequence so many times I have the dialogue memorized.
“So many years ago today…ah, my foster son/daughter is up and dressed, I see. Today is the High Harvest Fair, and the West Harbor village council REQUIRES me to man the archery competition. The human need to celebrate remembrance days baffles me, but at least something good may come of it. The merchant, Galen, is here. He’ll want my furs, as he usually does. Coins CAN be useful in getting by. This past season has been a hard one, for both tilled fields and wildlands. While I attend to the archery contest. I will need you to deal with the merchant. Fetch my furs from the chest, over by the painting.”
Weirdly, I’ve never played any of the D&D CRPGs. What’s the best one to start with in 2022?
I wanna jump in on this question and say that My favorites have always been Temple of Elemental Evil and Dark Queen of Krynn, but everyone else seems to prefer Planescape Torment, Baldur’s Gate, and Neverwinter Nights
In fairness, the control setup in Dark Queen has not aged well
I second the recommendations of Planescape: Torment, the Baldur’s Gate series and Neverwinter Nights series.
If you want to branch out into the Pathfinder stuff, I can’t recommend Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous enough!
Seconding Zousha recommendation of the Pathfinder CRPGs (Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous), very fun and a satisfying amount of that PF crunchy goodness. Kingmaker even has a “rogue-lite” infinite dungeon crawl as a DLC.
Laurel tried to run them during her first foray into Mordheim. Being an old hand at the setting, I promptly destroyed any chance she had at fun by nerfing Nurgle Rot before game 1.
“But honey, the forums say it’s OP! Everyone at Tom’s Boring Mordheim Forum says so!”
Sometimes I’m not the best gamer. 🙁
Considering Ravenloft’s traveling Carnival (non-5e version) and its Twisting, I tend to treat such with a measure of caution.
Now, Questgiver… With the brim down, he looks a bit scruffy, a bit harried, a bit insane.
With the brim up and these eyes, he looks shifty furtive, and gives the impression that he sweats a lot and smells suspiciously of pork and geriatric weasels.
Found ’em!
https://www.fraternityofshadows.com/wiki/Category:Carnival_(Society)
I’d probably run a Carnival of Curiosities myself if I could list “occasional acts of deliberate fleshcraftng” on my resume.
Mistipedia is a great resource, isn’t it? ^_^
The only time I can remember using a Carnival was as part of Orpheus. A trio of powerful, malicious ghosts had taken over the area with powers that could trap even the dead in a state of lucid sleep without warning.
For the ghostly members of the party, they had an experience of uncertain joy as they appeared to be alive once more and able to taste food, feel the wind and all the other wonderful things they had missed. Carnivals are very sensory places so it was a great bit of roleplay for those characters. For the living teammates, they just felt very normal and powerless.
Trio of evil ghosts arrive, fights start, party realizes that they can’t fight back until one of the formerly dead PCs has an accident much the one that killed them in the waking world. Instead of truely dying in the dream as the ghosts threatened, they are instead fully ghostly once more and fully empowered. Party proceeds to enjoy a black-comedy montage of recreating their various deaths and near-death experiences via Carnival rides and fairground implements before finally being able to turn the tables.
Cool setup! I’m glad it turned into black comedy rather than Trauma Part 2, Electric Boogaloo. You could get either very silly or very maudlin with that setup, and I know I’d rather go for comedy than tragedy.
The bumper cars helped a lot!
I often use carnivals as a “beach episode”, a break and distraction from the heavy plot going on. I can’t say I’ve ever seen it as a tutorial, going quite the opposite way and playing around with a myriad of skill checks across a myriad of games.
I second this! I use carnivals as distractions from reality, a time for the characters to relax.
I call that the “hot springs episode,” but maybe that’s on account of my being a giant weeb. We actually did a whole arc on it over in Handbook of Erotic Fantasy. We wound up calling the silly thing “The Hot Springs of the Gratuitous Nymph,” and it remains the only dungeon that Laurel and I have jointly published.
I can only recall two RP carnival/circus events that were in a game and neither were used as set ups for greater evils or a tutorial. Both were just fun asides to let off some steam (and get a bit of fun NPC interactions and such).
The DM crafted some games and some shows and we just sat around for about half a session interacting until we were done and moved on with the main story again. There was never a call back to said side show, nor did it involve any questing or NPCs of a recurring nature. It was there, we had fun, it was gone… as a roaming band of carny folk should be. Moving on to the next town.
I think I actually prefer that type of interaction to the idea of the carnival having a real plot around it. It gives the game a nice break (usually needed) until the next big drama and action take center stage again.
This might be a future comic concept.
As fiction writers, we’re told that if something does not advance your narrative it should be cut. We’re working on very different principles in the tabletop, and it’s worthwhile pointing that out.
