Comments on: Are you serious?

By: Psynister

Psynister — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 14:25:34 +0000

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.

By: Baylee

Baylee — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 20:33:49 +0000

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.

By: Questing GM

Questing GM — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 05:48:23 +0000

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.

By: Ameron

Ameron — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 16:28:54 +0000

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.

By: Wyatt

Wyatt — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 22:44:12 +0000

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.

By: Ktulu

Ktulu — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 21:48:42 +0000

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).

By: ethan

ethan — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 14:55:07 +0000

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.

By: Ken Marable

Ken Marable — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 14:48:41 +0000

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.

By: ethan

ethan — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 14:19:09 +0000

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?

By: Josh

Josh — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 14:00:30 +0000

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.