Running Gags

[sniffles]

"I wish I had Defender."
A player in an AD&D game happened upon a lucksword. When his PC made the above remark, the GM rolled to see how likely it was, after having the player explain to him that Defender was an artifact-level sword. The result of the roll was that suddenly the lucksword switched places with Defender. Unfortunately, Defender had been hanging over the mantelpiece of a descendant of its original wielder, who came to track it down after it was suddenly replaced by another sword. The PC didn't get to keep Defender for long. So now the player periodically remarks sadly, "I wish I had Defender" in the midst of any and all games.

"I'm not getting naked!"
In our ongoing Greyhawk campaign, we heard about a temple where something funny was going on. Only women were allowed in the temple, so the party's female rogue decided to get in as a supplicant. This required her to bathe in a certain pool in moonlight. The player assumed that 'bathe' meant in the nude, so her PC got undressed, and was promptly whisked within the temple walls by a spell - where she then found herself naked and under attack by gargoyles. Now the player will announce "I'm not getting naked!" or something similar whenever we are faced with any situation where saying that might be funny.

 

[Elemental]

"You see a pretty butterfly."

It means you blew your perception check. This originated in a game of Exalted where nobody had put many points into the Perception stat and Awareness skill. I started to run out of creative things to have them notice when they botched, so I started saying they saw a pretty butterfly. It spread to other games, and the butterfly has since become a low-ranking demon sent to distract heroes at critical moments.

 

[Orryn Emrys]

The more I read, the more I remember from my own years of gaming....

He read the adventure: I've got one player who likes to get his hands on the published adventures I've run after they've been completed, largely due to my habit of making sweeping changes in any given module to fit the needs of the campaign (and to throw off players like one I used to know who liked to read the adventure before it was over...). He then likes to share his discoveries with his colleagues, detailing what could have happened had they made different decisions... assuming I was using the material as written. He truly is a very insightful person, who thrives on puzzle-solving encounters and truly enjoys well-constructed adventures. Consequentially, whenever he figures out some great riddle or mystery in one of my games, the players have begun proclaiming that "he read the adventure"... especially when they are well aware that the adventure material is my own....

So... what's your next plan?: Early in the current ARCANA UNEARTHED campaign, the party leader, a young magister, presumably had a clever moment when the heroes were backed into a narrow tunnel outside of which an angry hydra paced. Interrupting the heroes' arguments concerning their options, the mage announced, "Wait! I've got an idea!", then proceeded to cast a low-level conjure energy creature spell, summoning an electric monkey just inside the tunnel's entryway... only to be snapped up instantly by the hydra! Following a moment of stunned silence, the party's litorian warrior turned to the mage and growled, completely deadpan, "So... what's your next plan?" Now, I hear this anytime some clever idea or another suddenly backfires....

A couple of running gags from my earlier days as a DM were the result of carelessness on my part. In one situation, I informed the group that they had entered a round room, and while I was distracted, one of the players announced that his character was going to sit in the corner... I just nodded, of course... I've never lived that one down. In the same campaign, my younger brother's thief got into the habit of "disappearing into the forest"... It wasn't long before he was disappearing into the forest despite the terrain. The first time I let this slip and someone demanded to know how he was disappearing into the forest on the lower level of the dungeon, I looked at him and said: "He's just that good...." Needless to say, this later became habitual for any truly stealthy character.

And, of course... I frequently answer stupid questions with... "It's a gazebo."

 

[sniffles]

"So, what's your next character like?"

Said whenever anyone asks a question of the GM, especially questions like "did we level?"

 

[Michael Tree]

The Dance of Killing Prisoners In 2e, the frantic running around to cut the throats of enemies before the Sleep spell's duration ran out. More generally, performing coups de gras on unconscious enemies.

The Ranger Takes the Paladin for a Walk One character distracting another character who would be morally opposed to what they're about to do.

In our long-running Star Wars game, all the ships of the PCs and their allies have been named after Big Trouble in Little China quotations. The main ship is the Six Demon Bag, but there's also the Porkchop Express, the Black Blood of the Earth, the Girl with Green Eyes, etc.

 

[rbingham2000]

I used to game with a guy who was famous for two things: every character he had had a tragic past where his mentor or family was slain by assassins, and he horribly mangled the English language. So, once, when describing his character's background, he said, "After finding his sensei's corpse in the dojo, he has sworn a personal bandana against the assassins."

It took us awhile to figure out he meant "vendetta". So, 20 years on, "personal bandana" is part of our gaming lexicon. Any time a vengeance oath is mentioned or is part of the plot, we refer to it as a "personal bandana".

Now I've got this picture of someone swearing an oath of vengeance and then putting on a red headband as a kind of symbolic gesture before going out and pursuing the oath.

