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DJ Yung Crunk
2016-04-20, 10:13 AM
I'll try to keep this brief.

Right now I play a paladin in a 5th Edition game. Rather by accident a significant majority of the other players (five out of six) made comic relief or light fluff characters. It was a complete accident and we did not plan this ahead of time. Luckily we did have one character, our Ranger, who had a more typical high fantasy tragic backstory and epic motivations. For obvious reasons, he was promoted to our protagonist and the main thrust of the campaign was tied into his backstory. We had no qualms with this, it made perfect sense to us.

All well and good, of course. But now that plot arc has resolved and the guy who plays the ranger is moving out of town. What this means is that the party is now just the funny support characters. Everyone's a bit reluctant to take their characters seriously, but the DM's setting is rather serious and stern in tone, so we're at an impasse. He's a good sport and he's promised that the next major arc will be a bit more in the goofy swashbuckling vein to accommodate.

So, to all you DMs out there, answer me these questions three: Are we being too rigid and not allowing any growth for our characters? Would you be willing to change the tone of your campaign setting on a dime? Am I worrying over nothing and should just have fun swinging on chandeliers and getting punched by boozy women?

I mean, I assume those last two things will happen.

mikeejimbo
2016-04-20, 10:42 AM
Oh man, I've run comedic games before. I'd actually started writing some stuff about it.

0. Whatever is funny at the moment

1. Characters aren’t expected to be competent.
1a. Heck, if they’re incompetent that’s sometimes even funnier.

2. Character success is not necessarily to be expected either. Failure is sometimes, perhaps often, funnier.
2a. The narrative is more important than character success.
2b. Hence, player success is not the same as character success. Players succeed when things are amusing for everyone involved.

3. That said, characters rarely die/get put on a bus unless a: the player is cool with it and it’s funny or b: it’s really, really funny.
3a. An exception may be dark comedy campaigns, where death and worse fates are the rule.

4. The GM ought to be permissive and players proactive. Allow players to try anything. Fun and funny things should have a chance of success, even if it doesn't succeed quite how was expected.

5. All that said, do not try to force the humor. It is best to allow wacky situations to arise naturally.

A serious world is a good backdrop for player-driven humor. They are the manic to the world's straight man. The humor need not be humorous in-universe, either. Every character could be taking things seriously. However, it can help if the GM designs some stuff as real-world satire, at least if you're cool with that being your angle.

With your party being the humorous characters, I'd advise the GM to not make the world too out there. I've GM'd wacky worlds with mostly serious characters, and that works too as the party is the straight man. It can also work to have one character in the party the straight man.

Edit: Also, the Discworld Role playing Game, powered by GURPS, tends to assume humor. If you have the cash, you could mine that for inspiration. Granted I'd probably only do that if you're already a fan of Discworld and/or GURPS.

DJ Yung Crunk
2016-04-20, 11:02 AM
Oh man, I've run comedic games before. I'd actually started writing some stuff about it.

0. Whatever is funny at the moment

1. Characters aren’t expected to be competent.
1a. Heck, if they’re incompetent that’s sometimes even funnier.

2. Character success is not necessarily to be expected either. Failure is sometimes, perhaps often, funnier.
2a. The narrative is more important than character success.
2b. Hence, player success is not the same as character success. Players succeed when things are amusing for everyone involved.

3. That said, characters rarely die/get put on a bus unless a: the player is cool with it and it’s funny or b: it’s really, really funny.
3a. An exception may be dark comedy campaigns, where death and worse fates are the rule.

4. The GM ought to be permissive and players proactive. Allow players to try anything. Fun and funny things should have a chance of success, even if it doesn't succeed quite how was expected.

5. All that said, do not try to force the humor. It is best to allow wacky situations to arise naturally.

A serious world is a good backdrop for player-driven humor. They are the manic to the world's straight man. The humor need not be humorous in-universe, either. Every character could be taking things seriously. However, it can help if the GM designs some stuff as real-world satire, at least if you're cool with that being your angle.

With your party being the humorous characters, I'd advise the GM to not make the world too out there. I've GM'd wacky worlds with mostly serious characters, and that works too as the party is the straight man. It can also work to have one character in the party the straight man.