I genuinely love running [Festival Guide](https://www.dmsguild.com/product/207642/Festival-Guide).
I throw in a joust which can be found [here](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1W3l87xR1Y8rw-1FVTdxqdSFRvZxwJu_r-jQHnsvrgio/edit) and an archery contest I can’t be bothered to dig up since I have it in print. (The target has 3 ACs for outer ring, inner ring, and bullseye. Every round the targets are moved further back increasing their AC, and anyone who doesn’t score enough points in the previous round is eliminated)
I’ve been watching some High Rollers, so I might throw in Spell Clash: Every participant gets a magical barrier that has a set amount of HP. It absorbs damage from spells only. You can burn a slot to restore the barrier by a set amount as a bonus action. If your barrier is gone you lose. If you injure your opponent (Damage them after the barrier is gone, or damage them through non-spell means) you lose.
I see that someone named “Gabriel R.” added a suggested soundtrack:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uK4zcXbeTIA
It seems to be a dead link though, and I find myself wondering what it might have been. Don’t suppose you have any insight?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1Ebt4q5ipU
Usually I like to throw in a weird dramatic happening at the end of the festival like having Slaadi burst out of people’s chests (Odd that a Red Slaad went on a rampage in-town exactly three months before a festival that would have dignitaries from all over the continent visit, isn’t it? Can’t Slaadi be controlled with gems?) or a Githyanki raid to dramatically shift the tone.
Also I use Giff as the hired guards for the festival because Bri’ish space hippos with guns are delightful.
We’ve been seeing a lot of QG’s eyes, is he all right?
He’s a quest giver that has to deal with Fighter. He’s not all right.
Another member of our game night crew took over as DM for one session with a thoroughly fun and truly bizarre “night carnival.” It was inexplicably in our characters’ path, and (as explained at the gate) once inside, each PC had to present X tickets before sunrise to be allowed to leave. (We were allowed to pool/reassign tickets as needed.)
There was a shooting gallery wherein the PCs both shot and were shot-at, a truly entrancing dancing girl/tattooed lady, test your strength games, a mirrored labyrinth, and more.
My priest of Heracles foiled the intent of one encounter, a cyclops strongman from the menagerie. I was so thrilled to see something on the cleric’s bucket list, I greeted the cyclops in giantish and offered to share a beer with him. For a) extending hospitality, b) unexpectedly being fluent in the creature’s native language, and c) rolling a Nat 20 on Diplomacy, we were awarded the tickets we would have gotten from fighting the monster and I got to add “Sat down to drinks with a cyclops, like Odysseus” to my character’s list of Hellenic Hallmarks.
I can think of two possible inspirations for the night carnival:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Night_Circus
https://stardewvalleywiki.com/Night_Market
Nicely done hitting your literary checklist. Finding myself inside of the trope is one of my favorite things in gaming.
I can’t wait to test out an adventure I wrote last year. It’s a medicine show (tied into a plot hook involving a pack of ghasts that was formerly a party that trusted fake patent medicine to cure ghoul fever), but elements of the C-plot are drawn from The Last Unicorn, specifically Mommy Fortuna’s Midnight Carnival.
(Of course, anyone who thinks I might nod to the source material without changing anything might be in for a few rude surprises…)
I mainly use the carnival at the start to give players a bit of time to ease into their characters, get to know each other and to give them a false sense of security before I inevitably have some dreaded horror interrupt it.
In the cases where I use it in a campaign that have already gone on for a while, I mainly use it to allow the players to relax a bit, get some fun items and to give them a false sense of security before I inevitably have some dreaded horror interrupt it
> a false sense of security before I inevitably have some dreaded horror interrupt it.
I know that feel, bro: https://cdn.paizo.com/image/product/catalog/PZO/PZO5503.png
We haven’t dealt much with carnivals in my games, but we’ve had a few festivals instead. They’re usually used as a bit of a breather episode between more serious things by one of my DMs. I’ve considered doing a carnival one-off for one of the campaigns I’m in, but am still figuring out where I want it to go.
> I’ve considered doing a carnival one-off for one of the campaigns I’m in, but am still figuring out where I want it to go.
Happy to talk shop here in the comments if you want to bat around a few ideas. Could be a fun exercise for the group given today’s topic.
We’re currently at level 7 and have just finished getting back from a jaunt into the Feywild. I’m thinking that the carnival will just show up one night, filling the streets of the city (homebrewed) they’re working out of in the middle of the night. Depending on the party reacts, I think the carnival will get hostile sooner or later, though if they don’t piss off the carnies, I think it will ramp up slowly. Different stereotypical carnival games and shows will get *weird* and carnies will get revealed as monsters of some sort (probably fey). The night will not end until the show ends, with the party defeating the Ringmaster. However, I’m unsure how to get the right atmosphere without overloading on exposition.
