In the Red Dwarf thread, I wrote:
Comedy rpgs heavily under represented compared to serious ones when compared to other meida such as movies and books.  Obviously,  people like humor.  There is even a great deal of humor about rpgs.  But few humorous rpgs. Sure, you can have moments of humor in any game but that's not the same as a campaign dedicated to humor.
 
I can't think of many comedy rpgs.  Here's what I can think of (not counting free or pdf only):
 
Toon
Ghostbusters
Paranoia
Red Dwarf
Tales of the Floating Vagabond
Teenagers from Outerspace
Gurps IOU
 
(feel free to throw out any I forgot.)
 
The first 3 are cult hits but nothing big.  The others have fans but disappeared from the market as soon as they came out.  I personally own most of them and think most of them do a decent job but their sales say otherwise.  It's not fair comparing any rpg to D&D level sales.  But I don't think any humor game as had even the sales of Rolemaster and none have come close to stuff like Traveller or CoC.  To me, it seems like comedy is heavily under represented in rpgs.
 
There's also gonzo games like Gamma World that can be humorous but it's not their sole focus.
 
So, why is this?  I don't have answers but I can speculate.
 
1.  Maybe people don't like mixing humor and rpgs.  That seems unlikely as people mix humor with most things and there are a ton of rpg themed comics that attempt humor.  
 
2. Perhaps most groups don't know how to approach a comedy game.  This is possible.  Sure you can run a dungeon crawl but can you run an alien beauty pageant and make it a successful game session. Maybe comedy games need a bit of hand holding to walk you through the funny, like Paranoia does.  It also might help to have familiar elelments like Toon and Ghostbusters to quickly fill in the "what do characters do?" question.  But even then, empirically, it might be a tough sale.
 
3.  It might be harder to design comedy.  Comedy in general is hard; doing it within a ruleset sounds much harder.  I maade a couple of homebrew humor rpgs and it really is hard to get the structure, the right level of absurd, and the player buy in.  Alogn these lines, people's tastes in comedy might vary more than their tastes in hacknslash.
 
4. It could be that single theme games tend not to be played for long.  It's hard to maintain the same tone forever.  With D&D/Traveller/Gurps/etc. you can do humor, drama, horror, and romance within the same campaign by adjusting the story line.  CoC is the only single theme game I can think of that has done well for long; but even then it tends to be played the most as one shots.
 
Thoughts?

I think what to understand what our expectations from comedy. I don't think roleplaying games are going to do "Airplane!" style comedy very well. What they can do is comedy which is much more grounded in well defined characters and situations. "Chuck" the TV series comes to mind as a comedy series which is still works as an adventure story (and if despite the silliness still makes a lot more sense than Alias ever did). Ghostbusters is another good example, as is Men in Black (both of which have had RPGS amde of them though something about the Men In Black game turned me off baddly).

Toon and Paranoia in my view are bad examples of comedy games. It's not that they aren't fun, but the object of the games is not immersive play.

But in a sense I don't think you really need special rules to run a comedy game. Just to do what you normally do, only with a lighter touch and a twist of whimsy. That is why I don't think it's hard.

Why isn't it more popular in rolepalying games? I don't know. There not many successful police prodecural, romance or medical drama roleplaying games either. I'm not sure what means just saying that comedy is not the only thing under-represented.  Also in movie-land, not a whole lot of comedies end up wining Oscars for Best Picture.

I'd add HoL to that list. Human Occupied Landfill. Fiasco is also ostensibly a humor game.

Quote from: Nicephorus;4063921.  Maybe people don't like mixing humor and rpgs.  That seems unlikely as people mix humor with most things and there are a ton of rpg themed comics that attempt humor.

Tragedy is easy. Comedy is hard.
 

