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Post by CharlesX on Dec 10, 2022 13:54:11 GMT
Examples of humour and satire in FF:
Parodical, very stereotyped characters such as obnoxious, officious tax collectors, arrogant monarchs, wizards who are evil as often as they are good, towns where everyone is either trying to con or rob you (part cliche, part self-aware and on purpose).
Racial stereotyping (without becoming borderline racism) elves are intelligent but disdainful, dwarves are loyal but aggressive (the beserker axe in Beneath Nightmare Castle).
School humour (puzzles, visual clues, alternate paths where you can't win but are still well-written, many FF is well-written\researched and long).
Tribute deaths\endings (horror FF such as Legend of The Shadow Warriors, Vampire FFs, later FF).
Gates Of Death can be quite humorous with puns, the Bum-faced Monster, the Highwaymen who kill you even if you give them their gold, and so on.
On the whole FF tends to be slightly po-faced, at least compared to say Knightmare or Doctor Who, but it is not above some humour where Lone Wolf is more straight adventure (from the two or three I've played).
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Post by a moderator on Dec 10, 2022 15:20:13 GMT
There's a decent bit of humour in the listing for Houlgans on page 13 of Star Strider once you understand what they're based on.
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Post by CharlesX on Dec 10, 2022 15:40:04 GMT
There's a decent bit of humour in the listing for Houlgans on page 13 of Star Strider once you understand what they're based on. That reminds me of some of the humour in Sky Lord - it was heavily derivative of Douglas Adams and Monty Python's Life Of Brian. For me it was poor scatology, although I don't doubt Sky Lord has its fans. |
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Post by vastariner on Dec 10, 2022 18:02:31 GMT
Bays' ball...
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Post by CharlesX on Dec 10, 2022 18:05:35 GMT
Wisneyland.
I think there are some other pop culture references in AWFEAR as well.
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Post by vastariner on Dec 10, 2022 21:37:34 GMT
FEAR is full of it because it's really an alt-Earth, hence Michael Blackson's Willer and Georgie Boy and the Vulture Club.
Spectral Stalkers has quite a bit in the opening parts. E.g. the Umbrella being described as an exotic object.
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Post by nathanh on Dec 10, 2022 22:59:08 GMT
Some of the stuff near the end of Sky Lord I thought were pretty funny.
Don't think there's a challenger to Eye of the Dragon when it comes to laugh-out-loud hilarity though.
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Post by King Gillibran on Dec 12, 2022 13:24:14 GMT
Dungles and Draggles from Port of Peril.
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Post by petch on Dec 13, 2022 21:08:31 GMT
On the whole I think the little humour there is in FF tends to be quite low key, but I appreciate it when it's there...as much as I love the series, I agree with Charles X that it can be a little po-faced at times so I usually find it a welcome relief. I can only think of a few occasions when it actually gave me a proper laugh though - Gates' BFM, the bit in Sky Lord's prologue where someone gets a pineapple surgically grafted onto their head (if I remember rightly, the book had actually been fairly serious up to that point, so it felt unexpected before the general wackiness took over), and any of the bits featuring Kilmarney and Hogg in Moonrunner, because they're so fantastically odious, manipulative and untrustworthy.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Dec 15, 2022 5:22:15 GMT
FEAR is full of it because it's really an alt-Earth, hence Michael Blackson's Willer and Georgie Boy and the Vulture Club. Spectral Stalkers has quite a bit in the opening parts. E.g. the Umbrella being described as an exotic object. If I remember rightly, there's a bit in Spectral Stalkers where you are attacked by a robot and given the option of searching for a weapon. If you do so, your character is delighted to find what is clearly a lethal tool marked ...'extinguisher'. On using it, the character is disappointed and alarmed to discover that it shoots neither fire nor bullets, but merely a jet of foam – only to feel vindicated when the foam seeps into the robot's workings causing it to short out.
I find that quite funny, even if it feels a bit inconsistent that your character seems to have a rudimentary idea of what a robot is yet has never heard of a fire extinguisher.
(There's a question about whether it's ever a good idea to have your character's knowledge overtly differ from yours – but that's a topic for another thread.)
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Post by vastariner on Dec 15, 2022 7:15:49 GMT
One of my favourite trivia facts is the first reference to robots in Western literature is in the first work of Western literature. The Iliad refers to self-propelling tables made by the smith-god Hephaistos as a sort of mobile Black & Decker workmate. They are described, literally, as "automata" (self-moving).
Given the existence of golems and sentinels, which are functionally robotic, I could see that a Khulian would at least be accepting of robots, even if they had never seen anything like.
