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<blockquote data-quote="Sunseeker" data-source="post: 6980125"><p>A lot of people use humor to defuse tension. It's not entirely uncharacteristic for a person in a deadly serious situation to crack jokes.</p><p></p><p>A good campaign should not worry to much about how people react to the situation, and worry more about setting the tone. If the part of the campaign in question is deadly serious, make sure it feels such and don't worry about if the players crack jokes. If part of the campaign is supposed to be light-hearted and funny, don't worry if the players take it deadly seriously. That's just people. You can control the feel of your game. You can't control your players reaction to that feeling and you shouldn't try.</p><p></p><p>Personally my best option has always been to keep the NPCs playing it straight. If the NPCs think it's serious, they'll react poorly to players not taking things seriously (increasing various conversation-related DCs), if the NPCs think things are funny and fun, they'll react poorly to players being deadly serious. If players behave in a manner appropriate to the situation, sometimes I'll completely waive social challenges since the players have essentially met the challenge by acting in a manner contiguous with the scene.</p><p></p><p>Eventually players get it, or they don't care. If they don't care nothing you ever do will change that, so you can either deal and move on or boot them.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Sunseeker, post: 6980125"] A lot of people use humor to defuse tension. It's not entirely uncharacteristic for a person in a deadly serious situation to crack jokes. A good campaign should not worry to much about how people react to the situation, and worry more about setting the tone. If the part of the campaign in question is deadly serious, make sure it feels such and don't worry about if the players crack jokes. If part of the campaign is supposed to be light-hearted and funny, don't worry if the players take it deadly seriously. That's just people. You can control the feel of your game. You can't control your players reaction to that feeling and you shouldn't try. Personally my best option has always been to keep the NPCs playing it straight. If the NPCs think it's serious, they'll react poorly to players not taking things seriously (increasing various conversation-related DCs), if the NPCs think things are funny and fun, they'll react poorly to players being deadly serious. If players behave in a manner appropriate to the situation, sometimes I'll completely waive social challenges since the players have essentially met the challenge by acting in a manner contiguous with the scene. Eventually players get it, or they don't care. If they don't care nothing you ever do will change that, so you can either deal and move on or boot them. [/QUOTE]
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