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This thread is for discussion of this week's Making Magic, which goes live Monday morning on magicthegathering.com.

Attempted suicide? That there's comedy gold, MaRo. 

This was really uneven. You actually had me rooting FOR unifying similar mechanics together instead of respecting them separately.   

You're actually going with the suicide joke? Super classy.

I was gonna say "in b4 sui joke outrage", but I'm too late.

I almost went in that direction, too, but I think the idea of "evolving design technology" is solid. 

Having everything united as super-mechanics would be bad for the game in the long run, since it would be progressively get remember how different cards work. If everything was just kicker you could end up with:

A: "I'll play my Vines of the Vastwood, kicked."
B:"Does that mean you can copy it a bunch of times, get an extra effect added on, or is it one of those ones from Lorwyn where you get an elemental, too?"

Subdividing helps keep things mentally organized. And if you've come up with a new twist on an old thing, and you think it can stand on its own, better to let it be its own thing rather than weigh it down with the baggage from an old mechanic.

Feb 19, 2012 -- 9:47PM, Amarsir wrote:

I was gonna say "in b4 sui joke outrage", but I'm too late.

I'm not really outraged, I just don't think that an article on Magic design really is the right forum for such a joke/comment. I know that the article has the theme of a support group, and obviously suicides happen, with support groups to help people through them, but I just didn't feel right about having it there.

Despite all this, I did enjoy the article as a whole.

I don't think the joke added anything here. That's the worst thing, IMO. 

 

Feb 19, 2012 -- 9:57PM, TakOZ wrote:

I almost went in that direction, too, but I think the idea of "evolving design technology" is solid. 

Having everything united as super-mechanics would be bad for the game in the long run, since it would be progressively get remember how different cards work. If everything was just kicker you could end up with:

A: "I'll play my Vines of the Vastwood, kicked."
B:"Does that mean you can copy it a bunch of times, get an extra effect added on, or is it one of those ones from Lorwyn where you get an elemental, too?"

"I counter that spell." 

"Is that the counter I can pay mana to save, the counter that works like Spell Blast , or does it straight-out counter anything?" 

Multi-kicker is essentially what I think the Mega-Mechanics should look like. Each variant has a subtitle with the base keyword that explains how it's different. Entwine could be "Kickboth", Buyback could be "Kickback", and Replicate could be "Kickmore".

Actually, those are terrible names, and so is Kicker. There's you argument: new mechanics because new names are better!       
 

I, too, was offended by the suicide joke.

Also, did anyone else want to punch Entwine in the face? Seriously, the "don't mention the name" joke got old almost immediately, yet it kept coming up again and again. "Mr. K", seriously?

Feb 19, 2012 -- 10:12PM, Alter_Boy wrote:

Multi-kicker is essentially what I think the Mega-Mechanics should look like. Each variant has a subtitle with the base keyword that explains how it's different. Entwine could be "Kickboth", Buyback could be "Kickback", and Replicate could be "Kickmore".

Actually, those are terrible names, and so is Kicker. There's you argument: new mechanics because new names are better!       
 

All I can think about now is what Magic would look like if every mechanic was named like that.

Evoke="Kickelemental"

Splice="Cardkick"

Reinforce="Countercycling Counter(notspells,like,thethingsyouputoncreatures)cycling"

Horsemanship="Otherflying"

Infect="Poisonwither"

Undying = "Persis+1/+1"

I think all those names sound doubleplusgood to me TakOZ. 

I felt like the article meandered and had so many characters that I'm left with no clue how MaRo actually feels about the subject. I laughed that this ran side by side with the feature article talking about MaRo prefering to be gimmicky with his articles.

It needed to be much shorter and have about half as many characters in order to function effectively. The information was there, but it was definitely buried pretty far under the artsyness. 

The article read the way "people" actually talk in a large group, which is going to be a meandering conversation.
And, of course, Entwine is whiny, he's probably the 3rd most Kicker like mechanic there is. I thought his insecurity was funny but of course it could be annoying too.
I personally loved this one and I would love to see the Colors' meeting.

Been a while since we've had one of these, huh.

Yes yes, everything's just kicker again. I think we've heard this before. Except now with suicide jokes.

I've liked some of your previous artsy stuff though, I CC Dead People was great, and the IM one with the colors going to a party was pretty funny. Something about this one just felt a bit off.

Feb 19, 2012 -- 11:21PM, MaxFAn wrote:

Something about this one just felt a bit off.

I was reading the support group session, looking for a point to this whole article,  when I finally found this statement by Entwine:

Their job is to take a game that fundamentally stays the same and make it feel different.

Yes, there's a oid()" keyvalue="Giant_Growth" keyname="name">Giant Growth and a oid()" keyvalue="Lightning_Bolt" keyname="name">Lightning Bolt and whatever every set.

The game stays the same.

Design has to create the appearance of change.

The reason they keep making mechanics like us is that they want to create mechanics that feel a little different.

Yes, I could be Mr. K, but then all that does is make me feel less special.



 I find it sad that Design feels this way.  In the old world order, where R&D based sets around an aspect of the game (such as a certain resource, or an aspect of gameplay), you could actually build decks that risked going against game axioms in favor of possible gains that the set gave you.  You could try to exploit synergies that the designers created.  You could try to go for Hellbent or see how much you could level up your creatures.

  With the new world order, it seems like the desginers have given up.  They're not even trying to challenge players with regard to creature efficiency or card advantage.  You just play bigger bombs than the opponent and win.  It's too simple, and it boils down to being either nerveracking or outright boring.

The solution to all this is to make me feel like I'm playing with actual factions as opposed to just playing with cards.

Mark Rosewater, you are a genius.

Yes the suicide joke was a little jarring, but remember, we are talking about a game where things are sacrifed to dark gods, hacked apart on the battlefield, and even eaten by their neighbours.

One thing I would like to know about "Undying", is whether it got its name after they had the idea to shorten "put into the graveyard from the battlefield" to "dies", or the other way around. (Same question for Path to Exile really - did that inspire the change, or was it designed to make the change easier to accept?)

~ Tim

"My take on this is that if you just think of the players as idiots it's a lot easier to handle." Mark Rosewater

Brilliant, absolutly laugh out loud funny!  I have just read this at work and one of my colleagues has said "whatever you're reading must be good you keep laughing."

Are people honestly offended by the undying suicide joke?  Really?  I think you need to have a long look at your sense of homour and find out who gave it a by-pass?

The idea of Kic... er sorry, as he will be known from now on "Mr K" as being the envy of so many mechanics - priceless.  I do my fair share of ranting at MaRo when I see another card which doesn't work anywhere but this article is just pure gold.

Mr Rosewater I salute you...

So this is like the minutes sheet somebody wrote down (like a court stenographer) during the group? I think that's the idea he's going off of for the format.

neat article (especially with the "artsy" comments in the feature article on the same day)

The graphics were a bit poor quality, though.  Font size and type were not consistant throughout, and a name was even left out at one point, making the comments not read very well/attributed to the wrong mechanic...

And no, I wasn't offended by the suicide joke, but it def. wasn't needed.

Feb 20, 2012 -- 2:45AM, Senyuno wrote:

So this is like the minutes sheet somebody wrote down (like a court stenographer) during the group? I think that's the idea he's going off of for the format.

I think it's supposed to look more like a screenplay, although the formatting's a little different than what I'm used to.

As for the suicide joke, I didn't have a problem with it. It's not like anyone's going "Haha! Suicide! What a riot!", it's just MaRo having fun with the idea of an anthropomorphized mechanic that revives creatures when they die. The humor comes from the situation, not from the idea of suicide in general.

Feb 20, 2012 -- 2:37AM, Lendorian wrote:

Brilliant, absolutly laugh out loud funny!  I have just read this at work and one of my colleagues has said "whatever you're reading must be good you keep laughing."

Are people honestly offended by the undying suicide joke?  Really?  I think you need to have a long look at your sense of homour and find out who gave it a by-pass?

Me too, I found it mosty funny
Maybe not ROTFL, LFMAO funny, but quite funny anyway...

