Today’s question is:
Funniest Game I’ve Played
I suspect that many answers will have the caveat, “You had to be there.“
Funniest game – well, that experience usually comes out of not planning on something being funny. Funny is in the moment. And occasionally, funny gets as your jaw starts hurting, and you cry for no reason.
Once, we were playing a fantasy game (I don’t know what system it was) in a city where an investigation led us to wander through the streets. There might have been protests and a gang or two, possibly killing off key people. But, what happened instead was that two of us (my esteemed colleague, Richard, and me) went into a shop to talk with a shopkeeper, found the shopkeeper inexplicably missing (something plot related?), and so strongarmed/bluffed our way into taking over the store.
And there we stayed. Adventurers newly reborn as shopkeepers.
While the rest of the players staggered on with the investigation (were there other players?), Richard and I ran the shop and giggled like kids in the playground. It was just one of those occasions where a plotline beckoned, but it was more amusing to go for the side quest. In GM guidance, we would be the players you asked to leave the table; but, at that moment, we laughed so hard my jaw ached, and I couldn’t stop crying.
(sorry, Simon – our infinitely tolerant GM)
More seriously (in this discussion about funny), I have an Into the Odd adventure I have run for many years about a group of stricken adventurers faced with the prospect of terrible punishment if they can’t cover the cost and administration fee for a missing postage stamp from a friend who has gone off to a retreat in the Deep Country with the key to the groups’ treasure vault.
I have run it with a local game group, at conventions, in local gaming stores, and online – and it never fails to have moments where everyone laughs out loud. I think the first time I ran it, the adventurers sought advice from a neighbour whose characterisation and name (neither of which I now recall) just set everyone off.
Later encounters with a couple of priests in a ruined temple – where I play both of the bickering priests; a tragic giant; and, an arch-enemy no one ever wanted or needed — each moment just seemed to domino into the next. Sometimes, the game just has to take a pause for a baseline of moderate amusement and sanity to be restored.
RPGaDay is a prompt-driven experience in tabletop roleplaying, initiated by Dave Chapman of Autocratik and powered by you and me.
The prompts for this year are as follows — and you can find out more on Dave’s website.
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