Humor game help

I'm working on an adventure that I plan to send in for publication. The 
tricky thing is that this is the first adventure I've written that is _meant_ 
to be humorous; most of the time I've done serious plotlines and the players 
have inserted humor on their own. Anyone have hints/tips on writing humor and 
having it come out funny?  (For any Champions types on list, it's a Foxbat 
Master Plan(TM) . Having _him_ go flat ....)

Leah
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Humor game help

LLWatts@aol.com wrote:
> Anyone have hints/tips on writing humor and having it come out funny?

Given the way games can go, you might try keeping the
humor self-contained; don't make "the funny" depend
on having gone through certain other parts of the
scenario first.

As you say, players will sometimes insert humor, so
part of it is presenting them with absurd situations.
The Mystery Men movie did a good job with this, esp.
the non-lethal weapon workshop.

Unfortunately, one person's funny is another's
eye roll.  I wouldn't depend on funny names
(ex. Sam Francisco), "sight" gags (funny locations),
etc. to carry the humor, though they can help
set the tone.

It might help to rewatch movies you found funny
and see how they sustained the humor for two
hours.

Just IMO,

Steve
-- 
http://www.stevebarr.com
"Kiri kiri kiri!" - Audition


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Humor game help

----- Original Message -----
From: 
To: 
Sent: Tuesday, November 26, 2002 10:24 PM
Subject: GM: Humor game help


> I'm working on an adventure that I plan to send in for publication. The
> tricky thing is that this is the first adventure I've written that is
_meant_
> to be humorous; most of the time I've done serious plotlines and the
players
> have inserted humor on their own. Anyone have hints/tips on writing humor
and
> having it come out funny?  (For any Champions types on list, it's a Foxbat
> Master Plan(TM) . Having _him_ go flat ....)

Humor is easier when you know your audience.  That said, there is one base
assumption you can work with...

They know the genre conventions.

Which means feel free to parody them at will.

Personally I've found it easier to improvise comedic adventures.  My current
BESM game is a very humorous, very-high-powered romp that can best be
described as what happens when the principle cast from The Slayers gets
dumped into a cross between Ranma 1/2 and Tenchi Muyo...and the result
then gets hijacked by Excel Saga.

Needless to say, it's not for everyone...but I have an advantage:  It
doesn't
have to be.  I know my players, so I can cater to--no, _shamelessly_pander_
to
what they find amusing.  In-jokes (in or out of game).  Commonly understood
references.  Parodies of genre conventions.  Heck, I'll take a one-off side
comment and run with it as far as I can get away with (which, with the crew
I've
got, is pretty darn far).

You've got it tougher, especially with the long gap in Hero activity; I'm
not sure
I can make a lot of generalizations.  You're eventually going to have to
come
up with a vague profile of the target audience and work with that.  There's
no
such thing as truly "generic comedy", despite what network programming
execs seem to think; you have to have a hook...

   ---Darth Stomper--
Dark Chairman, Stomper Institute for Thaumaturgy and Heronism (S.I.T.H)
GURPS fan - GMAST-L Old One (once banished) - Philosopher
- Alternate Historian - General Crank - email: bravado@mindspring.com
"There will be no use of superpowers to settle domestic disputes!"
MxLP Count: 1

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Humor game help

If you can find it, I'd recommend reading "The Yellow Clearance Black Box 
Blues" for WEG's Paranoia game.  It has to be one of the funniest "adventures" 
ever written for gaming.  Granted, given the game itself there's a lot of 
inherent humor, but this was one "module" that I really enjoyed reading as much 
as running.

Humorous gaming *can* be done, but a lot of it depends on the GM and the 
troupe.  I've become less of a dramatist GM and more of a recreational GM, so I 
have more fun and sometimes will wander way off the story arc in pursuit of a 
gag.  Frex, I've been running a couple of GURPS: Bunnies and Burrows / 
Warehouse 23 games at ORIGINS the last few years which I consider very humorous 
(and most of the players seem to as well - though I've had a few hard-core 
dramatists who don't "get it") given the genre and the pretense of the 
adventure.  But my written module is very dry and quite boring, but when 
applied with a group dynamic, it generates its own humor.

> I'm working on an adventure that I plan to send in for publication. The 
> tricky thing is that this is the first adventure I've written that is _meant_ to
> be humorous; most of the time I've done serious plotlines and the players have
> inserted humor on their own. Anyone have hints/tips on writing humor and having
> it come out funny?  (For any Champions types on list, it's a Foxbat Master
> Plan(TM) . Having _him_ go flat ....)
> 
> Leah
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
> GAMERS Home Page:  http://www.phoenyx.net/gamers/
> 


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-Coyt
"The Internet, billions of electrons with nothing better to do."

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Humor game help

On 28 Nov 2002 at 7:36, Coyt D. Watters wrote:

> If you can find it, I'd recommend reading "The Yellow Clearance Black Box 
> Blues" for WEG's Paranoia game.  It has to be one of the funniest "adventures" 
> ever written for gaming.  Granted, given the game itself there's a lot of 
> inherent humor, but this was one "module" that I really enjoyed reading as much 
> as running.

Is it a funny adventure to read, or a funny adventure to run?

I think there's a difference there.  It's much easier to write a funny adventure 
to read, because keeping something funny when you're running it sort of 
requires, to my mind, knowledge of your players.

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Humor game help

> On 28 Nov 2002 at 7:36, Coyt D. Watters wrote:
> 
> > If you can find it, I'd recommend reading "The Yellow Clearance Black Box
> > Blues" for WEG's Paranoia game.  It has to be one of the funniest "adventures"
> > ever written for gaming.  Granted, given the game itself there's a lot of
> > inherent humor, but this was one "module" that I really enjoyed reading as
> > much as running.
> 
> Is it a funny adventure to read, or a funny adventure to run?
> 
> I think there's a difference there.  It's much easier to write a funny adventure
> to read, because keeping something funny when you're running it sort of
> requires, to my mind, knowledge of your players.

Well, we are talking _Paranoia_ here, where it's absurdist gaming at its best.

To me it was a great example of both.  It's a great farce of misdirection and 
unexpected plot twists, and I while I was amused with the how the module was 
written and fit together, what was best to me was that I could see my troupe 
and how they would react to the scenario.  Most of the time, the next section 
followed *exactly* how the players ended up playing the scenario.  Mr. Ford 
(GURPS: Time Travel, lots of other stuff) won awards for this module, well 
deserved in my opinion (though it was written over 16 years ago...)






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