RPGaDay: Humour

I can't imagine RPGs without laughter.  I don't think I've ever actually played a game that was intended to be humorous though.

The most I've laughed in RPGs is probably while playing Cyberpunk 2020.  Partly it's because CP2020 is such an incredibly 80s version of the future that there's some inherent comedy from all the mis-matches between that and the real 2020.  The first CP2020 campaign I played happened because someone in the group found their old copy and I was charmed by the zeerust.  You can buy a cyber eye with a built in digital camera - but it can only hold 24 images, presumably because the standard 35mm film cartridges used by compact cameras in the 1980s held 24 images.

Further humour in CP2020 came from the other people in the games.  Anyone who's been reading my game write-ups (with the exception of the MYZ games) will be familiar with the bunch of reprobates I call a home group.  I was not there for the game that saw the invention of the pheromone-releasing devices that became known as 'jizz grenades' but merely heard about it afterwards.  Imagine, if you will, that you're an NPC in Night City, working in some secure facility.  Suddenly, in rushes a cyberware-laden intruder, and before you can react he pulls out a grenade and throws it at you!  But fumbles, and drops at his own feet.  And then...yeah.  And then he throws another one, with the same result.  Finally he leaves in embarrassment.

Then there was the game where we were playing members of a band called Doomcow.  My character was the lead singer, a gorgeous, charismatic idiot with such a poor INT skill that the medtech was better at writing songs than her despite having put no points at all into composition.  She wandered through Night City, doing her best to live the sex and drugs and rock and roll lifestyle she wanted while utterly oblivious to most of the horrible things happening around her.  Only when I look back at the game do I realise what terrible, terrible things we did.

Something as simple as bad handwriting can lead to humour.  For quite a while Doomcow were carrying around an object which according to the handwritten notes was a 'bro tube'.  By the time we figured out that it was supposed to read 'bio tube' we'd already written a hit single called Bro Tube.

Critical hits and fumbles also brought the humour.  CP2020 uses a d10 system, so criticals happen a lot, and in the case of critical hits, roll on.  We also had a house rule that if you get a critical, whether a hit or a fumble, you and anyone who saw it happen gain improvement points equal to the level of the critical.  So one day at band practice, my character sang so well that the rest of the band spontaneously learned to sing.

I forget what the circumstances were that lead to us needing to make a quick getaway in the tour bus.  My character didn't have the drive skill, but with 10 in dexterity (the max starting score) she felt reasonably confident.  Of course I rolled a one.  Exactly how she managed to flip a full size tour bus end over end and set the fuel tank on fire, we will never know, but I certainly appreciated my earlier decision to pay the extra to make her clothes fireproof.

In another game, we had answered the door to a group of religious zealots who wanted to steal our NPC netrunner.  A gunfight broke out, in which one PC shot another PC, my character shot yet another PC and herself, and nobody on either side managed to hit anyone on the other side.  The enemy left, embarrassed and confused.  We did all learn a lot about how to do shooting that day, starting with that it works better if you point the guns at the enemy.

I don't think we've ever played CP2020 in quite the spirit it was intended, but we've certainly had a lot of laughs.