Once again, this thread isn't about combat humour. (Sorry!) Besides, for some reason, these kinds of things don't seem to work too well with particularly trigger-happy teams

A couple of weeks ago, half of the group decided it was a good idea to poke their heads out into the city proper while actively wanted. (Temporary downtime, and they were bored.) They did originally manage to keep a relatively low profile. What they didn't know was that a professional film crew with a particularly dippy cameragirl had been hired to shoot a tourist promotional video for a casino and the surrounding area ... and that was the day she was doing street interviews.

As distinct from opportunistic or coincidental humour, where the actions of PCs have an (intentional or otherwise) humorous result or consequence, situational humour will have been specifically planned by the GM into the environment and potentially into the plotline. In general, I find anything to do with the astral, spirits (personality, appearance, complications of summoning), Matrix, mass media, or attempts at linguistic translation to be particularly effective vehicles for occasional insertion of a little situational humour into the campaign. Sometimes I specifically create a lightly humorous atmosphere in order to set up sharp emotional contrasts when I know something harsh lies just around the corner. (Buffy fans will know exactly what I'm talking about, here.)

Is this something you habitually make use of (or have encountered) in your own games? Does it have a valid SR function? How frequently should it be used, if at all? Share your stories!

What's the fun of a game without a little humor? If the players dig it, let the cream pies fly. It's good for ensuring that everyone had a good time and it can relieve stress after being shot up. Canon DOES say that good humor is worth karma, after all.

Ultimately, like in any medium, books to RPGs, it's about tone. If the game's deeply serious, humor is going to have trouble finding anything more than a very rare place.

...And usually ends up being the cynical, ironic or dry types of humor.

I still remember my first humor based karma award.
1st edition, stuffer shack run.
first ganger was shot in the face when he told the cyber-gun armed street sam to put his hands up.
I asked the Gm what aisle that happened on, and replied "Cleanup on aisle 14, clean up on aisle 14."

Which adds the subcategory of dry: a literal deadpan humour.

The book karma award targets players who have, through their actions or words, somehow managed to bring the group down with rib-hurting laughter. (The first time I earned that reward was when we were asked what we were doing in our downtime, and I answered: "Writing the Great American Novel." [Writing skill: 1.]) These would fall under coincidental humour: the spur-of-the-moment outcomes, the just-becauses of the game world. They are player-initiated (or else why would the PC earn karma for them?). They are not GM-designed into the environment as one of its integral elements.

(Example: per that promotional video crew above, I could have played it for irritation, or nervousness, or creepiness, or quite easily even shifted it into horror. I specifically chose humour, and then designed accordingly. It was something that the PCs might or might not have encountered and then might or might not have run with - but the basic atmosphere approach was pre-designed by the GM.)

Incidentally, is there anyone here who strongly believes that situational (planned) humour has no place in SR?

I never have to add any humor the players do a great job of that themselves. with all the constant mockery of each other and IC differences its almost like running a sitcom with gun battles here and there.

First time my Orc merc met my buddy's elf samurai, I glanced sideways at him and grumbled "Hrmf, another elf with a pony-tail and a katana." He responds, "Great, another grumpy orc with a big gun."

Funnier when it happened, I guess.

Another player (long-time role player, new shadowrunner) geeks a bad guy on her first run. A team member asks her. "That the first time you killed someone?"
She responds instantly "You mean today?"

See also my stories about role playing oopses....

Two days ago, the characters are performing an extraction of a rich corp-kid. The woman is at a party, so the face hires one of those proffessional escorts (no, not a hooker) to accompany him to the party with the intention of having the escort hand over a disguise to the corp-kid on the sly. This is how the player introduced them:
"Hey, I heard you're interested in fine china. So is she. Why don't you two go the washroom together to talk about it?"
With all due respect to my buddy Murray, that's the worst line I've EVER heard.

I remember quite a while ago after a runner inadvertently helped out a ghoul community in the barrens, one young ghoul lady developed a crush on him...."c'mon, just gimme one smooch!"

