Funny games (and the Temple of Ass)

[Clinton R. Nixon]

I'm starting to dread the fact that "funny games" are coming back into vogue. I recently had a discussion at my local game store about this: a patron and the owner were talking about Hackmaster, and the new adventures coming out for it. Apparently, the new adventures mock old D&D adventures called "The Keep on the Borderlands" and "Against the Giants." (The new names were something like "The Sheep on the Borderlands" and - shit, I can't remember. Anyway, they were weak jokes.)

I commented that Hackmaster isn't really funny - it's funny to read, of course, but it's not fun or funny to play. My suggestion was a game in which players get bonuses for describing in play tropes that sound like Hackmaster. "I make my Save vs. Traps, Trickery, and Trulescence, adding +5 for my Potion of Prolific Protection!" The actual system would be a simple roll, even as simple as "roll 1 d6, and try to get 4 or higher. GM grants bonus dice for good game description."

This would allow people to say funny things, without being bogged down in truly cryptic gameplay, which is what Hackmaster is (a morass of cryptic gameplay.) The owner's eyes lit up - he realized what I was talking about.

I saw Dav post earlier today (here) about a game called Charts and Charts. The name is funny, and charts are funny to read - but is this actually going to be funny during gameplay? There's a limited number of times you can roll differing results, and these sort of jokes play out quickly.

I like the idea of funny games - Donjon was originally meant to be funny, and can still be played that way - but I want games that are actually funny to play. The "parody" game has been done enough - HoL said everything needed to be said, and Violence nailed the coffin shut with its "dark parody of a parody."

What mechanisms can we use to make a game humorous in play, as opposed to humorous to read?

[Valamir]

Heh, good thread.

I guess I register in on the other end of the spectrum.  Aside from the occassional late night lark, I dislike funny games, and REALLY dislike silly ones.  Its probably due to my sense of humor.  I find Dennis Miller funny.  I can't stand the Three Stooges.

Note that I'm distinguishing "funny game" from "game containing some humor"

I think silly games have come into vogue, but I don't think its a new thing.  I can trace it back to the dawn of Cheap Ass.  Some of those I can enjoy because the mechanics are pretty clever, but the humor wears thin very quickly.  There's only so many times that "Look, a monkey" can be laughed at.

Ultimately, I think silly games become popular for the same reason as the German games have.  They require less comittment in terms of time to learn, time to play, and effort to play.  Plus with silly games you don't have to worry about screwing up because...well...its silly.

I don't fear being overwhelmed by sillyness however.  Its a niche, but everyones idea of humor is too different to become a dominent trend.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Ralph,

It sounds like you and I have the same taste in humor - I think the Three Stooges is about the most boring thing on earth.

Do you think your dislike of humorous games comes from the fact that few, if any, of the humorous games published so far actually are funny?

[Valamir]

By my definition of humor...very few are actually funny.

Paranoia for example I found hysterical...because I was playing with a group of people who recognized it as a satire on political factions, McCarthy witch hunts, and 80s corporate culture.  Just the kind of thing that George Carlan could turn into a whole routine.

[Mike Holmes]

This is going to be a toughie, as everyone varies in what they find funny and to what extent. I find almost everything funny, but then we all know that I'm easy to amuse. I love both Paranioa and the Stooges, Hackmaster and Hol, whatever. Many are more discriminating.

So, if I were you, I'd just make it funny to myself, and hope that others shared my sense of humor. Otherwise you may end up with the Least Common Denominator, which might only be funny to folks like me.

I seem to remember a thread about how to make a comedy game, but I think it was way back on GO.

Mike

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Mike,

Have you actually played Hackmaster? I ask because I'm addressing the question of a game being funny in play. I've read it (very funny) and made a character (kind of funny and very time-consuming).

If you have, please tell us what was funny about it.

[unodiablo]

I can definitely say I've had some of the funniest and most fun gaming sessions of my life with 'TOON. Now thassa funny game, and an excellent one. I always thought Paranoia was a hoot as well, for the same reasons that Ralph mentions. InSpectres is funny in play too! And tho I've never played it, I've never laughed so hard while reading as game as I did with HoL.

The problem with a lot of the other 'funny' games is that they aren't 'just' humourous, i.e. funny to most people, they're 'gamer funny', i.e. things that only a gamer can find amusing (impossible systems, marathon chargen, charts galore, goofy skills, stats or other dice rolls). If you tried to explain the concept of HackMaster to a non-gamer, they'd probably look at you like you were dropped solidly on your head at birth. While if you explain 'TOON or InSpectres to someone only partially interested, they go 'that sounds pretty cool, I'd try that sometime'.

