Puns, Bad Jokes, and Other Disruptions to the Illusion of Reality

[Heathen72]

Depends on the group. Both of the groups I DM for have a good amount of OOC conversation and humor at the table, and at least one person is an incorrigible joker (I'm looking at you, John!) and pun-dit (sorry, so am I). But we also do a lot of fairly immersive in-character roleplaying, and most importanly, enjoy ourselves. So even though I would ideally have a little less OOC stuff go on at the table, it really doesn't bother me. You just have to find a workable balance for yourself and your group.

Yeah, there is certainly no absolute balance point between OOC jokes and Immersion.
One slight problem that is perhaps related is the OOC interruptions. It can be very annoying when you are in the middle of a conversation with an NPC and you are interrupted by someone asking a rules question or so on. That started to be a problem with our group, and while (as I said earlier) the GM sets the tone for a game, that is something that the players need to remember to avoid as well. As a GM you want to be everything to everyone.