My players, too, love local festivals for what is *supposed* to be a relaxing breather between quests. While no one has noticed or complained, the festivals we’ve run have (behind the curtain, beyond the individualized local color and flavor-text) followed a certain formula:
A) Food and tchotchke vendors, fun but common competitions with no “real” prizes (archery, potato sack races, tug-of-war, etc.), sometimes with NPC party competitors if the heroes might overwhelm the locals. (Everybody loves a Team Rocket, especially if you need someone other than the locals to be an easy victim in the 3rd act.)
B) One BIG thing that makes this community special (a giant fruitcake, a horseradish-eating competition that the PCs can enter, crowning the King of Fools).
C) Two or three colorful “minor” NPCs, one of whom winds up being key to whatever shenanigans occur to threaten the paradise before/during/after the fair.
Switched to a carnival setting, the carnival itself can serve as a red herring if the players are genre-savvy and *expect* the carnies to be the source of mayhem, when they’re actually as innocent as the locals.
This one is kinda making me sad. On my first ever campaign I ran, I had a festival with a lot of games. I remember my players saying they enjoyed them. Unfortunately the group dissolved shortly after that session.
I hope the sadness is over the group’s dissolution rather than the carnival thing itself. Like I said in the OP, the trope is rock solid, even if a lot of designers and GMs have indulged. Like your players said, they really can be a lot of fun.
Im sad the group broke up. It was my first campaign and, granted I bit off WAY more than I could chew, but there were some sessions and encounters I was really proud of. That festival was one of them!
Let’s not forget an important aspect of carnivals: Wacky prizes! At a spice festival I ran, my players won small sums of gold, coupons for sweets from the sweets shops, and the grand prize: a choice of a large sum of gold, a prize pig, or marriage to the mayor’s daughter!
The marriage was a small-town tradition, a joke prize that no one was supposed to actually choose, so it came as a surprise to everyone when the winner chose it. After some hilarity, she told everyone off for the joke and picked the pig instead. Ser Bacon has been causing trouble by her side ever since.
That is supremely cute and I endorse it. I endorse it so hard, in fact, that I suggest we brainstorm a few more prizes. I’ll go first:
Sticky Hands — The act as “mage hand,” but are not invisible. Roll a 1d4 when you activate them. On a roll of 1, they permanently break.
https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41px+WQcDrL._AC_SX425_.jpg
Let’s see…
Wind-Up Toy — As an action, wind up this toy and place it on the ground. On initiative count 0, it moves up to 10 feet in a direction of your choosing and then falls over. Can be used to deliver spells with a range of touch to willing creatures. Will not activate pressure plates or tripwires.
Magic Markers — As an action, can be used to scribble on top of existing arcane runes, nullifying their effects.
Replica Sword — Treat as a shortsword that deals 1 bludgeoning damage. Is destroyed on a natural 1 OR a critical hit.
Carnival Tokens — When making a transaction, the target vendor must make a DC 12 Intelligence saving throw or be compelled to accept these instead of an equivalent number of gold coins.
Theatrical Dagger
This dagger is enchanted to be harmless, yet cause a gruesome display of blood – perfect for theater or pranks. It’s blade is illusionary and deals no harm, instead producing a splattering of ‘blood’ (conjured water that is colored by prestidigitation) when it passes through the body of a living creature. The blade’s hilt may also attach to a surface, imitating it being deeply embedded.
Regarding your tutorial concept – I think any festival including unarmed combat, such as a wrestling match, would be worth its weight in Hero Points for GM’s & PC’s alike. So many adventures flounder in the moment because of the frequent disconnect/dissonance between game mechanics and story telling/visualization. Gabe’s jousting contest and Jay Graham’s archery/spell contests sound as trhough they deal with this problem as well.
I’ve been a player in an Extinction Curse game for a while now, which despite its name, is actually an entire campaign with the backdrop of the PCs running a travelling circus. We aren’t going *to* a TTRPG circus, we *ARE* the circus!
(My cleric of Sarenrae is a firebreather, we have a bard, an animal specialist druid, an alchemist who does pyrotechnics, and a dragonblood sorceror who wows the crowd with magic)
I’ve at least planned both horror themed and fey style weird and wondrous before. Neither game got to the point where I used it though.
I’ve never played a carnival tutorial, though I’ve played in and run festival tutorials. Which basically have the same purpose, just different set dressing really.
Does anyone listen to Insane Clown Posse? Haunted carnivals are the main theme of their songs.