How serious do you like your games?

[sithlordnergal]

So, I had this thought while reading the thread on if characters have ruined games for people.

How many of you prefer serious games over non-serious games?

And if so, how serious do you prefer?

Personally, I'd never be able to run a serious game. Seriousness and I don't work together, and if you're at my table you can fully expect to have non-serious game. We're talking you might see an Awakened Dinosaur serving drinks at a Bar, a few 4th-Wall Breaks, a health potion that has a chance of turning your hair pink, ect.. Heck, I had a player bring in a character named {scrubbed} Joe, I gave him a modified Shield of Expression, only it was a tower shield and had waifus on it instead of a face.

[Aussiehams]

We tend to play a beer and pretzels, hack and slash type campaigns and it doesn't seem to matter.
I'm fairly serious and interested in tactics and combat effectiveness, but my mate has a silly character that is still combat effective.
If he wants to wear an enemy's helmet as a codpiece and a tiara I don't care, but I won't be doing that. And if the world is whacky I just roll with it and plan for the next encounter.

[Tawmis]

So, I prefer serious story lines and characters (both as a player and DM), but wholeheartedly embrace the funny stuff that ALWAYS happens in D&D.

[stoutstien]

I tend to mix both in my games. The story arch is pretty laid-back but the core context can be pretty heavy and serious.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I want the crazy and wacky to arise naturally out of the events of the campaign, not be injected in by the players. Comic relief is ok, but joke characters are not. More than anything, I want characters that want to adventure, fit into the world, and are plausible in and of themselves. And I want situations to match. Sure, weird and funny stuff's gonna happen. But it shouldn't be the focus.

For one thing, constant comedy routines take lots of talent. I've never met a player who possessed such a talent, and doing it week after week just gets stale fast. And when two or more people try to both be funny at the same time...it's just bad.

On the flip side, I don't insist on "save the world" or "dark and depressing" campaigns either. You can be serious, heroic, and still snarky and witty. There can be good and evil, scenery-chewing villains, noble deeds, and witty banter. Especially the latter.

[Trask]

I agree with Phoenix Pyre. I don't mind silly things happening (in fact I quite enjoy them) but those sorts of things just arise naturally I find when the rubber hits the road. I don't usually try and force it or try to lighten the mood artificially unless I have reason to or just feel like it. Usually though I try to present my fantasy worlds in a pretty neutral, "naturalistic" way without any preference for either silliness or drama, and let those elements just spontaneously generate themselves.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Not serious at all. D&D is all about taking the piss with pop culture references. But I prefer the players to be the straight man.

Especially when it comes to races. I loathe Dragonborn, Tieflings, and most Volo-type races. I'm okay with occasional humanoids if it fits the campaign. But outlandish races as PCs breaks my suspension of disbelief almost instantly for some reason. One of the reasons I can't really play Star Wars games.

Also tired cliches that someone thinks are just oh so smart look at what I invented make me roll my eyes on the inside.

Also Scottish dwarves need to die in a fire. Can't we get some Norse up in the house or something?

My dwarves are mongolian. There's a mongolian rock group that uses traditional instruments that sounds just like I imagine dwarven music to sound.

[Tawmis]

My dwarves are mongolian. There's a mongolian rock group that uses traditional instruments that sounds just like I imagine dwarven music to sound.

Dwarves that are a ROCK group. Pun intended?

[Hellpyre]

I like my core game stories to be pretty serious, with occasional moments of comedic juxtaposition. For the most part I prefer the comedy to come from OOC comentary by the players, or a small amount of in-character snarking.

[Kane0]

I like serious premise with casual fun layered on top of that. That way you have that underlying ability to get down to brass tacks when necessary, but the default modus operandi is lighthearted in nature.

What tends to annoy me is when funny and wacky takes over to the point that progress is derailed and nothing gets accomplished. I’m all for fun and games, but in RPGs i’m usually also pursuing some sort of goal.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Dwarves that are a ROCK group. Pun intended?

