D&D 5E D&D 5E Ideas with running a Faire/Carnival scenario?

[Oofta]

When I've done this, I tried to take a creative twist to traditional carnival games. For example, my drinking contest was a little different.

Dwarven Drinking Contest: unlike most drinking contests, this one is centered around not drinking. All of the participants eat the driest/spiciest dish imaginable. Meanwhile, their beverage of choice is placed in front of them. The last person to quench their thirst wins.

In all of the contests, insults, pleading, minor cheating (sleight of hand or similar tricks) are not exactly encouraged but certainly not against the rules. As long as it doesn't get past cantrip-level magic, pretty much anything is allowed. Just remember that the NPCs may have spellcasters on their side as well, so if someone realizes you are bending the rules, expect retaliation.

If someone comes up with a particularly inventive insult for example, I'd give advantage/disadvantage as appropriate or a minor bonus or penalty.

 

[Imaculata]

One gag that I love pulling in campaigns, is a magic show of The Great Whamboozy. He is a traveling wizard who performs in taverns (because he's usually no longer welcome in any town where he has performed). He always dresses extravagantly, in bright purple robes with golden moons and stars on it, and with a typical pointy wizard's hat, and a long flowing white beard. At first glance, the guy looks like a totally fake wizard.

What makes the show special, is that this traveling wizard always asks for volunteers from the audience (preferably the players). But while his tricks look cheap and harmless, they are in fact far from harmless.

One trick he does, is to cut a person in half. The trick here, is that the person's body is magically separated. The trick doesn't hurt. But the 'volunteer' is aware that their lower body has in fact been separated from their torso. As long as they cooperate, the wizard will put them back together correctly.

Another trick he does, is to make a person disappear. The volunteer is however sent to another dimension for a couple of terrifying minutes. If they wander off too far, they are lost in time and space forever. But if they stay near their point of travel, the wizard will successfully bring them back.

I always imagined this guy got his hands on a dangerous spell book some how, and exploited it to make a living, without taking any responsibility for the consequences of his performances.

 

[Quickleaf]

I am a DM for a group of 5 adventurers just wrapping up Hoard of the Dragon Queen and on their way to Waterdeep for Rise of Tiamat. It had been literally a year since we started and I felt as a celebration to have one session of nothing but fun and games for the players. In the same sense I can intertwine this with Rise of Tiamat as a celebration in Waterdeep for "The Heroes of greenest!"

I have a few set ideas (Archery, Jousting, Bear Wrestling, and a race incorporating running, horse riding, swimming, and an obstacle course)

Has anyone ever ran a fair, or games during any of their campaigns? any ideas for games for the magic user in the group?

I ran this sort of a session in 4e. Basically there were a bunch of hastiludes that corresponded both to classic medieval challenges (e.g. pas d'armes) as well as more fantasy fare (e.g. a puzzle involving manipulating magical lanterns to cross a section of the city while keeping a light-vulnerable summoned monster in the streets below within the light).

The important design principles I used were:

• When separating the party to run the hastiludes, be proficient as a GM in handling switching quickly from one player to the next, and giving players "waiting" for their turn something to think/strategize about in the interim. With 5e's speed this should be less of an issue, but still worth considering.
• Incorporate some kind of player choice/dilemma/strategy in each hastilude so it's more than just rolling dice.
• Have a story going on in the background of the hastiludes to bind the disparate mini-challenges together (e.g. in my game it was uncovering an assassination plot, gathering clues throughout the hastiludes about the target, the assassins, and their plan).

EDIT: Oh! One challenge I never got to run but had thought up was a twist on Bobbing for Apples where there were several buckets with different types of apples, and the trick was to find the apple with a key inside. Some twists that I'd thought of were some of the apples being laced with knockout poison and a water weird or similar monster hidden in one of the buckets.

 

[jayoungr]

When I've done this, I tried to take a creative twist to traditional carnival games. For example, my drinking contest was a little different.

