Reading your list makes me better understand why I get kicked out of groups… I never realized that being the jokester actively harmed people’s ability to enjoy the game. Thank you for that.
To be clear, it’s fine to be light hearted and jokey, perhaps most of the time depending on the group.
Knowing when to turn on and off Serious Mode is a skill that can be hard to develop, and IMO it’s perhaps the GMs job to gently say when they want things to be serious.
I guess for me in my last campaign, it was less that I was trying to be a jokester and more that actions which seemed somewhat reasonable to me and high-risk/high-reward were not welcomed by the rest of the group and I didn’t realize how serious people were going to be. We were playing in the world of Firefly and I tried hailing an approaching ship to see what they wanted and if I could negotiate.
The fact that the DM was shocked should have been a hint that I was doing the wrong thing, but at the time I thought that I found a plot hole and was doing such a good job that the DM was blown away. I was wrong and my character has incapacitated by another member of the crew, which continued until I realized that I probably wasn’t welcome to continue campaigning with the group. When I realized this, I genuinely felt really bad that I’d probably upset the group, but it wasn’t until now that I realized how seriously people take this.
I’ve never before played with the specific intent of keeping my character alive, but I think that was more of a videogame mentality. Other folks in the group aren’t exactly excited that I’m putting their characters lives on the line because people obviously invest real time and care into this. My realization was less that I joke too much and more that I don’t take things seriously enough.
That honestly doesn’t seem that bad. It might not be a smart thing to do in the grand scheme of things, but I can see it being an action that a naive member of the crew would do. I think if that truly was the wrong thing to do, then the GM should have stepped in and said something like “Are you sure about that? This region of space is notorious for having lots of pirates around”. Being shunned from a group for something like that feels a bit unreasonable, IMO.
https://slyflourish.com/running_session_zeros.html
There’s a ton of really useful stuff on this page and some links that are worth a read, especially Monte Cooks’ consent in gaming pdf
A session zero is basically a meeting where the DM and players talk about what kind of campaign they will play, the setting, whether the game will be more combat or RP heavy, whether it will be serious or humorous, topics or themes they’d rather avoid and those they’d like to explore, and maybe a bit about the player characters and how they fit into the story. It’s a good chance to get to know the other players and see whether you’re a good fit for the group.
It harms THAT SPECIFIC PERSON’S ability to enjoy the game. Your group probably enjoys you if you guys play together regularly.
Yeah it’s a “read the room” kind of thing.
There’s a group that would be annoyed by immersion-breaking 4th wall jokes, and there’s another group that would be relieved by the tension and pressure to perform being broken. Everyone’s going to have slightly different comfort levels so there’s always some compromise on the tone of a campaign.
