I want to pull off a comfy setting, but how can I convey the feeling of comfiness in a setting-wide scale, or move a campaign forward without conflicting with it?
It's hard to imagine a campaign that isn't moved by challenge, and it's also hard to think of relaxing adventures and context without throwing the whimsical aside.
I really liked the feeling these songs gave
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>It's hard to imagine a campaign that isn't moved by challenge, and it's also hard to think of relaxing adventures and context without throwing the whimsical aside.
Give them challenges, but make them funny or just some kind of misunderstanding. The goal could just be traveling and finding people to help instead of actually having a “real” end goal. A lot of this depends on the tone you set and the pace you make, too slow and it’s boring. Have there be moments of excitement and wonder of a new descovery and let them bask in it, let them ask questions and have their curiosity run wild. So a lot of this depends on your “story telling” and your players
Have the conflict be something small in scale, but important to the players. Something really goofy, like tracking down a serial pie thief or something.
Set it within the Halfling Lands.
Here's some general ideas I have user:
A good rule of thumb is avoiding what grimdark settings do. Sounds obvious, but changing man-eating fey creatures in the woods to helpful and friendly dryads alone can make a world of difference.
Trying to go for a light-hearted tone is important, and a good way of doing that is humor - instead of desperate bandits and horrifying undead, use gnolls that howl like cartoon dogs when they're hit, or goblins that bumble into each other and use silly traps. A series of mysterious disappearances throughout a village is actually just an excuse to gather the characters together for a surprise party when they 'catch the thief.' Having sphinxes that want to tell them riddles or dragons that will ask them to get herbs for toothaches will help create a mentality that they can ask questions first and fight later. Including fun little names for drinks or little magical trinkets can make the setting feel vibrant and add a whimsical note to it - things exist just for the fun of it. Classic tropes can be comfy, but it's creative whimsy that's really appreciated and makes players want to get interested and involved.
You can still have a level of challenge, you just have to keep the tone at the right place. Tossing in humor helps - like maybe there's a big ogre that carries a cauldron around on his back, and he's roaring about 'stuffin' yous in the soup!' and being all cheesy, despite the fight being challenging. You can focus a bit more on mind games and puzzles, since you're trying to keep things relaxed and less fighty-focused. You can have BBEGs, just make them classic evil villains and straightforward antagonists, with a large cast of supporting characters on both sides - thick-accented barbarians, cackling wizards, foppish but good-hearted nobles and so on. The key is focusing on details and making the adventure feel and fun.
Not sure if this helps since I've only really thought about it in a video game context. But contrast can be important to feeling comfy. A quiet apartment high above the noisy streets. A warm bed when it's cold outside. A safe place that the monsters outside can't get into for one reason or another.
I don't know if it can really translate into tabletop though.
Really I think it's a level of scale and tone that'll get you there. You either want to keep things small or familiar to your players. Saving the world played completely straight with friendship and adventure works, but you could also do a very comfy campaign where the PCs are traveling postmen or rapscallions looking to make a quick buck.
Your choice of system will also be important. You might want to look into Ryuutama, Golden Sky Stories, or Engine Heart.
Some good ideas in here I may try to run a short campaign using this style
Pillow world.
Where you can fight pillow-dragons and wool-monsters with your hand-knitted sword.
>After an exhaustive battle the beast falls over in the most dramatic way possible and then proceeds to curl up and sleep
>You fall on top of them and rest yourself and they tuck you in to their wool
>IF THE SETTING IS NOT DARK AND BROODING AND THERE ARE NO EDGY BAD GUYS I AM OUT GUYS CUZ THIS SHIT SOUNDS GAY AS HELL AND I WOULDN'T WANT ANYTHING LESS THAN TO BOP A DOGGO ON THE SNOOT CUZ DAT AINT WHAT DUNGEONS AND EDGELORDS AND EVIL VILLANS IS ABOUT
Jk doe, sounds pretty dope.
