Dignity
So there you are, facing down the literal hordes of Hell. It’s epic last stand time. Magic crackles from your fingertips, thunder booms in the distance, and the weight of a years-long campaign bears down upon you. The speeches of Theoden, William Wallace, Prince Hal, and (if you’re a geek like me) Sir Orrin Neville-Smythe all echo in your mind. Your greatest hope in this climactic moment is that you can find the words to do your story justice.
Then this shit happens.
Understand me here guys: I write a webcomic that makes fun of fantasy tropes. I enjoy shouting “Ni!” during sessions as much as the next guy. In 99 encounters out of 100 I’ll go for the pun, the non-sequitur, or the silly innuendo (You’re going to use your rod of lordly might? Please Sir Reginald, keep that thing in your pants!) But if you’re going to crack wise in a serious boss fight, please for the love of Gygax take stock of your fellow party members. Does the mantle of righteous fury sit like a storm cloud upon Steve’s brow? Does a single tear of true emotion sparkle in Bob’s eye? Is there a tremor in Susan’s voice as she describes her paladin standing fast before the tide of darkness? Then maybe, just maybe, you ought to hold off on the fart joke.
There are few enough times in this life when it’s possible to really feel like a hero. There’s no reason to ruin them when they do come along.
How about the rest of you guys? Have you ever seen a serious gaming moment ruined by an ill-timed joke? Tell us your tale in the comments!
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*Rolls to regain dignity* [1]
“Uh… That wasn’t in character…”
We do joke around a lot at our table but usually we are able to keep the in-game drama seperate from the table-side shenanigans.
Once or twice our DM has to clear the air so we can get back on track and we fall back into the groove, but on that rare occasion when someone wants to shout “YOLO!” And charge the dragon, they are simply asked to justify it with their character’s lore. Would your paladin, having been raised in what is essentially a medieval castle, really have heard that phrase? (Not to mention in a D20 setting, would it even be accurate?)
Heh. I remember my players finding this badass sword seemingly made out of spinal column. The would-be wielder was a paladin, so he took it to the local temple to find out whether it was evil. This kindly old grandmother of a cleric goes into this whole rigmarole about how the sword is certainly intimidating, that its bloodthirsty spirit was worryingly violent, but that it wasn’t really evil.
“Moreover,” she said, “It is a fine piece of craftsmanship. Have you seen the would-be apprentice smiths in the square watching the masters work? There are quite a few of them, and these young people have developed their own slang. I believe they might say this particular piece is ‘so freaking metal.'” Cue the paladin choking on his Pepsi.
Like I said, I like this kind of humor in my games. I just don’t want it creeping into those rare moments of serious RP.
What if it’s a venerable old caster who thinks it’s the right thing to say in that moment though? Fitting in with all these youngster adventurers is hard… Why back in my day we only had improvised weapons, and we liked it! We used ice magic to keep warm because it still wasn’t as cold as the weather outside… You kids and your attacks of opertunity, BAH! :p
Like I said up top, in 99 encounters out of 100 I’ll go for the joke, up to and including breaking the 4th wall. I like that kind of stuff. (I mean come on, have you read this comic?) That ‘venerable old caster’ dialogue sounds exactly like something I would say in game.
By the same token though, I’ve seen tears shed at the gaming table in moments of high drama. That doesn’t happen often, but when it does I think the humor should recede a bit. That’s all I’m really saying here.
Personally, I prefer to go for the Schlock Mercenary approach when doing stuff like “YOLO:” put the modern reference in the game, then have a prepared justification in universe that has nothing to do with the modern reference. For example, my wizard referring to his sky-high IQ, then clarifying that IQ stands for “Illithid Quandary,” a test of mental strength wherein the person is subjected to a combination of enchantment and divination magic until his actions are mind has been read and influenced. The longer the subject holds out, the greater his mental strength. The test was concieved by the wizard Mizfoor Chun who stumbled across an illithid enclave and discovered that his IQ was 5 seconds moments before his contingency: dimension door saved his scrambled brain from getting eaten.