Like Ralph said, very few are actually funny. And like Clinton suggests, the ones that are funny to read don't port it over to the play.
Sean

[Mike Holmes]

Mike,

Have you actually played Hackmaster? I ask because I'm addressing the question of a game being funny in play. I've read it (very funny) and made a character (kind of funny and very time-consuming).

If you have, please tell us what was funny about it.

Nope, never played it, I've only got about as much experience as you do. I though CharaGen was a riot (did you use proper die rolling protocol throughout?). But I have a friend who's thinking of running it. And I'm certain I'd have a perfectly stupid grin the whole time. I think that play would just be like reading it, only getting to experience the sillyness as it occurs in play. Somehow that idea pleases me.

I'm thinking at most a one-shot; I can't imagine that an entire campaign could maintain the hilarity. But I can see it being quite fun for a while. And who knows how much fun those published adventure could be. But, yes, playing an actual parody can only have so much life.

Thing is that I really don't see any funny game as having much in the way of sustainability. And why should they? Just as Ron argues for shorter "campaign length" I think one goes into a funny game without much expectaton of sustainability. So, in that light, I think that Hackmaster is as good as any other funny game (and certainly worth the cover price, IMO). Of course, you have to be a crusty old Gamer to "get it".

Sustainable funny? Not sure it's possible. Is that what you are looking for?

Mike

[Walt Freitag]

Hackmaster is not funny in play. It's not supposed to be. And it's not a parody, though it does parody some of the non-game elements of 1e AD&D, such as its designers penchant for pretentious screeds. There are individual rules that are not exactly conventional and tend to produce funny war stories after the fact (such as a certain character class's ability to apologize, which causes everyone who fails to 'save vs. apology' to have to forgive whatever crime the character is apologizing for), but during play they're real rules with real and serious consequences. It's surprising that gamers who would never question the competitive seriousness of marching a hat in a square orbit around Atlantic City so often seem bewildered by the presence of a few minor abstractions in the Hackmaster rules. I know the GNS essay condemns "it's just a game" as an invalid excuse for incoherency, but Hackmaster is perfectly coherent and it is just a game. It's the RPG equivalent of all those "what would the world be like if the dinosuars had survived and developed intelligence?" scenarios. It's "what would D&D be like if it had evolved through several editions while keeping its original pure-gamist premises?"

The modules released so far are "Quest for the Unknown" and "Little Keep on the Border Lands." No sheep in sight. And at 48 and 144 pages respectively, these are designed to be played. The Giants module isn't in press yet so its title is speculation.

- Walt

[Matt Steflik]

Paranoia and Toon have both provided me with a lot of laughs.  Lately, my group has used Kobolds Ate My Baby as a breather between more serious games. While I like my serious systems, I have to admit I'm a sucker for small micro (I still have my old Melee/Wizard and Labyrinth stuff) and "Cheapass-esque" little games, which are more often than not pretty silly.  Just picked one up called "Lemmings in Space" that's a parody of Starfleet Battles and I still drag out TWERPS every once in a while.  Anyway - when it comes to "silly", for me its the size issue.  Less is more.  Give me a quick set up, easy to understand lingo, some parody and a punchline.  I've looked at Hackmaster, and while I thought it funny to flip through it in the store, it looked too complicated and detailed  (that and the price tag put me off). I mean, it gave me the impression of a joke that was explained in so much detail that it ceased to be funny anymore. While I admit I haven't looked at Hackmaster too closely, it seems the "BERPS: Warhamster RPG" in the Dork Tower comic did pretty much the same thing genre-wise with far more simplicity.

[Le Joueur]

Sustainable funny? Not sure it's possible. Is that what you are looking for?

Um, anyone even heard of Teenagers from Outer Space?  The episodic structure (I only have the first edition, with the micro dice that the author lovingly taped into each one) turns each session into a 'one-shot' if you will, yet making it "sustainably funny."  I assume similar is potential in BESM (but never got past the first edition of that either).  Series cartoons of Japanese flavor seem perfect of both sustainable and funny games.

(And I never did get the joke with Paranoia, but then I didn't get the 'Stooges, but worshipped at the altar of Groucho Marx.)

