The Last Laugh

Sometimes death is a joke.

Often it's portrayed as the ultimate dramatic ending: cut to a montage of poignant moments from a character's life, cue the violins, render a slow motion sweep across sepia-toned grasslands. You know the deal. Death is a big player, and it has a seat at most of our games. When it starts rolling...

Best not to think of that. Humor, remember? What is at play when we talk about death as a joke, as a punchline, as a well of jokes and puns?

We're talking about character durability: how easily a character can return to normal from physical or mental trauma. Character durability is our cue that yes, everything is going to be ultimately OK so we can laugh at the horrible things happening to this character right now.

Think of classic cartoons. Bugs Bunny gets an anvil dropped on his head, yet moments later, he’s back on his feet, talking about the proper direction to turn at Albuquerque. We're laughing for many reasons, but what opened the gate is knowing Bugs will return in the next scene chomping on a carrot: "What's up Doc?"

Now imagine Bugs Bunny's dramatic doppelganger, Ugs. When Ugs takes an anvil to the head, we are now part of a prestige drama where we examine the effects of the brain trauma inflicted by the anvil. Ugs, once a promising poet, can no longer find the words to express his condition. He loses everything and (hopefully) must triumphantly rebuild a new life for himself as a motivational speaker. Poor Ugs, but…I’m glad to see things are working out, finally.

OK, you might be laughing because I'm being a goof about it, but you see where I'm going, right?

Trauma lasts in a drama, but is ephemeral in a comedy (all good comedies need dramatic element, and all good dramas can use comedic elements, but that's another convo).

So...Death.

Old classics like Toon and Paranoia were my first encounters with TTRPGs utilizing these principles, though it would be many years later until I had the language I am now using. Both games allow us to laugh at fatal events because we know the events are not fatal in a way that is going to end the game or create serious, not-at-all-funny consequences to a character. By making characters capable of returning from death, a game gets a lot of room to make things that are normally awful and irritating kinda hilarious.

I’ve been thinking about humor a lot in TTRPGs because, well…there’s a lot of grimdark around now. I enjoy grimdark immensely, but as a game designer if a game idea of mine has a grimdark concept my next thought is: “Does the world need another one of these?”

Sometimes that answer is yes! But often…nah.

In the TTRPG landscape, we have a lot of “play-to-win” and “play-to-lose”…what about “play-to-laugh”?

I’m working on a game that I will release in early playtest really soon called Death Miners. Initially, it was a very dark, lethal game where death began your spiral into the horrors of slowly becoming undead. Characters would explore haunted dungeons, meet grisly ends, and slowly transform into undead. In one sense, it was kind of cool! But also, it felt that it was driving in a crowded lane. A grimdark game of corruption! Play-to-suffer!

This idea sat on my idea shelf for a few years until this re-imagining hit me:

What if the game was 1000 ways to die meets a gacha game?

In the current version of Death Miners, everyone in the world has become undead because of a ritual cast by BBEG necromancer (who offed himself in the process). Most of the world are trapped in undead monotony and drudgery, but the players have a “spark” of life, freed from the drudgery to find the cure within the necromancer’s immense catacombs.

Here’s the twist: even though players are undead, they can still “die.” But each time they die, they respawn with a new undead form based on the way they met their demise. Death becomes an opportunity for comedic transformation rather than a somber end. The game is being designed for an experience where players die and immediately ask “oooh, what did I get?” They can use their new forms to solve problems creatively. Can’t cross a fiery pit? No problem—jump into the flames and respawn as a fireproof zombie.

By leaning into the absurdity of a grimdark world, Death Miners is aspiring to be grimfun.

Looking forward to telling y’all more about it in the future.