Three words for you. Golden Sky Stories.
My current D&D campaign has a comfy feel to it. I give my players plenty of downtime and provide ample descriptions of their meals, inn rooms, and the NPCs they meet. I try to keep the quests relatively light-hearted, focusing on thieving and heists rather than assassinations and warfare. In-between major adventures I give my players plenty of social and non-combat side-quests, like discovering the secrets of an overgrown hedge maze, putting on a musical performance for some nobles, or soothing relations between bickering druids. There's no sense of desperate urgency to their quests, but I have introduced a rival adventuring party to motivate my players into action when they start to dawdle.
Your personal experience of life is filled with challenge even though you are not in life-threatenging situations. Why not copy those?
Cause depression and the woes of economy aren't comfy
Ok, then I'd suggest voluntary adoption of the Comics Code Authority in your games. With the addition of no deaths, even off screen.
Sez you. Have a depressed dragon, and have the party cheer it up by holding a literal party. Bam, instant feelgood stuff.
Maybe the bard convinces the dragon to see a psychologist about his problems with depression. The dragon reluctantly agrees and the party pushing him out of his comfort zone helps him get his life in order.
See? It's easy to turn depression into comfy, as long as it's solving popsci depression.
Similarly, woes of economy are also overcome and lets the players feel good about themselves.
>comfiness in a setting-wide scale
>make the general masses act genuinely happy
>fill it with some happy fluff
>have most things work out
>have some interesting npc's
>make it bright, cozy and aesthetic
>have it physically goofy, but semi-serious emotionally
it depends on what you mean by "comfy", op.
i always find the Miyzaki movies Kiki's Delivery Service, Ponyo, and Spirited Away to be great places to look for comfy setting inspiration.
As its already been said in the thread, scale really is the whole thing. Epic is not what you should be going for. It is more about a sort of slice of life adventure where the whole thing matters to the characters but would otherwise not affect much in the setting at all. One of their friends is grounded and they need to break him out so he can come play, their clubhouse's pet went missing and they have to find him, the crop wont be enough for winter so they have to go out and get more food from a neighboring village before the first snows, that sort of thing.
Make it about a dying world but everyone is accepting and goes about their daily life, enjoying what can still be enjoyed as everything (like competition, etc.) doesn't make sense anymore.
>have most things work out
I think this is one of the most important things here, keep things working out to various degrees of success and only have something fail if you want a semi-serious moment to break up the comfy.
These are pretty good ideas. To build on this:
If you're going with a "classic fantasy" setup then "Go retrieve something from a dungeon" remains a perfectly viable plot setup - the main difference is that you want it less fighty and more puzzle-focused.
The main challenge is justifying the dungeon's existence as a place that people haven't thoroughly explored, since the fallback of "murderous monsters live there so people are scared of reclaiming it".
Perhaps the dungeon in question is sealed in such a way that nobody's been able to access it and the PCs have to find the magic item or pass phrase which will open it.
Or maybe it's been abandoned by humans because it's way out in an inaccessible spot of some wastelands where no humans/demihumans want to live, but which makes it perfect lair for monsters. The monsters aren't necessarily unfriendly, but equally don't necessarily want to give up this trinket they found in their adopted home without a little something in return, or haven't explored the dungeon fully so don't know what's in the deepest levels.
Going full-on zero-combat may be a hard sell, but a low-combat approach can still feel comfy. The occasional risk of death coming in can help add a dash of excitement which makes the comfiness all the more comfy and is good for climactic moments. If the baddies like to animate skeletons and other inanimate objects that gives the PCs a chance to smash some opponents but not feel like they've actually killed people, which would tend to undermine the comfy.
Erring towards enemies who don't use violence as their main tactic would up the comfy a lot too. (It'd make the violence ones feel even more like a change of pace when they do show up.) Gangs of thieves and con artists may be all about avoiding violent confrontation as much as they can but still make satisfying foes to investigate and take down.