Have something like that prepared imho still breaks immersion a bit, but do it consistently and the others are almost eager to see what absurd justifications you’ll make on why this pop culture reference or modern term absolutely makes sense in the D&D world.
What would YOLO stand for then?
You only lie once. And then your paladin falls
+100 XP to you, good Sir! You’ll need it to level up a non-paladin backup class. 😛
“Yugoloths Optometrics Limit Observation.”
This was said by the famous halfling rogue Vrana Kezno just before her great heist of the Cloak of Tenebrous. She was reknowed for her daring, devils may care attitude and relying on her skill in stealth and luck to pull off incredible heists, and also coined the terms “Colo” (for Celestials), “Folo” (fiends), and “Bolo” (Beholders).
Tragically, she also gave rise to the phrase “DrOLO,” which is used to warn of the risks of failure to plan and gather information on the mark. She said this phrase right before trying to steal tge Moon Chalice from the hoard of the dragon Madrigoran. Only once she was inside did she find that all of the dragon’s senses are incredible keen, not just their eyes, and they do not look kindly on thieves lurking around their lair.
You know what? Go ahead and take +100 XP.
A secret word which followers of the unpopular god Yonder use to identify themselves to each other outside of gatherings.
It’s an abbreviation of YOnder, LOrd over all.
I gather that Yonder is the god of reckless plans and sudden offensives.
I think I touched on it in a different comment, but there was this dwarf cleric who’s player took it upon himself to ruin as many of the romantic enterprises of our drow swashbuckler as he could, including after he’d cycled that character for an equally ill fated one (“You can hear a voice echo from the mountains from somewhere far away ‘The darkie has gonorrhea!'”). Our drow player did his best to ignore him, and he was mostly successful with his interpersonal relationship building after the DM was tired of the joke (maybe after the second ‘I roll to cockblock’ catcall).
TPO Dwarf no longer plays with us, replaced by a much more party oriented and supportive player and character both. I didn’t realize rogues could lower the enemy’s AC until just the other week when that’s exactly what happened to the Big Bad.
I suspect that “The darkie has gonorrhea!” got a shock value chuckle, but that’s a one-off joke at best. It’s just sad times when you’ve got to deal with that level of “humor” all the time. Good job kicking the nerd.
I think the best example was dwarven bard versus epic villainous monologue.
So, my old DM used to do theater, so the monologues were the best. We had a new player, who was, for some reason, playing a dwarf bard, and he would make constant music puns that were delivered with a stony, dwarven deadpan. He sat patiently and listened the first time he heard one of these monologues, and then replied with “Oh yeah? Well, these are the eggmen, I am the walrus. Goo goo ga joob.”
I appreciate that you first comment is A) a dwarf story and B) features a big mug o’ beer.
Serious question though: Did that stony dwarven deadpan pun add to the moment? Did the GM laugh too? Was it actually funny as opposed to disruptive? I love these kinds of jokes, but they’re VERY contingent on reading the room properly.
Well, it did serve as kind of a meta-remove-fear. We were a lot less scared of the BBEG.
Nearly all of my characters, despite being very serious in-game, are based on jokes. I have a Monk who uses Snake Style, dodging around and punching people when they miss her. So natch she has great Sense Motive. She also has four arms because more punching.
So there we were, fighting against the hordes of darkness. The Pally and Antipally are smiting each other, the Wiznerd is locked in magical combat with the dread necromancer, and I’m flashing around like DBZ punching the shit out of everyone via Abundant Step and Dimensional Dervish. The TWF enemy Ranger keeps trying to hit me and I keep punching him every time he misses. Not a lot of damage but it’s adding up. Finally, after getting counterpunched for the 17th time, he shouts at me “Damn you, monstrosity! Why the hell can’t I hit you?!”
It’s at this point I knew my time had come. I had planned this joke for months and I finally got to say it. “Well, you see… Four-armed is forewarned.”
The DM literally threw his dice at me. Everyone booed. It was great~
You know what else is great?
Today, my martial characters have acquire a new insult for spell-slingers everywhere.