Edit: Also, the Discworld Role playing Game, powered by GURPS, tends to assume humor. If you have the cash, you could mine that for inspiration. Granted I'd probably only do that if you're already a fan of Discworld and/or GURPS.

All fantastic. It should be noted that the campaign setting and characters already exist and have an established relationship with each other from our previous, more serious, plot arc. The problem is taking that setting and changing it to be more accommodating to our collection of neurotic, bickering idiots.

mikeejimbo
2016-04-20, 11:17 AM
All fantastic. It should be noted that the campaign setting and characters already exist and have an established relationship with each other from our previous, more serious, plot arc. The problem is taking that setting and changing it to be more accommodating to our collection of neurotic, bickering idiots.

Yeah, and that's where I'd say that the setting doesn't actually need to be changed that much, just the GM's running of it. The world's reaction to the characters' antics will be amusing enough if the GM can remember these assumptions. In general, the PCs should face a lot of short-term consequences but few long-term ones. Status Quo is God, like on a sitcom. That's not to say that there can't be arcs and even drama, but in general you should see the characters as being able to participate throughout it all. So if they set up an illegal casino and the town guard catches them two episodes later, the next episode is a trial where ideally the one of the PCs becomes their advocate who gets them off on a technicality. Or if they fail to do that the punishment is to watch the local Lord's whiny heir who just wants to be a painter. Something that sounds like it could be played straight, but probably won't be due to the intervention of the PCs, who screw it up, probably intentionally.

Thrudd
2016-04-20, 11:21 AM
There can be serious situations which the characters don't treat seriously. This doesn't mean that there won't or shouldn't be serious consequences. Everything's fun and games until someone loses an eye, or their life. Then the players will need to decide how their characters react to that. Maybe someone steps up to be a hero. You can have light-hearted characters in a dark world, you don't all need to be tragic brooding heroes haunted by their pasts.

Knaight
2016-04-20, 01:13 PM
There can be serious situations which the characters don't treat seriously. This doesn't mean that there won't or shouldn't be serious consequences. Everything's fun and games until someone loses an eye, or their life. Then the players will need to decide how their characters react to that. Maybe someone steps up to be a hero. You can have light-hearted characters in a dark world, you don't all need to be tragic brooding heroes haunted by their pasts.

I'd go with this, with the added addendum that if you just keep playing your characters it's likely that they'll develop enough seriousness to recreate the situation of a bunch of comedic characters playing off one serious character, with the serious character being more situation dependent.

Plus, there's lots of room for interesting characters that don't have the typical tragic backstory and epic motivations. Not every serious PC needs to be the last survivor of a burned down village, or thrown forward in time to where everyone they know is dead, etc.

eru001
2016-04-20, 01:24 PM
sounds like you guys are set.

Rule 0 of gaming: Have Fun
Corralary, if everyone is having fun, you are doing it right, regardless of how wrong you are doing it

give it a shot. don't make any changes to the characters just yet. See if it's still fun (for everyone). If the answer is yes, then just keep at it, there is no need to question if what you are doing is right/wrong/sideways/sdrawkcab. Just break our your greatsword of +8 fourth wall slaying, your +3 lampshade, and your gauntlets of comedic timing, then dive right in.

it the campaign has become less fun, or worse, not fun, then start worrying about making adjustments.

the long and short of it. Don't worry until you have something to worry about.

DJ Yung Crunk
2016-04-20, 01:24 PM
Plus, there's lots of room for interesting characters that don't have the typical tragic backstory and epic motivations. Not every serious PC needs to be the last survivor of a burned down village, or thrown forward in time to where everyone they know is dead, etc.

Yeah, but it's not even meeting it halfway.

Ikitavi
2016-04-20, 11:59 PM
Well, you could have the party quest for a "main plot line" DM PC. That is, you could have the DM generate a character to be the straight man, and the rest of the party continues to be comic relief.

So you have the party going around to orphanages, strange villages of arcane beings who are raising Chosen Ones of Destiny. Go around to all the origin sites for brooding melodramatic heroes, and the party's goal is to help them, or drive them insane, or possibly give them psychological closure and a healthier pursuit.

DJ Yung Crunk
2016-04-21, 03:00 AM
Well, you could have the party quest for a "main plot line" DM PC. That is, you could have the DM generate a character to be the straight man, and the rest of the party continues to be comic relief.

