D&D 5E A Humorous 5E setting?

[GameOgre]

I know this isn't many peoples taste but I always loved the idea of a humorous setting for D&D. Sort of like Hackmaster had. You could play it as serious as anyone else's setting but one that just had a funny aspect to it.

I love the idea of a aggressive Halfling empire! Hail Haffia!

Common American names mixed in with typical fantasy ones( The Dread Lich Bob) (Pirate Joe).

The Plane of the Bathroom- A actual (Demi)plan of existence filled with bathroom stalls, that helped explain where people disappeared to when a player couldn't make it to that nights game. Note- Do NOT miss a game unless you can afford to! it's only 1 gold to get in but its more than that to leave! Many a hero is still wandering the stalls looking for a friendly occupied stall user that will let them climb over or crawl under the door to leave with that user.

T.A.L.O.G.P. = The Assassins League of Gentlemanly Professionals

Dorma The Revolving,God of Resurrections!

Every Orc has a different number tattooed on his bottom left foot. They are all cloned in one giant vat given a sword and some crappy armor and ported to the prime world where many times 15 minutes later they are killed by adventurers. Half orcs are just orcs that were not done yet but wandered off anyway.

Wizards all belong to The Independent Academy of Magic and Arcane Talent (T.I.A.M.A.T.).

Every city has a Temple to the God of money that acts as a bank. Cash isn't King in this world, he is a greater Deity!

Demons with ridiculously long names that MUST be pronounced properly when summoned and commanded or they WILL turn on you." I summon you to my service oh dark one of the pit Kahl'korc'dazon'dobuy! Serve me for...oh CRAP!! ARGG UGG..



I would love to play in this type of setting. My players though would probably have issues with it(well some of them anyway).

Anyone actually do it and play in a more humorous setting? Have any stories or ideas that would work in such a setting?

 

[GameOgre]

Kobolds could be a byproduct of everyone and their brother signing up in the reincarnation line in the afterlife and checking (Draconic) in the hopes of coming back to be reborn as a Dragon.

 

[MechaPilot]

I've never been able to make a campaign that was explicitly built to be silly work that way over the long run. The best that I've been able to do is to take a fairly normal campaign and interject parts where it doesn't take itself seriously.

A good example of this is spells. Occasionally describing the damage from burning hands as singeing off someone's beard/mustache, or a fireball spell burning off someone's clothes, or a magic missile as a spectral fist that punches someone in the crotch interjects some decent comedy.

It's also worth noting that you could have a table of random comedic NPC traits like these: obviously fake toupee (which the NPC insists is real), phallic nose, lisp, stutter, facial ticks, flatulent, and so on.

The difficulty with a persistent comedic setting is, in my opinion, similar to that of a persistent horror setting. Comedy and horror are similar in that they are difficult to pull off because they require setting the right mood with pacing and playing with people's expectations. Comedy is also similar to horror in that repeated exposure can inure one to the humorous or the frightening.

 

[GameOgre]

Well I ran a Hackmaster game with many a funny quality for over a year. We played it completely serious as far as the characters went but the players had a great time with the humor in it as well.

Bob The Necromancer was one sick and twisted individual that haunted the pc's their entire career. After he became a Lich and they had to discover his true name "Melvin" They finally defeated him only to discover that his brother "Tod, The Terror" was far far worse.

That game was great but people knew what they were getting into when they signed up.

My 5E guys are less humor oriented.

 

[aramis erak]

Amongst the more humorous portions of my homebrew world are some of the deities...
Daotain Mu - God of Contemplation and Hyperactivity.
Snuffy the Smith-God - God of smiths and booze.

 

[TrippyHippy]

When I was younger, one of the first campaigns we ran consisted of the dire threat of ‘Death Hobbits’ who’d rise from the hills to seek conquest and destruction. Yes, we actually played that one straight…

 

[Evenglare]

I always liked the idea of a dragon burning down (or BBEG destroying somehow) the taverns so that the party couldn't meet, and couldn't begin their adventure. So the premise of the game is the kill the dragon (or BBEG) so they can actually start the game. /shrug I heard that a long time ago and it always stuck with me as being pretty funny

 

[GreenTengu]

You can have a setting that is humorous, but... yeah... not really sure you are on the right track here.

Perhaps especially if you are going for an immature and humorous setting, you need to question-- what is the ultimate struggle in the world? What exactly are the players supposed to be fighting for?

I just see random concepts here, none of which seems particularly promising as all kind of suggest that everything in this world is well-in-hand and there is really no particularly reason for adventurers to exist.

Some of these are nonsensical.
Why is someone cloning Orcs to be slaughtered like lifestock? Are the people in this world accutely aware of this concept of "XP" and know that creating and murdering a sentient race allows those killing them to get "XP"? Really, that sounds more like a horror sci-fi concept than a remotely humorous one.
You are a baby with a full grown body woken up with a dozen brothers, have just enough knowledge to know maybe how to use a weapon. You are given a broken blade and some crappy armor and then dumped in front of a bunch of much better armed, much older people for whom slaughtering your kind has become routine and they immediately charge up and begin butchering your brothers in the most horrific of manners.

That's... "humorous"? What kind of demented sicko are you? Let's hack up innocents in their first 15 minutes of life! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!

And.... okay... demons kill whomever summons them.
Well, since summoning demons almost certainly requires a good amount of study and practice, the fact that everyone who successfully studies one dies before they can ever write down how to do it and they never benefit from it.... Well... great. No one in this world ever summons demons. Done and done.
What was supposed to be humorous there? Again. You seem to have no grasp on humor.
You know what would be far more humorous? If after being summoned the demon would grant a wish at a cost and the wish wouldn't come out the way one wants and the cost wouldn't be deadly, but would rather be life-ruining and generally humiliating so that the person would be able to survive from that point on, but everyone would be able to point and laugh at them as the idiot who summoned a demon.

Similarly.... what is inherently humorous about all Wizards belonging to the same organization. So there is this organization that hordes all the power and secrets of the universe away from all other and gives exclusive access to their members, that actively seeks out and slays anyone in the world outside of their organization suspected of using the magical arts.
Again... where is the humor here?

 

[Viking Bastard]

My games tend to feature a lot of humorous elements, but I generally play them completely straight in-world.

I'm just kinda unable to not bring the funneh. I was able to during a period in my teens, but it wore off.

 

[aramis erak]

My games tend to feature a lot of humorous elements, but I generally play them completely straight in-world.

I'm just kinda unable to not bring the funneh. I was able to during a period in my teens, but it wore off.

I, too, play the game straight, but my world building includes bad puns, plays on words, and corruptions of modern names.

Further examples:
The Bad Guy they're going after: A goblin named Kirby of Ūvver. The head of the House of Ūvver is Royal Orik of Ūvver.
They're in the Vellay Valley, at Fort Vellay.
The nearest city is the city of Kaggo, which is also "the city on the Lake" and "the windy city"...
The god of bards wears a silver lamé jumpsuit, dark sunglasses, blue suede shoes, and carries a tube of farspeaking.