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Message: <blockquote data-quote="uzirath" data-source="post: 7868122" data-attributes="member: 8495">In my experience, even light-hearted dungeon crawls work best if the characters care about more than preserving their lives and gathering loot. Behind the curtain, it's also about hooking the interests of the players through their characters. Mysteries can often work well here. I know many players who would care less about the death of their character than the fact that they wouldn't be able to find out who had betrayed them. Currently, I'm running a very low-key Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh adventure with a mixed group of adults and children (ages 7+). They discussed burning the mansion to the ground when they first arrived because they thought this might take care of the hauntings in one fell swoop. But, as one of the kids said, "But then we won't find out what's really going on." Clever kid. Now they are deeply enmeshed in the unfolding story, brimming with questions about the details. In a game where I'm a player, our first campaign arc was to rescue the fiancé of our holy warrior/princess from a distant prison. Since the princess was a PC, and the arranged marriage was part of her backstory, we were all pretty into it. After many distractions and an extended journey, we eventually discovered that the fiancé was, in fact, a demon-in-disguise. Now we're heading back to the home kingdom to find out whether the Queen was in on this or if her main advisor is corrupt. (We have some clues that suggest the latter, but we aren't sure yet.) Each character in the story has a slightly different motivation (some are just in it for the money), but it's safe to say that all of the players are fully hooked and eager to excise whatever infection has taken root at home.</blockquote>

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