So you have the party going around to orphanages, strange villages of arcane beings who are raising Chosen Ones of Destiny. Go around to all the origin sites for brooding melodramatic heroes, and the party's goal is to help them, or drive them insane, or possibly give them psychological closure and a healthier pursuit.

That all seems very altruistic. The current party is comparable to Seinfeld at the moment. I don't know if that helps, at all.

Lvl 2 Expert
2016-04-21, 03:25 PM
Just see how it goes, I'd say.

Robin Hood, the three Muskestooges and Adam West's Batman walk into a bar, and the bartender is Vin Diesel trying to be a serious actor. There's a lot of fun to be had somewhere in that concept.

DJ Yung Crunk
2016-04-22, 09:01 PM
Just see how it goes, I'd say.

Robin Hood, the three Muskestooges and Adam West's Batman walk into a bar, and the bartender is Vin Diesel trying to be a serious actor. There's a lot of fun to be had somewhere in that concept.

I've heard this one before. The Pope says something like "Those aren't buoys"

2D8HP
2016-04-22, 10:34 PM
I've heard this one before. The Pope says something like "Those aren't buoys"
I miss Seinfeld to.
Also for what it's worth The Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories by Fritz Leiber were often comedic (but sometimes grim) and were one of the main influences on early D&D.
One comedy series that I would love to see role-played is "Black Adder", particularly the Elizabethan era second season.

Lvl 2 Expert
2016-04-25, 12:40 PM
That's actually kind of a brilliant idea, set up an RPG as a multigenerational thing where every three sessions the players switch to being roughly the same characters in a different era and build up an enormous baggage of family feuds and other weird stuff.

"My father died of poisoned toothpaste, so I will not rest until the day all dental products will be banished from the kingdom!"

DJ Yung Crunk
2016-04-28, 07:18 AM
UPDATE

The first session went incredibly well. So well we kept playing well past when we were supposed to. When we finally decided to disperse and head on home sunrise had already gone by an hour. No offence to the guy we lost, who was cool and all, but the previous sessions just pale in comparison. Not that they were bad or anything... I'm getting off topic! The thing had a vaguely Princess Bride sort of feel to it. All the storybook cliches were blown up to outrageous proportions. The big difference is that none of our characters were likeable. We all dropped one bar in the alignment chart. Good characters became a bit more neutral, neutral characters are now very much evil. If were were more effective and less dysfunctional we could be a force of some ill in the world.

But, no, our characters are too vain, self-absorbed, dim, neurotic, close-minded and substantially odd to do any lasting damage to anything but ourselves. The NPCs quite rightly thought we were nutters. Our party is now banned from every single temple of Tiamat because we crashed a wedding (crashed in its literal sense) on the mistaken belief that plot important stuff would go down during it. We fought the mother of the bride who would have wiped us if our Rogue hadn't fled and our Bard not begged for his life.

Lvl 2 Expert
2016-04-28, 12:52 PM
So now we know D&D can handle slapstick. :smallbiggrin:

In case you can't get raised or something: are you going to build another paladin, or something more at home in a semi-evil party?

DJ Yung Crunk
2016-04-28, 02:13 PM
In case you can't get raised or something: are you going to build another paladin, or something more at home in a semi-evil party?

We weren't killed, but everyone except the Rogue and Bard were knocked unconscious.

My Paladin fits just fine. He's one of these holier-than-thou types who really thinks he's doing the right thing, but it's misapplied and his ethics and codes evaporate when it becomes too inconvenient. Have you seen Curb Your Enthusiasm? He's Larry David in plate armour.

Honest Tiefling
2016-04-29, 09:11 PM
I seem late to the party! But it sounds like you had a good time. My first bit of advice is to keep an eye on your DM. Maybe he's enjoying the change of pace, but make sure you listen to him and make it clear he can communicate if it isn't fun. Secondly, If you cannot compromise on tone...Perhaps compromise elsewhere? Try to nibble on the plot hooks he seems interested in if you can. Pay attention to his setting if he's that kind of DM, he'll appreciate it. You could try to have someone track initiative or other boring paperwork and make sure all of the character sheets are present when they need to be. If he's out of his comfort zone, dealing with excess work might help a bit.

