Author  Message [bottom]
IamJacksUsername
 member, 19 posts
 Any Serenity RPG games?
 South Africa, Cape Town
Fri 22 Jan 2021
at 03:01
 msg #1
Less jokes, puns, and sillyness in your PBF vs live games?
If so, do you think it's because of the split between OOC and IC threads?
tmagann
 member, 695 posts
Fri 22 Jan 2021
at 03:52
 msg #2
Less jokes, puns, and sillyness in your PBF vs live games?
I'm not entirely sure I accept your premise.

Oh, sure, on a "Grand total" basis. Less random chatting and side comments in PbP than around the dining/gaming table. But on a percentage  basis? Just last week I found myself quoting the Twilight Zone movie sand asking an NPC if they wanted to see something scary just before using Fey Presense.

I make bad puns and slip in movie references like the above all the time when I get a chance to play. It's not as common when I DM, but I do that more, so it happens a fair bit there, too.


The difference is I think, it's not as obvious in print as audibly, sometimes, so it may go unnoticed.
facemaker329
 member, 7306 posts
 Gaming for over 40
 years, and counting!
Fri 22 Jan 2021
at 07:17
 msg #3
Less jokes, puns, and sillyness in your PBF vs live games?
Yes, I would say so.  Puns, especially, tend to be very spur-of-the-moment occurrences, and the rapid-fire exchange of them was a regular feature in most of the face-to-face games I played, which just doesn't translate at all to PBP games.  I think the silly factor in my games is much lower, as well...part of that is just due to the fact that the games I'm in are a lot more serious in general theme, but part of it is the fact that a lot of the people involved in these games are trying to fit their posts in between very demanding real-life schedules, and getting silly with posts is kind of squandering that time.
Starchaser
 member, 834 posts
 Shoda mo tsumoreba taibok
Fri 22 Jan 2021
at 09:10
 msg #4
Less jokes, puns, and sillyness in your PBF vs live games?
I've seen a large amount of humor, flirting and banter in OOC posts in my games and others. In IC not so much. It's been since forever that I played games face to face but in some ways I think when I did back then people actually took it MORE seriously ad LESS humor than they do here.

It might also be a freeform vs system thing. Apart from one Earthdawn game I'm in (where there is a fair amount of IC humor as well) I find system games tend to focus on discussing in-game actions in OOC threads whereas in freeform OOC is more a platform for socializing.
IamJacksUsername
 member, 20 posts
 Any Serenity RPG games?
 South Africa, Cape Town
Fri 22 Jan 2021
at 10:59
 msg #5
Re: Less jokes, puns, and sillyness in your PBF vs live games?
I've never thought about this before, but have people played free-form games live? Either in-person on over video/audio?
facemaker329
 member, 7307 posts
 Gaming for over 40
 years, and counting!
Fri 22 Jan 2021
at 17:58
 msg #6
Re: Less jokes, puns, and sillyness in your PBF vs live games?
Sort of...

It was AGES ago (30+ years).  One of my best friends was going to be enrolling at another university about two hours south of where we lived, and needed to go down for an on-campus-job fair to get an interview.  I have family that lives in the area, so we drove down together...

On the drive, we resumed a game that we'd started several months earlier.  I say it was sort of freeform because it was based on the AD&D game that we'd been playing through most of high school (he was the DM).  There wasn't a "next chapter" to the game...so he started making one up.  I didn't have my character sheets, so the characters were being played more or less from memory.  Most of the actions taken were just me explaining what I wanted to do and him deciding whether or not it would work...if we needed a random result, I flipped a coin (sometimes repeatedly) to resolve the result.

This particular style of play started when a youth group we were both in had put together a Christmas tree to auction at a charity event...we were in the middle of decorating it and somehow decided to spin up a 'sequel's for my characters from the D&D game.  Everyone else ended up listening to us spin this mutually-created fantasy adventure for close to three hours, before we got back home...and then, on the drive down to the job fair, we started again...for another hour and a half on the drive down, the entire time we were waiting in line so he could get his interview number, the drive to my cousin's house from the university, then back to the university the next morning, the time waiting for his interview, and then the two-hour drive home.  All totalled, it was probably a solid 8-10 hours of just role-playing, with no rulebooks, no character sheets, no maps, no modules, and only a quarter to resolve any random-number generation.  And for most of the time, we had some kind of audience, that initially looked at us like we were being weird, and then got sucked into the adventure.

One of the coolest gaming experiences I've ever had.
IamJacksUsername
 member, 21 posts
 Any Serenity RPG games?
 South Africa, Cape Town
Fri 22 Jan 2021
at 18:33
 msg #7
Re: Less jokes, puns, and sillyness in your PBF vs live games?
facemaker329, that sounds amazing.
nauthiz
 subscriber, 700 posts
Fri 22 Jan 2021
at 22:31
 msg #8
Re: Less jokes, puns, and sillyness in your PBF vs live games?
Yes, but I put that more on the fact that the majority of the games in question are composed of strangers.

Humor generally requires you to get a feel for others and that's both more difficult and takes longer in PbP.

I've had a few games which have ran long enough that such humor and joking was much more common because everyone got to know one another well enough to feel comfortable and trust the intention wouldn't be misinterpreted or received negatively.

The synergy that can occur around a table is also obviously missing which is the other half of why I think that nature of play and interaction is less prevalent.
evileeyore
 member, 445 posts
 GURPS GM and Player
 Joined August 2015
Sat 23 Jan 2021
at 05:20
 msg #9
Re: Less jokes, puns, and sillyness in your PBF vs live games?
IamJacksUsername:
If so, do you think it's because of the split between OOC and IC threads?

