The relationship-oriented games I'm involved with are, ultimately, of a strongly humorous bent. People are funny on the best of days, after all, and people in love are downright hilarious!

One of my absolute favourite characters has been Sir Tharn. He originated as a thoroughly evil villain, but during the course of the game his alignment turned out to be Gleeful Evil. He was a monster of a man with a complete disregard to human life, but so shameless and casual about it all that you couldn't help but like him and have a good laugh.

My second most memorable humorous character, this time in Cyberpunk 2020, has been Banger, a sociopathic mercenary. The idea was to create a character that is perfectly at home in the urban hells of CP2020. As a result he was a belligerent binge drinker whose first reaction on meeting new people was to pick a fight. Anyone who was on his side he automatically labeled "a buddy", and would henceforth gladly risk life and limb on their behalf. His high point (and end point as well, as befits the genre) in the campaign was when he, all cyberpsychotic misogyny aside, fell in love. To give you an inkling on the relationship, the greatest token of his affections was a bunch of a dozen grenades (with red markings, no less). All perfectly in character, very organic, and incredibly funny!

There seems to be something about mean-spirited bastards that amuses my gaming groups.

Posted by MuadMousePeople are funny on the best of days, after all, and people in love are downright hilarious!

That is right. I don't think I've ever laughed as hard as when my friend's character Sarah, a socially awkward otaku labtechnician, was talking with her crush Harada, a police officer with Asian inheritance. They were talking about anime and manga and Japanise video games and just dancing around eachother, both complitely oblivious about eachother's feelings. It was so frustrating to watch but also hilarious. In the end Sarah ended up thinking that Harada was gay and gave him her gay roommate's phone number. (And of course Harada didn't know that the roommate was gay and thought he was Sarah's boyfriend...)