The Bloodbowl 4e post with the actual rules is taking longer than planned to finish and the Ennies application process deadline came and bit me in the a$$. Instead of posting part 4 of my Dungeon Reality Show this morning, I’m posting another of those Friday questions. I’ll post the DRS one as soon as I’m done with the application.
I’ve spent the whole week discussing a D&D adventure concept that doesn’t even try to take itself seriously. I don’t know how many DMs are like me, but I don’t shy away from injecting some silliness in my games. Be it silly voices, or dropping a pop-culture reference in-game, or having a NPC make a crude joke about something that happened at the table and outside of the game.
In my long running (and rarely posted) review of Robin Laws’ Book on Good Game Mastering, I discussed briefly about a campaign’s tone. This is the general feeling that you campaign takes. When you talk about Grtty realism or Heroic cinematics, that’s usually Tone.
In that sense, a silly tone is one where things aren’t taken seriously and many conventions, clichés and tropes are played for laughs.
I don’t think that you can build a long lasting campaign entirely based on silliness because chances are you won’t be hitting the motivations of some players. Players who like to be Outliers and troublemakers would probably get a big kick out of it, however, players who are really into story-telling and Psychodrama probably won’t find what they’re looking for.
Yet, in controlled doses, I think that silliness can be a add a new fun dimension to a game and even serve to increase immersion. For example, in Paizo’s first adventure of the Rise of The Runelords Adventure Path, goblins are protrayed as homicidal clumsy clowns. The DM is encouraged to play them as silly as possible. When I ran the adventure , I played them like they were taken directly from the Muppet Show and directed by George Lucas!
The players ate it up and loved it. Even after almost a decade of playing D&D 3.x, we had turned a tired encounters of goblins into a laugh fest.
I believe that a big part of the fun of Roleplaying games is that they can elicit strong emotions. The game you remember the most are the ones that made you go through a gamut of emotions. Laughter is one such very strong emotion and when laughter is created from a situation “in-game”, I believe that it leaves a lasting impression.
I strongly think that in controlled doses, once in a while, silliness can be a boon to an otherwise serious game.
What do you think? How does silliness manifiest itself in your games? Do you have examples when it was used (intentionally or not) that improved a game session? Do you have examples that causes sessions to crash or nearly so? Tell me!
Have a great weekend.
Image Credit: ~malta at Deviant Art
As you say it depends on tone. I for one think it can provide a pleasant bit of light relief. I love it when TV shows like the X-files, so predominantly tense and serious, throw in a light-hearted curve-ball. It feels like a holiday. Everyone needs a holiday once in a while, right?! 🙂
Welcome to the blog Ethalias! Thanks for commenting. I agree wholeheartedly. In fact I think that some sillyness has its place after a particularly tense climax in the campaign.
In fact, I seem to recall some comic books doing just that between gritty storylines. Heck, I recall buying a X-Men back in the late 80’s that was just about the X-Girls having a shopping spree in a Mall.
Like Alice Cooper once said, horror without comedy does not work…
In our last campaign we had a fairly hilarious session where we had been put in jail. First we tried to pick the lock, but botched and the lockpick broke off, so when the guards came to bring us our food and couldn’t open the coor, they had to get a locksmith and put us in a different cell.
Then we tried to break the lock through magical means and botched again, again breaking the lock without opening it. And once again we had to be placed in a different cell again.
Then we managed to break out, guards came in and we tried to hide through an invisibility spell, which also botched and we got caught again. It was embarrasing and it was hilarious. Really made for a fun session.
And generally that’s how things get hilarious with us. Mostly due to cursed dice 🙂
Hey Chatty still loving your blog (in fact my favorite DMing blog),
I enjoy humor but I rarely plan it. When odd things or odd rolls occur in game, we kinda get a laugh out of it sometimes and roleplay it to the hilt. Sometimes I’ll have villians taunt the players while doing battle. We have a minotaur in our game and one villian kept calling him cow beast and other weird names. Of course that spurred on the cow beast, I mean minotaur to attack all the harder.
I guess for me I want to be sure and not shatter the versimilitude of the game so I’m careful with planned humor. Even so when it happens its cool.
I run a fairly serious game but I make it a point to break the tension periodically with laughs. For the most part these are inside jokes (in my 4E world, it is customary for dwarves to greet people with a hearty hand shake and say “Rub-a-dub-dub”) but I do throw in the curve ball by making a quest giver dead drunk.
One time I had a group barge into a bad guy’s lair only to find it empty, as he was out going to the bathroom!
Franzs last blog post..How DO You Pronounce That Word?
@D_Luck: So very true. As long as it’s not comedy with horror elements… then again, I happen to Love Shaun of the Dead!
@Conlean: Great story! It’s nice to see your group take failure in stride and make it into a funny story instead of getting frustrated.
@John: Thanks man, welcome to the Blog BTW. I agree that humour can cause a game to crash and must be used with care (heck sometimes a little mistake or an unfortunately named NPC in a serious game will make it crash… ask me about that Eleven Dagger I called Sodomir when I was 13, we still talk about that).