And, to all people offended by the suicide joke, I urge you to be also offended by Vanishing who vanishes at half-the-meeting ("typical") and by Replicate having to replicate his own sentence ("I think you're thinking of this backwards. Undying?" "What?" "I think you're thinking of it backwards"). ^__^

As for people saying that there were too much mechanincs at the meeting, making it too much crowded, I answer that not only it matches the disorder of a real-life support-group meeting (as it's been correctly said in this thread), but, most importantly, it matches the actual chaos of the umpteen thousands mechanics actually existing in Magic. Have you never heard a less-expert friend complaining about not remembering how a certain mechanic works or about confusing a mechanic with another one? No? Well, then welcome to real Magic world and to a complexity problem that I am sure people at Wizards keep under constant scrutiny...

Feb 20, 2012 -- 2:37AM, Lendorian wrote:

Are people honestly offended by the undying suicide joke?  Really?  I think you need to have a long look at your sense of homour and find out who gave it a by-pass?

Whoa man, you're so right. I was just gearing up to be offended, but then I took a step back and realized that people killing themselves is hilarious. Thank you.

the suicide joke was very jarring for me. it's too bad it was included, because it's hard for me to focus on the article because of the lingering discomfort that the suicide joke had on me.

when people bring up suicide in a support group, their hope is that it would be treated in a serious way.. or in a compassionate way. it hurts when people treat it as if it's "no big deal". it feels like this article was trying to get a cheap laugh from the topic of suicide. it brough to mind my own struggles with suicidal thoughts (and close to an attempt) in my life ... through a joke making fun of all the troubling issues and pain i was struggling with.

maybe the topic of suicide /could/ be funny (maybe??), but it really, really didn't work in this context.



i was actually really looking forward to enjoying the article. i think a lot of interesting dynamics/insights could have been brought out. it's just so hard to focus on that with the jarring suicide joke lingering in the back of my mind.

I enjoyed it, but then again I have a lot of sympathy for Entwine, and wish it would be printed again.  That may be because I played with Entwine before ever playing with Kicker.

All in all, pretty funny, and it got the point across.

I enjoyed that the background "paper" image was different from page to page.  Nice touch.

jokes about political correctness offend me
in the name of political correctness, I demand that noone ever dares to make fun of politicial correctness again

Feb 20, 2012 -- 4:37AM, Mata_Hari wrote:

Feb 20, 2012 -- 2:37AM, Lendorian wrote:

Are people honestly offended by the undying suicide joke?  Really?  I think you need to have a long look at your sense of homour and find out who gave it a by-pass?

Whoa man, you're so right. I was just gearing up to be offended, but then I took a step back and realized that people killing themselves is hilarious. Thank you.

Very well put.  I found the joke jarring and not very funny.  Black humor about suicide can be funny if it's set up properly (e.g., Groundhog Day) but this was just poorly timed, which made it feel icky.

Whatevs, they can't all be winners. 

the suicide joke was funny cause his mechanic works against it. and all of you feeling offended by it are reading more into it than there is. I wonder do you also feel offended when a games ask you to kill another player? wars are not funny you know. or fun for that matter.

I was kinda hoping that Banding would pop his head in at the end and tell some of them that their next meeting was about ready to kick off.

Feb 20, 2012 -- 5:56AM, mtgraptor wrote:

the suicide joke was funny cause his mechanic works against it. and all of you feeling offended by it are reading more into it than there is. I wonder do you also feel offended when a games ask you to kill another player? wars are not funny you know. or fun for that matter.

The glorification of war is a problem across all forms of media, yes.

I don't really understand how you can claim we're 'reading more into it than there is'. It's a joke about suicide. A suicide joke, if you will.

Feb 20, 2012 -- 4:37AM, Mata_Hari wrote:

Feb 20, 2012 -- 2:37AM, Lendorian wrote:

Are people honestly offended by the undying suicide joke?  Really?  I think you need to have a long look at your sense of homour and find out who gave it a by-pass?

Whoa man, you're so right. I was just gearing up to be offended, but then I took a step back and realized that people killing themselves is hilarious. Thank you.

Really, the problem you have with that isn't that he ended a statement with a question mark? For some reason that's the one thing I hate the most. Oh well. I have a rather black sense of humor and I didn't really think the suicide thing was funny. Not because I was offeneded, I just don't think the set-up for it was all to great. Like HavelockVetinari said, it definitely can be hilarious, like seeing Bill Murray test the failing point of the human body repeatedly, out of sheer boredom, but I don't think the set-up was really there. Which is a shame, 'cause I get how it could have been and where he was going with it. Anyway, overall I think the article was a waste of time, Entwine and the whole Mr. K thing (which had me thinking of it as a female with an insanely thick NYC accent the whole time, probably 'cause Mr. K sounds like Mr. J, I think it made me think of Harley Quinn from Batman) were both extremely annoying and given that I didn't find it funny I think this could have just been a one paragraph answer to a player letter instead of a full length article.

Feb 20, 2012 -- 6:35AM, Mata_Hari wrote:

Feb 20, 2012 -- 5:56AM, mtgraptor wrote:

the suicide joke was funny cause his mechanic works against it. and all of you feeling offended by it are reading more into it than there is. I wonder do you also feel offended when a games ask you to kill another player? wars are not funny you know. or fun for that matter.

The glorification of war is a problem across all forms of media, yes.

I don't really understand how you can claim we're 'reading more into it than there is'. It's a joke about suicide. A suicide joke, if you will.

I wonder do you find something like Ahmed the dead terrorist funny ?

The subject of a joke is rarely the crux of the joke.  To wit, "the world's funniest joke"

Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn't seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy whips out his phone and calls the emergency services. He gasps, "My friend is dead! What can I do?" The operator says "Calm down. I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead." There is a silence, then a gun shot is heard. Back on the phone, the guy says "OK, now what?"

"Haha murder", right?  No, the humor is misunderstanding the meaning of "make sure" in a way no one ever would.

The joke in MaRo's article is on personification.  Silly anthropomorphized mechanic didn't realize how he works.  You're not supposed to laugh at unfortunate events, but at the juxtaposition of normally tragic in contrary context.  Most people get this innately, but quite willingly ignore it to go "boo!  Do you know how many farmers are killed every year pursuing runaway chickens across roadways?"

That said, if a subject is too touchy for a person it doesn't matter what the meaning is because the reference overrides the context. Reading this article I got a chuckle, but knew it would bother people because suicide is too touchy to throw around like that.  So either Mark decided that he liked it enough to go for it anyway (which is respectable), or he really doesn't know his audience.

i liked it. it was very well written

Feb 20, 2012 -- 7:34AM, mtgraptor wrote:

I wonder do you find something like Ahmed the dead terrorist funny ?

No because I'm not a racist idiot child.

Horsemanship "introduced" itself twise.

Also, stop you're whining - really?

About that suicide pun... Guys, you play a game whose goal is to ****ing murder your opponent. Assassinate.

Also, the offended is always wrong, not the offensive. But that's just me.

You will all become terrible spouse.

Feb 20, 2012 -- 7:59AM, Mata_Hari wrote:

Feb 20, 2012 -- 7:34AM, mtgraptor wrote:

I wonder do you find something like Ahmed the dead terrorist funny ?

No because I'm not a racist idiot child.

I rest my case

This conversation reminds me of when my mother heard Weird Al's 'Trigger Happy' for the first time and asked me how I could like a song about killing and shooting people. The double-take I did then is pretty much identical to the one I did here. Yes, in real life suicide is a tragic, serious business and making jokes about a suicide is emotionally devastating to the victim's surviving family, friends, and often community at large. But as Amarsir says, the joke here isn't about suicide--it's about the function of the mechanic. It's the same joke as Vanishing disappearing and Replicate repeating itself, only applied to Undying.

But hey, I'm someone who found emotional comfort in Steven Lynch's song 'Grandfather' (language warning) after my grandfather passed away--what do I know?

Feb 20, 2012 -- 9:05AM, mtgraptor wrote:

I rest my case

I really don't understand what case you're putting to rest here; I take pride in not being a racist idiot child.

