Roasting works when everyone’s laughing, including the target. Watch their face, not the crowd’s.

Roasting only stays a joke while its target is in on it. A laughing group is a terrible judge of that, because the laughter rolls well past the point where it started to hurt, and the target plays along rather than killing the mood. Their face is the honest signal, and it moves before their words do.

At the next group thing, look at the person rather than the room right after a joke lands. If the smile goes thin or the eyes drop, change the subject and find them later. A quiet admission that it went too far closes it without a scene.