This is going to sound really funny, but do you have any recs for TTRPGs based on/around clowns?
Hello friend, I have a few things, but pickings were a little slim! Some of what I found seems to be a supplement for another game rather than a base game, but I hope you still find something you like.
(Also, I think it's really funny that I found not one, but two games about Clowns vs Vampires.)
Clown Husbandry, by Sterf.
Clown Husbandry is a ttrpg inspired by tumblr's clown husbandry community about a group of college students adopting their first clowns and learning how to raise them.
Thematically, this game is about going to clown school and taking classes to learn how to raise clowns, but the focus on the clowns feels akin to a monster-training game like Pokemon. Clowns are raised and trained to use their traits in Goof-Offs, clown mating rituals designed to impress the clown that you want them to procreate with. A successful Goof-Off leads to a Honking, where the clowns mate and produce offspring.
You use a d4 and a Punnett square to determine the child’s breed and abilities, while your clown trainer uses a d6 to overcome obstacles as they explore a town and use their clowns to solve problems. The game comes with adoptable clown cards, and adventure module called Mystery at the Old Manor. If you like games about collectible creatures, and you want to lean into something really bonkers, try Clown Husbandry!
Clown Helsing, by Planarian.
Dying is Easy. Comedy is Hard.
Clowns. We've all seen them… riding their unicycles, blowing up balloons at parties, piling in garish hordes from tiny cars, waddling around in bulbous red shoes, passed out in a dumpster stinking of booze and regret. For what do these martyrs of mirth sacrifice themselves? The answer is they do it for us. Not just to fill our need for laughter and merriment, but because they defy the doom of mankind! Clowns are man's only salvation against… Vampires.
You've seen Vampires too; you just didn't know it. Maybe they were killing the mood at a party, ruining a great punchline, layering red tape onto a business, or just plain old-fashioned sucking the blood from the living. Contrary to myth they do much of this in broad daylight, their only fear of the sun being that it might expose them to mockery. They drain humor from the world because they fear someone might dare to laugh at them. You know the type.
I’ve played Clown Helsing, and had a great time doing so. It uses Rock Paper Scissors, which means that you don’t really need dice to play - and you barely need pencil and paper, as most of the characters only have a few lines of information that they need to remember. The character generation system involves roll-tables (or pick-lists, if you’re not using dice) to generate clown names and clown styles, and for the Game Master, there’s a very helpful section that will help you build a vampire that the players can’t wait to insult and discredit.
But Dracula…, by MacaroniX.
A vampire has descended upon the town, draping the town in endless night and taking residence in the abandoned castle. The town mayor says we have only one hope. Only the Great Clown Pagliacchi can chase the vampire away. The thing is… you are Pagliacchi. Well, you're the closest we’ve got. But you are not alone. You have your clown posse, and the plan is to drive the vampire away in the only way you know how: the power of laughter!
But Dracula… is a silly, fantasy, zero-prep. one-shot adventure RPG where you play a clown that must chase a vampire out of town, or at least lift the endless night curse. Can you find your way to the vampire and save the day?
Created for the BIPOC Vamp Jam, But Dracula… uses a deck of cards to generate NPCs that can either help or hinder you as you attempt to drive Dracula out of town, and a d6 to help generate your clown character. I’m curious about whether or not this game can be used for other adventures, perhaps driving various different monsters out of town!
Tears of A Clown, for Call of Cthulhu, by Paul Mazumdar.
Cambridge, 1893. The annual Midsummer Fair is open for business and one of the big attractions this year is the Fairground Maxiumus, its steam ride and its team of masked clowns. While looking for a lost friend, the players find themselves getting closer to the clowns than they'd imagined.
This may be centred on clowns, but this is strictly a horror game, with body horror and vore definitely part of the story. As with any Call of Cthulhu game, there's a decent chance you don't make it out of this game alive. If you want a game that targets a player’s or character’s fear of clowns, rather than something goofy or light-hearted, you might find what you’re looking for in Tears of a Clown.
C.L.O.W.N. 3rd Edition, by Hero Games.
Welcome to the zany world of C.L.O.W.N., the greatest collection of jokers and pranksters this side of Stronghold (and they hope it stays that way). Some have guessed that CLOWN stands for the Criminal Legion of Wacky Nonconformists, but no one is really sure if it's an acronym, or just sounds good. (If the founders know, they aren't telling.)
The purpose of CLOWN in your campaign is twofold: to provide you with a selection of truly unique villains to put a twist in your adventures, and to give your players a break from the same old world-threatening catastrophes and wrenching moral dilemmas.
C.L.O.W.N. is a supplement for the Champions roleplaying system, rather than a standalone product. Champions is a superhero game, and C.L.O.W.N. appears to be a supplement about providing clownish super-villains to cause chaos and mayhem in your superhero’s city. This is for the 3rd edition, and I think there’s been a few new editions since then, but I think often with these types of games, you can take the stats from an older edition and update them pretty easily to something newer without much work.
If you want clownish antics in the style of the Joker or Harley Quinn, then perhaps consider C.L.O.W.N.
Apparently there is a Killer Clowns From Hell adventure for Pathfinder and Starfinder! You might be able to adapt it to other OSR or OSE games.
You might also like my Circus Recommendation Post from a year ago or so.
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