Feb 20, 2012 -- 9:14AM, zammm wrote:

This conversation reminds me of when my mother heard Weird Al's 'Trigger Happy' for the first time and asked me how I could like a song about killing and shooting people. The double-take I did then is pretty much identical to the one I did here. Yes, in real life suicide is a tragic, serious business and making jokes about a suicide is emotionally devastating to the victim's surviving family, friends, and often community at large. But as Amarsir says, the joke here isn't about suicide--it's about the function of the mechanic. It's the same joke as Vanishing disappearing and Replicate repeating itself, only applied to Undying.

Honestly, if the joke hurts those who have contemplated/attempted suicide, isn't that enough? Wouldn't it be better to avoid dredging that back up for them?

Feb 20, 2012 -- 9:52AM, Mata_Hari wrote:

Feb 20, 2012 -- 9:05AM, mtgraptor wrote:

I rest my case

I really don't understand what case you're putting to rest here; I take pride in not being a racist idiot child.

of how narrow minded you are

Sorry, I'm the narrow-minded one for not thinking racist caricatures are funny?

Feb 20, 2012 -- 1:54AM, fireball2000 wrote:

I was reading the support group session, looking for a point to this whole article,  when I finally found this statement by Entwine:

Their job is to take a game that fundamentally stays the same and make it feel different.

Yes, there's a oid()" keyvalue="Giant_Growth" keyname="name">Giant Growth and a oid()" keyvalue="Lightning_Bolt" keyname="name">Lightning Bolt and whatever every set.

The game stays the same.

Design has to create the appearance of change.

The reason they keep making mechanics like us is that they want to create mechanics that feel a little different.

Yes, I could be Mr. K, but then all that does is make me feel less special.



 I find it sad that Design feels this way.  In the old world order, where R&D based sets around an aspect of the game (such as a certain resource, or an aspect of gameplay), you could actually build decks that risked going against game axioms in favor of possible gains that the set gave you.  You could try to exploit synergies that the designers created.  You could try to go for Hellbent or see how much you could level up your creatures.

  With the new world order, it seems like the desginers have given up.  They're not even trying to challenge players with regard to creature efficiency or card advantage.  You just play bigger bombs than the opponent and win.  It's too simple, and it boils down to being either nerveracking or outright boring.

The solution to all this is to make me feel like I'm playing with actual factions as opposed to just playing with cards.

That is what Entwine says, and it has a lot of truth, but Infect has something else to say, so design doesn't just think they're making the whole game the same and trying to make it look different. 

Feb 20, 2012 -- 9:52AM, Mata_Hari wrote:

Honestly, if the joke hurts those who have contemplated/attempted suicide, isn't that enough? Wouldn't it be better to avoid dredging that back up for them?

No.

Every subject is potentially offensive and hurtful to somebody. Forbidding mention of or reference to any subject that could potentially offend or hurt someone leaves everything off-limits. Should we avoid making jokes that reference the weather because it hurts those whose lives have been devastated by hurricanes and other weather phenomena? No. Should we avoid making jokes that reference death because it hurts those who've been hurt by the loss of a loved one? No.

Treating suicide as a joke in itself would be bad. But that's not happening here; the joke is about something else entirely. The need to treat a serious, potentially offensive subject with the respect it deserves when under discussion should not mean that referencing it in other contexts, including non-serious ones, is off-limits.

What is "Nuts and Bolts?"

Feb 20, 2012 -- 11:30AM, Leitmotiv wrote:

What is "Nuts and Bolts?"

"Nuts and Bolts" is MaRo's series of columns on the nitty-gritty mechanical details of set design. See here for the most recent one, which has links to the previous two.

This article was the first MaRo article in a long while that mad eme laugh (more than once, even) and got me reading it until the end. Congratulations, that was a really nice read, and also informative.

Those complaining about the suicide joke are easily offended, don't understand humor or haven't been nearly enough time on the internet. Or all of these options at once.

Haha, I wish I could hit "Like" Buttons for Zammm's and Dragon_Nuts comments, but alas I'm restored to posting it. Some people really need to take chill pills and realize where they are (internet wise) before getting offended due to their own shortcomings.

EDIT: An as soon as I posted this Dragon_Nuts comment disappeared ... >_> 

Wow, that was a good article. I liked the support group theme a lot. Usually i read only Flores's articles but this one got me pinned.
Thanks, MaRo!

The suicide joke was a bit jarring but when i thought about what undying did I laughed a little.

Funny article, clever theme, and from now on I'm gonna call kicker "Mr. K."

I really enjoyed the article. I liked how the mechanics had "personalities", including jokes and references to their mechanical identity. Replicate repeats itself, Infect views the situation as evolutionary, Intimidate is kind of a dick, etc. My only complaint was all the typos and formatting errors, but that's superficial. And, no, I wasn't offending by the "suicide joke", which as others have said, is really an Undying joke.

Also, mtgraptor, criticizing someone for not liking a Jeff Dunham routine (let alone for not being pigheadedly racist) only belies your own shortcomings.

Feb 20, 2012 -- 10:43AM, zammm wrote:

Feb 20, 2012 -- 9:52AM, Mata_Hari wrote:

Honestly, if the joke hurts those who have contemplated/attempted suicide, isn't that enough? Wouldn't it be better to avoid dredging that back up for them?

No.

Every subject is potentially offensive and hurtful to somebody. Forbidding mention of or reference to any subject that could potentially offend or hurt someone leaves everything off-limits. Should we avoid making jokes that reference the weather because it hurts those whose lives have been devastated by hurricanes and other weather phenomena? No. Should we avoid making jokes that reference death because it hurts those who've been hurt by the loss of a loved one? No.

Treating suicide as a joke in itself would be bad. But that's not happening here; the joke is about something else entirely. The need to treat a serious, potentially offensive subject with the respect it deserves when under discussion should not mean that referencing it in other contexts, including non-serious ones, is off-limits.

Ah, the ol' slippery slope.

The difference between making jokes about death/the weather and making a joke about suicide is that with suicide there is never not going to be a significant portion of the audience it affects deeply. There are certain contexts in which making jokes about death or the weather are in poor taste (such as in a funeral or a hurricane relief effort) but there are never going to be contexts in which making jokes about suicide is not in poor taste. I'll admit that there's not a great deal of difference in purely objective terms, but we're not working with objective terms here.

Feb 20, 2012 -- 7:35AM, Amarsir wrote:

The subject of a joke is rarely the crux of the joke.  To wit, "the world's funniest joke"

Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn't seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy whips out his phone and calls the emergency services. He gasps, "My friend is dead! What can I do?" The operator says "Calm down. I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead." There is a silence, then a gun shot is heard. Back on the phone, the guy says "OK, now what?"

"Haha murder", right?  No, the humor is misunderstanding the meaning of "make sure" in a way no one ever would.

The joke in MaRo's article is on personification.  Silly anthropomorphized mechanic didn't realize how he works.  You're not supposed to laugh at unfortunate events, but at the juxtaposition of normally tragic in contrary context.  Most people get this innately, but quite willingly ignore it to go "boo!  Do you know how many farmers are killed every year pursuing runaway chickens across roadways?"

That said, if a subject is too touchy for a person it doesn't matter what the meaning is because the reference overrides the context. Reading this article I got a chuckle, but knew it would bother people because suicide is too touchy to throw around like that.  So either Mark decided that he liked it enough to go for it anyway (which is respectable), or he really doesn't know his audience.

I understand the point you are trying to make, I really do, but I think these are entirely different cases in that the focus of each joke is different.

In the joke you made, the focus isn't on the hunter killing their friend, but on the hunter misunderstanding the instruction. The joke ends with the killing not because "haha murder", but because that is one of the most dramatic ways to show that the hunter didn't get the message. We are laughing not at the fact that the hunter killed their friend, but at the fact that they didn't understand what was being required of them, a fact that the killing just helps to emphasize by being the most dramatic consequence of this misunderstanding.

When it comes to MaRo's joke, however, we are supposed to laugh at "haha, undying tried to kill itself but it didn't get that because lol undying get it" -- the suicide itself is at the center of the joke rather than being an incidental element, we are supposed to laugh at the fact of undying trying to kill itself and failing. This is treating suicide itself as a laughing matter (especially given the support group context and that all) and is rather tasteless of MaRo's part. I'm very disappointed at him and I really wish he doesn't do anything like this in the future.

