"Game Designers With A Sense of Humor" Topic

Not like I know a ton of game designers so I can't really comment on the comedy quotient of recent war game rule sets, but I respect anyone who can produce a good product without taking themselves too seriously.

No. I don't want lame jokes to cover up a lack of clarity.
The humor shock me from the actual play of the game.

On a side note, I'd recommend therapy for some miniature designers however. I admire the female form as much as the next guy, but there seems to be a seething cauldron of deep-seated fetish/porn/bondage issues underlying some ranges.

In a Tom Wham sort of way, yes!

Sadly, I have an ugly hunch many game designers have a sense of humor--and that I am the butt of their jokes.

"I got those idiots to pay MONEY for this thing? Unbelievable!"

They're laughing all the way to the bank.

I'm with Winston. Certainly they should have a sense of proportion, which is the root of much humor, but I'll trade a lot of jokes for more clarity.

Less attempts at humour please.

I might acknowledge it first time I read the rules. If I need to check the rules again then it's like a red flag.

We don't "need" them, but it can be welcome if it's actually funny. And the rules need not reflect a sense of humor, but if the designer is funny I appreciate it. (OFM- the idea of a Monty Python re-enactment at a convention is as horrifying to me as it is you.)

There's one of those YouTube play-throughs of Sharpe Practice or something with TFL's Richard Clarke, when at one point, poised for victory, he looks slyly at the camera and says, "I don't know what they call this in France, but here we call it a "coup de grāce". Had I liquid in my mouth it wouldn't have remained there long.

Used to be we got the best humor in the illustrations to the rules--the Ted Haskell drawings in CLS, or--does anyone else remember Tunnels and Trolls? The drawing of an orc with an arrow clear through its brain shouting "HAH! Missed all my vital organs!"

Now we get product placement--pictures of some line of miniatures the rules writer is hawking.

Not keen on blatant shilling but I don't mind product placement if it's relevant. I mean cool minis and pics are half the advertising battle, so to speak.

If I have to choose between someone making an effort to be concise versus clever/witty, I'll choose clarity every time. But I sure hope the two aren't mutually exclusive.

In terms of my preferred genre and level of complexity, given two equally solid rule sets, I choose/recommend the one that reads easily and gets me to crack a smile over one that's dry and thorough. This is a hobby, after all. It's supposed to be fun.

Of course!

EVERYTHING in life is better with humour!

Um, okay. Originally I had written a joke here about another post, but not everyone gets jokes. Self-deleting. . . now.