"In defence of .... or not... Humor in the game" Topic

You know the boiler plate from the Difficult player post

Is absurdity, burlesque, joking and poking fun through the agency of armies and pieces that are caricatures or cartoons of the real life armies, and poke fun at the real life thing helpful or harmful. Are they subversive. Should there be whimsy and absurdity as part of the game and the rules.

Yes. Life is too important to be taken seriously.

Some folks take their games way too seriously. I agree with Pictor. Life is too short. Fun and funny rule the day.

Yep. Laughter is the best medicine.
Just remember the dosage instructions on the bottle …

I laugh more during our groups weekly three hour gaming session than any other time of my week. This is one of the reasons I game.

I am a serious player, I play to win and I expect the others to do so as well. That does not mean being an ass about it however. That said, a game without 10 to 20 Monty Python quotes is a strange game indeed.

But what if the game itself is humorous or absurd?

For example. A French Lieutenant of Hussars trying to drag his men out of a town and out of the bars, bordello's beds, and bits thieving and plundering in the barns, with the men desperately wanting to stay there, or humorous and absurd things going on IN the game even in a straight historical game?

If it isn't fun you're doing it wrong.

No problem. Sometimes humor is the best way to deal with difficult gamers. We had a guy once who wanted to use red-hot shot to set fire to a forest. Logical arguments (no furnace, field guns didn't do that, etc.) had no effect. So the referee said Go ahead", then informed him that giant bunnies wearing oven mitts were taking the shot and dropping it in the nearby pond.

Sometimes you roll so badly, you just have to laugh or you'll end up crying.

Humor mitigates tempers, IMHO. Some people take games too seriously or get upset over little things. Humor can sooth the savage gamer.

Sometimes I wonder if people have forgotten that gaming is supposed to be FUN.

Always beneficial.

I used to game with a guy, WAY BACK in the early days of 40K. He started a Khorne army when the first metal Chaos Marines were released.

He painted the Officer/Army Leader in Yellow (despite the "Doctrine" of Red for Khorne), and the rank & file types were painted Green. The Officer was the "Kernel of Khorne" and the rand & file types were the "Nibblets of Khorne!"

It was good for a chuckle.

I'm with Pictors.

We're playing with toy soldiers. It's a hobby, a game, a social past time. Not high on the 'to-stress-over' scale at all.

It depends.

I prefer things to hit a consistent tone: Either be pretty tongue in cheek or be pretty serious.

If the rules swing back and forth in tone, I find it rather annoying.

As far as the gaming table, it's usually full of joking around, it's just how we roll.

To me it depends on what the preamble to the game is because that sets expectations.

If the game itself is "absurd" then there is usually a much higher expectation of such things. But if you tell me we are going to do Omaha Beach and instead of landing craft you use flying saucers that's a little over the top.

All things in moderation.

Gaming should be fun.

> But what if the game itself is humorous or absurd?

I'm not interested, I have a limited amount of game time. If I want a comedy I'll watch one with the wife. Back in the old RPG days it was a different story.

For me the must humor arises organically out the game, rather than being 'built in' via obvious jokes. Not that I don't enjoy the occasional pun in a character's name or a REALLY silly background or scenario set-up: I've commanded several Roman forces lead by the blow-hard general Pontificatus Maximus, and defended a town from aliens that were blobs of playdoh and absorbed powers from whatever they could roll up as they moved. But humor can be fairly subjective and what puts someone else in stitches might leave me shrugging. So the spontaneous humor of unanticipated situations, amazing runs of good or bad luck or the witty off-the-cuff joke are when I have the most fun.

One of my favorite examples was from an Age of Sail game. Enemy frigate fires first shot of the game, has a gun explode, explosion sets ship on fire. Ship spends rest of game careening around the board on fire, crew desperately trying to put out said fire. Player eventually decides that since the ship is determined to burn to the waterline he'll take one of our ships with him and become an impromptu fire ship. Manages to collide with opposing two-decker; that turn, the frigate crew finally loses it's nerve and abandons ship. The two-decker crew boards the frigate unopposed, puts the fire out and take it as a prize. We all (including the Frigate's commander) had one heck of laugh over that one.

-Will

Agreed – humour makes the world go round

@wminsing
That really is very funny.

Repeat Jerkery leads to not getting invited to my house. That and not bringing beer.

TMP link

it is a game. but it is a war game. we all want to protect our troops, lose few casualties..and "emerge victorious".
howsome ever, i fondly remember a TSATF game years ago when random event cards were introduced. winning..heck…when do you draw the next random card?

over the years, the best games have been sharing laughter at bad die rolls, the "awww….@#$% moments, shaking our heads in disbelief at game events that did NOT reflect history. we are only playing with toy soldiers.

resounding YES. laughter and humor definitely belong in our games.

heard an old gaming "legend" once say…if there are smiles, looks of eagerness, anticipation and laughter from your gamers..then you are there…you "DID" it.

Definitely a game should be fun…now let's define fun!

I like humour in games, that banter between players and the bittersweet joy of something not just going wrong, but horribly wrong to the point that the only thing you can do is laugh.

But I draw the line at pun names. Imagi-nations I'm looking at you! John Cleese once said the three golden rules of comedy are no puns, no puns and no puns.

We have plenty of chuckles over others' miniature 'banana skin' moments (usually dice related). Why should the basic rules of comedy be any different on the tabletop to what they are in real life?

Most of my current group's games tend to be 28mm skirmishy affairs; humour just seems intrinsic to the style, and sensible commander names wouldn't feel appropriate.

If I can help it I never miss an opportunity for a joke, whether it flows from game-play or I've built it into the scenario. For instance, some years ago I ran a 15mm Mexican Adventure game based around a surprise attack on a French garrison. Before the game I enigmatically asked the host if he had anything I could use to randomly determine wind direction. Wind direction?… the players were probably thinking. This isn't a naval game – so what's he up to?

The Republican side included a force of bandits, and when the player controlling them informed me that he wanted to attack I rolled the wind direction die to see whether the garrison would be downwind, and therefore receive advance warning of the impending assault in the form of a nauseating wind-borne stench.

Needless to say, the bandit jefe was called 'El Dorito Grande', or some such nonsense.

Dear Ubercommando

Do you mean this as a personal opinion, that is, that you don't like them and won't play them or are you saying that they should not be allowed anywhere by anyone at all?

Otto

@wminsing
That really is very funny.

Thanks. The commander of the Frigate was definitely a good sport about it. It was just one of those 'we can't believe this is happening' moments. :)

-Will

Without humor this is so much lesser of a hobby as to be not worth the time. Just as well to simply read a book and move on. It is the humor that makes it worth the while. A late friend's humor is very much missed – only once it was gone did I realize how integral it had been over the years to enjoying the hobby. Thankfully, there are others with good senses of humor – though not quite his superior wit, if sometimes drollness. Humor, I say, or do something else. Laughter it must be.