Ran my first game of Cairn (well, technically two) for my two buddies. To give a bit of context, we've played a few RPGs in the past, but due to scheduling issues we at most went 3 sessions deep into a "campaign". This was my first time running OSR-adjacent game, plus it was a few months since I GM'd, so I went ahead and ran Temple of the Serpent Kings.

I've had my players roll 3 characters each, for a total of 6. I've warned them that the dungeon will be pretty deadly and that "combat is a choice and rarely a good one".

All in all, it was pretty fun for all parties involved. My players left me both impressed with their creativity and dumbfounded at their stupidity. One of them even asked the following day if we could continue since all of us had a few hours of free time (hence technically it was two games).

Though after going about third through TotSK, I think I'm not really sold by it. My players are just about to enter the arena with "Stone Cobra Guardian" and the more I think about it the lamer it is. Having a "boss fight" doesn't exactly mesh well with the whole "combat is a choice" paradigm. Then again, maybe that's on me, since I've set up the dungeon in a way that prevents my players from leaving. Anyway, I'm thinking of putting a puzzle in there, but don't have a good idea yet. Maybe a puzzle that penalises brute force with combat?