WotC: "Why We Aren’t Funny"

Jesse Decker (editor-in-chief Dragon Magazine) and David Noonan (who is now part of Sasquatch Game Studios - if that name rings a bell, it's because I've been talking about their Primeval Thule setting a bit recently) wrote an article back in 2005 about humour in Dungeons & Dragons - or rather, the lack of it. It's especially relevant right now, with the whimsical NPCs found in the upcoming Out of the Abyss adventure for 5E, so I figured I'd resurrect it. As they said at the time, "Humor is pretty rare in D&D products these days—or at least intentional humor. We play it straight in our rulebooks, but many people play D&D as a series of running gags. So why are D&D books so serious when the game can get so goofy?"

​

Obviously that's not the current stance, but it's an interesting look at the past. As the article goes on to say, "it wasn't always this way. The earliest editions of D&D are full of oddball monsters, bad puns, inside jokes, and encounters designed not to challenge the PCs but to amuse or embarrass them."

Anyway, here's the article. I've already asked in another post what you think of whimsy in your grimdark, so head here to vote in that poll.

 

[Jester David]

It makes sense that they'd be less funny.

When the game was young it was a bunch of grown men writing for the game and likely knowing how unlikely it was that they were doing that for a living. It was a much more open and free time, and anything went. You could go into parody or silliness.
When the game became a business, that slowly changed. You had to at least present the illusion of seriousness. It's no longer something you do for "fun" which is less professional. And you can't risk offending someone or doing something that will cost sales. As the company gets bigger they have to be even more serious and professional, because humour is the realm of amateurs.

Plus, humour is really subjective and personal. It's really tricky to do humour by committee. Brainstorming jokes seldom works. The more people you have working on a product, the harder it is to do funny. And professional quality gaming books have a lot of eyes on them.

 

[billd91]

Dungeonland, in my view, does fall flat. Whereas having the PC who is famous, at the table, for being the one who falls down the pits etc get pushed to the bottom of the Glacial Rift never gets old! (And I'm sure there are other groups who have played G2 and had humour be generated by fireballs melting the ice caves, or had a PC impaled by a bolt from the giants' ballistas, or whatever, though these things have never happened at my table.)

I thought Dungeonland was quite interesting. But it doesn't play as humor. It's way more menacingly eerie and odd. And, as such, I find it works well.

 

[tomBitonti]

Eh, the iron golem example doesn't speak to the issue of humor in the game. That was a spontaneous event generated by the players, based on the players visualization of the golem.

And the comic of the adventurers dressed up as mice is a good parody of the game. I don't find anything unsuitable about it.

Humor is a natural part of story telling. And not just slapstick. Humor can be dark and subtle and ironic, funny, but also at times sad.

And I have to say: The Goblins modules by Pathfinder, as well as a lot of Warhammer show that there can be humor deliberately expressed though game products.

Thx!
TomB

 

[barasawa]

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

"Another group of adventurers uses a Y-shaped battering ram to entrap a giant snake."

Um, boy am I slow on the uptake. Is that a sexual reference? 35 years late to the party.

Probably not. It was the old thing to catch a snake you'd pin it's head with a Y shaped stick so you don't get bitten. Giant snake, giant stick.

 

[pemerton]

a character that hurts the social dynamic (such as by stealing from other PCs) is toxic, no matter how well-justified and resonant their motivation for that action is.

I wanted to comment on this.

The assumption that certain sorts of PC automatically hurt the social dynamic is another generaliation where caution is needed.

In my Burning Wheel game last week, a fair bit of the action revolved around the wealth PC (an elven princess) establishing the terms on which she would help the other PCs (all mostly penniless) meet their living expenses - they wanted gifts, and she insisted on loans (to be repaid either in cash, or by way of a term of service).

This didn't hurt the social dynamic, in part because the players can tell the difference between the player and his/her character (we were eating cheese and biscuits supplied by the player of the princess while some of this was going on) and in part because the system is fairly robust in respect of these sorts of PC vs PC conflicts.

 

[delericho]

The thing about humour is that it can either work really well (eg the disclaimers in the 5e books) or it can be really bad (eg Pikel Bouldershoulder).

So if they weren't confident that they could pull it off well, it was probably a good decision to skip the humour. Of course, now they feel differently, and thus far that also seems to be a good decision.

 

[Herobizkit]

I don't know. I very much enjoyed reading the Feng Shui rulebook far more than the textbook-style 5e PHB... but Feng Shui does play directly to my love of wackiness. It's written in simple, conversational tone and offers tons of "outside the game" advice and plenty of in-game examples of play that make me feel like I'm talking to the author rather than reading rote numbers and stats.

I enjoyed the goofy humour from earlier editions. I feel the issue these days is that "grimdark" is cool now, so media producers seem to think they need to be serious and gritty in order for their product is to be taken seriously.

Why so serious?

Once recent adventure my group and I played was based entirely on Mega Man (Warforged and all) and, as a result, ended up with a major contributor to the DM's world lore (the 'inventor' of Warforged became not unlike a Dread Lord of the game world's history, pursuing knowledge for knowledge's sake at any cost. Also invented 'Lichforged').

Heck, look how wacky Acquisitions Incorporated tends to go...

 

[Umbran]

"Incredibly Judgmental" of hypothetical individuals? Don't you imagine that's....at least a little hyperbolic?

No, KM. You basically said, "If you don't play like me, you shouldn't be playing D&D." That pretty much equates to a OneTrueWay, "You're doing it wrong!"

And it being "hypothetical" people is not a defense. You're painting with a broad brush, and preemptively classifying people without even talking to them. It's really kinda bad, and I find it a bit unfortunate that you don't see that.

In your writing, you'd really be well-served to leave more room for people who aren't just like you. We can discuss out of thread, if you'd prefer.

 

[Umbran]

The thing about humour is that it can either work really well (eg the disclaimers in the 5e books) or it can be really bad (eg Pikel Bouldershoulder).

And is *highly* dependent on the recipient. I like the disclaimers *and* Pikel.

And this is exactly why trying to intentionally shove humor in is difficult. The author, being so distant from the consumer, does not know when or if something will be funny at your table. If your game is building to a dramatic crescendo, and just then there's an otyugh fart joke, well, that may go over like a lead balloon.

 

[Henry]

No, KM. You basically said, "If you don't play like me, you shouldn't be playing D&D." That pretty much equates to a OneTrueWay, "You're doing it wrong!"

And it being "hypothetical" people is not a defense. You're painting with a broad brush, and preemptively classifying people without even talking to them. It's really kinda bad, and I find it a bit unfortunate that you don't see that.

In your writing, you'd really be well-served to leave more room for people who aren't just like you. We can discuss out of thread, if you'd prefer.

Also, this is why some gaming groups click, and some don't. It's in what the participants at the table want to get out of it - if that's a minimum of humor, and promoting strong dramatic themes at the expense of humor, then the person happy with occasional jokes is going to be turned off, and vice versa.