I introduced a "small one story structure, its walls no wider than the span of a single door" next to the farmhouse my players were investigating. They didn't believe the owners who told them what it was for, and went to check it out for themselves, hackles up and weapons drawn.

It's an outhouse.

Just an outhouse.

...there's a comic i read somewhere illustrating how sombre, dramatic campaign settings ultimately devolve into slapstick hijinks and silly, slapstick campaign settings ultimately evolve into dramatic epics...

That movie was the shit. It had no right to be as good as it was until you realize that it was a movie made with love by true D&D nerds, designed to feel like the cinematic retelling of an actual campaign, crit rolls, weird player personalities, DM nudging, and all.

Just once in my life I'd love to play DnD with the most unsmilingly pompous tryhards in the world so we could all be severe and straight-up Tolkien characters talking like books.

Then I'd publish the session recording so that everyone could see that it's not a dream worth having and we could all move on to feeling fine with our regular silly bullshit.

I got my entire party arrested for trying to bribe a bartender who was an undercover cop. When I rolled a 1 trying to escape (I was a wind elf) I accidentally set loose a tornado killing all of us instantly.