Also -- not directed at Amarsir, just using the rest of this post --, can people please drop the "easily offended", "don't get humor", "wow you want to censor people's speech" or "spend more time on the internet" thing. Humor is a broad spectrum and restraining yourself to laughing at those in a weaker position than yours (such as oh I don't know people with issues troubling enough that lead them to kill themselves) is not only sad (in part because you are helping to perpetuate the same conditions that lead people to take these drastic decisions) but also goddamn lazy. Also, the Internet is a cesspool and the fact that this sort of thing is popular on it should be in itself a problem.

I would have been fine if entwine had been kicker. That's one mechanic I feel is just too close to really make sense.

Feb 20, 2012 -- 1:34PM, Mata_Hari wrote:

The difference between making jokes about death/the weather and making a joke about suicide is that with suicide there is never not going to be a significant portion of the audience it affects deeply. There are certain contexts in which making jokes about death or the weather are in poor taste (such as in a funeral or a hurricane relief effort) but there are never going to be contexts in which making jokes about suicide is not in poor taste. I'll admit that there's not a great deal of difference in purely objective terms, but we're not working with objective terms here.

I realized this is a little flawed, so allow me to reclarify.

The difference between making a joke about suicide and a joke about the weather is that suicide is specific. Weather jokes could be about any aspect of the weather. Weather jokes in general are OK, but Hurricane Katrina jokes are not OK.

The difference between making a joke about suicide and a joke about death is the same: suicide is specific. If you hear about the death of an elderly person you've never met, you're not likely to be all that upset, even though there is a high chance of you having lost an elderly person in your life also. If you hear about a person's death by suicide, you're likely to be upset if you have known somebody who committed suicide. So in that sense making a joke that specifically relies on suicide to even be a joke is pretty crass.

Feb 20, 2012 -- 2:02PM, Mata_Hari wrote:

The difference between making a joke about suicide and a joke about the weather is that suicide is specific. Weather jokes could be about any aspect of the weather. Weather jokes in general are OK, but Hurricane Katrina jokes are not OK.

I don't think anyone can broadly define what jokes are or are not OK, people can only define what jokes are or are not OK for them.

Feb 20, 2012 -- 1:34PM, Mata_Hari wrote:

There are certain contexts in which making jokes about death or the weather are in poor taste (such as in a funeral or a hurricane relief effort) but there are never going to be contexts in which making jokes about suicide is not in poor taste.

(Bolding mine) And right there is where the crux of our disagreement. I do believe there are contexts in which making jokes about suicide are not in poor taste. Humor is part of the manner in we as humans deal with life--even the worst, most tragic parts of it. Heck, often especially those parts. We cannot wall off such a significant part of the human experience and pretend it doesn't exist just because humor is the medium.

Feb 20, 2012 -- 2:05PM, rulesinquisitor wrote:

I don't think anyone can broadly define what jokes are or are not OK, people can only define what jokes are or are not OK for them.

Yes, but a person would have to have a shocking lack of empathy to find Hurricane Katrina jokes personally acceptable, even if they hadn't experienced its effects first-hand.

Feb 20, 2012 -- 2:08PM, zammm wrote:

(Bolding mine) And right there is where the crux of our disagreement. I do believe there are contexts in which making jokes about suicide are not in poor taste. Humor is part of the manner in we as humans deal with life--even the worst, most tragic parts of it. Heck, often especially those parts. We cannot wall off such a significant part of the human experience and pretend it doesn't exist just because humor is the medium.

It is true that black humour is a important part of dealing with tricky subjects, but there is a difference between a person making a joke about something that they have personally experienced, and a person who's never experienced such a thing making a joke about the same. And even if MaRo has been privy to such a thing- which would be truly upsetting to hear- there's a time and a place for it, and a column about a collectable card game is not that.

Feb 20, 2012 -- 2:09PM, Mata_Hari wrote:

Feb 20, 2012 -- 2:05PM, rulesinquisitor wrote:

I don't think anyone can broadly define what jokes are or are not OK, people can only define what jokes are or are not OK for them.

Yes, but a person would have to have a shocking lack of empathy to find Hurricane Katrina jokes personally acceptable, even if they hadn't experienced its effects first-hand.

Again, I think we will have to agree to disagree here. Making jokes about something sad is often a great way of dealing with the negative feelings that you might have, like zammm said. For example several years back my grandfather died. At the funeral home my grandmother was sobbing before the ceremonies had started and the family and friends were arriving. One of my cousins arrived and greeted my grandmother by saying, more or less verbatim, "Quit your bellyaching." And you know what? It made her laugh.

Well, I used to know someone who commited suicide and one of my closest friends has made at least one attempt, so it's not a thing I'm all that detached from, and yet I found the joke amusing. Mostly because it's a game mechanics joke first, suicide joke second. Not the other way around.

As for the comment on not finding Ahmed the Dead Terrorist funny because of your "not being racist", I fail to see the relevance. I myself am firmly of the opinion that if some nationality or ethnicity can't be made fun of, then that's discrimination right there.

Ok now that we've beat the suicide joke thing over the head a ton I want to make a response about the actual article.  I've missed the last several weeks of magicthegathering.com articles so I may not be up to date but this article seems like a response to players complaining about how undying is just persist but with -1/-1 counters and MARO trying to say that no, undying is its own thing because all mechanics are their own thing.

This is fine except that the real problem of  undying, to me, is that it is once again another step that wizards is taking to, to overuse the phrase, dumb down the game.  Persist was pretty nuts and that was with -1/-1 but now we are giving essentially the same ability to 2/1 haste critters for GG except now it's +1/+1.  I think someone mentioned that if MARO ( isn't it funny how he always seems to be personally responsible for everything that happens in magic) had access to -1/-1 counters then he would have simply made it persist.  However I'm still bored with all upside abilities being the default.  I miss the days of echo and other such abilities when you actually have to make a decision besides "whats the biggest thing I can cast with my mana? Cast it. Can I attack? Attack. Pass the turn."

I don't think it's quite fair to call Undying "Persist with upside". I mean, what exactly is the drawback with Persist? You get your creature back, slightly smaller. That's pretty much all upside. Undying is just a bit more upside.

There are really many reasons for taking offense at the suicide joke. My reason is one that hasn't really been mentioned here.
The problem is, these are concepts, not people or even living things. Concepts can't die, so one of them "attempting suicide" (and heck, judging from the actual joke which is that Undying can't stay dead, successfully attempting suicide) makes light of suicide attempts. It, whether intentionally or not, takes away the very serious impact that suicide attempts have on the lives of those close to the departed.
Yes, in some contexts, a suicide joke could be funny. It requires a proper build-up and the right context, so that the reader/viewer is prepared for it. MaRo here just drops it out of the blue for no reason other than "Haha, Undying can't die". It's jarring, makes light of a very serious subject for what amounts to a cheap pun, and really doesn't belong in an article on a family friendly site.

Feb 20, 2012 -- 2:31PM, Wahooney wrote:

Well, I used to know someone who commited suicide and one of my closest friends has made at least one attempt, so it's not a thing I'm all that detached from, and yet I found the joke amusing. Mostly because it's a game mechanics joke first, suicide joke second. Not the other way around.

That doesn't mean that those who are hurt by it are wrong to feel that way, however.

Feb 20, 2012 -- 2:31PM, Wahooney wrote:

As for the comment on not finding Ahmed the Dead Terrorist funny because of your "not being racist", I fail to see the relevance. I myself am firmly of the opinion that if some nationality or ethnicity can't be made fun of, then that's discrimination right there.

I'm not even going to address this because a. it's going way off-topic and b. this opinion is so laughably bad that to address it is a waste of time. Feel free to consider this a victory, I know I can't stop you.

If for no other reason, Achmed the Terrorist is not funny because Jeff Dunham blows. I think this is something we can all agree on.

Edit: A big thank you to zammm for reminding me that Weird Al's Trigger Happy exists. Had to give it yet another listen just now.

I'd like to see the colors' discussion. Whew, that'd be a doozy.

Really, Undying is just Persist with +2/+2.