>Erring towards enemies who don't use violence as their main tactic would up the comfy a lot too. (It'd make the violence ones feel even more like a change of pace when they do show up.) Gangs of thieves and con artists may be all about avoiding violent confrontation as much as they can but still make satisfying foes to investigate and take down.
You can definitely have people much less lethal, too. If people call for them to yield and surrender you may be able to get away with your players murdering everyone, too.
Cover the world in pillows
>Rainy Setting
>Make it a point that every town has an inn with a big fireplace
>comfy music playing in the background while running games.
>Intense Combat
Sound off? Here me out.
There is nothing more relaxing than resting by the fire and treating your wounds, finally resting from exaustion, after you have just fought off a monster hoard in the middle of a thunderstorm.
Players will have real relief after long (but not too long, watch their faces) battles.
>If the baddies like to animate skeletons and other inanimate objects that gives the PCs a chance to smash some opponents but not feel like they've actually killed people, which would tend to undermine the comfy.
Also four color super hero comic combat where people only get knocked unconcious as a result of a fight might help comfiness.
Never before have I needed something so much, and not known it until I had recieved it.
I need more.
Think Pokemon, Mystery Dungeon. Try to evoke that feel.
>PMD
Yep that's top-tier comfy setting right there, even with the looming doom the tone never went too far until it was time to bring it all to a close.
...
Watch Ai no Wakakusa Monogatari and its sequel.
I have no idea about the english dub (if it even exists), but the german one and the japanese original were one toppest of tiers.
Circles of Hell: -1 on everything per level vs. nature
(0th Limbo: nature, non-believers)
Circles of Heaven: +1 on everything per level vs. nature
Hell on Earth, Heaven on Earth (-100% to +100%?)
Orcus sits on his throne because he'll whiff cutting grass half the time. Non-believer commoners save half the time on no save spells. Floating glowing sin marks can be covered up with tall top hats. +1 relative bonus per sin and saint level.
The Undying (Life-mancers/clerics)
Undead have half or less of everything unless in Hell on Earth areas (% Hell rating)
There's a SCP which is a maze of pillows and blankets and its almost impossible to get out but its super super comfy and its hard to not want to sleep or cuddle with other people stuck in the maze.
Sinners and would be criminals use subdue blessed pillow weapons including flails to both overcome their penalty and keep it from increasing.
Criminals leave an offering to their victims [or victim's god] to prevent their escape being cursed. Tracking them gets their full sin level (and current crime level) as a bonus without the offering. The smallest offering helps.
You don't need to give your players the kid gloves treatment to have a comfy setting.
I think the key for comfy-ness is "cold out there, warm in here". The "outside" world or "overworld" should be unpleasant and dangerous. Preferably with the players only having a vague idea of what's out there. Of course, it shouldn't be a city-destroying dragon but something like a pack of gnolls or an irritable ogre.
However, there needs to be little oasis of safety, such of towns, where the players can go and fill at peace. And the most important thing is that these places need to feel lived-in and earthy.
I did an Earthbound campaign with the "safe spot" being a 50's-style small town complete with a corner drugstore and burger joint. Here, the biggest danger was a gang of wacky greasers. Most of the campaign consisted of the players interacting with the eccentric but friendly townspeople.
But outside the town, there were a ton of bizarre and dangerous enemies. At one point, a pack of Deep Ones wandered out of a nearby creek and into the town square at the dead of night. The players had to round them up and get rid of them before anyone in town was alerted. There were also zombies at one point, a kaiju plus a looming threat of alien invasion.
Despite this danger and a pretty drama-filled plot, my players described the whole campaign as cozy and laid-back.
