LogFAQs > #939488305

It's been almost universally my experience that players will make things light-hearted and eagerly derail a serious moment if there's a joke to be made or they can build off one someone else has made. (I'm very "guilty" of this myself when I'm a player, too)

So I think in general, the DM should mostly keep things serious and on track, b/c the players will be pulling the lion's share of the weight in turning the game into a campy comedic romp regardless. The occasional humorous event or NPC is fine, though. I enjoyed in my last campaign running duels between summoner mages/psions as pokemon matches w/ a running gag that all of the rival pokemon trainers were super sketchy weirdos and delinquents that probably belong on some kind of watch list.