Feb 20, 2012 -- 7:34AM, mtgraptor wrote:

Feb 20, 2012 -- 6:35AM, Mata_Hari wrote:

Feb 20, 2012 -- 5:56AM, mtgraptor wrote:

the suicide joke was funny cause his mechanic works against it. and all of you feeling offended by it are reading more into it than there is. I wonder do you also feel offended when a games ask you to kill another player? wars are not funny you know. or fun for that matter.

The glorification of war is a problem across all forms of media, yes.

I don't really understand how you can claim we're 'reading more into it than there is'. It's a joke about suicide. A suicide joke, if you will.

I wonder do you find something like Ahmed the dead terrorist funny ?

I think Gaffigan's Achmed is a terrible joke, simply because he uses horrible, horrible stereotypes to characterize that persona. There is a way in humor to be funny while talking about terrible things, but you can cross this line horribly. Making fun of suicide is not one of those things it is easy to jump back and forth across, Carlin/Kinnison-style, about the nature of words or expressions people don't find funny. I hate Dane Cook's "humor," but I don't think it's wrong for him to make those statements. Gaffigan is terrible, really, only when he tries to pander to islamophobia for laughs, because he ends up insulting Islam in general for the actions and beliefs of a few. This is why I think that even if he pushes the line, Stephen Colbert's parody of the Chinese, Chingchong Dingdong, is an attempt at satirizing this very behavior.

But suicide? I find it extremely hard to find anything funny about people killing themselves, especially when you read things like nine children in a small school district represented in the US House of Representatives by anti-gay bigot Michele Bachmann killed themselves in apparent connection to a lack of anti-bullying and a lack of any affirmative support of several whom were gay, or curious, or, you know, whatever. That some of the supporters of PFLAG are in it simply because their children killed themselves for no apparent reason, finding solidarity with parents whose children killed themselves because no one stood up for them.

There's little to me that makes it right to joke about suicide, regardless of how you frame it. Rosewater, as a comedian at one point, should have known that there are lines you cross very, very carefully. This is not how it should have been done, and in some views, should never be done. In the least, it was in incredibly poor taste.

Feb 20, 2012 -- 2:08PM, zammm wrote:

Feb 20, 2012 -- 1:34PM, Mata_Hari wrote:

There are certain contexts in which making jokes about death or the weather are in poor taste (such as in a funeral or a hurricane relief effort) but there are never going to be contexts in which making jokes about suicide is not in poor taste.

(Bolding mine) And right there is where the crux of our disagreement. I do believe there are contexts in which making jokes about suicide are not in poor taste. Humor is part of the manner in we as humans deal with life--even the worst, most tragic parts of it. Heck, often especially those parts. We cannot wall off such a significant part of the human experience and pretend it doesn't exist just because humor is the medium.

I appreciate your position, but you're talking past the point. We are not talking about making jokes about death, to rationalize it by coming together as a community to share in the life lived rather than death occured. We are talking about the manner in which this death occured. I can say there might be something funny involved in a man, five years ago, who was literally split in twin on the inside after engaging in beastiality with a horse, but that's part and parcel to our finding hilarity in the absurb, as much as jokes about huge ... anatomy ... in people like Pamela Anderson Lee or Ron Jeremy.

Suicide is not about death, it's about loss and despair, and the unknown. Very often, people NEVER tell others why and the question of this loss, and the rationalization, never comes. The same is true for disappearances and random circumstance. Culturally, we try to reason things we don't understand by explaining them away fantastically or humorously, but with suicide you do not -- cannot -- get this clarity or uplift. The despair remains, and never goes away.

We laugh at Moe Szyslak's inability to kill himself on the Simpsons, but would we laugh at his success?

I'm... not entirely certain what happened to this thread. Certainly, whether it was tasteless or not, the joke was offensive enough to overshadow absolutely everything else MaRo wrote in this article. I think that is one of the more interesting points about the whole thing. Personally I'm going to suggest that this is a reason why humor should be avoided at all costs. I believe all wizards employees should cease any attempt to be amusing.

Actually Dragon_Nut has a point, it clearly was a bad joke. Even if you don't find it offensive it has detracted so much from discussion about the actual topic of the article that it was clearly detrimental to the article.

Feb 20, 2012 -- 6:44PM, JanusAurelius wrote:

Actually Dragon_Nut has a point, it clearly was a bad joke. Even if you don't find it offensive it has detracted so much from discussion about the actual topic of the article that it was clearly detrimental to the article.

Which is telling, because I came in the forums wanting to talk about the upside-downside variation of abilities, especially those two abilities, being mentioned. I glossed over the suicide comment in the first place in the article itself.

Feb 20, 2012 -- 5:44PM, Qilong wrote:

I think Gaffigan's Achmed is a terrible joke, simply because he uses horrible, horrible stereotypes to characterize that persona. There is a way in humor to be funny while talking about terrible things, but you can cross this line horribly. Making fun of suicide is not one of those things it is easy to jump back and forth across, Carlin/Kinnison-style, about the nature of words or expressions people don't find funny. I hate Dane Cook's "humor," but I don't think it's wrong for him to make those statements. Gaffigan is terrible, really, only when he tries to pander to islamophobia for laughs, because he ends up insulting Islam in general for the actions and beliefs of a few. This is why I think that even if he pushes the line, Stephen Colbert's parody of the Chinese, Chingchong Dingdong, is an attempt at satirizing this very behavior.

Okay, no. Jim Gaffigan is hilarious. It's Jeff Dunham who is the racist hack that does Achmed the Dead Terrorist. You're confusing the two.

Edit: Again, I'm going to emphasize that the Undying/suicide joke didn't offend me, but I do think it's a shame that so many other people got hung up on it. I won't say that you shouldn't be offended by it, because you can't necessarily decide what does or doesn't offend you. But on the flipside, I don't think anyone should tell others what should offend them, or judge them based on this.

Feb 20, 2012 -- 7:27PM, rulesinquisitor wrote:

Feb 20, 2012 -- 5:44PM, Qilong wrote:

I think Gaffigan's Achmed is a terrible joke, simply because he uses horrible, horrible stereotypes to characterize that persona. There is a way in humor to be funny while talking about terrible things, but you can cross this line horribly. Making fun of suicide is not one of those things it is easy to jump back and forth across, Carlin/Kinnison-style, about the nature of words or expressions people don't find funny. I hate Dane Cook's "humor," but I don't think it's wrong for him to make those statements. Gaffigan is terrible, really, only when he tries to pander to islamophobia for laughs, because he ends up insulting Islam in general for the actions and beliefs of a few. This is why I think that even if he pushes the line, Stephen Colbert's parody of the Chinese, Chingchong Dingdong, is an attempt at satirizing this very behavior.

Okay, no. Jim Gaffigan is hilarious. It's Jeff Dunham who is the racist hack that does Achmed the Dead Terrorist. You're confusing the two.

Ah, yes, my bad!

This article comes in the same week that Tom Lapille quipped, "the design team's job is to make every Magic set different from the other ones, and the development team's job is to make every Magic set the same." I can agree with that, since you want every set to feel fresh and new and exciting, but you want to do all that while still playing a game that is basically Magic. The evolution of things people like and "illusion of change" explanations for different keywords both make sense in that respect.

At the same time, there are some things mentioned that didn't quite make sense to me, such as reinforce being a cycling variant (similar text, different application altogether) or entwine being replaceable with kicker. Sure, you could do the same job with a specialization of kicker: the rules text on kicker is basically just "you may pay an additional cost as you cast this", with the rest of the card text spelling out the benefits of paying that optional cost. All optional costs paid when you cast a spell could be kicker costs. That doesn't make it a good idea.

One thing that wasn't mentioned (for good reason) is the reasoning behind evolving the same keyword mechanic, name and all. Bands with others is still a form of banding (either way creatures are "in a band" or "banded with" other creatures). Kicker has multi-kicker (both costs are still kicker costs, and a spell for which one is paid is still "kicked").  Cycling, landcycling, typecycling all count as cycling (and the cards are all "cycled"), and cards like Astral Slide can be developed which build on that common ground. But those three are it. There are no other "families" of related keywords in the game. For example, a card with Gravestorm is not considered to have a variant of Storm. Hexproof is an improved version of shroud, which is a limited form of protection, yet all three keywords are supposed to be learned and thought of distinctly.