As for your original question, is the team being too rigid? Probably. Can you do anything about it? Probably not. Sometimes the allure of a character or story just doesn't work with a certain change to particular people. In a perfect world you could, but it doesn't always work like that.

Also, you simply must post that wedding story. I want to know how the bard bargained for his life after destroying the church and the wedding.

DJ Yung Crunk
2016-04-30, 01:22 AM
Also, you simply must post that wedding story. I want to know how the bard bargained for his life after destroying the church and the wedding.

Uh. Sure, I'll do my best?

Algernon Ebonwing, Emissary of Pelor - Male Dragonborn Paladin
My guy! Though it should be said that over time the Paladins of this setting became less about upholding honour and good as they did unwitting lackeys preserving tax law, class segregation and perpetuating a police state. Ebonwing, being this order's golden child, has bought into that philosophy hook, like and sinker and is monstrously classist as a result. Orphaned in his infancy he was adopted into the church for passing the orphanage's career aptitude test with flying colours. Being a child prodigy and a highly acclaimed Paladin well into his adulthood has rather ruined Ebonwing's personality and now he's a pompous, verbose, self-involved bureaucrat prone to bouts of petulance.

Swiggy - Male Human Rogue
Whatever image you have in your mind of the typical D&D rogue, you know the slender brooding antihero with delicate features hidden under a hood? Yeah, forget about it. Swiggy is short, paunchy, balding, middle-aged, mildly overweight and thoroughly disgusting. Discovered as a baby in a dumpster knawing on a freshly severed human finger Swiggy was raised by The Guild of Legitimate Businessmen. Their means did nothing to dissuade his feral behaviour, mind you, and he continues to this day to be crass, boorish, rude, inappropriate and with a cursory attention to hygiene. It's said that with the number of diseases and infections he's survived his immune system is probably the most fortified of anyone in the world.

Hermes Flashheart IV - Male Gnome Bard
The closest thing to a pop star in our setting. Hermes is a bard to kings and a king among bards. Women want to be with him, men want to be with him, for that matter. He is frequently accosted on the street by nobles who wish for him to take them away from their dreary lives to live as a romantic wandering rogue. He has written three symphonies, two operas and published the largest collection of dirty limericks in history. All of this showmanship hides a deep seated insecurity, mind you, and his whoring around is rooted in some oedipal hangup from long ago. His is image obsessed, neurotic, paranoid and dim.

Elara de Aguirre - Female Elven Sorcerer
The heir to a wealthy logging magnate, her life until discovering her innate powers was quite demure and proper. Once she noticed she could set fire to things with her mind she thought 'sod to all that' and wandered around the city causing all a manner of trouble. Her powers did drive her slightly loopy, though. While she's not mad, as of yet, she has been tiptoeing the edge of that precipice for some time. She enjoys disrupting things, causing havoc and is a compulsive liar. Her upbringing has also made her incredibly classist. As a result, she and Ebonwing are the best of chums, and have an understanding that they'll abandon 'the help' if they ever become too cumbersome. Excluding Swiggy, she has had sex with every member of the party at least once, though typically as a prelude to stealing their valuables.

Anne of Woodcut - Female Half-Orc Fighter
Born to a family for whom the concept of surnames was only introduced when the logging supervisor he father worked for condescendingly suggested one, Anne's family has been hard at work logging and sawing and doing all a manner of carpentry for generations. She discovered that the muscle groups developed by swinging an axe prepared her for combat quite well, so she joined the army. Their desperate need for personnel at the time made boot camp something of a formality, so Anne's fighting style is pretty undisciplined. She was discharged for negligence after convincing her troop to abandon their post to go see a burlesque show. It was there that she was hired to be Hermes' bodyguard. Despite being incredibly thick in all other regards she possesses an astonishing vocabulary and can enunciate better than most Elves. As a final note, the logging company her family has been in servitude for is Elara's. She doesn't know yet, and I can't wait for that to blow up.

As for what happened, we were on the lookout for a magical golden dagger. A purely ceremonial thing that the Prince of some island nation needed for his crowning ceremony to be legitimate. With the King at death's door we rather in a bind for this. We did some investigating, interrogated a few people, broke into a few offices and cracked a few rebel heads and we discovered that a firemage had superheated it and fashioned it into a brooch. We got the design of the brooch from him. Turning it into a brooch was only the first part of the plan, mind, and it only ensured that it could travel around the island without being spotted. But the potent magics within the gold meant it would surely be stopped at customs before it got on a boat.

