The comic effect of EFU

[Capricious]

There's the proper IC manner of being funny and creative in ways that fit the character. Then there are the OOC and RL hinting jokes that make you either laugh, or grimace and sigh deeply, taking the next five to 10 minutes to get back into the moment after being shaken by such cheapshot.

I do endorse that even if it's a game to have fun in, for people playing the fun is to be somewhat "serious" - roleplaying that character.

This is my feeling as well. Nothing wrong with funny moments or reactions, even in serious situations. It's when the joke or snarky comment is meta that it becomes unwelcome.

[The Old Hack]

I am not entirely certain what to make of this. I agree that certain kinds of humour feel inappropriate (particularly current memes, blatant anachronisms and anything that smacks of OOC). But I also feel that humour in general is not a bad thing and that it correctly applied and in small amounts in fact helps seriousness and darkness by providing contrast and small breaths of relief.

Moreover, the mentality that "if you don't know how to do humour properly, don't do it at all" is profoundly disquieting to me. We all experience humour differently. I freely admit that there have been characters as well as names that have made me wince and where I felt that their jokes weren't at all funny to me. But large and by, I have managed to remind myself that the humour is at least funny to the players of these characters and that it was highly unlikely that they were trying to be deliberately disruptive. And so I have tuned out what I thought unfunny and continued to enjoy both the seriousness and the humour that remained.

Reminding people that memes, OOC and meta-humour might be damaging to immersion especially during events is fine. But the notion that humour should be discouraged and left solely to the hands of a select elite disquiets and saddens me. It would make EfU a much darker place, yes, but to me at least it would be in the entirely wrong way.

[Paha]

Humour is not discouraged by any means, but there's a clear limit to everything. I am absolutely positive that people know when a joke is just making a joke out of playing, instead of taking character seriously or making indications to RL matters that just don't make any sense in roleplaying settlement. It is important for everyone to understand this.

However even if folks would feel bad about it, sometimes it's just a truth that if you can't do it, then learn how and take it as a challenge. Study a bit of lore and source books maybe. It ain't surely easy to be in character and make suitable lines or jokes, but it's far better than making quite awful RL ones that break, often, good in game moments.

This is my opinion. You can agree, you can disagree, but like the original post, it's a request and should say something when quite many voice it out. Worth thinking over.

[Jayde Moon]

And that's how he feels about that.

Seriously, though, don't do it.  And that really simply extends to RPing your character as if he was a person in the game world and not as if he was you controlling him.  I am often disheartened by not only the jokes, but just the generally inappropriate ways characters deal with things that are happening to them in game.

I get it, you aren't really getting hurt and that giant undead demon aberration is just some pixels on the screen, but it's really nice to see players RPing shock, fear, and awe.  Instead of what has almost become a standard of, "Oh, look, giant monster, get it!"

Of course, some characters will be more resilient than others and some outright nonchalant... but it's an overwhelming amount of them, it seems.

[Kotenku]

[Big Orc Man]

Just to help clarify -

Humor is not bad.  At all.  But this is, first and foremost, roleplaying.  So if you're roleplaying your character, and your character is a jokester, that's fine.  But when it's clear a character has no fear or seriousness because the player recognizes that it's a game, it sort of disturbs the gentle fiction of the setting.

As an example - when you watch a cheesy action movie, and the hero says a one-liner, it may well be funny, but it also reminds you, "oh, yeah!  I'm watching an action movie.  None of this is really happening".

It breaks immersion!

I guess a good rule of thumb is, if your attempt at humor is appealing to players, rather than to the setting, or if it heavily references a different entertainment medium, it might break the fourth wall and just be annoying.

Oh, yeah, and if a character is snarky to an established badass, they have no right to complain when they eat dirt.  Withered dirt.

[9lives]

For reference, James Lysik was Dangerous Dan lmao

Don't do this. One need only look to the efu memes and quotes threads to show unfunny you are.

[MysteryMan???]

This isn't a game after all.

[Knight Of Pentacles]

I support this.  This isn't a game after all.

[Kinslayer988]

The comic of efu should be dark, twisted, but hilarious none the less. Such as "NEVER SNEEZE"

[Yalta]

Agreed. Comedy is extremely tough to get right and is best avoided.

I vehemently disagree with that. There's a place for it even on a grim-dark server like EFU. Maybe not when you're marching on H'bala's tower or captured by drow slavers, but the occasional silly detour is harly detrimental so long as it doesn't detract from the gravity of the main storylines.

The trouble is, humour often does not "travel" as well as good tragedy, horror, or suspense across settings, RPing, player backgrounds and stories.

Getting humour right in EFU is very very hard. Getting suspense, intrigue, fear, excitement right is far more achievable when the participants are from different backgrounds, countries and cultures.

And when you get comedy wrong, it is terribly immersion breaking in my experience.

[Jagged]

How to be funny.

[The Old Hack]

The trouble is, humour often does not "travel" as well as good tragedy, horror, or suspense across settings, RPing, player backgrounds and stories.

Getting humour right in EFU is very very hard. Getting suspense, intrigue, fear, excitement right is far more achievable when the participants are from different backgrounds, countries and cultures.

I disagree on several levels. First, you exaggerate the difficulty of getting humour right. Next, you make the claim that suspense, intrigue, fear and excitement somehow travel more readily across cultural barriers than humour does. But before I go too far into disagreeing with this claim I would like to know precisely what you base it on; would you mind elucidating?

And when you get comedy wrong, it is terribly immersion breaking in my experience.

Humour and comedy are not the same thing. It is quite possible to employ humour outside the environment of a comedy.

[Vlaid]

I don't think we need to get into a psychological debate about how to turn all of EFU into masters of comedy.

Let's just agree that too much comedy during intense, dramatic scenes can, when executed poorly (either through OOC memeish jokes or through poorly contrived comedic, snarky comments that do not respect the levity of the situation) cheapen the RP of everyone involved.

Imagine if when the emperor was thrown into the power tubes during Star Wars, Luke had piped in with some irrelevant, snarky, EFU-IRC-style comment of "THIS IS SPARRRRTAAAA111111! LOLZ"

When I see players doing this (and I THINK I try hard not to do it myself too often).....I find it difficult to want to continue being around their characters at all; current or future.

[Spiffy Has]

winter is coming