Cards like Yavimaya Elder were designed around the idea of "cycling from the battlefield", but nobody immediately realized that because they lacked the keyword. And when Astral Slide came along, those cards lost a little of the power that could have been theirs. Nor could they count as being cycled for things like Invigorating Boon or Lightning Rift . Kicked cards only get love from Saproling Infestation , but it's at least something. If you allow a mechanic to branch out and start to do more heavy lifting then you also get to open up new design avenues that play around those mechanics.

There's still room to grow some of these together without stepping on the "uniqueness" of the abilities. Piling on too much to a given keyword eventually will cause it to lose most of its meaning. But building on popular, recurring keywords in moderation also builds the game over time. There was a time when counters were considered a little aberrant, or at the very least an edge case in card design. Now they're so popular that Design has to standardize on who gets to use which counters in a given block.  Trying to build a sense of uniqueness is fine, and a lot of mechanics deserve it, but if you're going to throw out a small mechanic that's just a design band-aid like, say, Battle Cry, then why not give it some sort of pedigree to help it along?

Feb 20, 2012 -- 9:18PM, longwinded wrote:

At the same time, there are some things mentioned that didn't quite make sense to me, such as reinforce being a cycling variant (similar text, different application altogether) or entwine being replaceable with kicker. Sure, you could do the same job with a specialization of kicker: the rules text on kicker is basically just "you may pay an additional cost as you cast this", with the rest of the card text spelling out the benefits of paying that optional cost. All optional costs paid when you cast a spell could be kicker costs. That doesn't make it a good idea.

Mark Rosewater's point is that Kicker being so general was a mistake. He's said in the past that most mechanics could be done with either Kicker or Split cards, as those are the two most general mechanics. Yes, it would be a mistake to make any mechanic that could be done with kicker into a kicker variant. The mistake is more in the existence of kicker in the first place, though. I like kicker the way it is, but I definitely agree that there would have been merit to giving it just a little more rules baggage. If for no other reason than to shut Entwine up.
As for reinforce being a cycling variant, I never really thought about it that way before, but after reading this article, I can't think about it any other way. Once you see it, you can't unsee it.

I wholly support the evolution of mechanics and the creation of new mechanics by making minor (or sometimes major) tweaks to old ones. I'd like them to not make all new mechanics that way, obviously; I feel they've got a nice balance as is, with genuinely new stuff like living weapon or battle cry, alongside evolutions like infect or undying. But thinking back on it, is there anything in Innistrad block that's genuinely 100% new? Morbid is a twist on death triggers, which they've been doing forever; Transform is an update to flip cards; Undying is Persist 2.0; Fateful Hour is Avatar of Hope ,or the Zendikar vampires mechanic on defense; and of course flashback is just being recast from the graveyard here.

Feb 20, 2012 -- 9:35PM, chronego wrote:

I wholly support the evolution of mechanics and the creation of new mechanics by making minor (or sometimes major) tweaks to old ones. I'd like them to not make all new mechanics that way, obviously; I feel they've got a nice balance as is, with genuinely new stuff like living weapon or battle cry, alongside evolutions like infect or undying. But thinking back on it, is there anything in Innistrad block that's genuinely 100% new? Morbid is a twist on death triggers, which they've been doing forever; Transform is an update to flip cards; Undying is Persist 2.0; Fateful Hour is Avatar of Hope ,or the Zendikar vampires mechanic on defense; and of course flashback is just being recast from the graveyard here.

Hey! I can play this game too!
Phyreximana is just a variation on alternate costs, which we've seen before. Living Weapon is just a weird version of Licids. Infect is just Wither + Poison. Proliferate just plays with counters, something we've seen before plenty of times. Metalcraft is a hybrid of Affinity and Threshold. Imprint is just a redo. Colored Artifacts are also a redo. Battle Cry is really just the opposite of Exalted.

That said, it's a lot harder to point to direct influences for the Mirrodin mechanics than it is for Zendikar. Actually, as I wrote my response I began to see your point more and more. Innistrad does seem to be mostly lacking in truly 'new' things. Most of the things are new and different are unplayable . Ah well. Still a fun set overall, just nothing terribly exciting from a Melvin perspective.

That article was flavorful, original, informative, and humorous. Bravo Mark. A+

guys, do you know what is the most saddening part of this whole suicide-joke-fiasco.
with all this outrage, MaRo will likely make an excuse for using the joke in the first place.
get some humor, get some guts and then come back playing a trading card game with gothic horror flavour.
and all those people who are complaining over the joke, never ever dare to use an ability where you have to sacrifice one of your creatures, that is ordered suicide, that is even worse.

Feb 20, 2012 -- 2:35PM, Guest2042683381 wrote:

This is fine except that the real problem of  undying, to me, is that it is once again another step that wizards is taking to, to overuse the phrase, dumb down the game.  Persist was pretty nuts and that was with -1/-1 but now we are giving essentially the same ability to 2/1 haste critters for GG except now it's +1/+1.  I think someone mentioned that if MARO ( isn't it funny how he always seems to be personally responsible for everything that happens in magic) had access to -1/-1 counters then he would have simply made it persist.  However I'm still bored with all upside abilities being the default.  I miss the days of echo and other such abilities when you actually have to make a decision besides "whats the biggest thing I can cast with my mana? Cast it. Can I attack? Attack. Pass the turn."

But... persist is an all-upsides mechanic. "When my dude dies, I get a free smaller creature" is not a downside by any stretch.

And it's not more skill-intensive either. I'd actually argue that it's less skill-intensive. If you can kill a persist creature without expending much resource, it's usually the right thing to do. Whereas with undying, doing so will give me a bigger creature that you might not be able to deal with. I might even win the damage race because of it.

Feb 21, 2012 -- 2:03AM, Feroz-s_Familiar_Pheldy wrote:

that is ordered suicide

Uh, no, it's sacrifice. Murder, in the case of a sentient being. Rarely is it implied that the sacrificed is willing.

Feb 21, 2012 -- 2:03AM, Feroz-s_Familiar_Pheldy wrote:

guys, do you know what is the most saddening part of this whole suicide-joke-fiasco.
with all this outrage, MaRo will likely make an excuse for using the joke in the first place.
get some humor, get some guts and then come back playing a trading card game with gothic horror flavour.
and all those people who are complaining over the joke, never ever dare to use an ability where you have to sacrifice one of your creatures, that is ordered suicide, that is even worse.

You know what's even worse than that? Your posting.

Feb 21, 2012 -- 4:51AM, Mata_Hari wrote:

Feb 21, 2012 -- 2:03AM, Feroz-s_Familiar_Pheldy wrote:

guys, do you know what is the most saddening part of this whole suicide-joke-fiasco.
with all this outrage, MaRo will likely make an excuse for using the joke in the first place.
get some humor, get some guts and then come back playing a trading card game with gothic horror flavour.
and all those people who are complaining over the joke, never ever dare to use an ability where you have to sacrifice one of your creatures, that is ordered suicide, that is even worse.

You know what's even worse than that? Your posting.

I feel that way about yours.

Eh. I didn't like the suicide joke -- number one, it did kind of make me wince, and number two, I didn't find it funny. I don't think it was successful black humor. For me at least, when black humor works, it works not only because Forbidden Topic Is Funny Lawl but because... hm. I'm probably killing it trying to analyze it. But usually when it works for me it works because the dark thing is made not just funny but understandable. Like, in the weird alternate world the joke sets up, odd stuff happens, and normal, likeable people do oddly macabre stuff. This didn't feel set up enough. It was just a riff on the mechanic and so it fell flat for me. Actually, the whole "support group" gag fell flat for me too. "Therapy (whether group or one-on-one) is full of neurotic losers who just need to calm dowan" is an old joke, and it's never one that's appealed to me, particularly.