@Franz: Welcome to the blog! Bathroom trope! Nice one indeed.
I find that my players will provide plenty of humor all on their own (indeed, the hard part is getting them to /stop/). If I combine that with an absurdist game, things spiral out of control very quickly.
This doesn’t mean that there can’t be humorous moments in the game. Franz’s example above of the bad guy being out on a restroom break is a good one. I imagine the heroes bursting into the lair, only to find it unoccupied, utterly robbing them of their heroic momentum. A couple of beats go by, to build tension. From behind a door in the back corner, a toilet flushes…
But you don’t want to go to that well too often, or it ruins it. You want your players to reminisce fondly about that bad guy they caught with his pants down. You /don’t/ want them to follow that up with “And the next guy, and the next guy, and the next guy. What is it with you and pants, anyway?”
As a player, it’s another matter. My characters tend to have humorous qualities, but I play them as straight as possible and let other people make jokes off of it. My dwarf’s clan name is Boozehammer. Other people think it’s funny, but to him, that’s his name! Why would he make a joke about it? He comes from a long line of respected holy ale brewers, thankyouverymuch.
WoW! Lots of new commenters today, weee!
@Menaderthal: Welcome! I agree with you. The last thing a GM wants is to have his game turn into a Benny-Hill skit (altough I’d love a stupid chase scene with a beholder, a short bald orc and a series of PCs running here and there).
And having players goof off too much is another issue that might point toward a disconnect between what the players seek and the DM wants.
But that’s another story altogether. In such cases I agree that you shouldn’t add more oil to the PC’s funny fire.
But that’s another story altogether. In such cases I agree that you shouldn’t add more oil to the PC’s funny fire.
Indeed. It will burn quite well enough on its own. And I find that the longer a group stays together, the more the personalities play off of each other to make jokes.
And I don’t consider it a bad thing, as long as the DM can rein things in and keep moving forward. Nothing sobers up a table like a nice coup de grace attempt. 🙂
No matter the tone, every game I play will have a bunch of references and absurd things in it. Even if they ruin the player’s mood. In fact, sometimes deliberately to that effect.
Example: In one Cthulhutech game I ran, the players were spending an overly long and intimate period of time mourning the passing of a PC. Even the PC’s replacement PC was mourning his old PC. They went to a place to eat, and I named the place Shub-Way. It was filled with lovecraftian puns.
In my current ongoing game, while it is decidedly serious and sometimes dire, it’s also packed with references. For example, the player’s powers are actual power cards they have to hang on to, as well as all their items and rituals and suchlike. Their major enemies are female personifications of every edition of D&D (they are currently fighting Fawry, who is 4th Edition, and controls a dungeon-wide scrying network called DDI, Dark Dungeon Infiltrator). A few upcoming rooms have NES Megaman references like having to walk backwards through a door to get anywhere (having to go right instead of left in a side-scrolling game) and disappearing blocks.
If you play with Wyatt, it isn’t a question of if there will be silliness, it’s a question of if you can look past it when all the cute characters start dying horribly and the world goes to crap and misery and woe reign supreme…while people are still making video game references.
Wyatts last blog post..Wyatt’s Words: Points, Tokens, Narrativism
@Meanderthal: Oh man, you will become reader D_Luck’s favorite new friend I’m sure! 🙂
@Wyatt: Dude, I’m telling you now, what you are creating is your very own brand of D&D! Embrace the silliness and make this world come alive, in a few years from now, I’ll have people tell me in cons that they played in a Salazar game… 🙂
I love silliness, especially if it’s in-character (and generated by the characters or villains). Our last campaign (Serenity), the captain and my PC (a dwarf lecher) didn’t get along well, so I constantly played practical jokes on the captain. Such as getting him to ‘pass my bottle of whisky’. To which he drank it on the go by.
If the campaign mood is generally serious, we need to make sure it doesn’t get out of hand. But silly campaigns (especially one-shots) can be really fun to play. Such as sending a group of neonates on a city-wide search for Mr. Fuzzles.
Taos last blog post..Customer Rewards Program
Funny moments definitely occur during the game — there will be laughter when a group of friends are together and enjoying themselves.
That said, my D&D games have always had a “silliness sandbox”. The idea is outright stolen from a friend, but I like to take credit for it nonetheless: The Chain Tavern.
The tavern is in every town. The bartender is always the same, and speaks in a funny voice. Kobolds (in pumps, cocktail dresses and make-up) wait on the tables. Popular bands perform on stage. Weird stuff happens.
It is — quite literally — where the characters go for a break. They can order wings, watch the Rolling Stones on stage, and even go backstab John Travolta who’s over dancing in the corner.
A lot of fun, an ability to be silly and bring up pop culture references — all without leaving character, or having to say “guys, guys — let’s get back to the game”.