Edit: I guess looking back, that's not the sort of thing you were looking for. How about:

The characters are hired for a straight forward snatch and grab, but don't know that they are being secretly recorded for a 'Cops'-like trid-program that stacks the odds against them with weapons that are secretly loaded with blanks, and random doors in the complex are either bolted shut but look open, or are super-flimsy mylar. When they manage to beat the odds, they open the truck they are about to steal and find it loaded with ping-pong balls that spill out just as the cops show up. Insert laugh track.

Anal-retentive Mr. Johnson who wants the runners to do the job 'cool, you know, stylish.' and picks out clothes, hairstyles, and designer equipment for the runners, 'cause if his rival finds out who's behind the hit, he doesn't want the rival to think that he'd hire just any slobs.

Stuff like that?

Actually, the elf-orc thing /is/ pretty damn funny.

I thank you.

That sounds half like an episode of "That's My Swag". You guys geek a celebrity every run? [/ssg induced maddness]

I'm reminded of a run where we got hired to hijack a corp van in broad daylight in downtown traffic, and, after running into about twice as much resistance as expected, because the van happened to be transporting a mid-level exec as well as the cargo we were after, which caused me to lay down a Stunball on the entire area, knocking out our adept and putting the sammy into Moderate Stun because I didn't have time to be picky about effect radii, stealing said van right from under their noses, getting shot at, almost blown up, and causing a major accident on the freeway, we proudly presented our employer with the box we'd been sent to get, only to discover that the cargo that was so valuable that they were paying us large amounts of money to risk our lives to acquire was.....

A toilet.

A very expensive simsense-enabled toilet, but.... a toilet.

Currently designing a run to steal the Caramilk secret.

I love it when my players create the situational humor....I was running the a published Adventure(look away from spoilers you players... ) that dealt with the Red Hot Nukes (can't recall the name at the moment) and my boys just barely had survived a prolonged fire fight with them (and I had tried all the tricks to kill em too...lucky bastiches, but thats another funny story for later)

...well the crew gets ready to enter the parking garage and makes some lucky spots and sees the mine. Well the group has noone with any demolitions...so 4 of the players get all stumped and start gettin into this big discussion on how they're gonna get past the mines. Well my 5th guy...the big dumb troll sammy, leans over to me and asks how far someone with his strength (which was huge, as I've said in other threads, he can wreck cars with a melee attack) can throw a body...I used ye ol' CC abbd check distance and tell him... he pops out the dice, grabs a dwarf corpse and tells me he's chuckin it at the mine from the edge of it's blast radius...

pure genuis from the lowest int character!! Absolute karma gold was awarded for that one...kept us laughing through the whole session...hell keeps us laughin now when we tell it

I was just wondering how a GM can really PLAN humor.

But anyhoo, our group still makes jokes about dwarf-smuggling after the troll hid the little guy... somewhere. I'm really glad they didn't fully RP that one. Damn.

Oh yeah, and when we had to get someone inside a fenced-in area. Thus the Stunty Punty was born. Same 2 characters. Surprise surprise...

Our group is really run on humor. I don't think any of us are 'enough' into any RPG to really roleplay serious scenes. Deadly scenes are often, and serious enough, but not a lot of drama. We're all a bunch of cynics that way, we can find humor in everything.

<GM, serious> "Ok, so you're going to jack the van right here"
<PC, serious> "Yeah, jacking it right there."
<everyone, looking back at the last two lines spoken> "BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA ... (five minutes ad nauseum)"

[deleted]

Was that.. the... BRUMBY?

One of the most god-awful names for a vehicle in Shadowrun I've ever heard of. And no, it wasn't the Brumby, that was reserved for a later getting-the-crap-blown-out-of-it session in the shootout next run. When I levelled the garage of the 'Raku building?

Oh yeah baby, C4-lovin'.

Edit: Speaking of which, Shadowrun + Demolitions + Commercial explosives almost always equals a very nice recipe for comedy. Trust me, I know from experience.

Or a very nice recipe for a frustrated GM ripping up the detailed blueprints of a 4-story office building thanks to an overenthusiastic decker...