Quote2. Perhaps most groups don't know how to approach a comedy game.  This is possible.  Sure you can run a dungeon crawl but can you run an alien beauty pageant and make it a successful game session. Maybe comedy games need a bit of hand holding to walk you through the funny, like Paranoia does.  It also might help to have familiar elelments like Toon and Ghostbusters to quickly fill in the "what do characters do?" question.  But even then, empirically, it might be a tough sale.

Walking around and slaughtering monsters only takes so much effort. Being funny while doing so takes some effort (think one liners here and there). But actually being funny most of the time? Even professional comic writers can't manage that all the time.
 

Quote3.  It might be harder to design comedy.  Comedy in general is hard; doing it within a ruleset sounds much harder.  I maade a couple of homebrew humor rpgs and it really is hard to get the structure, the right level of absurd, and the player buy in.  Alogn these lines, people's tastes in comedy might vary more than their tastes in hacknslash.

If the game, or session, were focused on a particular brand of humor, say something like, "Okay boys, tonight it's Monty Python." But yeah, tastes vary.
 

Quote4. It could be that single theme games tend not to be played for long.  It's hard to maintain the same tone forever.  With D&D/Traveller/Gurps/etc. you can do humor, drama, horror, and romance within the same campaign by adjusting the story line.  CoC is the only single theme game I can think of that has done well for long; but even then it tends to be played the most as one shots.

Everything I've read and heard and experienced related to CoC leads me to believe it's the original one-shot session game. It's designed that way. If the PCs live they should be insane, if they live and are sane the Keeper is doing something wrong.

I know you're talking mostly about system here, but in my experience they're best when the session is very short. Whenever I've played a comedy-style RPG, there are huge laughs in the first two hours, then people start getting tired and desperate to keep up that level of energy.

That's why I think Risus works extremely well for comedy-style games. The cliche system encourages silliness and inventiveness, and the very simple rules mean there's less mechanization and more opportunity for improvisation.

I think the problem with Comedy RPG's stems from the simple fact is that most of them, in particular the examples you listed.  Define comedy as being silly and/or absurd.  Which is fine, but continuously playing that kind of game gets tiring for most people.  Same as watching hrs upon hrs of airplane and police academy.  Funny in small doses, good for a few gags but after awhile the joke just isn't funny anymore.

Quote from: Nicephorus;406392The first 3 are cult hits but nothing big.  The others have fans but disappeared from the market as soon as they came out.  I personally own most of them and think most of them do a decent job but their sales say otherwise.  It's not fair comparing any rpg to D&D level sales.  But I don't think any humor game as had even the sales of Rolemaster and none have come close to stuff like Traveller or CoC.  To me, it seems like comedy is heavily under represented in rpgs.

Well, it's not like the genres of RPGs are evenly spread in the first place.  Basically, medieval fantasy (D&D, Rolemaster, etc.) is the elephant, modern horror (White Wolf) is a distant second, and everything else is pretty small.  

The comedic parallel to Rolemaster is Hackmaster - which seems to be pretty successful.  Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Army of Darkness are both fairly comedic as well.  Also, it seems to me that Paranoia was more successful than implied.  It's had dozens of adventures and supplements as well as four editions.  To be a little more complete, I'd add in

Diana: Warrior Princess
Hackmaster
Hunter Planet
Kobolds Ate My Baby
Maid
Men in Black
Monkey, Ninja, Pirate, Robot
The Munchkin RPG
Ninja Burger
Og: The Role-Playing Game
Pokethulhu
Squirrel Attack!
Starfaring
Tales from the Floating Vagabond

Basically, I'm not sure one can read too much into this.  There are plenty of comedic RPGs, and some of them have been successful, but none of them have been in the top ten or so.

Paranoia is probably the most successful in the comedy genre.  I have run several Paranoia games where people came to the table who never played before or ever saw the books, but already knew the basic concepts of the setting.  

Paranoia works because it takes the worst aspects of Bad GMing and makes that the setting...and then gives the players 6 characters to soften the blow and tells them that PvP, backstabbing and treachery is A-OK!

In fact, the worse behaved the GM and the players, the more fun your Paranoia session is likely to become.

