Our team banter has turned from playful to cutting. How do I fix it without killing the fun?

Banter that once brought people closer can drift, a little at a time, into something that leaves small cuts. Nobody decided to make it unkind. It just slid, joke by joke, and the laughs kept coming so it kept going. You have laughed along too, and that is the honest part. Your laughter was a kind of permission, and now the jokes have an edge. Here is the thing worth seeing clearly: what a leader laughs at, a team learns is allowed. You do not have to make a speech or shame anyone to change this. But you do have to stop lending the unkind version your approval. The tone came from what got rewarded with laughter, and that is something you have real say over. Name it lightly but plainly the next time it happens. Something simple, like that one landed a bit sharp, said without heat, tells everyone the line has moved back. And stop laughing at the jokes that come at someone's expense. Keep the warmth, keep the fun, just steer it back toward the kind that includes people rather than nicks them.