In-jokes and pop culture references happen around the game table, but how much of it is allowed depends a great deal on the tone set by the GM. My gut reaction is to keep the out of game comments out of the game. Referencing the internetz or having Sphinx that offer their riddles in Lolcat are realm breaking. They can destroy immersion and prevent the players from investing themselves in the conflict of a dangerous and frightening world of adventure. When I throw a lich at you from the depths of a crypt, your character will not laugh and declare that they have, “a bone to pick,” with the enemy.
But, here’s a crazy thought — what if a twisted silly parody was the setting? What if the players lived in a world where the location of treasure was found on ye olde’ Google map, kobolds had a union and occasionally went on strike from dungeons, and you could buy anything you wanted from a network of traveling Gnomish merchants referred to as Wal-Cart?
I’ve toyed with the idea of such a setting and played it as a one shot with two different groups. Overall, it’s a LOT of fun and keeps players from dozing off at the table. Including in-jokes and crazy antics in an encounter seems to keep players engaged and out of non-game discussions when it’s not their turn, but how long can it last? Wouldn’t a ridiculous world like that get old?
Have any of you ever played a ridiculous campaign or had one or two missions spoof a movie or pop culture? Do you feel a bit of the sillies make a good game, or do your players get a better experience out of a serious setting?
Similar Posts:
- Off the Grid: Deft Strike
- Fluency: maybe you never thought about it either
- Uhrwerk Stadt: A 4e/Gamma World Mashup
I started Dungeon Mastering with secondhand AD&D materials in 1996 and have run a vast number of D20 campaigns, from cliche' medieval adventures in a kingdom made of Lego bricks to fighting zombies and the mob in the mid 1930s. I try to make the gaming experience as enjoyable, fast-paced, and easy to play as humanly possible. 
Terry Pratchett is a master of comedic fantasy and has been doing it for years.
As for actually playing in such a campaign . . . I dunno if I could wrap my head around that, at least not for the first couple of sessions. It would definitely need to be discussed beforehand, and not just dumped on the players.
I think you’d have to have the right players. I fear it would turn into a a party of comedians each trying to do his or her own set. Would folks understand that physics still applies, for example? What happens when folks try to do something legitimately silly to a character that’s not being used that way? (“I throw a custard pie at the Lord Mayor!”)
If I go into a game expecting and encouraging comedy, then it usually turns out to be pretty fun(ny). I enjoy those games from time to time but we would really be better off just roleplaying random stuff for the sake of roleplaying rather than even bothering with trying to put it all in D&D.
I ran a Wizard of Oz-based campaign once where I had a kobold sorcerer summon a massive twister in the middle of a fight that took all the players to Oz. Prismatic Horseshoes that activated Prestidigitation to change the horses’ colors each time they took a step, flying monkeys carrying shortswords and casting lightning bolts, a friendly iron golem, a straw golem, an awakened lion, and a silvery pair of Slippers of Teleportation. My witch was epicly evil, and she was very good at what she did. No, they never made it out of Oz.
I don’t often have comedy games and when that type of thing starts creeping into my normal games I generally put a stop to it by reminding people what we’re doing and why. I hate out of place comedy in my games whether I’m the DM or a player. I play the game to play the game, get into the story, become the character there on my paper, and live in the world that the DM’s created for us. If I’m running the game, then I’m there to provide all of those things to the players. I have no need for stupid comedy.
Okay, I agree that too much joking can kill the mood… but telling a lich, “I have a bone to pick with you,” sounds just like something one of my smart-A characters would say! And believe it or not, it wouldn’t be at all out-of-character.
For your Oz campaign, did it interrupt a serious game or was it the entire intent of the campaign? Part of the intention behind this post is that I’m pondering a series of small movie spoof modules (3-4 encounters) that you can just drop into a campaign when you’re running out of ideas.
Do you have to go 100% one way or the other, or can you mix the silly and the serious without breaking your campaign?
I might consider a one-shot where it is a silly situation that encourages the players to improv and provide the majority of the humor. But anything more than that and I’m skeptical – especially for me DMing.
My biggest problem isn’t that I want RPGs to be serious matters, but that our funniest moments are nearly always spontaneous. Planned humor is very, very difficult to pull off well – at least for me.
Planning for humor depends on how well you know your players. Normally I go through a module and remove or modify the things that my players will turn into a running gag or a wise crack.
I think it’s easier to put in opportunities for my players to be outrageous. Maybe it’s just my group, but I kinda gave up on giving them opportunities to be heroes. What they really want is to be themed super villains fighting other themed super villains in a fantasy setting.
Erfworld: The Battle for Gobwin Knob is a web comic based around an idea like this. From the vampires losely based off of grease, to the fact that PEEPs are flying units. Not sure what the new site is called, but it can be located at http://www.giantitp.com alongside order of the stick. Great for being loaded with weird pop-culture references (one of the best Michael Jackson ones, ever, too).
Every D&D campaign I have had (that mattered) took place in the world of Paradiso, where metagaming, sourcebooks and “your class features are completely beneath my notice” are all real. I’ve blogged about it before, but most of my games are loaded with video game, anime, book and metagame references.
The old Castle Greyhawk adventure had a chapter called Mordenkainen’s Movie Madness that was full of pop-culture parodies. From Marvel comics we met The Amazing Driderman, The Inedible Bulk and Da Ting. From Star Trek there was Captain Kork, Mees Taspark, Bones (yes, Bones was indeed a skeleton). And my favourite parody was Indiana Gnome (sporting a bull whip and fedora and fleeing a giant bounder). It was a fun, silly floor of the dungeon, but it was a lot of fun to play.
I have done a parody campaign set in the Forgotten Realms that attempted to spoof every aspect of the Realms with pop cultural reference.
One example where I did this is when the party met Storm Silverhand who I roleplayed as Paris Hilton in Simple Life. When they were being ambushed by a pack of leucrotta, I made each of them spout movie quotes.
It was funny and fun while it lasted but it gets quite hard to maintain the humorous momentum which was the main reason why the campaign got scrapped in the end.
This reminds me a lot of Kingdom of Loathing (www.kingdomofloathing.com). It’s an online game with mostly text and stick figure drawings, but its humor combines pop culture references, silly puns, and self and industry deprecating jokes. It makes for a really fun game, and I could even see a whole tabletop RPG based on it…or even a D&D variant…but it’s a great time…and a big time sink–fair warning.
Ethan,
I never received a notification that anyone else had responded here, so I didn’t think to come back and check to see if anyone had said anything.
Yes, the Oz part was planned for the game and the players knew that “something” weird was going to take place as a bit of a test with a new idea. I gave a few details about what was going to happen and vaguely hinted towards what it could be.
But Oz was not the idea for the campaign, in fact it was an Eberron game and I sucked them right out of the world mid-Campaign, sent them to Oz intending on them getting back to Eberron after the witch was dead, but they never made it out alive actually. There’s only so much I can do when Witch rolls crits for four rounds in a row and max damage on almost every roll she made.
All in all the brief trip to Oz would have been 4 adventures worth rather than an actual campaign, but it was only ever meant to be a quick trip into a fun world and then back out into the real world again.