Fang Langford

[Mike Holmes]

Hackmaster is not funny in play. It's not supposed to be. And it's not a parody, though it does parody some of the non-game elements of 1e AD&D,

I think it is very much a parody. Yes, subtle, yes, playable. But, yes, a parody. The vast majority of the fun of play that I imagine in Hackmaster would be from trying to play it straightfaced (I'm attempting to supress a big grin at the thought right now). It would allow you to satirize your own play. Sounds like fun to me. Or, I guess, that's how I would play.

Or are you suggesting that people should try and play Hackmaster as a straightforward Gamist RPG? I think that they'd be missing the point if they did that.

Mike

[Mike Holmes]

Um, anyone even heard of Teenagers from Outer Space?  The episodic structure (I only have the first edition, with the micro dice that the author lovingly taped into each one) turns each session into a 'one-shot' if you will, yet making it "sustainably funny."  I assume similar is potential in BESM (but never got past the first edition of that either).  Series cartoons of Japanese flavor seem perfect of both sustainable and funny games.

Played a lot of TFOS long ago (where's my bubble-gum gun!). Mostly at Cons, actually. But always as one shots. And sure you could reprise the same characters in a series of episodes, but given the short CharGen, why not just make up new characters each time? The episodic nature is exactly what I'm talking about when I said unsustainable. I should have said 'Non-continuous' instead of sustainable. But in general I mean't traditional campaign play.

Anyhow, I can see playing episodes of Hackmaster. As many as you have funny adventures for. But why would you want to follow the exploits of a single character. I suppose you could make a game like the Groo comics or something...

And BESM could be played silly, I suppose, but it read like straight action to me. Any game can be played silly, but I'll bet doing so makes its lifespan much shorter.

Mike

[Zak Arntson]

What mechanisms can we use to make a game humorous in play, as opposed to humorous to read?

I think good humorous games use System and Color. Color makes for a good read, and sets up the players for humor. System goes a long way to creating a funny environment. These are the most important things for a humorous game.

Donjon's Color is very goofy and plays off D&D nostalgia. The System then provides for player improvisation, nods to nostalgia (the funny Saving Throws and ten-cent attribute names), which leads Players to treat the game as a humorous one. We could use the same System for a dead-serious game with just a change of Color.

The Jon Morris Sketchbuk RPG is also Color + System. The System is a player vs. player mentality, which forces a friendly competition. The Color appears in the text, examples and art.

Paranoia is a counter-argument to my Color + System. It's Color + Setting + Character (you're always playing a backstabbing clone). It is a truly great game that shows how important the other elements can be. I contend that it would be an even better game if the System supported the humor.

A failed attempt would be Tales from the Floating Vagabond. The Color was perfect, but the System was dense and the Color didn't serve it's purpose when tied into the System. Another example of this would be my own Sea Monkey RPG. It's got tons of Color but the System falls flat.

Another Mechanism: A trick I like is to force the Players to think about humor, while playing their Characters completely straight. InSpectres is wonderful played this way, as was an old short-lived game I ran years ago. It lets the Characters wind up in funny situations that don't feel forced.

Last Note on Mechanism: Humor and Friendly Competition often go hand-in-hand. See most of Cheap Ass Games' stuff for examples of this. In RPGs, there's Paranoia, SLURPS, Jon Morris Sketchbuk RPG, and tons more, I'm sure.

[xiombarg]

As per usual, I'm replying to several posts at once... I'll start with Mike and get more general...

Or are you suggesting that people should try and play Hackmaster as a straightforward Gamist RPG? I think that they'd be missing the point if they did that.

People are doing this -- that is, playing it seriously. I've seen it done at a con more than once. I have spoken to people who consider Hackmaster a serious game with funny elements, and play it that way. In that way, it's not very different from 1st edition AD&D -- there were always goofy elements to that, even intentional ones. Remember that there used to be Tom Wham cartoons in the DMG. That's where a lot of Hackmaster players are coming from: Players and GMs who never gave up on 1st edition AD&D. These people exist, and they take Hackmaster seriously. Again, I've met them -- I even played under one until he moved away. (Not Hackmaster, tho. This was before it came out. But he was a dire-hard fan of 1st edition AD&D, and had no interest in the subsequent later-edition material.)

That said, I'd like to say you *can* do an ongoing comedy campaign, but it's hard. I've been in an ongoing TFOS game that was pretty good, with recurring characters, jokes, the whole nine yards. And I've run TOON in a semi-campaign fashion... Ongoing characters and gags. It can be done. But more so than any other RPG, mood is everything. If people aren't in a funny mood, be prepared to run something else.