Steves last blog post..The morning coffee is really in the morning today
In a recent session I named a potentially friendly, azer-oppressed hill giant “Nom-Nom.” My players loved it, and every monster that session went on Nom-Nom’s initiative. In the same session I had one of my azers, once blinded, command his hell-hound as he struggled to see—”Grip, blow up!” I acted out the dog’s whimpering before its area attack, and again the players found it very funny.
I find this kind of thing is welcome in most games, and doesn’t feel forced or incongruous, even alongside themes of extreme violence or even torture. The bottom line is people love to laugh, I think.
RPG Ikes last blog post..Killer Encounter Combos #3 – The Path Through Darkness
I don’t like silliness in my campaigns. Obviously the players make jokes and stuff but I try to keep the gaming itself reasonably serious. I’m also playing (with the same group) in a Feng Shui campaign which the silliness seriously threatened to derail for a while – we had to make a conscious effort to rein in the madness. It’s still pretty silly, but in a Streetfighter 2 sort of a way rather than a Keystone Cops sort of a way.
flashhearts last blog post..Compromise and Conceit 12: The Messenger
With me & my players, silliness is unavoidable. I don’t really mind it that much… but as DM I can’t wait to figure out how like to gain better control over it.
@Steve:
I love your “Chain Tavern” concept! I’m-a steal it fer sure.
Eric Maziades last blog post..Dungeon Reality Show
Every D&D campaign that we play is a serious game played by silly players. That’s just the way we play I guess (guess how many campaigns had to be ripped because of that) 😉
Questing GMs last blog post..{Quest Log} Play by Facebook, Seriously?
@Tao: sending a group of neonates on a city-wide search for Mr. Fuzzles
That’s exactly the type of one-shots I’m talking about! Good one!
@Steve: I absolutely love running gags like that in a campaign. In fact I’d even use the scthick as a plot device. Like if the players really need to go from the Free-City of Crunchia to the Capital of the Republic of Fluffia, I’d have them discover a strange portal that allows them to go from one city to the other through the Tavern…
but “both” taverns would burn down shortly after… he he he.
@RPG Ike: Arghhhhhh, here is that Nom-Nom expression again (Damn you Cookie Monster/LOL cats!). As you say, laughter is a very strong emotion that comes with the release of ‘good feeling’ chemicals in the brain. So having the players burst out at least once, for whatever reason, is a step toward a good game session. The thing is to try to avoid having the outburst at the worse possible moment.
@flashheart: Let’s not forget that silliness should not be an element of all games, not even most. Some campaings aren’t conducive to silliness and that’s all right. It does provide a nice change of pace/tone between serious chapters though. Also, sometimes the gaming group just needs to get it out of their systems.
@Eric: The only silliness that you control is the one that you purposely insert into your games… and even there, it might just fall flat. About 10 years ago, I tried to play a Paranoia game with my Gurps group and the whole thing fell flat because none of the players (all blue collar workers in a Northern Mining town) found the premise of the game any fun.
@Questing DM: Could you develop that? You think that the game crash because of player silliness? What would you think is the root cause for this (without you going into self-flagellation mode about your DMing).
I’m all for some silliness in the game I DM. We play to have some fun and laughs after a week of mundane reality and screaming children!
Aside from the ever-present pop culture references uttered around the table I try to do things like make up funny names for NPCs. For example, our group was trying to find some information from a wizard’s aide who had been driven mad by abberations. I realized at the last minute that I had forgotten to name him so he became Ci’lantro since my wife and I had been talking herbs and spices that afternoon. I made sure the madman uttered things like “We’re out of time! (thyme)” a few times and refered to his wizard employer as “His Sage”. 8^)
Since then we’ve also had a Coriander and my visiting brother played a one-shot Genasi named Taragon.
Suddrys last blog post..In Anticipation of Eberron
Lol!
Make sure to call the Tavern keeper ‘Herb’
Hi y’all. I tend to use the silliness mostly in the npc-section and keep the main story serious. This is mostly for me as a DM to find some channel to vent my silliness, as the players often get to do it during play (with one-liners, casting great spell combinations and such). A campaign i ran which was located in the city Rauxes had various “silly” stuff, as harry the fence that always wanted to sell an stuffed alligator to the players, or bob the meticulous florist, who also sold thief equipment, or my favorite, the tavern that sold the strongest grog in town AND throwing axes, a seemingly bad combination when you must sample both wares ^_^
it’s also always fun to dress up a kobold in foppish musketeer clothes, widebriummed hat and a big feather, just to see how nervous everybody gets.
“he looks silly! He MUST have class levels, beware! run for it!!!!”
and in case you wonder, of course the players bought the alligator after a while, and of course it actually was magical ^_^
Hey Burt, welcome to the blog!
Focusing silliness on NPCs is a good way of keeping a straight story but have the players laughing on the sidelines. Its surprising how such NPCs get adopted by the players.
It reminds me of my Otyugh monster that mastered the basics of Common and that called everything ‘Food’ like ‘Food that walks’ (PCs) ‘food that bites’ (Dungeon monsters) and ‘Food that eats’ (meaning itself). So we called it Food that Eats and the monster was adopted by the party.