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Post by a moderator on Dec 15, 2022 13:53:08 GMT
even if it feels a bit inconsistent that your character seems to have a rudimentary idea of what a robot is yet has never heard of a fire extinguisher. For the most part the book takes care to avoid giving your character anachronistic knowledge. The robot is referred to as ‘a nightmarish monster’, and while the description makes it clear to the reader that this is a robot, it does so with Titan-appropriate comparisons such as ‘like a giant’s suit of armour’. After the description is complete, the robot audibly reports in to its controllers, identifying itself as “Grappler”, thereby providing a name for the character to use when referring to the robot from then on. Admittedly, the word ‘robot’ does appear in a couple of sections covering what happens if you didn’t arm yourself with Extinguisher. I don’t know if that was a lapse on Darvill-Evans’ part or a clueless editorial imposition, but a mistake like that seems perfectly plausible from the people that would go on to unleash Skill 12 Mudworms onto an unsuspecting world two books later. |
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Dec 15, 2022 22:30:52 GMT
One of my favourite trivia facts is the first reference to robots in Western literature is in the first work of Western literature. The Iliad refers to self-propelling tables made by the smith-god Hephaistos as a sort of mobile Black & Decker workmate. They are described, literally, as "automata" (self-moving). Given the existence of golems and sentinels, which are functionally robotic, I could see that a Khulian would at least be accepting of robots, even if they had never seen anything like. even if it feels a bit inconsistent that your character seems to have a rudimentary idea of what a robot is yet has never heard of a fire extinguisher. For the most part the book takes care to avoid giving your character anachronistic knowledge. The robot is referred to as ‘a nightmarish monster’, and while the description makes it clear to the reader that this is a robot, it does so with Titan-appropriate comparisons such as ‘like a giant’s suit of armour’. After the description is complete, the robot audibly reports in to its controllers, identifying itself as “Grappler”, thereby providing a name for the character to use when referring to the robot from then on. Admittedly, the word ‘robot’ does appear in a couple of sections covering what happens if you didn’t arm yourself with Extinguisher. I don’t know if that was a lapse on Darvill-Evans’ part or a clueless editorial imposition, but a mistake like that seems perfectly plausible from the people that would go on to unleash Skill 12 Mudworms onto an unsuspecting world two books later. That's interesting about automata in the Iliad. For me though the problem wasn't really the idea of animated metal or mechanical entities, or even the word 'robot' (after all the first 'robots' were living things) but more the reference to electronics. I had misremembered it as being on the extinguisher path, that is that the foam is explicitly seeping into circuits, but it's if you take a sword to it: "Whenever you succeed in hitting it, roll a die: if you roll a 5 or a 6, you have managed to strike near a vital electronic circuit, and the Grappler's SKILL is reduced by 3 points" |
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kieran
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Post by kieran on Dec 16, 2022 0:26:48 GMT
"Whenever you succeed in hitting it, roll a die: if you roll a 5 or a 6, you have managed to strike near a vital electronic circuit, and the Grappler's SKILL is reduced by 3 points" I think that bit of text is aimed at the player rather than their character as its explaining the mechanics of the combat. So although the character shouldn't know what an electronic circuit is,the player would. Just as the character probably doesn't think of the Grappler's combat prowess in terms of Skill points. |
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Post by bloodbeasthandler on Dec 17, 2022 16:28:45 GMT
Talisman of Death - what unfolds in the pub if you are wearing the brass tiger charm is a good example of humour done well.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Dec 17, 2022 17:12:07 GMT
"Whenever you succeed in hitting it, roll a die: if you roll a 5 or a 6, you have managed to strike near a vital electronic circuit, and the Grappler's SKILL is reduced by 3 points" I think that bit of text is aimed at the player rather than their character as its explaining the mechanics of the combat. So although the character shouldn't know what an electronic circuit is,the player would. Just as the character probably doesn't think of the Grappler's combat prowess in terms of Skill points. Well it may be, but if so it's a mistake in my view. In FF books you are the hero – the one and only you! – and the author should be trying to keep the reader immersed in that idea. The book has to inform you of stat changes etc because that's how the game works and gamebooks trade in a bit of immersion for other things like agency. But having "...you managed to strike near a vital electronic circuit..." where the description is supposed to be helping you visualise 'you' damaging the robot even though that 'you' doesn't know how a robot works is unhelpful.
Why not "...if you roll a 5 or a 6, there is a shower of sparks and one of the Grappler's tentacles goes limp – reduce its SKILL by 3 points" leaving the real world you to make inferences about the electronics if you are so inclined?
Anyway this has got quite a lot more involved than I expected/intended. It was probably a mistake to add the 'inconsistent' line to my post.
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Post by natwa on Dec 22, 2022 21:44:47 GMT
I second Spectral Stalkers for humour and I'd say that there's plenty of funny moments and encounters in that book. In addition to the encounter already mentioned, I think the encounter with the dragon librarian, the inventor in the same extradimensional space and the "disenchanter" inventor later on are among the many encounters that are funny or at least include their share of funny moments. In fact, out of the original line of FFhttps://fightingfantazine.proboards.com/post/new/1515 books I'd say that Spectral Stalkers is the least po-faced and most funny, in the sense of being humorous and for the quality of the humour.
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Post by hallucination on Dec 28, 2022 15:46:36 GMT
Ignatius Pommfritte (Chasms of Malice) made me chuckle …
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Post by vastariner on Dec 28, 2022 15:56:51 GMT
Ignatius Pommfritte (Chasms of Malice) made me chuckle … It would have done, had it not been for the near-guaranteed outcome that, before long, the PC will have had his chips. |
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