Then it hit us that maybe it could be smuggled out by diplomatic immunity. The custom checks wouldn't be so rigorous for a visiting politician or person of influence. Turns out there was a royal wedding to be held. Some up and up duchess was getting married to some industrialist and it was an occasion of some repute. So Ebonwing and Elara infiltrated a high society reception on the eve of the wedding in disguise to pump the Duchess for information. Our suspicions were confirmed when we saw the young lady wearing the very brooch we had the design of. Being separated from our party and all we couldn't risk absconding with it ourselves. So we made a plan to steal it in the night. That went poorly, and all we ensured was that the wedding would have even greater security.

Finally Anne said "**** it, if she's helping the resistance she deserves a thrashing anyway". We were out of ideas and it seemed like a good plan. In hindsight, the DM giggling like a loon from behind his screen should have tipped us off, but we went ahead anyway. So Elara blew up the side wall of the church and, in the confusion, the rest of us made a bullrush for the duchess. She was, at the time we decided to bust in, being led down the aisle by her mother, an archmage. We came to discover (well, those of us that were still conscious at this point) that the brooch was a decoy to throw us off the trail, and just regular gold. Not only that, the brooch was a gift from a foreign diplomat and the duchess was quite unwitting in her participation of the plot.

All of that was of little consolation to her mother, mind you.

EDIT: As for Hermes' begging for his life. He tried parlaying his celebrity status, bribery and then just degenerated into blubbering. It was so pathetic that the mother just let him be arrested and preserve some shred of his dignity. Swiggy remains at large, however.

Honest Tiefling
2016-04-30, 01:44 AM
Glad I asked, then. Colorful cast of characters, and the idea of a pompous bard with an entourage of desperate nobles blubbering on rubble does not disappoint.

DJ Yung Crunk
2016-04-30, 01:51 AM
Glad I asked, then. Colorful cast of characters, and the idea of a pompous bard with an entourage of desperate nobles blubbering on rubble does not disappoint.

It was not his finest moment. Then again it wasn't exactly the finest moment for any of us, either.

Actually, Ebonwing got knocked out first. She recognised the healer and just pummelled on me. It was right around then Swiggy decided to leg it, as I recall.

Honest Tiefling
2016-04-30, 01:53 AM
Have you considered writing up this campaign log? color me intrigued. (And if all else fails, maybe the praise will help your DM?)

DJ Yung Crunk
2016-04-30, 02:53 AM
Have you considered writing up this campaign log? color me intrigued. (And if all else fails, maybe the praise will help your DM?)

I don't know what a campaign log is.

goto124
2016-04-30, 05:22 AM
I don't know what a campaign log is.

A thread where you write down what events happen each session! Here's an example of a campaign log (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?484586-12-Realms-A-Campaign-Log).

DJ Yung Crunk
2016-04-30, 05:45 AM
I mean, I'll ask him. It gets a bit NSFW for this board, though.

NRSASD
2016-04-30, 11:25 AM
Please do! It sounds like you've got quite the adventure on your hands haha. As for being NSFW, write it up somewhere else and just post the link here. That's what the All Guardsmen Party does. Look under the FAQ, there's a guide to setting something like that up. http://www.theallguardsmenparty.com/

DJ Yung Crunk
2016-05-02, 10:23 AM
I'm still not sure where to host this thing. With a session coming up in a few days I am desperate and I am willing to open up the floor.

Suggestions?

Ragnell-Master
2016-05-03, 08:34 PM
Why not make the campaign log on a thread here in Giant. There's already a couple hosted here like the aforementioned AllGuardsmen and Silverclaws undead themed campaign. Just make sure to seperate each session if they're lengthy by spoiler tags.

DJ Yung Crunk
2016-05-03, 10:49 PM
Why not make the campaign log on a thread here in Giant. There's already a couple hosted here like the aforementioned AllGuardsmen and Silverclaws undead themed campaign. Just make sure to seperate each session if they're lengthy by spoiler tags.

It's super NSFW and I don't think Roland would appreciate it.