Gaming catchphrases, expressions, and idioms--what are yours?

rounser · Jul 15, 2002

"Eh, I've been killed by worse."

LOL

You could base an entire character around that line alone...

Twinswords · Jul 15, 2002

Some of our group:

Paymore is another name for pelor. Because we have carried tens of thousands of gold pieces to that temple. And because we had a cleric of pelor in the party who charged for healing.

"I recycle their equipment" or "i collect evidence" because looting corpses isn`t allowed by the paladin.

Twinswords

Two swords are better then one.

Valmur_Dwur · Jul 15, 2002

I once played a Paladin who when surprised would say"Hades-spawned Devildom!" before engaginf.

Ilen · Jul 15, 2002

A certain character in an Earthdawn game we play plays a dwarf and is constantly having bad luck, and being picked on IC. This has bleed into our other games (Vampire: Dark Ages, D&D, Warhammer, it doesn't matter) and when ever somebody is having bad luck or is getting picked on somebody in the group sometimes chimes in (regardless of who is having the luck), "Sucks to be the dwarf." Or more commonly when one is having bad luck; "God, I feel like the dwarf." is customarily muttered.

Chriskaballa · Jul 15, 2002

We have a euphemism in our group based off a former player- "pulling a Nick". We once had a layer named Nick who would do the stupidest things imaginable. He couldn't roleplay, couldn't get the d20 system rules straight, couldn't even figure out which die was which. And he threw dice at me.

So if a player picks up the wrong die, or forgets an easy rule... "Great. <name> just pulled another Nick." is on the tip of everyone's tongue.

Then there's the phrase for rolling a natural 20 (or whatever is the highest number on the die) in our group... we call it "killing the die". As in "Nice! I just killed on 2d8!"

~Chris

ThomasBJJ · Jul 15, 2002

"I guess I'll be rolling up a Bard."

Said whenever a character is in danger of dying. Reason being that we jokinly talked about having to work your way down the PC class heirarchy with each dead character. We never figured out the exact order but Bard is on the bottom of the list, just below Rogue.

I guess if your bard dies, you have to roll up a warrior, adept, expert or aristocrat.

Cedric · Jul 15, 2002

Two more for you...

In our last D&D game before I left my longstanding group to move to Texas...we had a priest/rogue of Ollidamara. His term for searching the bodies for loot/info?

"I give them all last rites"

Also, the term we use for whenever the most dangerous, dual wielding fighter in the party opens up his biggest attacks...

"I turn into a whirling maelstrom of death"

Cedric

Altin · Jul 15, 2002

Thanks to everybody who's contributed thus far, I haven't laughed this hard for weeks. Anyhow, a few more:

"Loading for bear" This originated in a 2nd Ed. game where we didn't usually haul around the big guns out of genre considerations (Victorian horror - Masque of the Red Death for those who care). The phrase was used to indicate that we would in fact be taking along the rifles/shotguns loaded with silver. It has since mutated and is now used whenever the PCs prepare for a big fight (eg. A mage memorising only evocations is said to be 'loading for bear'). It is also sometimes found in other forms like 'loading for dragon' and 'loading for Cthulhu'.

"I disbelieve the illusion!" Said in response to an extremely undesirable development. For instance, it is the standard response to GM phrases like 'You see a huge red dragon' and 'your +2 sword passes right through it'. I think this one might be in fairly common usage, however.

"Writing a sternly worded letter to the Editor" used as a suggestion whenever a player is complaining about something they are powerless to change -- whether this be game-related or not. (eg. A: 'The Pizza is late again' B:'Why don't you write a sternly worded letter to the editor?')

Yours,
Altin

uberkitty · Jul 15, 2002

"I'd rather light the badger than curse the darkness."

Result of our party's (for reasons I can't remember) first adopting a dire badger and then casting permanent light on him.

"Bear Trap"

Any really stupid trap/puzzle, or our party's being stupidly stumped by one. Refers to the worst "trap" of all time, a stuffed bear on wheels which rolled toward the party. It took us much too long to figure it out. (The ranger cast charm animal on it, and couldn't figure out why nothing happened.)

One PC from that party retired and opened an inn after that adventure. He called it the Bear & Badger, and its lobby features a stuffed badger lamp and a closet marked "Bear" which occasionally terrifies the tourists.

"Mount Trouble."

Any failure which has no real repercussions. One of the items on an old critical failure table. It was never applicable to the situation, and it came up every time.

"Prepare Yourselves!"

Quoted at (embarrassing) anti-climaxes. A PC once heroically flung open a door, turned back to her party, and declaring, "Prepare yourselves," proceeded to walk smack into a wall.

Trevalon Moonleirion · Jul 15, 2002

Well, this one is mostly used by me when I'm DMing. I'll just go on describing a room elaborately, and then interject, "But...Of more immediate concern to you..." followed by an nigh-inevitable attack from something nasty. Ya know.. I might've only used that like once or twice... oh well.. I plan on using it more anyhow... LOL.

Another thing that I'll do on occaision to really piss off my players (especially the original two) is stick the example of play from the 2e PHB into the middle of an adventure. Cut stone blocks placed in rooms nearly always draw angry glares from those two.

Ya know, I really can't think of anything else right at the moment and it's bugging the hell out of me.

EDIT: MORE!

Originally posted by Talath:
3. Thats What She Said.

Sometimes one of us says something which can be taken the wrong way (for example, "take that out of your mouth") and then one of us will say in response, "Thats what she said".

This is a running gag among my players and I as well... I wonder if there's a common source for this phenomenon...

The Dead Alewives, of course, get quoted quite a bit at the table.

Lately, Fayredeth has loved joking about trying to pick up women in-game. "Are you from Venus? Cuz that ass is outta this world!!!"

When we played Ravenloft, late, late at night, much stuff for the quotebook was created... "Strahd's a pedophile" being one of them. You see, they encounter the room in his castle with the young girl--not a kid, just a young girl--and instantly that pops up. From my fellow ENWorld poster Fayredeth, we got a lovely little song about Strahd (to the tune of Mambo No. 5 by Lou Bega, and of course done in a "count" voice...like the Count on Sesame street): One, Two, Three, Four-Five, It may look like it, but i'm not a-live!..." There's a bit more but I can't remember it really. Continuing with that line of thought, everytime I mentioned Count Strahd I'd hear "Von! Ah! Two Ah! Ah! Three! Ah! Ah! Ah!" just like the Count on Sesame Street.

I think that's all for the moment. I'll update as i think of more... lol

EDIT 2: But wait, there's more!
This is from when Fayredeth was DMing. I was playing my rather ugly cleric of ...oh I can't even remember the god or godess in his world. Anyhow, I solve a puzzle in this maze and Fay describes various things while I'ms till wandering around. He seems to be gettting frustrated but I'm not really sure why. He then jumps up and says "[INSERT GOD NAME HERE] appears in front of you, bitchslaps you and tells you to get out of the ****ing maze!!!"