Hendrik Biweekly: What's so funny about a coin flip? Comedy in Going for Broke
When I read Avery Alder's new game, I was reminded of a blog by Sam Dunnewold from a couple of years ago. You see, Alder designed a comedy game called Going for Broke, about a cast of housemates trying to scramble together some cash after they’re surprised by an unforeseen expense. (It's funding on Backerkit at time of writing.)
What took me back was the literal coin flip her game uses to determine the success of the cast’s plans, because a swingy resolution mechanic is a key ingredient of Dunnewold’s argument about what makes Dungeons & Dragons so suitable for comedy.
‘Few other games make it so easy to completely check out of how any of these stupid rules work and let you focus entirely on your Gardetto’s and memes,’ writes Dunnewold in Dungeons & Dragons is a Comedy Game, taking care to mention that all the rules business is delegated to D&D’s Dungeon Master role. The game’s load-bearing diceroll, though, is a different story:
What people do remember is the core mechanic, the d20 roll, and that roll is laden with comedy. Tradition dictates that you have a 5% chance on any given roll of a WILD AND CRAZY SUCCESS, like stopping a war with a single rousing speech. And also, on every single roll, a 5% chance of a FAILURE SO EMBARRASSING AND HORRIFIC that you, a veteran of hundreds of battles, may very well trip and fall straight onto your own sword.
I might go one step further: even without critical intensifiers, the binary results of this mechanic already introduce a chance at comedy. The contrast is just so big already. Both trivial pursuits and moments that should spotlight a character’s key competency, can take a sharp turn—a 180 in fact. You slip and land on your ass, or the king dismisses your heartfelt speech, bored of rhetoric, and asks his jester for advice instead.
Playing with contrast, and also anticipation, is key to creating situational comedy, advises Alder. ‘Don’t try to be funny,’ she writes. This game is not going for quippy canned laughter, like say, Two Broke Girls. Alder wants the characters of her game to play off of each other. Thus, she advises players to play it straight, to create patterns, to play with repetition, and to delay the inevitable as long as possible.
This way, Alder writes, you 'offer another player the perfect setup' to show who their character is in contrast—how weird, foolish, neurotic, aggressive, naive, or even funny they are, 'even if they’re just saying the next obvious thing.' Comedy, here, is not in coming up with a one-liner on your own. In Going for Broke, comedy emerges from the characters encountering each other's ideosyncracies. It emerges, to put it bluntly, from the situations the characters get into.
When I first read the game's advice, I wondered if it was compensating for something. Shouldn’t the game itself guide me towards playing with contrast and anticipation? Preparing this newsletter I first of all realized that Going for Broke does support and guide players towards situational comedy. Second of all, I’ve connected the thought itself to a kind of dogma I seem to hold about role-playing, namely that a good game should, purely mechanicaly, compel its players to play it well. But that's something to unpack another time.
So how does a coin flip guide play towards anticipation and contrast? Well, first you’ll have to get the coin. To do that, you’ll play towards the ‘classic question’ of your character. Each of the game’s twelve characters comes with their own. Hush is a hip-hop artist and details custom cars. Their question is: ‘Are you Baddie, or Baby?’ Beth is a pro thrifter and an amateur mycologist. Their question is: ‘Are you Sophisticated, or a Scuzzy Goblin?’ Once you play a scene that confirms which way the character skews this episode, you can grab a coin from the pile. Mushrooms are a great opportunity for comedy, especially if you don’t really know what you’re doing.
There’s a little more to these characters, but not too much. The classic question makes sure you keep playing to type—or directly against it. In Alder’s words: ‘if you’re playing as Hush, every situation is an opportunity to demonstrate that you’re either a fierce, flawless baddie or a lovable, vulnerable baby.’ Either way, you’ll be a distinct presence the others can contrast with to try and get their own coin.
And once someone has a coin, they can attempt to resolve the plot. That’s the A or B plot, of course. After the episode’s central problem is introduced—Brittany skipped town before paying rent, a plumbing issue floods the basement—the cast breaks up into two groups, each with their own plan to score some cash.
When you play out an action that could conceivably make your plan succeed, you flip your coin. It’s up in the air, and your foolish scheme or brilliant idea can only go two ways. It’s killing or bombing, victory or fiasco, success or failure. And it’s not just your plot that’s on the line. Once one plot succeeds, the fate of the other is sealed as well—it’s cooked. True to serialized television, ‘the two plots cancel out so that at the end of the episode, the roommates are right back where they started: barely getting by.’
On heads, the episode is resolved in one big swing. On tails your plot twists. You lose your coin and an unexpected development throws the plan off course. You don’t have to squint to see how this resembles a critical failure, right? Plus, this is exactly what delaying the inevitable means. Now, the other team has a chance to flip for their success. And if their plot twists too, you’re only one flip away from the end. Flipping tails a second time dooms your plan, and hands the win to team B.
The fun thing is, I think, that you really could go either way. Even if you’re flipping to win—there is a comradely competition to these split plots—doesn’t that make it even more fun to lose? You just got invested into a 50/50 coin flip! But more realistically, I think you’re flipping to find out. How does this mess resolve? Why can’t these people catch a break? What contrast will this episode end on?
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