 

[McAbendroth]

Those two made me laugh so hard I cried.

"I want a talking rock with a puwafwi!"

This reminds me of my groups "Jim the Gem". Long ago in a campaign one of the characters found two gems in some loot, one was pretty worthless and the other had a decent value. The player decided to sell off the valuable gem and purchase a nicely made box to contain the smaller worthless gem. He also had Magic Mouth cast on the gem so it would say it's name "Jim" hence "Jim the Gem".

There are lots of other good running gags we've had over the years.

"Ok we kill ourselves and get there" This came about from my groups rotating DM-ness. When one of the players was running a campaign we were traveling from City A to get to City B. Because of a poor choice in random encounters on the road the whole party died. The DM said "Fine. The next day you all wake up and your where you needed to go." From then on when needing to travel we would say "Ok we kill ourselves and get there."

"Is it Fey?" This came about from my (takes deep breath) Ranger/Druid/Rogue/Stormlord (gotta love humans) character and my want to actually get to make use of my "Resist Natures Lure" Druid ability. It first started when I had to make a saving throw to resist being charmed by a vampire. I promptly asked, "Is it Fey?" This brought forth lots of giggles from the party which I responded to with, "Hey he never said it wasn't a Pixie Vampire!" Our group constantly makes reference to "Is it Fey?" for all sorts of situations, in and out of game. On a side note to this: You can see an old drawing of this character my friend did. It was made back when he was still just a Ranger/Druid. It can be found in the General Public Art Gallery here at EN World. Look up images put up by DrakkarDaveneorn

Onjec's Scars This is in reference to the above character and my luck concerning things that chop off limbs and experience with being rended by trolls. On my character sheet in the character picture box I have a 'diagram of scars' which contains a rough outline of my character and labels of his major scars. Currently I have legs (both) cut of mid-shin and reattached, right hand severed and reattached, numerous 'punture holes' in torso from spikes in traps, and so on and so on...

"Burn marks, scrap marks?" In reference to my groups way of searching for traps. We figure if they are there they've been set off in the past and reset so we ask "Burn marks, scrap marks?" for the tell-tale signs of traps going off in the past. Recently this has expanded to "Burn marks, scrap marks, pools of blood?" after my character mentioned above bleed to death (-1 all the way to -10 without stablizing) after the party was split up and I hit a trap. This was early in his adventuring career, before learning ways of the rogue. I'm glad our party had enough gold to have me raised.

There's many more but they are escaping me at the moment.

 

[Zweihänder]

#1: "Ah, my natural habitat." This started with a Dwarven Clockwork Ranger in a DragonMech game. The player said it seriously the first time. Then, they entered a different area, and she said it again. We teased her about it, and soon she was saying it every time the party entered a new area.

#2: "Doink doink doink..." I once narrated the sound of my Dwarven Paladin's armor. It now gets brought up in every campaign with any of those players.

#3: "Gnome 1, Gnome 2, Goblin 3, Gnome 4..." This one arose from an accident on my part, as the DM. They were facing 5 Gnomes. I labeled them G1 through G5. I accidentally called Gnome 3, Goblin 3, which they thought was hilarious. Needless to say, repeated in every encounter (even the one with the three incarnations of Grievous. There was Grievous 1, Grievous 2, and Gruumsh 3.).

[EDIT]: One more. Whenever I game with my friend Ally, she makes fun of my character's name. Two examples: In a Changeling: The Dreaming game, my character's name was Baphomet, which she forever referred to as Bathroom Mat. In the D&D game I'm running, her character, Psyche, refers to the NPC Cleric Dammerung as Damerol (some sort of medication). Irritating more than funny, really.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

In a friend's casual game, I've got a Warlock that's from the distant lands of Barbar... so he introduces himself as a Barbarian. He keeps getting into arguments with shopkeepers and fellow adventurers who want him to bulk up and move to the front. Actually, he's fleeing from a group of Barbarian Barbarians that are working for his enemy, the dark wizard Bala-din. He's in love with a woman named Rainja, who is also a Barbarian (although she's a rogue).

That reminds me of the fabled short ranger short-rangers. (If you know DDM, look at a Talenta Halfling and figure it out )

 

[Kae'Yoss]

One more. Whenever I game with my friend Ally, she makes fun of my character's name.

Ooh, we had our share of those.

There was the power-hungry Elven Wizard Oxi (actually Oxavius). Or that poor guy whose name was Orlin Trabbar (or something like that), and we only called him Ornithopter. And then I played a

Spoiler

Ninja

Courtier called Bayushi Akahito, and they all called him "Hacki" (that's what you get from adventuring with Gaijin)