I am creating a comedy game called Hillbilles deluxe and I am thinking that rules lite is the way to go. It would involve D6 + Stat + skill vs a DL (Difficulty Level) or the above formula vs another player (or NPCs) Forumla for person to person conflict.

Since this is a comedy game and I dont think it needs to be rules heavy I am curious to find out what people think of this.

I think it depends on what you want the game mechanics to do. For a comedy game, I can think of two possiblities at the moment:

One, the results get the characters into comedic situations.
Two, the results are comedic themselves.

quozl wrote: I think it depends on what you want the game mechanics to do. For a comedy game, I can think of two possiblities at the moment:

One, the results get the characters into comedic situations.
Two, the results are comedic themselves.

Ryan,

I can sympathize with not wanting to drown the spirit of a game in rules. D6+skill vs D6+skill is certainly simple and fast; I chose it for my first draft of Musketeers! for the same reason. Musketeers! is supposed to be fast, toungue-in-cheek, and more than a little absurd.

In actual playtest, though, D6+ vs. D6+ proves to be pretty darn boring by itself. There's a very limited range of possibilities, and only two different outcomes - "I Win" and "I Lose". This isn't to say that there wasn't plenty of successful comedy in my playtests; rather, my point is that the die rolls themselves added nothing to the experience. On the bright side, Search and Handling time was almost nil, which meant that the die rolls didn't actively *hurt* the comedic aspects either. But if it was neither helpful nor harmful, it might as well be replaced with coin-flipping or rock-paper-scissors.

So, can you think of a simple, fast-playing way of determining success/failure that is itself a source of comedy? Perhaps keep D6+ vs. D6+, but have a "6" mean "And whether or not my total is higher, I get to say or do something that screws you"?

Just a thought.

There's absolutely nothing funny about your mechanic, and it doesn't support funny stuff happening in play in any way.

However, I'm going to operate on the assumption that your game attempts to generate its humor through use of Color, Situation, Setting, and Character, leaving System simply as a tool to settle the question of who succeeds or fails. This is fine provided that the players of the game are "on board" with the subject matter and find it humorous, and have the creativity and desire to play to the subject matter. This can be accomplished through the use of amusing and clever game text that excites the reader with the possiblities of being funny in the sort of game your text describes.

So. Assuming your game text does this, there's no particular need for the system's mechanics to be funny in and of themselves. But giving your mechanics the ability to generate humor will cause your game to stand out in the field of humor games dominated by the approach you describe in your first post.

Word on the street is that Ron Edwards's Elfs has humor-generating mechanics that work well, but I can't speak to that since I don't own it and have never played it. Might be worth looking into for inspiration.

All that is well and good, but does little to address your actual question. So here's my answer to that: Yeah, I think rules-light will serve a tongue-in-cheek game better than rules-heavy. (By heavy/light I assume we're talking about search and handling time during play.) In general, I think you would want a ruleset that can fade into the background.

That's a great point Hans.

For a comedy game about Hillbillies, I'm thinking having numerically rated skills might be entirely unnecessary.

Whatabout just descriptive traits.

Billy Bob:
Shoot Gud
Drive mah truck
Don't cotton to no immigrants ("they tuk mah jeb")

Then for a system its always just 1d6 vs 1d6. If you have a Trait that seems applicable roll an extra d6 and keep the highest.

But you can also add a Hill Billy die (of a different color) any time you want. If you do and the Hill Billy die is highest than you have to describe some Hill Billy-ism that enabled your effort. "Billy Bob didn't just leave the sheriff in the dust, he ramped the crick with a Yee Haw."

But if you roll a 1 on the Hill Billy die...then you have to automatically fail due to some Hill Billy-ism. Poor Billy Bob coulda gotten away plumb clean, but Ole Man Watson's old hound dog Stonewall was sunnin' hisself in the middle of the road...and twern't no way Billy Bob was gonna run over good ole Stonewall.

Valamir wrote: For a comedy game about Hillbillies, I'm thinking having numerically rated skills might be entirely unnecessary.

hanschristianandersen wrote: Ryan,

I can sympathize with not wanting to drown the spirit of a game in rules. D6+skill vs D6+skill is certainly simple and fast; I chose it for my first draft of Musketeers! for the same reason. Musketeers! is supposed to be fast, toungue-in-cheek, and more than a little absurd.

hanschristianandersen wrote: In actual playtest, though, D6+ vs. D6+ proves to be pretty darn boring by itself. There's a very limited range of possibilities, and only two different outcomes - "I Win" and "I Lose". This isn't to say that there wasn't plenty of successful comedy in my playtests; rather, my point is that the die rolls themselves added nothing to the experience. On the bright side, Search and Handling time was almost nil, which meant that the die rolls didn't actively *hurt* the comedic aspects either. But if it was neither helpful nor harmful, it might as well be replaced with coin-flipping or rock-paper-scissors.

Ralph,

"Dagnabbit! Git yer feelthy hands offa mah dice, ya varmint!"

Heh. Sorry, I couldn't resist saying that after reading your post. For humor games, I think that it's vitally important that the text of the game have lots of funny examples, to get players into the right silly mindset, to show them what they can do and to get their imaginations going. Ralph's brief examples got me instantly jazzed up about the idea of a hillbilly game.


