You know how in the column on “Playing the Opposite Gender,” I went on and on about how you shouldn’t play your characters as if they were cartoons? 

Well, I’m here to tell you there is a time and a place for playing characters that are just great big charicatures. Some games, like Teenagers From Outer Space, Toon, or Ron Edwards’ Elfs demand it! And these games are a blast just for that reason. 

Now, some GMs feel that comedy games do not support a long-running campaign and to an extent I agree. It’s hard to be consistently funny for that long. I can be pretty funny most of the time, but everyone has off days. However, every once in a while it’s good to blow off steam by playing something goofy and bizarre. 

This weekend we played a spoof dungeon crawl. The concept my boy came up with was that there was a Hero strike and monsters were breeding out of control, so we were second-stringers, Scabs if you will, brought in to cross the picket line. We had the super-hot Halfling Cleric with Narcoplepsy and an “affinity for… herbs,” I played a Female Drow, dyslexic, Warrior-Mage who was outraged to be issued a chainmail bikini and two scimitars (her name was B’ob), and a Half-Demon was assigned to be our Paladin, who had to constantly fight with his holy symbol, Sword of Holy Might and Shield of Good. 

Yeah, there wasn’t anywhere this campaign could go but to the fart and dick jokes. 

Samples of the dialogue: 
Clerk:  Here’s your armor.
B’ob:  Is this a chainmail bikini? What the hell? 
Clerk:  Are you female or not?
B’ob:  Well, yes.
Clerk:  Are you considered “hot” for your race?
B’ob:  Well, I guess so, yes.
Clerk:  Then here’s your chainmail bikini, thigh high boots, and two scimitars.
B’ob:  I don’t use scimitars.
Clerk:  Are you a Drow?
B’ob:  Well, yes, but…
Clerk:  Scimitars are standard for all Drow. NEXT.

Highlights of the game consisted of the Halfling cleric having to be “Skyclad” to call on her deity and collapsing because of the Narcolepsy. B’ob attempted to cast “Evan’s Tentacles of Spikey Intrusion”* and wound up casting “Evan’s Testicles of Spiky Protrusion” and wound up with a demon-possessed goblin humping her leg and scratching the hell out of her thigh. And the half-demon Paladin being repeatedly bonked in the head by his weapons whenever he said anything appropriately demon-ish, particularly in reference to my character or the halfling and dog collars. 

We laughed until we cried, and then we laughed some more. 

So, yes, the cartoons do have their place. I love dark, gritty, realistic, spooky, horrific games, but every once in a while you just have to put on that chainmail bikini and lightening bolt a lot of goblins. 

The upswing of the game was the leader of the goblins convinced us how fucked up it was for me and the half-demon to be “Heroes” so we went back and took over the temp agency. The half-demon became CEO and I got to be President, with my own dungeon. 

*I heartily thank “The Order of the Stick” for that spell.