r/cairnrpg

Has anyone hacked Cairn /Liminal Horror into modern supers?

EDIT: I should've mentioned that two players are of ages numerically close to my parents', thus me running a rules-light system like Cairn. Those players, completely new to any form of rpg, just don't have the capacity to learn more complex systems in a way that will be fun. Of course there might be exceptions, this is just not one of them.

Hi all. I'm new to Into the Odd/Cairn, but I've years of experience with DnD and other systems.

I'm running a game for people completely new to TTRPGs. One has played some rpg videogames, but the other two have literally zero experience.

They LOVED a one-shot I ran with pre-gen characters, and I agreed to run weekly standalone adventures.

Thing is, I don't like how high the system's lethality is, and would like to reduce it (a bit) without breaking the game altogether. I'm aware that it goes hand-in-hand with clearly telegraphed danger.

Would disabling Critical Damage leading to unconsciousness be enough or too much?

Thank you in advance.

Me and my friends want to try some TTRPG. No one of us have ever tried it before. I think cairn barebones could be the best option, but Im a bit skeptical with the amount of players. We are 7 friends, 6 of us are interested in trying. So that would be one warden and 5 PCs, is that to many for noobs? Should we split up i smaller groups? What is the maximum recommended player count?

https://preview.redd.it/4ip4il43w71h1.png?width=595&format=png&auto=webp&s=fb26d8e09004e9498607062784f3ec8192bab6e7

I'm running a Dragonlance campaign using the Cairn system and I'm creating some monsters for the setting! After testing them, if they turn out well, I'll make them available for free to everyone!

[EDIT] The screenshot is in Portuguese because it's my native language, but if I were to make it publicly available, it would be in English!

Hi All. I'm looking for your recommendations for any pre-written adventure modules (specifically written for Cairn) that would last for around 10-14 sessions-ish. Typical session length is 3-4 hours.

I did think about doing a bunch of one-shots loosely tied together, but would really like to find something that my players can enjoy over a longer period of time.

Any suggestions? Thanks :-)

Have you used Cairn as your system for a megadungeon crawl? I want to hear from you. How did it go? Did you "finish" or did things flame out? How did you navigate the gold-for-XP dungeon loop? Would you do it again?

Are mega-dungeons misguided? Does Cairn offer another method of achieving the same feeling evoked by a megadungeon?

I recently mentioned that I'm running a Cairn RPG in Krynn, the Dragonlance setting.

Adventure Plot: The player characters are each from a different universe, and they ended up together after passing through planar portals. After passing through Amonkhet (from Magic: The Gathering), they fled through a portal to Krynn.

My players ended up hiding from bandits in a cave, unaware that this cave was home to a group of Drow warriors who had also passed through a portal and arrived in Krynn.

After nearly dying retrieving their belongings to escape the Drow and leaving most of their items behind because they couldn't carry them, they continued their journey, only to encounter another Elf, who also didn't trust them, being a Qualinesti Scout...

The Qualinesti Scout agrees to speak with the Qualinesti Leader on behalf of the group and then meet them.

After parting ways with the elf, they headed towards the nearby city, but in the process they encountered a Wounded and Furious Bear!

I ended the session on a combat initiative!

By which I mean stuff like hunting dragons, storming the fortresses of giants, expeditions into hellish underworlds/planes of existence, generally the kind of stuff I understand goes on in D&D modules young and old with high level numbers printed on the front. Obviously both "experienced" and "high level" are ultimately subjective to your individual experience.

I ask because I get the vibe, from some of the advice and the emphasis on non-mechanical growth that's perhaps more about becoming stranger rather than stronger, that Cairn might be more of a "perpetual level-one scoundrels" type of game. Which is fine if that's what it is but might feel a tiny bit limiting to me if I'd be fighting the game if I wanted to use more over-the-top ideas eventually. I know there's a "Leveling Up" rules add-on on the website but I don't know if that's the kind of thing that people want to add merely for the D&D aesthetics or if it's really necessary/a good idea for running a certain kind of game in this system.

Wondering if anyone has run Turn it Off for Knave in Cairn before and if so how much did they have to change?

I've been doing way more solo role playing lately with the current stage of life I'm in. One of the supplements that I've wanted to really dig into is perilous wilds for dungeon world. I also love Cairn second edition and the rules light, classless, fast deadly combat.

If a game were to take a hybrid approach, unless one already exists, what would you need to see remain unchanged in order for Cairn to feel like itself even with the addition of moves?

My initial thought is you have a move for how the enemies respond after making a hit. A lot of your relics and magic items could have custom moves instead of just pure narrative text.

The desire for doing pbta is just to add another narrative element or engine into solo play

Great group of players that has historically played OSE. Nice to see some further Cairn 2e exposure!