Tension Breaking Moments

[Shemeska]

Have you ever had a moment of dire seriousness in a game when one of your players just popped out an IC or OOC comment that destroyed the mood?

I recently had that happen when I took each of my players aside into another room to speak to them individually. To summarize the PCs were in the Quasielemental plane of Mineral, chasing a powerful group of Yugoloths, hoping to reach something inside the Tower of Lead before them. One of the 'loths was essentially a puppet of the Oinoloth IMC and during an ambush on the PCs, the Oinoloth snagged hold of his mind from across the planes and wormed his way into the heads of my players characters. Why harm them when you don't consider them a valid threat and its more amusing to taunt, tempt and corrupt.

In any event, the characters each experienced a meeting inside their heads with this puppet Ultraloth, a controlling gem embedded in his forehead. The 'loth twitched and whimpered as he shapeshifted into a visage of the Oinoloth who smiled and casually paced a circle around the PC. Each of them was offered something of importance or taunted with some bit of information.

One particular PC, a half celestial fighter, was quiet as the Archfiend spoke to him and mentioned that on a daily basis he controlled the ebb and flow of the Blood War. He, the Oinoloth alone ensured that both Baatezu and Tanar'ri butchered each other and would not cast their gaze upon the innocents of the upper planes. Such a being of abject, remorseless evil claimed to further the cause of good in this way, to keep unsullied the hands of the upper planes and persons such as the PC. Daily he shamed him with how much 'good' was kept intact and safe by his actions. Who then was the PC to call him 'evil'.

More banter and the 'loth came to the topic of mortal wants, needs and desires. Tempting the PC. Well so much for seriousness at this point. The 'loth asked, "What is it you want and crave? Surely you have something deep in the core of your mortal heart that is lacking and that you would have filled. My benevolence is boundless you see, answer me and I may provide. Tell me, what is it you desire?"

And the player looks and deadpans, "Are you hitting on me?"

Me: ".... you did not just ask the Oinoloth if he was hitting on you..."

Player w/ me trying hard to breath while laughing: "OOC! OOC I swear!"

 

[KenM]

Not really a tension breaking moment, but my last game, the DM said to us in email he wanted use to get back into "good roleplaying" and not just combat machines. We game at the DM's place, he has a couple of kids. So gameday came and we were all ready to do some good roleplaying, but we found it hard to get into the proper fantasy roleplaying mood with the sounds of the kids playing Toe Jam and Earl 3 on the xbox.

 

[fba827]

don't have a story to add.. but, just had to laugh at this one

 

[Piratecat]

It's happened to me - and a PC died as a result, too.

 

[Liminal Syzygy]

Details, please, PC!

 

[Piratecat]

Nope! I don't want to spoil the story hour. I do agree that's it hard to maintain a mood when people are making fun of things OOC, but thank goodness that doesn't happen too often.

 

[Delemental]

Nope! I don't want to spoil the story hour. I do agree that's it hard to maintain a mood when people are making fun of things OOC, but thank goodness that doesn't happen too often.

Of course, if I remember right, you're the pioneer of 'pay the pig', right PC?

(For the uninitiated, 'pay the pig' is a system to reduce OOC table talk. There's a piggy bank on the table, and players have to pay when they make OOC comments - something like a quarter for bad puns, a dime for telling old war stories out of context, etc. An effective approach, I'm told, though you need to have the kind of group that would agree to something like this.)

(And on another aside, if the incident PC mentioned is yet to occur in his story hour, I'm looking forward to reading that.)

Seriously, though: yes, this kind of thing can spoil tension. However, this is how some people deal with stress, and some people have low tolerances for tension. My tolerance is pretty high, but I'm notoriously bad at OOC jokes (if I ever had the privilege of playing in Piratecat's campaign, I'd probably have to bring $100 in change the first night or two). Still, I do make an effort to keep myself focused when it really matters.

At least in your situation, the damage was somewhat contained, since you'd been pulling PCs aside one by one. Had this comment occurred in front of everyone, you might have lost the whole table.

One thing you might try in the future is when setting up a dramatic moment such as this, make the table 'live'; in other words, everything the player says, the character says, no exceptions. Warn the players beforehand, of course, and let them know why you're doing it.

If you want to have your game include a lot of moments such as the conversation with the Oinoloth, then you could even make this a permanent house rule. Maybe have some easily-recognized physical object that, when placed on the table, means that it's now 'live'. Then, just tell your players something like:

"In my game, I'm hoping to be able to evoke certain emotions, to set a certain tone with scenes and encounters. Unfortunately, that can be ruined by inappropriate comments from players, intentional or not. While I don't want to ban all Monty Python references and bad jokes from the table, I do want to be able to restrict them when appropriate. Therefore, whenever I place my 1997 PBA Bowling Tour Championship trophy on the table, this is a warning to everyone that we are entering a dramatic moment. As long as this trophy is on the table, everything that you say, your characters say. Everything you say your character is doing, they will do. There won't be any 'take backs' allowed. You will be allowed to ask questions to clarify the situation you are in, such as 'how big is the room' or 'what do I remember about this person'."

 

[Kai Lord]

One thing you might try in the future is when setting up a dramatic moment such as this, make the table 'live'; in other words, everything the player says, the character says, no exceptions.

I don't think that's a good idea at all. Why make an off the cuff remark or joke a permanent part of the campaign world by making the character act it out? Its one thing to frown on tension breaking moments (if you don't enjoy that sort of thing), quite another to use it bring the actual story down as well.

 

[Belen]

The party had just fought off a devil and discovered that the cleric had taken a mortal wound. As the cleric said farewell to the woman he loved, we hear a giggling sound coming from the bathroom (a player had gotten up to use the bathroom previously.)

We all look at each other for a moment. Then the guy comes out of the bathroom, grabs his car keys and says, "be right back. I have to go buy a plunger."

Of course, the mood was broken as we laughed our tails off. Later, we found out that he was giggling because he used my roommates monogrammed towels to aid in the clean-up. (We all detested my roommate.) We could not keep a straight face the rest of the game, especially when my roommate came home and showered.

No one said a word.

Too this day, he has never lived it down, and we make sure to detail the story to an newbie who joins the group (it's better when told in person.)

Ah....youth.......

 

[Enkhidu]

Last session, I had my 9 month old son with me at the table. He was a bit fussy, and cantakerous, but was behaving pretty well.

But...

About mid way through, the party finds out that one of the BBEG of the campaign has found a way to steal their souls, and when two party members were recently raised, they were raised in body and mind only - their spirit has been trapped, and though the characters are still "fully functioning" their souls are not their own. One of those members was me, and we began discussing the ramifications of it.

Well, about this time, my son got a bit cranky, so I started letting him climb on my shoulders.

"This is even worse than we thought," I said, as he clambered up and lay across my shoulder, his hind end in the air. "And because we know the Enemy already has a clone of me, I think this is going to be worse for me than for you."

My son chose that moment to let out the biggest fart I've ever heard him issue. His tush was right next to my face.

Yeah, verily, I really did have it worse than him.