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(08-21-2015, 01:25 PM)Intaki Wrote:(08-21-2015, 12:57 PM)Ignacius Wrote: If one person thought Scott was funny out of 10 and most simply put him on ignore because his jokes aren't funny, not only is the character not "funny" no matter how much the player wants him to be, he's probably not funny because the player isn't really that funny.This seems rather arbitrary.
If nine people don't think Scott is witty, but one person does think Scott is witty, then the only conclusion we can reach is that Scott is witty (but only to a certain segment of the population).
You can not simply accept the opinion of the majority as fact simply because the majority hold that opinion. You most certainly can not do so in a subjective realm such as humor or wit.
Well, unfortunately, "witty" is hugely subjective and it is therefore determined by the audience. Â One out of ten people might think Orrin Hatch is funny, that doesn't make Orrin Hatch funny.
And, very tellingly, if I told you Orrin Hatch is funny, that DEFINITELY doesn't make him funny.
It's not arbitrary (if anything, what I said was entirely related to proportion, so by definition it isn't arbitrary).
Give you an example.  If I say I'm going to play a "witty" character.  I show up and someone tells my character off.  If my response was, "lol u dumb, suk it", not a single person in this thread is going to say that's a witty response.  It doesn't get better if I write, Character A tells you off in a biting way that humbles you. No one in a group setting is going to buy that.
In neither case would it be made better by insisting that the character is witty because, and this is important, that's metagaming. Â And that means that, even in physical reactions, you cannot impose an expectation upon the audience. Â It's certainly not going to happen in a conversational context.
Now, you can find some wiggle room, but wit and humor DO have definitions and they are 100% developed by reception. Â And the above examples weren't provided for hyperbole, I'm using a pair of examples that we, as RPers, understand completely as being insufficient for wit or humor. Â That's entirely subjective, because there ARE people who would find both of those to be sufficient. Â However, in an open RP setting, neither of those is acceptable.
It's no different if someone's character says "You don't stand a chance"Â and the response is, Character A laughs, "Fool, I have something for you to suck on!" Â It's no more witty. Â We certainly recognize it as not being witty. Â And having someone try to pass that off as wit is a failure.
Here's the point of all of this, this is all absolutely true no matter whether the player was sincere in his attempt or not.  Humor and wit, if they're based on any one thing, are not based on the intent of the speaker.  It does not matter whether that was the best the player could do or if the player intentionally meant for the other players to recognize the bad flub of wit to show his characters' lack of intelligence, we recognize that the statement lacks wit.  We, as an audience, define that as being witless, humorless, and pretty much groan-worthy whether it was intentional or not.
Now, you're not likely to get 100% of people to call it that (I'm sure there are some people playing CoD where that's considered particularly acute) and you'll never get 100% of people to universally agree on anything (I hear there are people who don't like the Painkiller album). Â But we do define that, and that means that the relative wit of a person can be limited. Â That limit is set by our wit. Â We decide what poor, average, and genius are based on whether we find it pathetic, we could do that, or we still have no idea where they got last thirty seconds of awesome statements.
Certainly, if the most intelligent people disappeared from the face of the Earth, things will be considered genius that are considered pedestrian today, and that's one of the reasons why trying to intentionally play wit is such a risk. Â Because you can fail spectacularly, and your failure will be determined by your audience, not your intention.