Joking Around and Why It's Good

I don't know why some gamers begin to take such a serious view of RPGs. I call it the "D&D syndrome". Eventually, somewhere within the playing of games and the development of characters, the concept of "fun" becomes extremely trivialized.

I mean, let's take an honest look at RPGs here. They are constructed by a bunch of geeky guys (and gals) sitting around a table with pieces of paper and books outlining fake worlds! It is as harmless as possible. What's their intent? Certainly not to be serious metaphysical commentaries on reality. No, it's designed to be FUN.

When the fun element becomes trivialized, the game is heading down a bad road . But don't jump to conclusions too quickly. After all, every GM hates the gamer who doesn't really care about the game, or whether their teammates or their character die, and so on. They're obnoxious; I mean, the game does need to be taken seriously for the framework to work. If the players aren't involved in the game, something's wrong; either the players or the GM or both.

However, I want to make a distinction here. There's a difference between the lack of caring and seriousness that can jeopardize game play and the type of humor that only makes players more involved and interested in the game. One is just general apathy, oftentimes without humor. The other, though, helps put the game in perspective, ease the losses of the characters a little, and provide a framework for everyone to communicate within. After all, the loss of your favorite weapon or character doesn't seem so bad when you encounter Pimpo the Clown and have a little laugh.

In addition, the game can be used to mock the GM or the system as well. This takes a bit of honesty, but it's worth it. My favorite example of this is in the Rifter #9 1/2. It's an April Fools issue with a do-it-yourself cover and Giga Damage: 1,000,000 M.D. each! With the Giga-Damage, the people at Palladium are making fun of Rifts' tendency to become mere hack-and-slash power gaming if taken too far. They recognize this, and it supports and bolsters fans who've been saying the same thing for tons of time.

And, to top things off, there is an even more positive flip side. Sometimes, making a joke character can actually fill plot holes and give you an interesting character, concept or idea! Two examples off the top of my head. In the aforementioned Rifter, there are two mages: the Trickster Mage, who specializes in card-related magic, and the Ludicrous Mage, essentially a Clown Mage. However, both can be used to make potentially sinister or uplifting characters. Perhaps the Ludicrous Mage has turned to this type of magic to assuage a deep-seated sorrow, and thus becomes a brilliant entertainer, but with a hidden drug or sex life? Or perhaps a bad encounter with authority produced a sinister Trickster? The way the two classes work, you could extract malicious villains, staunch heroes, or roguish Robin Hood types who rebel against authority. The other example is closer to home: my own I Should Slap You. This developed from me continually saying "I should slap you" to my friends and then accidentally saying it in such a way that istwas intriguing to make a character. When I played the character, I then farmed out an identity: he'd be like Mr. T (actually, I knew this BEFORE I began playing), but he'd be a scientist. Then, I began thinking about Dark Fred's history and wanted to extrapolate on it some. Guess what? I was instantly able to make ISSY be the head scientist of that ill-fated project. Ta-da!! A joke character became assimilated into an important part of Final Battle history, and subsequently RPG Project as well. Furthermore, as time went on, ISSY became less and less a joke character, until finally the only odd part about him was his nickname.

RPGs don't need to be taken completely seriously to have fun. It's very fun to pit wacky, zany characters against normal characters; you'd be surprised how often the normal characters lose. This is also a way for players to participate constructively in the game. They can make a joke character and then ask you to add them as an NPC or as one of their characters. Bob, Chief Flaming Cheeks, Justice... all very funny (and very deadly) humorous characters, developed by me and Bluejay for Power Struggle.

However, I should warn against too much humor. First of all, too many zany characters can just seriously unbalance game play. Of course, having a TOON style RPG with pure zaniness is always fun, but having too much humor in an otherwise real world can just mess up everything. This is more of a minor consideration, especially if you come into the game with a simple way of balancing zany with realistic. The more important part, though, is that there comes a tendency to joke about potential actions in game or to make fun of other players. Making fun of somebody else can soon turn malicious and can turn off people, and not just the person being made fun of either. In one time before a game, I actually had a friend of mine just up and leave because of me and someone else bickering! That got us back into the mood, and he soon came back and made a positive influence. But if that friend hadn't known us or had been a first-timer, they may have left; who wants to be around a bunch of geeky ass*oles? The mockery, even if good natured, can cause people to leave the game quickly. Furthermore, if players are constantly joking around about other players and about the game, nothing constructive gets done. These are mainly out-of-game jokes, not necessarily adding more humor to the internal framework of the game, but the problem does remain: too much kidding around, not enough game playing.

About the mockery, however, you get the same thing when you have too serious of a game as well. After all, not everyone is as serious as everyone else, and having overzealous pricks is an inevitable syndrome of not having enough humor either. Humor can have an uplifting effect and save a campaign from it's own gravity, but it can also wreck your campaign. Use humor, let your players have a little laughs along with a little serious game play, and you will end up with a far superior RPG. In the end, it is like so many other things: be moderate.