Comedy Games- Are Lite rules the way to go?

[Ryan Wynne]

TFOS did have "Bonk" instead of hit/life points, which I think was one way of encouraging such things.

I'll have to wait until I get home to check the book before I can get you any others.

 You are correct.  Bonk was funny but other then that the mechanics were just that, game mechanics.

[Ryan Wynne]

Well, ok.  Its your game.

I won't really be able to help you with it, because that design philosophy is one I vehemently and strongly disagree with.

In fact, I'd go so far as to state that any mechanic that adds nothing to support a game's flavor and color and serves only to adjudicate success and failure is a complete and utter waste of time.  Its certainly not worth inventing a new system for that.

 Well first I think you are putting too much stock in the game mechanics in a game like the one I am working on and two, that system is hardly new.

I mean, if that's all your system does...why would anyone even need your game?  Everybody's seen Beverly Hill Billies, the Dukes of Hazard,  and those old Hatfield and McCoy Bugs Bunny cartoons.  They certainly don't need your game for setting material.  And if the mechanics just provide success/failure...heck, they could just strip down d20 and use that.

But, it is your game.  Good luck with it.

 That same thing can be said for many games.  There are many games that I could just use a generic system to reproduce and have equally as much fun.  Why do I need a game with it's own system?

[Ryan Wynne]

Ryan,

Normally I'd agree with Ralph re: missed opportunities.  However...

The characters actions are what makes it funny, it's the mechanics that simply determine if their action is successful or not.

So, you're saying that as long as the characters' actions are themselves inherently humorous, then regardless of whether the funny action is successful, humor has already been accomplished.  Success or Failure is then just a matter of figuring out what happened, so that other people can react to that by doing their own funny character actions.

Hmm, okay, I might be able to buy into that.

 That is exactly my line of thought.  Hell, you could go as far as to say that the falure itself could be funny.  Suppose Bubba was going to wack John boy in the head but misses and hits his friend Jimbo instead? That could be really funny

So, how are you going to encourage and promote funny character actions?  For comparison, did Teenagers From Outer Space do anything in particular along these lines?

  RIght now I am working that out.  As far as teenagers I am going to have to go back and look as its been awhile since I went over the rules.

[Shreyas Sampat]

That same thing can be said for many games.  There are many games that I could just use a generic system to reproduce and have equally as much fun.  Why do I need a game with its own system?

If you believe this, why are you setting out to design a game again?

[quozl]

Suppose Bubba was going to wack John boy in the head but misses and hits his friend Jimbo instead? That could be really funny.

That reminds me of the picture at the bottom of this page.  Also, be sure to read the boxed text.

[Valamir]

Well first I think you are putting too much stock in the game mechanics in a game like the one I am working on

System matters Ryan.

But let me turn it around.  Why wouldn't you want to take the opportunity to tie mechanics and game color more closely together.  Where do see the disadvantage?

[hanschristianandersen]

 That is exactly my line of thought.  Hell, you could go as far as to say that the falure itself could be funny.  Suppose Bubba was going to wack John boy in the head but misses and hits his friend Jimbo instead? That could be really funny

Well, it sucks to be Jimbo, that much is certain.

But yes, such a description would be funny.  And it sounds like you want players of your game (this includes the GM) to come up with similarly funny descriptions.  It's up to you to figure out how best to accomplish this to your satisfaction.

The "System Does Matter" camp's philosophy is that if you have mechanics that *cause* humor to happen, then any time you use the mechanics, you have an opportunity to generate more humor.

Further, if you have mechanics that *reward* humor, then you will be encouraging players to do humorous descriptions.  Lots of games have "Stunt" rules that bestow bonuses on actions that have "Cool" descriptions.  Since players like getting bonuses to their rolls, the bonuses serve as a carrot to promote "cool" descriptions.  In a Hillbillly Humor game, replace "stunt" with "gag", and "cool" with "funny", and there ya go.

If you have no mechanics to encourage, promote, or reward humor, then you're running the risk that the subject matter alone might not be enough to engender the sort of funny play you're looking for.

(By now, even poor Jimbo can tell that I'm a die-hard System Does Matter devotee.)

If, on the other hand, you still disagree, putting you squarely in the "System Doesn't Matter" camp, then here's a suggestion for what to do next:

Don't waste any brainpower or creative thought on the system; co-opt GURPS, or Fudge, or d20, or some other existing system.  If system design isn't your passion, then acknowledge that, and move on.

Instead, spend your creative effort writing the most entertaining, witty, laugh-out-loud hilarious "Big Bubba's Big Book Of Hillbillies" *sourcebook* that you possibly can.  Inspire your audience, entertain them, and give them tons of great ideas for their own Hillbilly adventures.

In fact, that's the model taken by some of the best GURPS supplements; provide a comprehensive and entertaining overview of the subject matter.  Many of these books are so well done that even some GURPS-hating friends of mine buy them as reading material and source material for other systems.

[Mike Holmes]

No surprise, I'm with Ralph on this one.

I've played a lot of TFOS. And the system works against it being funny for the most part. Where it is funny is in the characterization, sure; actually I'd argue that Relationship With Parents is about the most potentially funny part of character enumeration. But all you're saying is that the rest of the system isn't funny. And it's not, particularly. Even just thinking in terms of normal task resolution breaks the fun down.

BTW, this includes the most recent version which may not have been released yet. I played it a year ago or so with the designer at game day in Chicago.