Dwarven Drinking Contest: unlike most drinking contests, this one is centered around not drinking. All of the participants eat the driest/spiciest dish imaginable. Meanwhile, their beverage of choice is placed in front of them. The last person to quench their thirst wins.

That's pretty funny! What sort of rolls did you have them make?

 

[Oofta]

I had multiple contests, trying to emphasize different skills.

So for the eat something spicy and incredibly dry but don't drink, it was a series of constitution and wisdom checks. Insulting the other contestants was also allowed, as was trying to convince them how good the drink would taste.

There was also "Catch". Throw a handaxe as high in the air as you can and then catch it on a shield. That one was strength and dexterity with extra points for "pizzazz". I think the guy who won did a backflip before catching it if I remember.

Tug of War involved pulling each other's beard/hair until one side called uncle. Mainly strength and charisma.

Tales of the Bravest Elf (it was a dwarven carnival) was charisma with some other skill check. The PC who won this ended up telling the tale of a strong elf and then started picking up judges to show how strong the elf was.

People were expected to be creative, so if they could come up with a justification for using a skill I allowed it. The idea was to let people be fun and inventive in their approach, not just "give me a wisdom check". Graphic descriptions and ingenious use of abilities was rewarded.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

I did a fairly successful Festival setup in my last campaign. It was 12 days, each dedicated to a different god in the major pantheon. I think an important thing to do is to have the events of the competition form the backdrop for campaign related stuff, as well as providing some grist for competition and dice rolling. It's a great way to included some dice-rolling into what otherwise could be a very talky-RP session to break things up.

In very sketched terms, my festival had:
Day 1 - Feast of Masks: Masked ball to kick off festivities
Day 2 - Feast of Swords: Martial competitions. Great opportunity for the party fighter types to compete against each other!
Day 3 - Feast of the Moon: Everyone stays up all night drinking!
Day 4 - Feast of the Hunt: Think "running of the bulls", maybe minor magical monsters get released into the wild for people to hunt down.
Day 5 - Feast of Secrets: people are expected to reveal secrets, or to create new ones - possibly by doing things that are out of character for them. It's tradition for treasure maps to be sold on this day; often fake, but sometimes real ones do show up. Fortune tellers abound. It is said to always be cloudy on this day.
Day 6 - Feast of the Sea: Sailing or swimming races
Day 7 - Feast of Storms: It always rains on this day. People seek to make offerings to buy off the Goddess of Storms. Day of sacrifice, symbolized by bland food and sour wine.
Day 8 - Feast of Builders: Competition of craft skills. Guilds accept apprentices on this day. Fancy goods go on sale.
Day 9 - Feast of Magic: Wizardry competitions, day in which marriage proposals are made, and the fields are blessed.
Day 10 - Feat of Forgiveness: traditional to both ask for and give forgiveness. Also a day for practical jokes - doing things that others will then need to forgive you for.
Day 11 - Feast of Harvest: Last crops are harvested. People who have been arrested recently are prosecuted and judged. Ends with a big party and a "kangaroo court" in which a Festival Judge hands out silly sentences for all the things people have done during Festival.
Day 12 - Feat of the Dead: A mix of somber and celebrational (think a New Orleans funeral, with music and dancing). In my game the main god of the pantheon had died long ago, so this was a day to remember him.

 

[Imaculata]

I had a religious festival in my campaign a while back, which was dedicated to The Lady of the Waves, an ocean deity. Among the various religious activities, there was also plenty of drinking. The players took part in a particular funny drinking game in which two contestants run between two wooden poles in the ground (while making a circle around each one), while carrying two buckets filled with water around their neck.

Each time they run a circle around one of the poles, they must drink from the glass that the 'referee' hands them. The glasses are picked randomly from a table full of various liquors. If they pass out, or fail to maintain their balance and spill the buckets, they lose (and get very wet in the process).

The way this works, is that I have a list of various drinks, each with its own fortitude save (or constitution save). Some drinks are a mixed drink, meaning they use the highest DC of the two drinks plus one. Some glasses may also contain just water, or dishwater.