Ryan,

There's nothing inherently wrong with your mechanic, but there's still no inherent humor to it. It's so close, though... Right now, you've got several levels of success or failure (Normal, Very, Extremely, etc.). So, if I'm takin' a potshot at the varmint who tried to swipe mah dice, and I get a Successful result, how is that different from shooting him and getting an Extremely Successful result?

Well, what if a baseline Success means "Yehp, ah shot the varmint awl right", where an Extreme Success lets me embellish more - "Yehp, ah shot the varmint awl right - and golly gee, he had a pocket full of twenny dollah bills! I'm gonna buy me some moonshine!"

That's what I'm talking about - use the dice rules as an excuse to let players say and do hillbilly things. Suddenly, the same stat+skill+modifier+d6 becomes "How much hillbilly mojo do I get to pile on this time?"

hanschristianandersen wrote: Ryan,

There's nothing inherently wrong with your mechanic, but there's still no inherent humor to it. It's so close, though... Right now, you've got several levels of success or failure (Normal, Very, Extremely, etc.). So, if I'm takin' a potshot at the varmint who tried to swipe mah dice, and I get a Successful result, how is that different from shooting him and getting an Extremely Successful result?

Well, what if a baseline Success means "Yehp, ah shot the varmint awl right", where an Extreme Success lets me embellish more - "Yehp, ah shot the varmint awl right - and golly gee, he had a pocket full of twenny dollah bills! I'm gonna buy me some moonshine!"

That's what I'm talking about - use the dice rules as an excuse to let players say and do hillbilly things. Suddenly, the same stat+skill+modifier+d6 becomes "How much hillbilly mojo do I get to pile on this time?"

The mechanics arent supposed to be part of the humor, they aer only to make sure things happen. I dont see that they really need to be part of the humor. They are to make sure actions are successful or not. As for the success chart that was something I was tinkering with and I am not sure I am goign to even use it.

Valamir wrote: 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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

Lxndr wrote: 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.

Valamir wrote: 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.

Valamir wrote: 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.

hanschristianandersen wrote: 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.

hanschristianandersen wrote: 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?

Ryan Wynne wrote: 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?

Ryan Wynne wrote: 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 first I think you are putting too much stock in the game mechanics in a game like the one I am working on

Ryan Wynne wrote:
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

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

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.

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.

semprebon wrote: 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.

Valamir wrote: 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?

Ryan Wynne wrote: 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.

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...

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

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...

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

Okay, how about separating the 'mechanic' from the 'mechanics'? That is, the goofier the way the -player- actually rolls the die, the more likely the GM will give them a bonus to the roll. Doing a backhanded dice ricochet off your friend's forehead while doing a Three Stooges Curly "woo-woo-woo" is worth +2 on your roll, etc.

Greg Porter
BTRC

To answer the original question, it depends. If the mechanics you use produce comedy, then go ahead and use "heavy" mechanics. If the mechanics do not produce comedy, use "light" mechanics.

As for a suggested light mechanic, I would use the Feng Shui system. Because of the exploding dice at the extemes (both positive and negative), you can describe both amazing success (which could be funny) and amazing failure (which could also be funny).

...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.

Do play mechanics add to the fun? You bet...

In the spirit of hilbilly sharin', here's a swell play mechanic we use out here in the Swamp lands.

Jus' play spin-the-bottle, but with the bottle (preferably an empty 40 oz.) on top of a piece of cardboard devided into 4 sections.

These are labeled "Yes", "No", "Yee-Haw!", and "Doh!" and corespond to success, failure, critical success, and critical failure respectively. Figure the story out from there.

Anybody can unnerstan' thet one, cuzin!

Best of all,

Latigo

In answer to the original question: on average, I find rules-lite to be better than rules-intense when it comes to playing a game for comedy. (To be fair, on average, I prefer rules-lite for most things.) There's exceptions, but in your shoes, I'd work to make the rules mostly unobtrusive except inasmuch as they can contribute to the tone and humor of the game.

Depending on the game, there's also the possibility of the rules /forcing/ too much of the humor. I'm struggling to think of a good example from my own experience, but basically, you don't want the players feeling too constrained or railroaded by specific "humorous" mechanics.

Hi Ryan,

Have you considered that say something like a hill billy driving around a sharp corner at high speed can just be determined by the GM as to whether it works?

Think of it this way: The players aren't trying to overcome a challenge by using tactics that work. You don't want to reward them for being sensible drivers. You want to reward them for being funny.

So leave the success/failure of the truck driving up to the GM. You can: because simulation of this is not the important part of your game. The funny is!

The thing is, if speeding around a corner would end up being funny, but you put some skill check in, it doesn't reward the funny behaviour. They are going to slow down and take it at a reasonable speed that doesn't require a check. In fact they are going to slow down and be sensible all over the place, because skill checks reward tactical thinking, they don't reward funny thinking.

Instead, you can have mechanics that reward funny thinking. For example, lets say that failure is funny. Okay, and make the rule that all tasks fail...those that pass were only there to get you to the failure (driving to the hill doesn't fail because its there to get you to the hair pin turn). Then you could have a rule that says everyone at the table suggests a funny way to fail and you use dice to randomly determine which one is used. Then the player has to use that in a narration of what happened.

Well, that's pretty rough. But the idea is not to model reality, its to model the thing you want to model. And if you want to model funny, you don't want rules that instead model reality.