April Fools issues (Humor in your games)

[Treebore]

How many of you put (intentionally) humor into your games?

How silly do you get with it? Or is it mainly used as a tension breaker?

How do you set up humorous moments?

Do you run entire "humor" sessions?

Basically, tell me about your sense of humor within your games.


Me? I am not a comedian, so I don't use humor a lot. I mainly came up with something when things are intense, and it gets a strong response because of it. When I do something humorous it does tend to get remembered for a long time.

 

[xrpsuzi]

Joe is the master of punnies..... So he'll slip in something at the game table, there's the initial moment of disbelief, and then the groan.

He also uses literary references in the midst of dungeon delving--like an errudite wizard decided to put a Shakespeare quote on the door, and you won't get the punchline until you open the door and are almost killed by the dangers therein. That's not so much haha funny, but it adds an element of humor to almost getting eating by giant cod.

-Suzi

 

[Kafkonia]

I can't not use humour in my games, as a player or a dm. It's sad, but true.

 

[demiurge1138]

Most of the time, the humor in the games I DM stems from the players, not from me. I can't stop them from joking around, nor do I particularly want to. Sometimes I interject my own humor, sometimes not. Depends on the style of the game - a rather off-the-wall Planescape campaign was full of jokes and goofiness from me, but the Age of Worms has a much darker mood, so I keep my jokes few and far between.

Demiurge out.

 

[Mallus]

There's a lot of humor hard-wired into my homebrew, CITY. Absurdity, wordplay and certain kind of cleverness are part of the fabric of it's universe.

The players, and a few kind souls around here who've commented on the Story Hour, think it's pretty funny...

 

[Harmon]

Eddie Murphy said that humor isn't learned its something you are born with, and I was not born with it.

Most of the time people laugh at me, not with me, so I don't even bother adding humor to the game.

 

[WhatGravitas]

No humour for me, as it arises on its own - and only this fun works for me. Example: Last Eberron game I've DMed (mid-December): The players are trying to catch the Lightning Rail, but the gnome fighter is ironclad in Plate Armour. The Changeling Rogue/Monk takes one end of his rope, gives the fighter the other end and then jumps on board with running + jumping.

The artificer also reaches the train in time.

The fighter doesn't, but clings to the rope - *clankclankclank* - and bounces around, making a lot of noise, since he's basically a big metal shell with gnome inside.

That WAS funny (and I deliberately exaggerated the description). But if I'd scripted something funny/humorous, it would've ended as pure silliness.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

Our humour usually comes from 2 sources. One is OOC humour where me and the players are making jokes that are sometimes related to the game sometimes not.

The other source is when the GM (me) or the players attempt to say one thing but it comes out as something that could be taken as a completely different meaning. Most of our game quotes are from moments like that.

In character humour is relatively rare but not many of the players have PC's that are wisecracks so it makes sense really.

Olaf the Stout

 

[Evilhalfling]

humor does crop up, mostly from myself and one or two players.
the latest running gag is that there is a merchant named victor who has a tendency not to pay bills - every new character is asked how much victor owes them.
He also owes money to Yuan-ti high priest and an eyrnies who also purchased his soul as a separate agreement. She hasn't collected on that debt either.

 

[Ilium]

I'll use cute/funny names sometimes. For example, there's an order of "paladins in shining armor" called the Hammers of Auriana (a goddess). The PCs have recently been dealing with a high-ranking member of this order named Maxwell, who wears extra-shiny magical armor.

Yes, he's Maxwell, the silver Hammer. But the character is played completely straight and is in fact a bit of a jerk who doesn't like the PCs much at all.