But neither thing offended me, and like other posters I'm uncomfortable with the idea that because Maro didn't (IMO, anyway) pull off a suicide joke (or a therapy joke either, again IMO) with flair and sensitivity both, such jokes should not be made. I totally agree that suicide is a serious matter that deeply affects those touched by it in whatever way, and I say this as someone who has struggled myself with suicidal ideation. But I don't think that means it's off-limits for humor. I don't think anything should be.

Or maybe I don't quite think nothing should be. Pointless racist, sexist, ableist, homophobic, etc. jokes don't have any value in my opinion. But other jokes that are controversial or about tough topics -- well, as others have said, some people use humor to deal with the raw deal life has dealt them. I think that's important to recognize.

So I for one would rather say "Maro, that was a swing and a miss" than "Maro, thou shalt not."

xD That's a pretty novel MM. Personally, I never understood why recycling the basic successful mechanics was ever a bad thing, if we get 2 or 3 recycled mechanics per every new mechanic, I think the game is on a smooth path.

Feb 20, 2012 -- 5:56PM, Qilong wrote:

We laugh at Moe Szyslak's inability to kill himself on the Simpsons, but would we laugh at his success?

How is this any different? Undying DID fail to kill itself, but with a "magical" twist.

Also, people, it's not like this type of suicide comedy is new. Does no one remember the "I can only do this once" routines in children's cartoons?

I thought it pretty funny. I passed it on to my other mtg friends. They all thought it was funny too

As for the suicide joke, he's undying...so....I didn't mind. I also didn't mind the support group mechanic.
My young wolves become martyrs regularily to grow for me.

suicide jokes can be done wrong-I don't believe this one was

Feb 21, 2012 -- 10:26AM, ChaoticVolition wrote:

Feb 20, 2012 -- 5:56PM, Qilong wrote:

We laugh at Moe Szyslak's inability to kill himself on the Simpsons, but would we laugh at his success?

How is this any different? Undying DID fail to kill itself, but with a "magical" twist.

Also, people, it's not like this type of suicide comedy is new. Does no one remember the "I can only do this once" routines in children's cartoons?

No. Undying was successful at killing itself. It came back. This is the difference between resurrection (dying, then being brought back to life) versus immortality (not dying in the first place).

The fault here is saying that Undying was having existential issues, SO it killed itself.

The italicized portion here is the problem with the joke. And it may seem funny to some, but not to those of us who either empathize with, know, or have attempted suicide ourselves. I understand that if you have not tried this little "joke" of an experiment out on yourself, you won't get what suicide is like, and what happens to a person before, during, and after the attempt. You literally have no frame of reference, and nothing YOU say will alter MY experience, and nothing I say will deter YOU from your lack of it.

 Then it came back, and wow, it realized its own name. Bah-dum-pish.

See, for those who know suiciders, such as their parents or other family and friends, those successful attempts don't come back. There's no rim shot for them, and I am unsympathetic to those who feel I should let them make jokes about this based on what I've had to deal with.

See Maro's words in Five Hundred and Counting on Out of the Closet, Part 1. This is pretty much the same thing, except with truckloads more controversy.

Feb 21, 2012 -- 11:00PM, Qilong wrote:

See, for those who know suiciders, such as their parents or other family and friends, those successful attempts don't come back. There's no rim shot for them, and I am unsympathetic to those who feel I should let them make jokes about this based on what I've had to deal with.

please don't speak for me
and don't speak for a group where you have no knowledge of any group consensus

Feb 21, 2012 -- 11:00PM, Qilong wrote:

No. Undying was successful at killing itself. It came back. This is the difference between resurrection (dying, then being brought back to life) versus immortality (not dying in the first place).

The fault here is saying that Undying was having existential issues, SO it killed itself.

The italicized portion here is the problem with the joke. And it may seem funny to some, but not to those of us who either empathize with, know, or have attempted suicide ourselves. I understand that if you have not tried this little "joke" of an experiment out on yourself, you won't get what suicide is like, and what happens to a person before, during, and after the attempt. You literally have no frame of reference, and nothing YOU say will alter MY experience, and nothing I say will deter YOU from your lack of it.

1. So now we're talking about immortality for some reason rather than other cartoon examples of characters who TOO wanted to kill themselves and realizing they couldn't because of comical results?
2. You're also ignoring that this is Daffy-Duck level "dark humor" that's been showed in children's cartoons a few times.
3. MASSIVE LOL@ you thinking your perspective is so special and unique that we others who would find this funny (or not even funny, just inoffensive) as meaning that we've never had our own personal experience regarding this topic matter. What type of egotistical bull am I reading here...

Feb 22, 2012 -- 11:19AM, Faithenfire wrote:

Feb 21, 2012 -- 11:00PM, Qilong wrote:

See, for those who know suiciders, such as their parents or other family and friends, those successful attempts don't come back. There's no rim shot for them, and I am unsympathetic to those who feel I should let them make jokes about this based on what I've had to deal with.

please don't speak for me
and don't speak for a group where you have no knowledge of any group consensus

Well, this is interesting. You're saying that your perspective now allows you to be able to tell others that this is funny, simply because YOU find it funny? You think that it is suddenly acceptable to make jokes about things that a grand majority might find unhumorous in any light?

Here is a conversation between Mel Brooks and Lars-Olav Beier [interviewing for _Der Spiegel_]:

SPIEGEL: Which you of course know well yourself. “The Producers” is based on a musical that you produced that ran successfully on Broadway for five years and also on the film “The Producers” that you shot in 1967. How did the audience react to the film back then?

Brooks: The Jews were horrified. I received resentful letters of protest, saying things like: “How can you make jokes about Hitler? The man murdered 6 million Jews." But "The Producers" doesn’t concern a concentration camp or the Holocaust.

SPIEGEL: Can you really separate Hitler from the Holocaust?

Brooks: You have to separate it. For example, Roberto Benigni's comedy “Life Is Beautiful” really annoyed me. A crazy film that even attempted to find comedy in a concentration camp. It showed the barracks in which Jews were kept like cattle, and it made jokes about it. The philosophy of the film is: people can get over anything. No, they can’t. They can’t get over a concentration camp.

Brooks is not saying it is ok to joke about the Holocaust, he is using Hitler as a comic/tragic character in his own right, and parodied the man's actions. He doesn't actually mention the Holocaust in The Producers in any humorous context. In this way, he is talking about deriving hilarity from action that itself doesn't descend into the maudlin or morbid, especially when it might influence living survivors. As he notes, Jews were horrified from the original staging and airing of the play and film, respectively. Were they unjustified in their horror.

Is it actually fair to say that because you find it funny, you are in the minority of the opinions around people making fun of, or exploiting, the tragedy of suicide? Note that suicide, by definition, is tragedy: the person dies at the end.

Feb 22, 2012 -- 7:54PM, ChaoticVolition wrote:

So now we're talking about immortality for some reason rather than other cartoon examples of characters who TOO wanted to kill themselves and realizing they couldn't because of comical results?

1. You're also ignoring that this is Daffy-Duck level "dark humor" that's been showed in children's cartoons a few times.
2. MASSIVE LOL@ you thinking your perspective is so special and unique that we others who would find this funny (or not even funny, just inoffensive) as meaning that we've never had our own personal experience regarding this topic matter. What type of egotistical bull am I reading here...

There's a line here, and it's actually kinda thin. It starts at Black Comedy, and descends into saying "Dude, Note Funny!" The distinction seems to lie where there are often living victims of the tragedy, such as rape (when is rape funny?), the Holocaust (see my last post), domestic abuse (always an example of "a very special episode" where the laughs don't come). When suicide is portrayed for comedy, it's the failure of death that is played to laughs, as in Moe Szyslak, not its success. (Of course, as in the case of Life of Brian, there are some examples of pretty tame "suicide as comedy" being portrayed (the JLF's suicide squad) but I did not find this particularly pleasing anyways, and I still wonder that the line should not be crossed.)

edit: I'm going to clarify, again, that the reasoning that Daffy Duck "black comedy," and in fact much of the black comedy presented by comedians, is refuge in the absurd. We find it funny because we do not characterize it as real, or realistic. When we do bring real people, real victims into the narrative, it becomes a case of crossing the line into "dude, not funny!", lines crossed by people like George Carlin (to various effects, who accepted people's rights to be offended -- that was the point!) or Stephen Pastis (who removed a suicidal character from Pearls Before Swine due to fan responses).