I think comfyness can be reached in two ways either by a very low scale campaign quest so no big evil god is trying to destroy the world etc, instead have it center around exploration and discovery. Your teams for example is a group of explores that sets out to find a new mysterious continent. it´s also important that your story won´t feature you having to kill humans or humanoid creatures because murder is depressing and not comfy. the enemies should mostly by animals or animated statues. have the world be a pleasant place full of friendly people, where the quests are an product of peoples on curiosity and desire for adventure
another good way to create a comfy feeling is by creating safe spaces for your party that are in an usual hostile environment.
There are two scenarios I have been thinking about of lately
1. your party travels to a city that is set in an land/planet with horrible winters. to survive the winters the city has build a giant metal wall around it (I mean like skyscraper big walles) and made use of magic or technology that creates a safety bubble around the city. in the city it´s very warm and colorful. Because of the cold winter hot drink and thick blankets are given plenty. The citizens are very friendly and love to welcome you to their city since the mostly just get to deal with stupid monsters but only rarely with other intelligent races
2. The second setting I came up with is a hidden safe area like a secret cave city where people life in peace hidden away from an evil empire or a secret city inside of an asteroid.
I'm working on a setting something like this. It's for a book however.
I'd just make the people (broadly speaking) a little bit nicer, more understanding, and more likely to leap to positive conclusions, rather than negative ones. Have everyone be kind and inviting, except for people that don't need to be.
Having non-combat interests also helps. For my story, I pulled a Spice and Wolf. It follows the tale of a young person thrust into the role of a merchant due to the death of the breadwinner, and sickly spouse unable to take over the business. This, of course, is only hinted at in the background, so as not to sour the story from the beginning.
The challenges of the character are all ones of leadership ability, negotiations, reading the market, managing finances, and so on. The character has a very well rounded education, more or less like an aristocrat from the victorian era. So there's a lot of knowledge about a broad variety of topics, and of mathematics, but not directly applied to finance. From this broad body of knowledge and the mentorship of other more experienced but less knowledgeable people, the protagonist has to deduce the best course of action.
Telling a laid back story in a peaceful idyllic landscape, away from the horrors of war or prophecies of heroes and shit. Write them like side characters with depth.
Maybe that isn't super applicable to what you're doing, but I hope it helps. I didn't want to provide too much detail, but enough to get the idea across: by lowering the stakes a bit, changing the types of conflicts that drive the plot, lowering hostility a bit, and increasing the optimism, you should be able to produce something pretty comfy. How those tweaks manifest depends a lot on what your setting is like.
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This is how I comfy.
>Everyone in the world basically trying to get along
>Monsters are all clearly just evil monsters and their ethics is not explored
>The different races might have some friction between them
>Always band together to fight the greater evil in the end though
>There might be a "great evil on the rise", but today is still a sunny day
>Time is rarely of the essence. The party can take their time with everything
>Small problems are just as important as the big ones, and people are genuinely happy if you help them
>What goes around, comes around. If the party does something nice, it WILL come back to help them in some way
>Gentle giants
>Life goes on
>Why don't we go fishing today user?
Comfy doesn't really mean you can't have dark tones in my opinion. You just have to make the story a very idealistic one if you include them. Conflict can exist too, as long as it is presented in a relaxed manner.
I feel like that's hard to pull off - lots of grimdark campaigns can end up doing about the same thing, since the world is supposed to be dangerous and the PCs are encouraged to not go too far by those sorts of enemies. If you make the enemies too weak, they won't want to stick around towns that much - but if you make them too strong, you've burned them and made them feel the world is tense and dangerous.
I'm not saying it's impossible, just hard to pull off especially when most groups are probably going to be more used to grimdark-style campaigns that have those traits anyway. It's easier to make a comfy game seem very distinct from the get-go.
Comfy doesn't mean no conflict or challenges (more challenges than conflicts).
Actually most "comfy" settings (as in, like Aria, not like Prydain - tough I've seen some of the latter as definitions go) are interesting exactly because they ARE challenging as fuck and not in a realitevely simple "escape danger/don't" dicotomy, but because the challenges are more open in their consequences.