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So on a scale from Star Wars to Spaceballs or Lord of the Rings to the Princess bride. How serious of a game do you all run? Do you try to be serious? Do your players derail you?

My games run kind of in the middle but on the Spaceballs side. That is mostly by design.

Sin City with a splash of Highlander

I guess it's fairly serious and gritty, character driven stories, but we break for frequent jokes and wise cracks (out of character, of course).

I tend to run my campaigns like a TV series, most scenarios a somewhat to very seriously the occasional comic or light scenario to break it up. I like campaigns that develop their own mythos, think Buffy the Vampire Slayer / Angel or the Gargoyles animated series.

I have a hard time coming up with the comedy, ratcheting up the tension is comes pretty easy to me though.

Alrik Vas wrote:Sin City with a splash of Highlander

That is a cool combo, I have run a Highlander type but I don't think I could pull off the Sin City motif.

For more on the serious side, with comedic asides. I think Firefly would be a good analog, though a little more serious. Though it varies game to game.

Mine are all written with deadly seriousness. However both myself and my group struggle not to joke if we see one.

I can usually (last night is a bad example) bring the elements back round to gaming proper however.

The Dark Elf wrote:Mine are all written with deadly seriousness. However both myself and my group struggle not to joke if we see one.

I can usually (last night is a bad example) bring the elements back round to gaming proper however.

This tends to what happens in my group as well. I try to write all of my games as fairly (and quite deadly) serious but they somehow break down into a laugh fest somewhere.

CS Special Forces wrote:A good game always has room for a little humor.

I agree. My players tend to make their own humor so I very rarely write any into my campaigns.

I try to be serious, as does the mage. However the Larmac and Headhunter refuse to be, even in combat... Like picking fights with Shemarrians...
On the humor side, said fight did paint the forest a new color...

I try to be as dark and grim as I can. I'm inspired by the Black Company series by Glen Cook along with a dose, or seven, of 40k...

Deadboy Dakka wrote:I try to be serious, as does the mage. However the Larmac and Headhunter refuse to be, even in combat... Like picking fights with Shemarrians...
On the humor side, said fight did paint the forest a new color...

Now you've got me wondering what color a Larmac's blood is...

I try to play the world straight but let some humor in. Other groups I've been in oscillate between epic quest and Monty Python.

Slight001 wrote:I try to be as dark and grim as I can. I'm inspired by the Black Company series by Glen Cook along with a dose, or seven, of 40k...

Deadboy Dakka wrote:I try to be serious, as does the mage. However the Larmac and Headhunter refuse to be, even in combat... Like picking fights with Shemarrians...
On the humor side, said fight did paint the forest a new color...

Now you've got me wondering what color a Larmac's blood is...

Nope, the headhunter got himself fragged, then the new Juicer got the whole party killed in the same session. The Larmac however got his arm blasted off and fixed by a medic using a cigarette and a KA-BAR...

I try to be serious, but my PC's usually destroy any sense of seriousness a game of Rifts can have.

An example from my last session.

While driving in the middle of the night our PC's vehicle is randomly attacked by a herd of Tri Tops, eventually being run into and flipped off the road. After managing to survive the crash unscathed and climbing out of the vehicle all but one PC manages to take cover behind the vehicle and is met with another charging Tri Top only to opt out of his dodge and declares, "I punch the Tri Top."

Hard to be serious when MDC beings are involved.

Yeah, Krull was pretty silly.

Our games are serious, but funny moments do happen.
Kind of like Leathal Weapon, Die Hard, Bad Boys etc.
We take the games serious, lots of action but there are those one liners that fit the situation perfectly.

Mine are serious campaigns, but humor always works its way in.
Kinda like 13th Warrior meets Beowulf meets Buckaroo Bonzai meets Your Highness!
Players tend to bring a lot of it in, but if things are running slow I'll throw something in as long as it helps the storyline or just makes everyone enjoy the game a little more.

I plan serious storylines. My players make it comical. I've given up on epic storylines as it's always turning to one-liners and slapstick.

It all depends on the the game and the players.
I have designed pure camp games that end up being played serious. (IE: I planned on it being Adam West and I got Christian Bale).
And I have designed pure gritty blood and guts horror (Think CoC) and gotten pure camp (Think Ghost Busters).
On the other hand I have also gotten exactly what I intended from games and players as well.

I shoot for Pulp Fiction, but often get Four Rooms. Lots of grim and gritty action with notes of black humor by intent, that ends up in slapstick and scatological jokes on accident.

I go for a mix of comedy and seriousness, just like real life. Think seriousness level of MASH. When characters are left to their own devices they can get a little zany, but when the mission is on, and people start getting hurt the fun's over.

Depends on both my mood as GM and characters that I'm running playing. Same with as player, but here lately I've been wanting to play in a bit more humorous game.

Depends on the group. Sometimes I beat them down with no hope and it's not really fun for anyone, but it is an experience. Other times, it is so crazy that I'm surprised anything even gets done.

Grell wrote:I guess it's fairly serious and gritty, character driven stories, but we break for frequent jokes and wise cracks (out of character, of course).

Depends - sometimes a PC does something that really requires another PC to point out The Stupid.

Razzinold wrote:Our games are serious, but funny moments do happen.
Kind of like Leathal Weapon, Die Hard, Bad Boys etc.
We take the games serious, lots of action but there are those one liners that fit the situation perfectly.

Yup. Yeah, ours is middle-road as well, but if someone does something stuuuupid or can do a "cinematic/video game" maneuver, we'll cheese it.

If anything, we tend to take forever to get things 'done' b/c we do a fair bit of IC role-playing. We're serious during battle, but otherwise.. yeah - it can go anywhere except into campy or uber-dark/horror. We've had IC sexin's being written on the side (that was interesting watching one of the players get progressively redder), we've had lots of cinematic-moments (with various degrees of successful skill/combat checks), freaky stuff, yeah.

Grell wrote:I guess it's fairly serious and gritty, character driven stories, but we break for frequent jokes and wise cracks (out of character, of course).

...ditto...

I have dismemberment, chainsaw enemas, rape, molestation, divorce, cheating lovers, etc. But of course I have NPCs who are just usually fun. One of them is a giant cyborg with enough strength to well destroy most characters in a hit. However he is a 20 something former military guy. he volunteered for a new cybernetic interface, soemthing went wrong and a once fairly bright young man is now reduced to mental retardation (IQ 5). He's fun and childlike but sometimes when certain things come up he remembers a bit of what he used to be, and he gets depressed. Honestly I just rolled really low for his IQ, and I knew he was going to be a cyborg so i took the stat and made it part of his story.
I also have a mutant hamster with an IQ stat of about 112 or so. Partial biped, no looks, partial hands, full speech size level 0. He is an angry genius who likes to ride the team cat in moments of frivolity that no one is supposed to see
Then I have his evil twin; mutant hamster but he has full looks, hands, biped but no speech and size level 0. So he looks like a 6" tall human with golden brown hair. I put all his points into psionics. he speaks through telepathy and messes with people's minds, driving them insane, mind trapping them in horrific situations,.. you know good times

Hmmm Kentucky fried movie is my best answer.

All vaguely similar notions (via some old movies): Somewhere between Army of Darkness and Alien/Aliens with a dash of Ghostbusters tossed in (however avoid all contact with "Ghostbusters II" y'all have been warned - tends to seem like a waste of 2 hours afterwards). Though ultimately any humor tends to be spontaneous/improv whether amongst the players (possibly out of character) or semi-comical "oops" involving an NPC.