The Cozy Dragon's Hoard of Dice

Making a campaign cozy is not intended to replace the daring-do or thrills of a standard D&D campaign. Rather, it is another way to frame those adventures. Making this distinction is an excellent use of a session zero, as this is a conversation that is worth having with your players. Cozy campaigns work best when everyone is comfortable – including with the idea of such a game.

Put simply, a cozy campaign is one which attempts to answer not just ‘how do we save the world?’, but ‘why is the world worth saving?’ If player characters are constantly on the road doing battle with the forces of evil, it can be easier for them to fall into the line of thinking that the status quo really should be disrupted. While overthrowing some social conventions isn’t outside of the scope of a cozy campaign, it’s important to show that the world is not just cold and cruel.

If the world is never warm, it is much easier to understand why someone may wish to set it on fire.

When creating a cozy campaign, the goal is not necessarily to have a game be strictly pastoral; actions can have consequences, and stakes can be high. The point of a cozy campaign is to emphasize that the bad consequences do not necessarily happen tomorrow – that there is time, in this life, in this time, to enjoy the pleasures of life.

Player characters who have that balance – between the urge to adventure and campaign, and the time to enjoy the riches and wealth that such a life can provide – are less driven and more led. They may even have time to get the mail.

Character backgrounds can still be fraught. Having a cozy campaign is no guarantee that the world will never face dire threats. But the lich, or dragon, or demigod that must be thwarted is ahead – and home is behind. The adventurers, in addition to leaving a place of relative luxury – are leaving a home.

It has been commented elsewhere that a lot of the drive toward high fantasy roleplay is exploring the fantasy of being able to afford a home with a chosen or found family. Dire though this reflection may be on the real-world housing market, it’s also not wrong.

Ultimately, the balance of where you want to set the tone of your game is a conversation between players and the game master. What I recommend is emphasizing that this is not to the players’ detriment – they aren’t going to age to death waiting for the next chance to sally forth and save the world – and you may then find that you have characters who have a chance to breathe and train. Wizards take time to bury themselves in books, and adventures start in libraries and taverns alike.