D&D isn't fun enough (or: Enthusiastic Skeleton Boys)

What I mean by this (hyperbolic) statement is that modern iterations of D&D, with an emphasis on elaborate settings, tightly balanced mechanics (combat, because it's always combat), and insistence on narrative and character development can miss the forest for the trees.

D&D isn't enough about play.

D&D should be a modern day Feast of Fools. It should be about chugging all the potions on the wizards shelf. It should be about setting the courthouse on fire. It should be about a frog-priest giving a sanctimonious liturgy to a mutant crab-man who used to be the wizard.

My personal theory is that the aesthetics of ruin are useful because they give players permission to play garbage people. I don't mean edgy grim-dark i'm an orphan and fight crime people, or i steal from the paladin because i'm an amoral rogue ho ho. I mean the kind of garbage person who would find a centuries-old crusted pot in the tomb of a God-King and lick the rim on the off-chance they get super-powers.

Play your PCs like they're stolen cars. Die horribly. Roll up a new one.

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ENTHUSIASTIC SKELETON BOYS (with apologies to Holbein the Younger)

Death is horrible.

The body rots away, the soul-stuff leaks and dissipates into the aether,

So why are skeletons in such a good mood all the time?

The undead are soul-stuff and spirits tugged back into earthly shells for one more go. And they are  perpetually thrilled to be here because nobody else gets the joke. We're walking around in our robes and furs like we're important but really, what separates the noble from the peasant? Everything rots in the end. It's like watching a monkey put on a top-hat and pretend to be posh.

Sure, when you summon a skeleton it'll do what you want. Why not? What a lark. They'll prance and twist and hold parties if you let them. They're polite to you because you brought them back, like a someone inviting them to a ball. They'll stab a man for you because hey we're all going the same way. It's like helping a man with his coat. Off, ye lendings. 

If you meet a skeleton and they're not trying to kill you (nothing personal!), they're prodding at your flesh and clacking their teeth in amusement at how much meat you have on you.

i am the law you're coming with me

This is also why necromancers are always jolly and giggly and corpulent, like a morbid santa. You know that thing in public speaking where you're meant to imagine your audience naked? It's like that but all they see are bones bones bones

i mean look at this guy, he's having a ball

What are these skeletons up to? (1d8)

1. Playing a game of nine-pins with their own bones

2. Trying to get a terrified peasant to dance

3. Taunting a confused owlbear (skeletons don't smell like food)

4. Pretending to be dead so they can jump up and spook yez

5. Found some robes somewhere and quietly joined a group of pilgrims. Just waiting for when someone asks them to tell a story.

6. Intercepted a travelling theatre-troupe. Holding a play with their props while the actors cower.

7. Kidnapped a cow, fleeing the scene

8. Intentionally misunderstanding frustrated junior necromancer