Not in my games.  It may feel like there's less 'silliness' but that's because the purely OOC silliness is not disrupting play, it's in it's own thread.  But I still have Characters that make puns, get silly sometimes, etc, but In Character, just like I've always done in face-to-face play.  And likewise I get just as stupid in the OOC thread as I would OOCly face-to-face, it's not disruptive now.

Can't "kill game with fish puns" in a PbP as easily as I did in one Star Wars game long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away (in my defense I wasn't the only one* and the GM should have realized after the 45 minutes of non-stop fish puns had finally settles that introducing a new NPC as a Calamari would be a bad choice).


* It started when the GM flubbed and said "Go ahead and stow your gar below decks and meet on the bridge for briefing" and I respond "Can we stow our gear to?  For the halibut?" and then spiraled disastrously out from there.
silentmouse
 member, 23 posts
Sat 23 Jan 2021
at 06:24
 msg #10
Re: Less jokes, puns, and sillyness in your PBF vs live games?
I mean... one of the NPCs in game now rates characters based on why sized fish they deserve. To be fair, he’s a cat-like creature and the better he’s treated, the bigger the fish... All entirely to amuse those paying attention. If he really likes you, he’ll even drag it all over town from the best fishing bay.
facemaker329
 member, 7308 posts
 Gaming for over 40
 years, and counting!
Sat 23 Jan 2021
at 06:51
 msg #11
Re: Less jokes, puns, and sillyness in your PBF vs live games?
evileeyore:
...the GM should have realized after the 45 minutes of non-stop fish puns...


Y'know, up until you explained the nature of the puns, I was really wondering if maybe we'd actually been playing in the same game...except we didn't have such a clear opening to start, usually.  Someone just said something and everyone kept either piling on or rolling their eyes.

But that pun would have fit right in my old group, perfectly.  Although, five minutes in, the GM would be saying something about stopping, before he had to issue a cetacean for bad punning...
evileeyore
 member, 446 posts
 GURPS GM and Player
 Joined August 2015
Sat 23 Jan 2021
at 07:26
 msg #12
Re: Less jokes, puns, and sillyness in your PBF vs live games?
facemaker329:
But that pun would have fit right in my old group, perfectly.  Although, five minutes in, the GM would be saying something about stopping, before he had to issue a cetacean for bad punning...

Yeah, same here.  GM kept trying to end it, but also kept trying to get the last pun in.  But that's not how 'ending it' works...
bigbadron
 moderator, 15994 posts
 He's big, he's bad,
 but mostly he's Ron.
Sat 23 Jan 2021
at 07:49
moderator post | [quote] | [reply] | msg #13
Re: Less jokes, puns, and sillyness in your PBF vs live games?
facemaker329:
before he had to issue a cetacean for bad punning...

Well, it wasn't started on porpoise, but it seems like they had a whale of a time.
RosstoFalstaff
 member, 202 posts
Sat 23 Jan 2021
at 14:13
 msg #14
Re: Less jokes, puns, and sillyness in your PBF vs live games?
I'd be remiss if I neglected to point out . . .

Fewer.
IamJacksUsername
 member, 22 posts
 Any Serenity RPG games?
 South Africa, Cape Town
Sat 23 Jan 2021
at 18:05
 msg #15
Re: Less jokes, puns, and sillyness in your PBF vs live games?
RosstoFalstaff:
I'd be remiss if I neglected to point out . . .

Fewer.

Oh yeah. Should it be "Fewer jokes and puns, and less silliness"?
RosstoFalstaff
 member, 203 posts
Sat 23 Jan 2021
at 18:22
 msg #16
Re: Less jokes, puns, and sillyness in your PBF vs live games?
No you're okay I'm just traumatized by grammar strictness
IamJacksUsername
 member, 23 posts
 Any Serenity RPG games?
 South Africa, Cape Town
Sat 23 Jan 2021
at 18:36
 msg #17
Re: Less jokes, puns, and sillyness in your PBF vs live games?
Corrections are most welcome. English is my second language so there's lots more to lean and remember.
Eur512
 member, 845 posts
Sat 23 Jan 2021
at 18:42
 msg #18
Re: Less jokes, puns, and sillyness in your PBF vs live games?
In reply to RosstoFalstaff (msg # 16):

I've always been curious about one aspect of grammar strictness.

Where did it come from?

Obviously, it had to come sometime after grammar, but by how far?

...meanwhile, in Ancient Rome...

"Flavius, you disgraceful moron, it is "ambulaveram", NOT "ambulavero"!

"What?  Since when?"

"Yesterday.  We made it official.  Where you not at the meeting?"

"No, I was at Happy Hour with Titus, enjoying my Martinus."

"You mean Martini"

"No, just one."
evileeyore
 member, 447 posts
 GURPS GM and Player
 Joined August 2015
Sat 23 Jan 2021
at 21:23
 msg #19
Re: Less jokes, puns, and sillyness in your PBF vs live games?
Eur512:
"No, I was at Happy Hour with Titus, enjoying my Martinus."

"You mean Martini"

"No, just one."

Nice.
facemaker329
 member, 7309 posts
 Gaming for over 40
 years, and counting!
Sun 24 Jan 2021
at 09:06
 msg #20
Re: Less jokes, puns, and sillyness in your PBF vs live games?
In reply to Eur512 (msg # 18):

It took me a second to realize why, as I was laughing at that, I was also feeling kind of wistfully nostalgic...

And then I realized, it's been decades since I was surrounded by friends who would not only get that joke, but would also find a way 5o make it.  I miss having those kinds of friends...I don't think anyone I see on even a semi-regular basis anymore would even think about spinning a Latin joke...

And I don't even speak Latin.
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