For me, you can always assume that any puns were intended, even if I didn't see them originally. Because puns are the highest and best form of humor.

They don't let me play bards any more.

[ProsecutorGodot]

I've loosened up as a player considerably since I've started but I generally prefer characters who take their goals seriously. I want to actively engage with what the DM has in store for us, silly characters and behavior can sometimes interrupt that.

We've got inside jokes, references and all that good nonsense though, I don't mind some table fun as long as it isn't at the expense of the gameplay or narrative.

As a DM, I might be a bit of a stick in the mud though, your characters don't have to be the seal team 6 of adventures but I'd like it for the players to focus a bit. With my normal group, this isn't an issue. With the online group I've tried DM'ing for, I often find myself frustrated at the fact that the players aren't taking the campaign goals seriously. Nothing wrong with it, just not the sort of game I wanted to run. It certainly doesn't help that they all pretty much refuse to play humanoids, the last iteration of their party was half Minotaurs, one part Yuan-Ti and two part's Goblin. Not exactly a very welcome sight in most places, but I kind of had to just ignore it and pretend people wouldn't be running for the hills at the sight of them.

As far as the actual content of the campaigns? I don't mind either way, one of the best one shots we've run was a hastily assembled maze crawl that features a trap door that, when lockpicked, showed a horrific image of a burning city and kobolds raining rocks from the sky, a reference to our very first game of 5E where we tpk'd.

[Sigreid]

I'd say medium. I want the party to take it somewhat seriously, and maybe one character that is a bit of a clown, or the whole party clowning now and then. But I want people to be serious enough to move things along and I don't want everyone treating the whole things as a drunken joke.

[Unoriginal]

To me, D&D cannot, or at least should not, be made to be 100% serious.

Sure the stakes can be high, the situation can be dour and not everything should be humorous, but without the fun, silly or outlandish parts it's just not D&D. What's the point of playing D&D if we don't embrace when the game is bonkers?

In particular I find that to have a memorable antagonist, said antagonist needs some non-serious elements. Even if it's limited to "serious boss has to handle crazy underlings".

[RifleAvenger]

I don't generally engage with media to turn my brain off, so I generally look for games that would give me something to think about. I mean that on both a narrative and a puzzle-solving (which includes combat) level.

The most recent few TTRPGs I am in/was in are:

* Mechanically low-tier PCs cleaning up the aftermath of what murderhobo adventurers got up to before us, with said aftermath NOT being played for laughs (as player);

* A game in which the hook involves a supernatural wildfire beginning to get out of control in a woodland setting (as player);

* The PCs as humanitarian aid and peacekeepers to a solar system facing a water crisis in the midst of social upheaval, with a heavy dose of politicking between real-robot mecha battles (as GM);

* A game partially pitched as a deconstruction and reconstruction of D&D alignment (as player);

* A Call of Cthulhu two-shot investigating bizarre blue oysters and the goings-on of an associated cult, played straight (as player);

* A Werewolf the Forsaken game that was a sendup of The Warriors (as player);

* A game involving the party trying to get the world to prepare for or stop a massive, world-destroying flood. In the midst of a world war between three magocracies, none of whom are willing to work together. The current arc involves a region of the world facing down extermination by one faction and economic exploitation by their ally. Said ally is also the only superpower the PCs have gotten any funding and aid from (as GM).

Of all of those, the Werewolf game was the one furthest slanted towards comedy on the comedy-drama spectrum, and it still leaned towards drama.

The games aren't joyless or humorless though. Hard to care about the bad things that happen to people when you don't have their happiness to contrast it with. At least in the ones I GM, it's about the light at the end of the tunnel, as well as the lights the party makes for themselves inside of it.

[Unoriginal]

I don't generally engage with media to turn my brain off, so I generally look for games that would give me something to think about. I mean that on both a narrative and a puzzle-solving (which includes combat) level.