Humor is present in nearly all forms of fiction. Even some of the most heart-wrenching pieces of dramatic fiction, most terrifying pieces of horror fiction, all have some sort of humor in them. Romeo and Juliet was a laugh riot until Act II, and I still giggle at "Twelves rooms, twelve vacancies. Huh huh." from PSYCHO. It's all about timing. You have to have comic relief, but if you put it in the wrong place, you screw up the timing and feel of the adventure.

And I think you can plan humor if you know your group well enough. It's almost like improv comedy, you have to know your partners well enough to give them just the right set-up. A lot of chances for humor are easy, like the toilet from before. But the best moments are 100% spontanious. You decide to do some dwarf-tossing to solve a problem, the elf street sam who was unarmed running into a group of Humanis thugs and deciding to start waving his hands around and chanting like he was about to cast a spell ("Aren't all dem daisy-eaters magicked up?"), just the right one-liner at just the right moment ("TETSUOOOOOOOOOOO!!" just after the go-ganger goes up in a bike explosion), etc.

The Abstruse One

In the game I'm in it's mostly serious - I think all the laughs come from out-of-charictor knowledge of what's going on.

We get a job, and need the poliece out of the area.
One of the guys uses his headphone to call up his media contact and tell her something's going to be happening down town, how long to get a car there? and then he calls a cop contact and asks how long for them to get from their station to the scene of where we're doing this. The table was split between "you idiot" and laughter.

My charictor was actually a 16year-old, in highschool using physical mask to look like a bumb. They pestered the heck out of me trying to figure out where a bumb has to be all day, and I came up with some humorous excuses. (geting some, begging for money, making concentric shugar circles so the pixies don't change my hair purple, etc)

The GM has never put humor in intentionally. When I try GMing this summer, I probably wouln't put any humor in intentionally, but there's always humor that gets put in ad-hoc in any game I'm in.

The team is trying to hire a rigger for a covert trip back from Vancouver. They can get there OK, but they'll probably be hot on the trip back, so they want an expert ready to get them out of Dodge.
He asks them to stop at Taco Shell on the way over and get him a couple cheese Qesadia's. So they pull in all serious, and I get to screw with them for a couple of minutes while they make their order (the speaker doesn't work right). They get their bag and head out. They hand over the bag, he opens it up and there's 6 bean burritos in it. The deal ends up costing an extra 2000 because he's annoyed and won't negotiate.

A different time, they stopped to get gas, and the tweeked out cyber chick got some smokes from the Arab guy inside the armored booth. He says something about her slutty appearance under his breath, but she's cybered and picks it up. She gives him crap, but he's in a totally protected booth in the middle of a gas station, so he comes back, and insults the hell out of her for a couple minutes as she gets madder and madder. He ends by sending a pack of condoms out to her and suggesting she use them. She's near berserk in her desire to kill him, but there's nothing she can do and her team mates drag her away before she tries to plant a charge on the door.

Get hired for a run in the caribean. Stealing some secret formula out of a hidden research center on a lonely island.
After reaching said island get supplied with form-fitting armour that just coincidentally looks a little bit pirateish. Ok, pirates, caribean, check.
Invade that secret installation and get your ass handed back to you by a couple of kids. Quite a lot of kids in fact, and the ones of them that aren`t riggers, otaku, mages, shamans or physads seem to be on holiday on some other island. Fortunately at least our escape is successful.
Back in Seattle: The fixer tells you that your group has exceeded the expectations of the Johnson and all of you get twice the agreed sum of money.

After a week or so they get sent a tape with the new commercial of CaptainCrunch`s Soyflakes ™. And a nice little hunted-flaw (by every kid that likes said soyflakes, that is. Hello mister dwarf decker, meet the troll kindergarten…)

My GM can add humor quiet a bit and hillarious too.