I don't find mechanics as realistic

and I didn't speak for a group, I spoke for myself. I told you not to speak for a group.

This thread is starting to make me sad. So much ego, on both sides of the debate.

People who were offended: You have every right to be offended for any reason or no reason at all. And no one can take that away from you or make you change your mind. I suppose you even have the right to be further offended if someone does try. But you do not have the right to tell anyone else that they should be offended. Not everyone's line is drawn in the same place, and some people don't draw any lines anywhere. It's ok, just ignore them, or give them your opinion and move on.

People who were not offended: There's no need for you to feel guilty. If you're not offended, you're not offended. But be aware that the subject matter is potentially highly offensive to others. Just because you're not offended, does not and can not absolve the joke in the minds of those who are, and nothing you say will change that. There is no more point in arguing for your opinion than there is for those who were offended to argue theirs, because this is the kind of subject that people will only change their own minds about. Defending your own position is only going to inflame the debate, as it can easily be perceived as callous. (Which maybe it is in the first place.)

And now I sound like the one with the ego. :p Honestly, I'm just trying to arbitrate at this point before this thread gets any worse.

It's sad. The first good "maro-style" article we get in ages and all you talk is about suicide jokes? Go kill yourselves!

To Maro, great article. Do more. You are in your best when you put those old boring cardframes to talk. Be it zombies, colors or mechanics.

BTW, now that you are on tumblr, why not an article about some aspects of the game asking you questions there maybe with posts in their personal pages too.

Feb 22, 2012 -- 8:31PM, Qilong wrote:

edit: I'm going to clarify, again, that the reasoning that Daffy Duck "black comedy," and in fact much of the black comedy presented by comedians, is refuge in the absurd. We find it funny because we do not characterize it as real, or realistic. When we do bring real people, real victims into the narrative, it becomes a case of crossing the line into "dude, not funny!", lines crossed by people like George Carlin (to various effects, who accepted people's rights to be offended -- that was the point!) or Stephen Pastis (who removed a suicidal character from Pearls Before Swine due to fan responses).

You just explained why I'm OK with the undying joke. If MaRo had made a suicide joke involving a person, I'd obviously be upset about the joke. But I don't think of a keyword mechanic as realistic, just like I don't think of Daffy Duck as realistic. So, just like with Daffy Duck's black commedy, I find that the joke doesn't cross the "dude, not funny" line.

Feb 23, 2012 -- 3:15PM, DVDe wrote:

Feb 22, 2012 -- 8:31PM, Qilong wrote:

edit: I'm going to clarify, again, that the reasoning that Daffy Duck "black comedy," and in fact much of the black comedy presented by comedians, is refuge in the absurd. We find it funny because we do not characterize it as real, or realistic. When we do bring real people, real victims into the narrative, it becomes a case of crossing the line into "dude, not funny!", lines crossed by people like George Carlin (to various effects, who accepted people's rights to be offended -- that was the point!) or Stephen Pastis (who removed a suicidal character from Pearls Before Swine due to fan responses).

You just explained why I'm OK with the undying joke. If MaRo had made a suicide joke involving a person, I'd obviously be upset about the joke. But I don't think of a keyword mechanic as realistic, just like I don't think of Daffy Duck as realistic. So, just like with Daffy Duck's black commedy, I find that the joke doesn't cross the "dude, not funny" line.

So we will continue to define a point that you may be missing: refuge in absurdity.

We know the mechanic isn't a creature or a person, because it's a word in a rule book. We also know that Daffy Duck isn't a creature or a person, because it's a cartoon. Ergo, they aren't "serious" or meant to represent something authentic. This is true.

However, it is not in fact talking about mechanics, it is talking about them as though they were people. The article is written as a script, as though it were for a stage play. If we pretended instead that there were people in suites with words like "Kicker" and "Undying" on them, we would think of them as people portraying idealizations of personality, reflected in the words. This is, in fact, MaRo's intentions, such as when he writes bout the colors having an IM chat, or he interviews them, or so on. His intention is to personify them, make them incarnate. They become people, and thus more "real."

This representative, or personified, treatment, is a typical dramatic trope meant to both separate (objectify) a subject that is, at its root, very subjective. It is MaRo's POINT to make these mechanics act and be sympathetic as people. Thus we care -- or not -- as the treatment of the characters they are deserve, or that we feel they should be cared for -- or not. The displacement of what you accept as "real" and how its portrayed is where the line is crossed:

You know, that no matter how many episodes of South Park there are, if Kenny dies in one, he comes back. Thus the matter of his death loses its sting, lampshaded by the kids' absolute ignorance of his return every single time. So too in "cartoonland," where death doesn't actually occur. In the Simpsons world, death also doesn't seem to occur, so attempts at death never really have a sting of reality to them, and sympathy for those events can't be had: Moe never succeeds in his attempts, Moleman always seems to survive his "deaths," and Dr. Nicks canon death in the movie was reversed in the show with a lampshade.

This is the refuge in absurdity: you cannot sympathize with something you know to be unreal.

(There are a large number of deaths in the simpsons universe that are portrayed sympathetically, such as Bleeding Gums Murphy, Homer's mother, and one of Abe's one-shot flames, all of which end the show with a tragic element to them: you are meant to be sympathetic. These are aversions to the refuge in absurdity.)

So ... if you were to watch as actual people were saying these things, with various identifiers as mechanics removed, would you consider the subject matter MORE or LESS relevant to a personal emotion? If you watched someone you respected then make baseless jokes about YOUR attempted suicide -- or the actual suicide of a friend of yours, displacing the actions as a comic treatment, how would you feel?

I still respect MaRo in this -- and I respect MaRo in general, although often not always to agree with him -- as I respect the attitudes of those in the discussion that do not agree with what I have said. I considered strongly that my personal conviction on the matter -- that I do not find it funny -- was highly subjective in my treatment on how others were discussing it. The real reason it seems I feel sticking to this argument is worth it is that there are those telling me to go shove it, or "deal with it," and move on, or saying that I should just do those things; these people have their own psoition, one which says that they can and will do these very things.

The irony of their attempts to emplace the argument about how I feel versus those I claimed to speak for back on me, that my feeling of offense was mine and mine alone, should be apparent: it means that they feel their argument is more sound than mine, but do not prove it.

MaRo's response on Tumblr:
markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/1813556684...

dukkhasatva asked: Seeing how the debate is still raging in the thread, how do you feel in hindsight about the suicide joke from your column on monday? (I thought it was funny)

I tend to be a big fan of black humor (my favorite movie, for instance is “Harold & Maude&rdquo. I needed a reason for Undying to be in the Support Group and I had a running joke that the mechanics functioned as characters like their mechanic. All this seemed to line up to make the joke I did.

I did not mean it as a sleight towards the gravity of suicide. I’m just from the school of comedy that says that jokes that are true to the piece you are writing are fair game. It was never my intent to upset anyone. Obviously I did and I apologize to those people.

I feel about comedy exactly the way I feel about card design that every joke is not meant for every audience member. I’ve gotten a lot of feedback from people that both thought it was very funny and those that thought it was very distasteful (and a few that thought both).

If this was my stand-up act, I wouldn’t apologize for my humor, but I am writing for a large public and family-friendly site, so I do believe that there are different lines and I may have crossed it. (I say may because I’m honestly not sure.)

I do think it’s important for me to do some boundary pushing as that is how creativity works best (in card design and humor). But as I said in my answer below, an important skill in creation is understanding past mistakes so I will definitely think about the suicide joke in future humor pieces I write in my column.

 

I'm not trying to be funny, but most of MaRo's jokes... aren't funny. Going back a few weeks ago:

I don't think the average human understands how demons see humans. We're snack food for them. Demon is sitting around his hell dimension and says to his fellow demon, "You know what I could go for right now? I'm having a hankering for humans."

Humans aren't particularly good for demons. We're like Lays potato chips to them. They can't just eat one. So once they have a taste, they start binge eating. It's kind of why demons keep their distance from humans—they're watching their weight.

I'm not laughing, and I don't think I can put it down to British/American humour differences.