The most recent few TTRPGs I am in/was in are:

* Mechanically low-tier PCs cleaning up the aftermath of what murderhobo adventurers got up to before us, with said aftermath NOT being played for laughs (as player);

* A game in which the hook involves a supernatural wildfire beginning to get out of control in a woodland setting (as player);

* The PCs as humanitarian aid and peacekeepers to a solar system facing a water crisis in the midst of social upheaval, with a heavy dose of politicking between real-robot mecha battles (as GM);

* A game partially pitched as a deconstruction and reconstruction of D&D alignment (as player);

* A Call of Cthulhu two-shot investigating bizarre blue oysters and the goings-on of an associated cult, played straight (as player);

* A Werewolf the Forsaken game that was a sendup of The Warriors (as player);

* A game involving the party trying to get the world to prepare for or stop a massive, world-destroying flood. In the midst of a world war between three magocracies, none of whom are willing to work together. The current arc involves a region of the world facing down extermination by one faction and economic exploitation by their ally. Said ally is also the only superpower the PCs have gotten any funding and aid from (as GM).

Of all of those, the Werewolf game was the one furthest slanted towards comedy on the comedy-drama spectrum, and it still leaned towards drama.

The games aren't joyless or humorless though. Hard to care about the bad things that happen to people when you don't have their happiness to contrast it with. At least in the ones I GM, it's about the light at the end of the tunnel, as well as the lights the party makes for themselves inside of it.

Well, comedy and humor don't mean that the work can't be thought-provoking.

Good thing, too, otherwise the Discworld books wouldn't exist.

[RifleAvenger]

Well, comedy and humor don't mean that the work can't be thought-provoking.

Good thing, too, otherwise the Discworld books wouldn't exist.

Or Order of the Stick. However, while your statement is true, I don't find that to be common among the less-serious TTRPG games I have observed.

Furthermore, there is an underlying seriousness to Discworld. It is very funny? Yes. However, many of the books touch on heavy topics through the medium of humor (Thud pops into my mind first, but there's plenty more).

That is a step removed from the raw escapism I usually associate with unserious games, D&D especially, and to which I assumed the OP was referring.

[Theodoric]

So, I prefer serious story lines and characters (both as a player and DM), but wholeheartedly embrace the funny stuff that ALWAYS happens in D&D.

Yeah, there's no way to get around that. My players vary a bit in regards to seriousness, and as a DM I don't generally inject silly things deliberately beyond the occasionally overly broad character, but someone is going to do something silly in a session and there's no way to predict who that's going to be. We're always going to be a bunch of people messing around with a game.

Plus, it's just good improv to go ahead with something if it works. I've invented some pretty colourful characters because player response gave me something nice to work with.

[solidork]

Sometimes people take "serious" to imply things like "dark", "grim", etc. so I'd say what I really want is sincerity.

[Warder]

I want the basis of the games to be serious. I want a serious world with a serious plotline and a party filled with serious characters - by which I mean they should feel like real people, not jokes. That having been said, the games I play are full with humor and light-hearted moments, but they're spontaneous and often end up making fun of the serious parts of the games. I've never met a PC created to be "funny" that I've liked, but I've laughed my proverbial butt off at serious characters ending up in ridiculous situations due to events in game.

Which I guess is more or less what PhoenixPhyre said before!

[KorvinStarmast]

So, I had this thought while reading the thread on if characters have ruined games for people.

How many of you prefer serious games over non-serious games?

And if so, how serious do you prefer?

Personally, I'd never be able to run a serious game.

I am not sure that the dichotomy is that clear. There is humor in any world, regardless of how serious it is.

a. I prefer the more serious game. It takes a certain blend of personalities to make that work, though. Dming for that kind of game is, to me, surprisingly easy if your players are all in it from the outset. Getting from 4-8 people with a similar feel for that is the tricksy part.

b. I have played a lot of beer and pretzel games also; enjoy them.