One of my characters was walking out the back door of a bar after taking care of a loose end. Where a kid 11 or 12 was standing. THe Gm said the kid looked familar like I have seen him before. SO I stopped to and looked at him. I tossed him a couple of bucks and told him he didn't see anything and to go home. He replied he wanted to join our team. I luaghed of course. Then I proceeded to ask the kid wha the brought to the table, what did he have to offer that I could not get else where in a bigger package. The kid produced a Palm pistol. I laughed again. I asked the kid how good did he think he is with that pea shooter. HE said good enought to kill you. Again I answered with a laugh. The kid challenged me to a duel. So being the man I am I excepted. I easily beat the kid on the draw, but not being a kid killer I just said "bang" you are dead. The kid replied, n I am not you didn't shoot. He them proceeded to to shoot me. If I wasn't wearign any clothes that might have hurt. I yelled you little fuck, what did you do that for? He replied to show you I am tough. I told him he better get home before I stop being so nice. He asked if he could jon the gang. I laughed and said no, I am not gettign a kid killed. He shot me again. I asked him what the hell his problem was. He said if he could not join the team he was goign to take it over. Now my team mates are standign there laughing their asses off becasue some kid is shooting with a palm pistol and I haven't killed him yet. Well this kid took several mor eshots before I decided to shoot his gun out of his hands. Well one shot and he is now weaponless, at least I thought that. I again told him to go home. As I turned my back to walk away the little shit hit me with a Yamaha Pulsar and almost killed my ass. So a few seconds later after I gained my composure, I proceeded to kick 12 year old ass. The little shit tasered me 2 more times before I could get the damn thing away from him. The whole time rolling like shit with my dice and trying not to hurt a kid. Well in the end the kid works for me now. I took him aboard as a squire of sorts. He cleans my gear and I show him the trade. It has been about 6 years in game time so he is all grown oup now ready to be a hellion on the shadows.

Almost looks as though there are four distinct general sources of active humour in SR campaigns:

1. IC off-the-wall moments (coincidental humour: player [character]-originated*)
2. OOC metagame irony (contextual humour: player-originated)
3. planned, plot-based humour (situational humour: GM-originated)
4. humour innate to the nature of a given character or prop, but requiring interaction to evoke it (IC interactive humour: GM- or player [character]-originated)

* When I say here "originated", I mean the immediate source and/or proximate cause of humour.

The stories we all love to tell and re-tell would mostly be of the first two kinds: things that almost by their very nature can't be planned but are arrived at serendipitously. The fourth most frequently arises (in isolation) in NPCs' personalities, usually in moderation appropriate to the general willingness of the group to play along v. cut to the info-chase.

The third is trickiest: for it requires specific planning on a GM's part to create a viable plot context which stands up to reasonable Shadowrun realism and holds the players' interest over an extended period of play (possibly multiple sessions), while at the same time having the sheer humour or light-heartedness of the plot as one of its primary goals - quite possibly to polarise contrast with a particularly horrifying climax.

Oh, why not a Shakespearean example: imagine a run based around Romeo and Juliet ... and who would sponsor it? More than 2/3 of the play is sheer comedy! For those of you who have seen the latest Anne of Green Gables incarnation by Sullivan, imagine the title actress doing the role of Juliet (as she did, one year).

My favorite gaming story that just floored the entire group had nothing to do with Shadowrun. It was in my Fantasy Hero campaign. The PCs were a group of orphans raised in a rather special orphanage run by a powerful sorcerer. All their combat training was handled in house by Master Morak, who would often surprise the PCs with attacks when they least expected it. His prefered method of doing so was using small red sacks filled with rice. Little red tennis ball sized bags, my PCs got beaned with these constantly...

So one day. The PCs are set to travel to the Eastern Kingdom. The PCs have been brushing up on their skills getting ready under the eternally vigilant eye of Master Morak, who summons them into a room to talk with them.

"I have taught you all I can in preparation of this journey..." He begins.
"So I would like you to meet your new teacher, Miss Dashumi..." and as he says so a dainty little oriental lady (from the Eastern Kingdoms) enters the room.

"New teacher eh?" says Salazar (one of the PCs) who then promptly picks up a red ball from the table and zings it at her head, rather surprising everyone, including the young lady who took it right in the melon and with a weak cry, collapsed, stunned.

Everyones eyes went wide and Salazar had the most surprised expression on his face as the lady went down.

"LANGUAGE TEACHER!" Exclaimed Master Morak as he grabbed Salazar by the ear and everyone else started making EGO rolls not to start crying and rolling around on the floor.

Oh crap did we laugh... Poor bastard just figured she was a martial arts teacher. =)

Sunday