InSpectres

Comedy. Ironic detachment from characters experiencing misery. Foreshadowing. Expectation with sudden reversals.

It's hard to be funny. It's easy to be and have that be funny.

The real answer is that comedy should be treated as a spice or ingredient -not as the whole meal.

Think of the action-adventure shows "NCIS" and "Castle" - both are meant to be pretty much straight action-adventure. However, they keep their viewers because opf the comedy bits and how thosse bits let the characters shine.

Some of the best comedy moments arise unexpectedly in an RPG campaign and often better bits  of comedy than they would be if they were forced or steered intoi by the GM or the game designer.


- Ed C.

From what I've seen the funniest shit always comes out of playing straight... no matter how ridiculous the concept. As soon as you start trying to be funny, forcing it, it all goes in the toilet.

Ran this comedy game a few months ago using Basic D&D.

The high preist Ispopanto one of the cities major cults (the Church of Ablisotophorax - He of the Scorching Gaze) predicted that the end of the world (aka the Final Conflagration) was coming on Flaurmont 25th of the current year. His priesthood made preparation as did the churches many followers. The rest of the world watched on with a mixture of amusement and anxiety.

When the 25th came and went without any fuss the church of Ablistophorax ended up looking rather sheepish and it's followers angry and disenchanted.

The Honorable Guild of Undertakers and Morticians in particular is very angry. It has lost money over this fiasco. They obviously saw the End of the World as a great business opportunity, though exactly how and where they expected to spend the profits made from this event is a mystery.

Meanwhile rival cults, such as the Church of Vandagoran, Prince of Entropy and the Shrine of Osgoterus Ascending are making the most of this propaganda coup. They have gone as far as sponsoring a the world premiere at the Royal Opera House of a piece called "Ode to the End of the World that Wasn't" mercilessly ridicules the cult of Ablistophorax and it's prediction of doom.

The author of "Ode to the End of the World that Wasn't" is a fairly obscure halfling bard called Rifflebottom.  Death threats have been issued against Rifflebottom. The Church of Abilstophorax want the show banned but claims it's innocent. Meanwhile somewhere in the shadows a deadly elven assassin is hired.

The point, it's not miles away from a staight D&D adventure, it's just a matter of playing with some of the details and setting the tone.

Quote from: Jared A. Sorensen;406414It's hard to be funny. It's easy to be and have that be funny.

Quote from: Simlasa;406436From what I've seen the funniest shit always comes out of playing straight... no matter how ridiculous the concept. As soon as you start trying to be funny, forcing it, it all goes in the toilet.

I think there's something to this, along with not trying too hard to be funny all the time.  The best humor game I ran was a homebrew mad scientist game.  They were deadly serious about their goals, even if their goals were a new poodle skirt or helping free an experimental lemur to freedom so that the transmogrified undead octopus would be able to return to the ocean.

This relates back to what worked for Red Dwarf.  They were goofy people trying to survive absurd situations with the added layer of jokes.

I agree that short and simple is helpful to keep the energy high.

jhkim thanks for the additions.  Were all of those available in physical stores? I have a few of the pamphlet games but never saw pokethulhu except online.

Some people talk about Gnomemurdered as if it was a Comedy RPG.

RPGPundit

The secret is to actually be funny.

-clash

Quote from: Simlasa;406436From what I've seen the funniest shit always comes out of playing straight... no matter how ridiculous the concept. As soon as you start trying to be funny, forcing it, it all goes in the toilet.

There is a point to that. Comedy is relatively easy to come by spontaneously in a serious game, but it is very hard to sustain over entire gaming sessions and especially campaigns. In that sense, it is very similar to horror; same problems of maintaining tension, pacing, being consistent etc. You can run a comedy-themed game or a horror-themed game, but how much of it will be genuinely side-splitting funny or horrific? Maybe some people can do it right, but for me, a relatively eclectic style works and strongly focused gaming does not.