Every time the players consume a drink, the overall constitution/fortitude DC of all drinks is increased by 1, and so is the DC of their balance check. Whenever they run from one pole to the next, they must roll a balance check, or spill the buckets and fall flat on their face.

Eventually they are going to fail that check. But all they need to do is outlast their opponent. The audience is allowed to interfere of course, by trying to trip the contestants or push them.

 

[Istbor]

I did a fairly successful Festival setup in my last campaign. It was 12 days, each dedicated to a different god in the major pantheon. I think an important thing to do is to have the events of the competition form the backdrop for campaign related stuff, as well as providing some grist for competition and dice rolling. It's a great way to included some dice-rolling into what otherwise could be a very talky-RP session to break things up.

In very sketched terms, my festival had:
Day 1 - Feast of Masks: Masked ball to kick off festivities
Day 2 - Feast of Swords: Martial competitions. Great opportunity for the party fighter types to compete against each other!
Day 3 - Feast of the Moon: Everyone stays up all night drinking!
Day 4 - Feast of the Hunt: Think "running of the bulls", maybe minor magical monsters get released into the wild for people to hunt down.
Day 5 - Feast of Secrets: people are expected to reveal secrets, or to create new ones - possibly by doing things that are out of character for them. It's tradition for treasure maps to be sold on this day; often fake, but sometimes real ones do show up. Fortune tellers abound. It is said to always be cloudy on this day.
Day 6 - Feast of the Sea: Sailing or swimming races
Day 7 - Feast of Storms: It always rains on this day. People seek to make offerings to buy off the Goddess of Storms. Day of sacrifice, symbolized by bland food and sour wine.
Day 8 - Feast of Builders: Competition of craft skills. Guilds accept apprentices on this day. Fancy goods go on sale.
Day 9 - Feast of Magic: Wizardry competitions, day in which marriage proposals are made, and the fields are blessed.
Day 10 - Feat of Forgiveness: traditional to both ask for and give forgiveness. Also a day for practical jokes - doing things that others will then need to forgive you for.
Day 11 - Feast of Harvest: Last crops are harvested. People who have been arrested recently are prosecuted and judged. Ends with a big party and a "kangaroo court" in which a Festival Judge hands out silly sentences for all the things people have done during Festival.
Day 12 - Feat of the Dead: A mix of somber and celebrational (think a New Orleans funeral, with music and dancing). In my game the main god of the pantheon had died long ago, so this was a day to remember him.

I did something similar in my new 5e homebrew world. A week (8 days) long festival for the 1000th year anniversary of the Empire. Several games and competitions were included. I wish, I had written down my wizarding competition. I ended up improving most of it, but it was a series of magic users non-violently 'dueling'. Picking spells and combinations to counter another's spells. There were some special items there that allow for the recharge of spell slots (wondrous magic potions).

I think it ended up going quite well, and the players got involved and had a lot of fun. At least that is what they told me at the post mortem of each session.

For doing your own, figure out what you want to have for mini-games or competitions you think the players would like. Then add in all sorts of things you may have ever experienced at a fair as well. I think it helps if there feels like there is so much going on, more than the players could experience. You only really want to plan for the main attractions or if you are lucky, you get some time between the introducing the fair to actually running the events, so that players have already signed up for certain activities or made their interests known.

For the majority of rounds of competition that the players were not involved with, I would simple roll a couple dice and see who had the highest and try and find an interesting way to narrate a match summary. Try not to dwell too long on those other matches unless the given players are actually interested (one oddly enough was, kept asking about who what in the next match and what took place).

Don't forget the fat champion's purse!

 

[jayoungr]

I found this on the DM's Guild--might be worth a look:

http://www.dmsguild.com/product/176177/The-Tournament-at-Scornubel

 

[jayoungr]

Also: I was just reminded that one of the "free sample" articles for en5ider deals with archery contests!

https://www.patreon.com/posts/1834862