EDIT: Just saw the posts by PhoenixPhyre and RifleAvenger. Good stuff. *tips cap*

[yellowrocket]

TLDR: the Avengers movies

Honestly I want a serious theme to the game world. Something happened we're the people to do something about it. And that can be willingly or coerced. But there's a tension that for the characters there is something at stake and thats our motivation. And we play them like that.

On the other hand I'm still one of the most irreverent dark humored people at the table. Im "Where did the kid who stepped on a landmine go?" joke loving fools. That and pop culture references and turning things people say in to the songs that have those lyrics. Oh hell ya. But when its time to plan or let other people fight and or speak about what they're thinking and doing I can be as serious as Batman.

[Warder]

TLDR: the Avengers movies

That's actually a really good analogy for what I meant. The Avengers movies have serious plots, characters with serious backstories (well, reasonably so) and worldbuilding to go with those motifs. But that doesn't stop the characters from making fun of themselves, each other and the world they're in. That's the kind of game I enjoy playing. I'd say Captain America would probably be the best example of this - serious backstory, strong ideals, strong sense of responsibility, but is able to lighten the mood by making jokes at how out of place he is in the modern world.

Contrast that with another MCU brand, the first Thor movies, which I'd say is a great analogy of serious games when they're at their worst. The MCU is inherently pretty silly, just like D&D is, but Thor 1 & 2 try to tell completely serious stories within that framework and never let up. They're snoozefests as a result.

[Mikal]

On a scale of “uwu” to “a song of ice and fire” I prefer to keep my seriousness level at the original dragonlance novels.

[Unoriginal]

Let's be honest, is there anything more quintessentially D&D than this picture?:

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[DeTess]

TLDR: the Avengers movies

Yeah, that's my preference as well as a player. Serious things happen, the character react to that appropriately, but they also crack jokes about themselves and their surroundings, and there's the occasional over-the-top action just for the sake of it.

I do enjoy more serious games as well, just not too much of it at a time because it tends to be a bit more draining.

As a DM I skew a bit more serious than I do as a player, but I'm amenable to shenanigans as well.

[micahaphone]

Remember, if you start a campaign as pure stock seriousness with serious grim characters dealing with terrible things, within 5 sessions there'll be **** jokes flying around.

If you start your campaign with a joke character in the party and a lighter tone, in 15 sessions you'll be grieving Plumbo's heroic sacrifice to save an orphan's life from a devil cult that seeks to ritually slaughter the entire town.




You need a mix - a nonstop serious campaign can become a drag, and it's dnd, we're probably playing in a fantasy land full of strange and wonderful stuff. But even light and silly campaigns can benefit from a more serious plot motivator.

[Waterdeep Merch]

I'm an eclectic that enjoys rich flavors and strong variety. I like my adventure wondrous, my humor gut-busting, my horror terrifying, and my gameplay challenging. I'm not a fan of punk aesthetics; I'm just as annoyed at someone taking a joke game seriously as a serious game jokingly.

So I prefer a game that has strong themes. It's okay to push them around a bit for variety, but the overall feel is sacred to me.

[Avonar]

As long as the story itself isn't a joke, I'm fine. It can be light-hearted or it can be more serious, there are always ways to inject humour. However if the entire story is not taken seriously then I struggle to get invested in it.

On the flip side, I realise that a jokey premise can lead to genuine emotional drama. For an example, see The Adventure Zone. That's just not my personal style.

[Sam113097]

I feel like, as a DM, much of my preparation and planning tends to create serious situations and a fairly grounded world, so the overall story and many of the beats tend to be serious, but I have found that, while improvising in the moment or reacting to something unexpected, I tend to throw some humor in. For example, in my current setting, grungs are dangerous Dark Fey creatures that are a serious threat to small, isolated coastal villages. However, in a session in which the players entered a fighting pit and placed some bets, I didn't have anything planned for the bookie, so I improvised a Grung in a cage, taking coins with its long tongue, and it turned out to be a source of humor during the scene. It helps that I have excellent players that can be serious when the situation calls for it while also enjoying and joking around in the lighter moments.