The whimsical element of D&D vs AD&D

[Sunseeker]

RPGs as a sociology experiment, postmodern literary statement, or politically correct educational message is Forge or RPG.net chinstroker territory, and I'd fall over myself in my rush to get away from such a game table. I don't think you can get further from D&D humour than that, unless said humour involves taking the piss out of yourself.

I've met people who enjoy that sort of things. They play whole games out of "gritty" realism where the players are hopelessly locked in a world that no matter how great their deeds, nothing will ever truly change. They then delve into the "well, if you can't make a difference, what will you do then?" sort of stuff.

I've watched it, my addiction to political debate makes me find it interesting. That said, I rarely want to participate because it's simply too heavy for something that I want to enjoy.

 

[BryonD]

I see the point you're trying to make, but none of the examples you gave are D&D humour. D&D humour is difficult to pin down (but I'd refer you to Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Order of the Stick, and Knights of the Dinner Table as starting points), but Stooges, guns that say "BANG" and clown shoes aren't it. None of those things are funny outside of D&D, even.

I don't want argument clinic or ministry of silly walks to happen INSIDE my game. But if someone makes an OOC reference to ministry of silly walks and makes me laugh, then I may very well award them an action point.

But I'll tell you this for free: D&D humour does contain within it scope for stupid monsters, cursed magic items, pop culture references and puns, gratuitously graphic fumbles and crits, occasional breaking of the fourth wall or meta jokes about rules, and things not always being fair (for either the NPCs or the PCs, depending on the situation). Occasional tragicomedy and farce are fun, and highly memorable. This is why the WOTC D&D game design theory war on these things in the name of fun and fairness is perhaps ill-advised.

I think you are on a "this way leads to madness" road here. It isn't that I dispute any of the above. But I greatly dispute the very idea of trying to list it.

You can have drama and humour very easily in D&D without sacrificing one for the other. Although D&D is not the movies, I saw Flying High recently, and although not awesome, laughs and drama were both present.

I don't doubt that for a minute. Just as certainly as there are pure comedies and pure dramas, films that mix them are plentiful.

I prefer my D&D to be more in line with pure drama, but certainly keep reading below....

At the RPG table, the main event includes the blooper reel, continually in improv mode, and unless we are reading from boxed text there is no script. Now in theatre, they call doing that Theatre Sports, and Theatre Sports are generally amusing, and intended for that end. There's another clue as to the natural direction of D&D gameplay...

I disagree with the implication that this is presumed. Common, sure, but you state your case to strongly here.

Now, in reality funny things DO happen. So the idea that funny things can not happen would be a TERRIBLE restriction on gaming. And even the most non-comedic of movies can have some realistic feeling embarrassing moment happen and be funny in that moment. If it seems natural then it doesn't make the movie a comedy. And there are plenty of other ways natural humor can happen. But +2 backscratchers and gingerbread golems are not natural humor but forced humor. That doesn't make them bad, but it is an important distinction to me.

I'm all for natural feeling in-game funny and nearly unending intentional meta-funny across the table. But for on-going game that meet my personal preference I don't want an assumption of whimsy.

 

[jonesy]

I don't want argument clinic or ministry of silly walks to happen INSIDE my game.

Ooh.

Let's see now. There would be this group of wizards who've come up with a new brand of magic. The spells are made by moving your feet in certain patterns. They've become fairly succesful at this, and have started a... let's call it a ministry... of magic. But a side-effect of this type of magic is that small demons are loosed upon the world. The demons live in the wizards heads and the only way to rid oneself of them is by having regular doses of arguing, for which they have a... let's call it an argument clinic.

 

[Hussar]

RPGs as a sociology experiment, postmodern literary statement, or politically correct educational message is Forge or RPG.net chinstroker territory, and I'd fall over myself in my rush to get away from such a game table. I don't think you can get further from D&D humour than that, unless said humour involves taking the piss out of yourself.

Wow. Just wow.

Could you possibly be more dismissive and badwrongfun? Please? I don't think you're quite going far enough to get your point across.

You don't like certain games. Sure. Fine. But, claiming that games you don't like=crap is pretty much classic edition war baiting. Never mind the repeated references to how WOTC D&D just isn't getting it done.

Please. Give it a rest.

Some of us happen to enjoy games that have a bit more meat to them than simply kill and loot. If that's what you like, then fine. There's nothing wrong with that and it certainly has a lengthy pedigree.

Me, I've been there and done that. I still do enjoy it too. But, I also have an appreciation for other kinds of games too which makes it very difficult to take seriously blanket statements to the effect that any game that isn't Gygaxian killandloot is playing the game wrong.

 

[rounser]

Could you possibly be more dismissive and badwrongfun? Please? I don't think you're quite going far enough to get your point across.

You don't like certain games. Sure. Fine. But, claiming that games you don't like=crap is pretty much classic edition war baiting. Never mind the repeated references to how WOTC D&D just isn't getting it done.

Hussar, that critique is in your head. I'm saying I'd run a million miles from a chinstroker game, and that they're the antithesis of taking the game lightly unless you're taking the piss out of yourself in doing so, like say Hackmaster does (by double immersively pretending the game is such serious business and going off on mouth-frothing rants about the one true way to play, which is a parody of Gygaxian AD&D).

I think something got lost in translation here, maybe you read that in a hostile tone of voice or something. I'm saying I'd rather sit through a university lecture than make an RPG into something with a primary goal of making an intellectual statement.

Don't worry, you're in the majority of the art establishment, which specialises in what I consider constructive pretension (but pretension nonetheless), requiring other "artists" to come along and prick their balloons, before they themselves fall afoul of taking themselves too seriously and thinking themselves too important. It's absurd and fascinating to watch, but not sacred and largely subjective. And I'm largely allergic to what is arguably pretentious RPGing.

