D&D General How serious are your D&D games?

[Scribe]

I went for the middle. Too funny and I check out, too serious and I also check out.

Yeah, mostly it's laughs. I went Guardians, which can be serious plots, with comedy characters.

 

[Tonguez]

After watching the movie trailer Id say that it captures the tone- DMPC is all serious and epic, the players are dorks goofing off

 

[gamerprinter]

Consider I'm primarily playing Starfinder, but my game is closer to Traveller with some fantastical elements. There might be more levity, if the basic setting was less grimdark, which tends to engage more serious play. Clever quips are always present, but since the setting isn't wahoo, the game tends not to discintegrate into a farce of comedy. Just when laughs are peaking something dark always happens to bring back the seriousness of the situation.

 

[Weiley31]

100% Seri-DANG IT NO, BAD BARD!!!!

 

[Haplo781]

Runs the gamut from "We're all silly and so is the world" to "humor is mostly OOC" depending on the game.

 

[Lorithen]

Echoing what @Lanefan posted in comment #10: "All of the above."

But I guess option 3 "Mostly serious, with moments of levity" would encompass this best, but still doesn't give the full picture and sounds much too mild and middle-of-the-road compared to what we do. Our campaign varies from from extreme Lovecraft-inspired horror and world-wide and personal catastrophes (misery) to high fantasy (serious) to hilarious comedy moments (humour) to even not-at-all-serious adventures that certainly ventured solidly into Monty Python territory (complete farce). Oh, and let's throw in soap-opera worthy sappy romances as well ...

 

[schneeland]

I voted Guardians of the Galaxy, but I’d say my preferred tone falls in between that and LotR.

I voted LotR, but a level in between the two would probably also be more appropriate.

 

[Voadam]

I do a straight plot as a base, but both the players and I generally have a bunch of humor in characterization and how things turn out.

My D&D games usually go for and often achieve a very Army of Darkness tone, action horror comedy at a PG 13 level. Not Evil Dead R gory horror, but PG 13 deadites who get decapitated by a jerk with a chainsaw. Give me some sugar baby and some innuendo, but nothing graphic.

In my current game two of the PCs are members of the Acme cult, so there are lots of reskinned spell effects to be anvils and dynamite. The robot (reskinned warforged) arfiticer has a techno alter self spell/tech effect to make himself look human and describes himself in disguise as a meat popsicle (5th element quote).

I have embraced failing forward for this current group.

 

[aco175]

 

[jmartkdr2]

I voted Guardians of the Galaxy, but I’d say my preferred tone falls in between that and LotR.

I describe my ideal as Stargate: serious people who also make jokes.