Mike

[semprebon]

In my experience, failure is usually funnier than success, especially if it is unexpected, which would argue for a system with a high degree of randomness and a decent chance to fail even things well within the character's capability. The Dying Earth RPG is a good example of this.

[Jack Spencer Jr]

Lately I had been noticing some principles to comedy and will impart what little I know here.

There is something about comedy that is inherently funny. Exactly what escapes me save for the below, but if you were to boil down the scenes of a comedy to a single sentence, they would still make you laugh. This shows the difference between a real comedy and something else spiced with jokes. Lethal Weapon, for example, would probably not be especially funny boiled down as such. It has jokes in it, but is not comedy per se.

One of the keys to comedy is mania. The character has some kind of mania that drive their behavior and they don't even realise it's a mania. Watch some reruns of Seinfeld sometime. It has been called "the show about nothing" because what basically happens every episode is one of the four main characters gains a mania for the episode (sometimes they each get their own mania) and this mania drives their behavior and the plot of the show that week.

All of this has little to do with the rest of this thread, but your game is to try to get funny results and I think that to somehow get a mania in there is a good way to get it.

[Simon W]

In my experience, failure is usually funnier than success, especially if it is unexpected, which would argue for a system with a high degree of randomness and a decent chance to fail even things well within the character's capability. The Dying Earth RPG is a good example of this.

I second this.

You could maybe have player narrative based on failure (where most other "narrative" games have "narrative" based on success).

Alternatively, you could go for a system which somehow rewards players narrating their own character's failures in an amusing way.

However, I also think that so called "comedy" games are often in themselves unamusing and comedy often comes when least expected.

I'm not sure how the Red Dwarf RPG deals with comedy - I doubt that it does. I have only flicked through a friends copy, but didn't really notice any mechanics for humour. I suspect it relies on the players knowing the Red Dwarf series inside-out.

Simon
http://www.geocities.com/dogs_life2003/

[Ben Lehman]

That sounds like a huge missed opportunity to me.

Mechanics that do nothing but determine success and failure are pretty pointless in a game meant to be about Hill Billy Humor.

I mean, who really cares whether Billy Bob actually hits what he's shooting at as long as it funny?

I disagree.  The mechanics in Teenagers From Outer Space did little in the way of making sure something was funny, just if there was success or not.  The characters actions are what makes it funny, it's the mechanics that simply determine if their action is successful or not.

BL>  Okay, I was going to stay out of this, but you've invoked TFOS, which happens to be one of my favorite games.

Not surprisingly, I disagree with both you and Mike about TFOS, and agree with Ralph about your game.  I think TFOS is a funny game, it is a funny game because of the system, and that any comedy game designer can learn from it.

TFOS's basic success/fail mechanic, I will admit, does not bring teh funny in any significant way, but I think that this is largely because of the designer's rather ill-fated attempt to shoehorn it into the Fuzion / Interlock structure.  Considering that, as you point out, this system adds nothing to the humor of the play, I question why it is the one part of TFOS that you are emulating.

This (comedy systems must look like universal resolution systems) is the wrong lesson to be learning from TFOS.  If this is your lesson, play "without system."  Just flip a coin for success or failure, or what have you.  I don't think it will be very funny, but to each their own.  Consider that you are essentially doing Improv comedy here, and that all successful Improv has strong social rules (but not mechanical ones) making it run.

Back to TFOS for a second.  It's the little rules that drift at the edges of the game design -- the RWP stat, the "failure on inventions" rule, democratically assigned social bonk, the equipment lists -- that the game shines, brilliantly.  For instance (if I recall correctly), a failed invention roll *requires* that you come up with some goofy way that it works wrong, and bring it into play.

It is this sort of leveraging system to provide pressure to generate comedy that your system should contain.  If you think that the only role of system is to determine success or failure... well, you need to read your RPG books more carefully.

yrs--
--Ben

[pete_darby]

And, for comedy mechanics, check Toon: especially notes on keeping characters incompetent, having schticks failat vital moments. The whole rulesset emphasizes comdey being when bad things happen to the characters...

[btrc]

I agree that humor is not in the dice mechanics, its a "whole set of rules" gestalt. Making a way to add "hiliarity" to the mechanics -should- be a concern, but it is not the -major- focus of the humor.

I would suggest that a 1d6 result curve is kind of flat. You might toss in the Shadowrun "re-roll 6's and add to the result" mechanic. Maybe do it the other way as well for the really serious botches (a roll of 1 rerolls and subtracts from the result).

Greg Porter
BTRC

[pete_darby]

And to get back right to the starting question: my take is that, as with any other aim in design of an RPG, if you can't think of a way to make resolution "funny" in and of itself, it's probably better to go with an unobtrusive resolution mechanic that at least doesn't obscure your other aims.

So yeah, two questions for the designer:

1) Does this mechanic actively support my aims for the game? If so, or if you can think of a way to re-inforce the aims, well HOO-YAH!, else...

2) Does this mechanic detract from my aims for the game? Frex, in a comedy game, will a graphically detailed and highly granular damage system make for funnier injuries, or dry consultation of tables?

My look at it? Being a fan of Tex Avery cartoons, make sure any failure in a comedy game is equivalent to a fumble (at least) in a standard game. I mean, according to one authority...

Tragedy is when I prick my finger. Comedy is when you fall down a manhole and die