Incline RPGs with the Best Humor

[Falksi]

Story, gameplay, atmosphere etc. All important elements to an RPG, but I have a real weak spot for RPGs which give me genuine laughs and include good banter. I love how good humor grounds an RPG, and I'd say that it's this factor which attaches me to a game more than anything. In fact some pretty ropey or average games can be very enjoyable if they contain good humor.

So which games fall into that category for you?

Off the top of my head, those which hit that sweet spot for me are:

• Baldur's Gate 1 & 2 - Plenty of funny moments throughout both (although it's been ages since I played 1, so I may be crossing over which funny bit fits in which game). Lilarcor and Minsc annoy some, but I think they are fucking brilliant.

• Risen 2 - "Fuck Yeah!" Some crackingly cheeky dialogue here. Jaffars intro conversation is a stand out moment in modern RPGs for me, and the way they've sneakily crammed mild racism and sexism into the game is brilliant.

• Phantasy Star 4 - Incredible that a game so old has better writing and banter than 90% of RPGs released since. Says a lot that so many other JRPGs from the era have had countless re-writes, yet this still holds up in it's original form.

• Dragon's Age: Origins - Some fantastic party banter here, especially between Alistair and Morrigan.

• Tales of Berseria - This really nails it's party banter fantastically. Proper gives it a family-feel, and breaks up the game lovely.

• Nier - Grimoire Wiess is brilliant.

 

[Wunderbar]

Drinking quest from KCD
Drinking quest from The Witcher 3
Inconsequential debates from Kingmaker

 

[distant]

I recently played West of Loathing and even though it wasn't laugh out loud hilarious all the time, it was charming and I was smiling through most of it.

 

[MpuMngwana]

Oblivion obviously

 

[naleth]

• Fallout 1 - when you speak with Super Mutant lieutenant that describes plan to change all humans into super-mutants as "simple, efficient, glorious" and later you realize that all this plan will fail anyway because super-mutants are sterile
• Arcanum - conversation between Virgil and Nasrudin
  
• Witcher 3 - party at Kaer Morhen

 

[lukaszek]

 

[Dorateen]

Cleve's humor in Grimoire: Heralds of the Winged Exemplar is a sublime combination of wit and over the top slapstick comedy.

Magus Tremestes' book collection comes to mind, as well as his reaction to Little Rosy being in the party or when the party demands a refund for the Museum of Magic.

 

[plem]

Disco Elysium
Stefan Gagne's NWN modules
all the Divinity games
Drakensang

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

 

[Ryzer]

Drinking quest from KCD
Drinking quest from The Witcher 3
Inconsequential debates from Kingmaker

No Witcher 1 booze banter mention?

 

[Falksi]

Disco Elysium
Stefan Gagne's NWN modules
all the Divinity games
Drakensang

Can't believe I didn't put Divinity 2: TDKS. Some fantastic humour in that beauty.

 

[Nortar]

Most decent RPGs have at least some funny moments.
It would be harder to find one without any humor at all.
I guess Age of Decadence is generally too somber and above making jokes, but even there you could die laughing at Miltiades encounter.

But one game that is supposed to be a comedy, tryhards at humor and fails miserably is Grotesque Tactics.

 

[Humbaba]

Dragonfall had this one moment where the guy asks you something along the lines of "Are you fucking high?" and you can answer with "Yes, but that's besides the point" and that made me lol quite jewishly heartily.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Divinity 2.
I mean the real Divinity 2, not the one that floods search engines when you try to look it up.

 

[markec]

Dink Smallwood, also:

 

[Lord_Potato]

All the Witchers
Disco Elysium
Planescape: Torment (Morte)
Probably both Southpark games, though I did not play them yet

 

[Humanophage]

Disco Elysium has some nice jokes. I like this one where the socialist boss Evrart tries to seduce the fascist protagonist by slapping some aesthetics onto Evrart's socialist project. It's somewhat deep because to him, it's a silly superficial concession. However, the aesthetisation of politics would actually make it distinctly fascist and transform its nature. It's also nice from the character development perspective. The problem with Evrart is that he introduced so many "superficial" "superstructural" elements into his socialism that he is essentially a mafia boss. In general, adventure games have good humour.

South Park: the Stick of Truth.

Dungeon Cleaners is slightly funny at times, but it's too hit-and-miss. It has odd situations like this that you don't expect to see in a game (turn on the captions):


On the other hand, the more typical humour like you'd find in Divinity games is a little annoying and unnecessary. I also don't enjoy humour that is mostly a reference to something else, especially when it does not fit the context. For example, the Korgoth joke in ATOM in the middle of a serious quest was cringey. At the same time, the Stalinist/Prokhanov jokes were OK because they fit with the narrative.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Disco Elysium has some nice jokes. I like this one where the socialist boss Evrart tries to seduce the fascist protagonist by slapping some aesthetics onto Evrart's socialist project. It's somewhat deep because to him, it's a silly superficial concession. However, the aesthetisation of politics would actually make it distinctly fascist and transform its nature. It's also nice from the character development perspective. The problem with Evrart is that he introduced so many "superficial" "superstructural" elements into his socialism that he is essentially a mafia boss. In general, adventure games have good humour.

no offense, but did you mean to string these words together in this way or did you just randomly organize them?

 

[Ulysa]

The one and only HK47, I mean KOTOR

 

[AbounI]

Most decent RPGs have at least some funny moments.
It would be harder to find one without any humor at all.
I guess Age of Decadence is generally too somber and above making jokes, but even there you could die laughing at Miltiades encounter.

But one game that is supposed to be a comedy, tryhards at humor and fails miserably is Grotesque Tactics.

Definitly, AoD makes lots of joke, thanks to the fact it's heavy text based. You're right about Miltiades, but you should pay attention to some dialogs (ask to fight the rats in the old tower's cellar of Teron), death screens (the one against Belgutai being my favorite I would say) or even in many descriptions.

Death against Belgutai:

Belgutai smirks, spits, and goes back to his tent. The smug bastard doesn't even celebrate his victory as if it means nothing to him. Fucking savage.
Too dumb to realize that he just killed the greatest warrior who's ever lived. Well, maybe not the greatest, but top five for sure. If only he knew how many people you killed, he'd definitely show you more respect. Maybe even have the decency to kill himself.
Someone throws a stone at you.
Fantastic!
Just when you thought that this day couldn't get any better... The third stone knocks you out. You never wake up.

 

[curds]

Anachronox and Arcanum have their moments.

 

[Kruyurk]

 

[Black Angel]

Underrail, specifically with Dude, and the update to his quest greatly elevates the comedic moments with him to eleven. But the peak's gotta be the banter between Ladelmann and Marcus; dare I say, they're the sole reason for anyone to stick with the Expedition.

• Arcanum - conversation between Virgil and Nasrudin

Iirc, Raven and Magnus would banter quite often, the way the usual Dwarf vs Elves tropes goes. I can't exactly remember if they have any kinds of comedic moments, but there's got to be some for them to be quite memorable for me.

 

[Duraframe300]

There's only one true answer