I think you're also incorrect in assuming that whimsical = no depth. You can immerse yourself up to your eyeballs in storytelling and drama and moral lessons whilst still chuckling at some in-joke during the game. I'd just prefer not to make a political or artistic message the point of the game, or it's focus, because that's not D&D to me.

 

[Rune]

But that's the default; most DMs seem to be trying to run something steeped in drama and epic storytelling, whereas the reality is that this is a social group of friends, playing a game where silly situations occur naturally because at a fundamental level RPGs are largely silly (just like acting, ever seen a blooper reel?), and to downplay that is to potentially destroy the best game memories and a lot of the cameraderie.

The funny thing about silliness is that you can bounce back from South Park quotes to finding the assassin who slew the duke very easily, so nothing is lost.

My personal assumption while I'm running a game is that this kind of table-talk emulates the camp-fire talk of the PCs that rarely gets role-played. Even if the timing doesn't sync up and even if the words don't fit, the tone matches, and I can abstract the rest. In my experience, allowing this table-talk helps the players bond as a unit and, subtly, allows the PCs to do so, also.

 

[Sunseeker]

Hussar, that critique is in your head. I'm saying I'd run a million miles from a chinstroker game, and that they're the antithesis of taking the game lightly unless you're taking the piss out of yourself in doing so, like say Hackmaster does (by double immersively pretending the game is such serious business and going off on mouth-frothing rants about the one true way to play, which is a parody of Gygaxian AD&D).

I think something got lost in translation here, maybe you read that in a hostile tone of voice or something. I'm saying I'd rather sit through a university lecture than make an RPG into something with a primary goal of making an intellectual statement.

Don't worry, you're in the majority of the art establishment, which specialises in what I consider constructive pretension (but pretension nonetheless), requiring other "artists" to come along and prick their balloons, before they themselves fall afoul of taking themselves too seriously and thinking themselves too important. It's absurd and fascinating to watch, but not sacred and largely subjective. And I'm largely allergic to what is arguably pretentious RPGing.

Though I may appear hypocritial here, I disagree that all "intellectualized" D&D games are an exercise in absurdity. The very basis of most of the great fantasy has been taking real life issues and putting them in a fantastical context. LOTR? Industrialization, eugenics, political absurdities.

There are very much some fun things that you can do by bringing reality into a game, but it's always a fine issue of how much. You may start pressing people's buttons if you start taking realities such as oppressing women and non-whites. You will have issues if you firmly insist on treating certain PCs by significantly more negative standards than others because of these things.

However, should everyone agree to these rules in advance, it could be incredibly interesting to see how players deal with things. Perhaps in this world, there's racial conflict, so when your X color PC encounters Y people they're treated poorly, but on the road, having the X color PC protects your party from same-ethnicity bandits who normally would attack Y color people.

But again, it's one of those razors edge things. Too far in any direction, and you're gonna lose.

 

[rounser]

The very basis of most of the great fantasy has been taking real life issues and putting them in a fantastical context. LOTR? Industrialization, eugenics, political absurdities.

True, but that's great fantasy novels, and as another form of media it is different to RPGs in subtle yet critical ways.

An author has total control over every. word. on. every. page. (That is, before the external editing process begins, obviously). He or she doesn't have other people gathered around a table attempting to interact with each other in an unscripted, un-premeditated fashion and stay amused, meanwhile juggling their true personality and OOC comments with staying in character (if they're bothering to roleplay at all, since we all know some players just play a version of themselves with pointy ears and a funny name).

A D&D game is essentially hosting a sort of social gathering, and everything that entails. In practical terms, a LOTR equivalent would require a party of NPCs. Real players would fall asleep at all the descriptions of terrain and weather. I almost did as a reader, thank goodness for the movies.

 

[rounser]

<snip>Ministry of Silly Walks....Argument clinic....But +2 backscratchers and gingerbread golems are not natural humor but forced humor. That doesn't make them bad, but it is an important distinction to me.

I think it says it all that you're just using very old, very tired jokes there. Of course they're not amusing, you're just ripping off Python and +2 backscratchers have been around for 30 years. It has to amuse the DM for it to end up in the campaign and end up an in-joke, and obviously those things don't amuse you (I suspect you chose them for that purpose).

Look at Blackmoor, Wilderlands or Greyhawk for examples - they are chock-a-block with in-jokes and external references that break the 4th wall. In fact as this thread touches upon, it's some of the colour, charm and genius of AD&D that some of us miss. And some of it is built into the rules (e.g. Book of Marvellous Magic built on puns, AD&D spell components and cantrips built on pop culture and literary references etc.)

And I completely disagree that humour built into the rules is anathema. Obviously without graphic fumble rules you're not going to have graphic descriptions of the fighter tripping over their own scabbard, or the dragon accidentally critting it's own wings and flying into a cliff. You're not going to have an image of someone being beheaded without a vorpal sword, nor see the potential for humour inherent in a cursed item if you've decided they're unfair, and therefore don't exist. Or see the amusement potential in a magnetic rust monster, because they're unfair too....

Just because a silly item, name, rule, race, class or concept exists doesn't make it the focus of the game. The game can have plenty of depth and still involve plenty of in-joke references as incidental humour. The game might even be better for it. AD&D and D&D have had it from the beginning, and I think we're beginning to see why purging it entirely might have been a mistake.

 

[Hussar]

How has it been purged entirely?

I've already posted an example in my current 4e game where PC's gain hit points for critting bullywugs, simply because bullywugs are so hideous that you actually feel good about killing them.

That's hillarious.