Ah, the very best games I've played and ran have this quality of sharing joking/serious times! Try making a mental separation between the situations. Join in on the jokes! When you are ready to get back to the serious stuff, a simple, "Alright, let's get back to the story..."
If its really difficult to separate the two, talk about it a little beforehand. Tell the group that joking and enjoying yourselves is PART of the fun, but that you'd also like to have a serious effort at the story itself. If everyone is on the same page, it will probably be easier.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
We've had a similar experience to you - when we dip into silly/humorous for a while, it tends to quickly spiral so that nothing in the campaign matters anymore (including the PCs). Perhaps it's worth making a clear distinction between comic relief characters and everyone else who will always be serious/respond in character.
I think another thing worth looking at is that comedic moments doesn't need to include "joke" in character comments. That was one of the killers for us - people insulting the king or mocking some potential patron and then immediately saying "I don't really say that, of course".
For our group, we also tended to get carried away with silly nicknames for NPCs/places/deities. Once that gets entrenched, I've found the players never really treat that entity with respect.
I'd recommend listening to a couple of episodes of the Glass Cannon Podcast. In my opinion, this is something they do exceptionally well - they have serious moments of roleplaying but they also regularly dip into joking around (both in character and at a more meta level). They also break both of the suggestions I made above, but they still manage it well.
We often ask questions to which we already know the answers but are having trouble coming to grips with the answer.
It sounds like you don't like the dynamic and want to change it.
So change it.
Easier said than done. Many of us have a joking personality. It's how we relate. We find it funny. It comes naturally. As DM, you need to set the tone and prepare yourself mentally to be serious. Players usually follow suit. Be prepared also to slip and joke and have fun. I am in the same boat with you and want to run a serious campaign. However, it wouldn't be a session between friends if someone didn't sing The Final Countdown and someone didn't declare someone's power was over 9000 or ask, "Do flowers grow here?" in an Austrian accent. We get it out of our systems and move on. There is no perfection.
I have a lot of luck by GMing as the straight man.
What I mean by that is that my campaign notes, adventure outlines, etc. are all written seriously. I plan the game as though it is a serious fantasy campaign and let the PCs add the comedy.
This allows for zany moments as the PCs do wacky things. At the same time, however, since the setting/adventure is designed in a serious manner, there's room to snap back to something more dramatic when appropriate.