WotC: "Why We Aren’t Funny"

Jesse Decker (editor-in-chief Dragon Magazine) and David Noonan (who is now part of Sasquatch Game Studios - if that name rings a bell, it's because I've been talking about their Primeval Thule setting a bit recently) wrote an article back in 2005 about humour in Dungeons & Dragons - or rather, the lack of it. It's especially relevant right now, with the whimsical NPCs found in the upcoming Out of the Abyss adventure for 5E, so I figured I'd resurrect it. As they said at the time, "Humor is pretty rare in D&D products these days—or at least intentional humor. We play it straight in our rulebooks, but many people play D&D as a series of running gags. So why are D&D books so serious when the game can get so goofy?"

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Obviously that's not the current stance, but it's an interesting look at the past. As the article goes on to say, "it wasn't always this way. The earliest editions of D&D are full of oddball monsters, bad puns, inside jokes, and encounters designed not to challenge the PCs but to amuse or embarrass them."

Anyway, here's the article. I've already asked in another post what you think of whimsy in your grimdark, so head here to vote in that poll.

 

[Aenghus]

I find that humour is a very subjective creature, dependent on personal tastes, language, history, cultural references and a whole raft of other elements.

As a consequence humour isn't guaranteed, it's hit and miss. Even professional comedians have to keep the jokes coming one after another as not all of them work, and even the good ones grow stale with familiarity. Surprise is a major element of humour.

So I don't think humour should be a critical part of a module, as there is no guarantee it will work for a particular audience, and a joke given spotlight that falls flat tends to ruin the whole enterprise. It also reduces module reusability IMO.

I personally prefer incidental humour that grows organically from the situations in-game. That way there's no pressure for a particular result, or potential issues when players don't react the way the module suggests they should.

There's a lot of humour in my games, but I don't plan it, as I can't tell a joke to save my life. Sometimes I can see it in the moment though, and that works better for me.

 

[N'raac]

Forcing the scene through to a humorous outcome seems like a form of railroading. I also recall a lot of humor in games which was at the expense of one of the characters, or players, which is not always table-wide fun.

 

[Mallus]

It was a much more open and free time, and anything went. You could go into parody or silliness.
When the game became a business, that slowly changed.

I think the pendulum has swung back. The current online media environment is teaming with writers with distinctive (well, okay, this one's arguable), informal, idiosyncratic voices. Some of them produce content for major traditional media companies. Some new media companies employ nothing but people like that, cf Gawker Media. For better or worse.

It's really tricky to do humour by committee. Brainstorming jokes seldom works.

For example, "The Daily Show". And ever other comedy program written by a writer's room of professional writers.

 

[Mallus]

There are a lot of ways to avoid po-faced writing other than by writing "funny" adventures, though. Burning Wheel presents itself as a pretty serious game, but has more authorial voice in its rulebooks than any other RPG book I know except perhaps Gygax's DMG.

Agreed. I'm not suggesting every supplement be comedy-focused, only that better writing & adoption of more personal voice --which includes more deliberate humor-- would improve WotC's offerings. I'd use something like the voice 13th Age was written in as my target.

 

[Jester David]

For example, "The Daily Show". And ever other comedy program written by a writer's room of professional writers.

I said "seldom". When you have a group of people hired for their ability to be funny, yes you'll have more success. Especially if you leave them alone and let them be funny. When you have a bunch of writers hired for lots of different purposes (such as the technical writing of game rules) and tell them to be funny, it's a little trickier.
Comedy shows can be pretty hit-and-miss. I've seen some pretty un-funny episodes of the Daily Show. And the performer tends to matter just as much as the jokes. The best stuff will still be the stuff by a single author with a little collaborative input rather than an entirely composite piece that is lacking the core funny joke.

 

[tomBitonti]

I have to say ... the article goes off the rails in a cringe-worthy fashion.

The focus of the article is "The absence of humor in your D&D books".

That theme is presented, then the article goes on to talk about ..

"situations emerge at your game table that had your friends in stitches" (emergent humor at the table) ...

"a grim tunnel fighter with a hair trigger and a thousand-yard stare" who decided to "use humor as an icebreaker" (humor as a character theme / flaw) ...

Then there is the conclusion:

"So why do we shy away from humor? In short, we worry that it isn't necessarily part of the shared D&D experience, and we don't want to mess up the flow of the game at the table."

But but but ...

Humor in the writing of an adventure doesn't equal a humorous adventure.

Humor in a guidebook doesn't mean that the game must be played full of slapstick.

That is, the article confuses two different modes in which humor may be present: As a part of the presentation style of content, and as actual in-game content. Whether humor should be present in a guidebook is a question of style, not of in-game content, and the article goes off the rails by starting with the first then shifting to the second.

Thx!

TomB

 

[tomBitonti]

To followup:

What I can see as a probable reason for the smaller amount of humor is that humor is very hard to do across a very wide audience. The audience for D&D includes folks "from 8 to 80" (at least), includes folks from many different cultures and countries, and includes folks of different political and religious persuasions.

While it's sad for that to reduce the amount of humor which can be incorporated into books, I can understand how much more difficult adding humor as become.

Thx!

TomB

 

[Dimention Comics]

I definitely picked up on the whimsy of the old gaming, if not the humor. A gelatinous cube? Shriekers? Deck of many things? Strange, fun stuff that I don't see much of now when everything is a lot more structured.
And what about that barrel that became different things when you pulled levers...forget what it was called...

 

[Cristian Andreu]

I found it. Check out item 100 on Table 4-24, DMG p.128.

Hah! I hadn't noticed that.

 

[Landifarne]

Because humor can be un-PC, and nobody wants to take the chance of pissing off the cash cow.

For good, or bad, niche/indie publishers can cater to their bases without having to worry that the boss will fire their asses for jeapordizing sales. WizBro cannot.