Running Gags

[Bloodsparrow]

And the room contains... Tapestries or They look like bars of gold, but they're really Tapestries or ALL THE TAPESTRIES WILL BE MINE!

In a current campaign, the party is sent off to make ready a recently abandoned keep for it's new lord. Stories abound that the place is haunted or over run with brigands and/or goblinoids. So it's the party's job to clear it out and clean it up.

As part of their payment for services rendered, the party is told that they may keep whatever spoils they take in their endeavor to make the place livable... At this the Bard raises an eyebrow and the rogue looks down right gleeful which prompts the Lord's representative to tack on "... Within reason". And mentions that the party should not feel free to help themselves to things like tapestries...

So finding tapestries became something of a running joke.

The DM would be describing a ransacked room and bring up now ruined and musty tapestries that had been torn from the wall laying in heaps, and the rogue would go "Tapestries?!?! Oh boy! I'm all over those!."... And the rest of us would say, "Now now Esteban. You remember what the man said about taking tapestries..." And then the player would say either that he would become sullen and sulk in the back of the party muttering about how we "never get to keep any of the good crap", or tell the DM that he wants to try and smuggle one or more out in his pants while we weren't looking.

Oh no! Not Food Horse #2!!! Noooooooo! Food Horse n u m b e r t w o o o o o!"
We had this campaign, that was getting up there in levels. And we needed to travel very far from home, through some mountains. And we weren't normally very concerned with traveling arrangements at this point. Because with the combination of classes we had, at the level we were at, it was pretty much assumed that we would be able to feed ourselves and keep warm'ish.

I mean, we weren't at Pirate Cat uber levels with ultra swanky extra plainer places to stay, but we generally had our act together.

But this was different; We had to come up with itemized list of everything we needed and were taking with us. "You need horses," the DM said, "to carry equipment and food, and more horses to carry food for the horses..." And we were like, "no we don't because the Druid and the Priest can conjure food, even for the horses if we even bother with horses; which we may not because this party had ridiculously bad luck in regards to horses". But somehow it got negotiated around and we decided that we did need those things because the trip was particularly long and difficult.

So one of the players made an inventory:
Riding Horse #1 - rider, saddle bags, items in saddle bags.
Food Horse #1 - inventory of equipment carried
Riding Horse #2 - rider, saddle bags, items in saddle bags.
... and so on.
and so on

So halfway through the trip we get attacked by a Giant Griffin which goes immediately for the food horses. (If you ask me, the Griffin is the reason we had to make these detailed plans, but it was a fun encounter. )

So we drive it off and one of the mages asks what the damage was. The response was, "Well, we've lost your horse and Food Horses #4 and 2."

To which the mage replied, "... NOT FOOD HORSE #2! She was my favorite!!!"

 

[Cthulhu's Librarian]

"Is my +5 Holy Avenger there?" or "I'd really like a +5 Holy Avenger"
For 5 years now, my friend Matt has been after a +5 Holy Avenger with every character he has ever played. It doesn't matter that none of the characters he has played couldn't even use a Holy Avenger, he just wants one. Initially, he was probably semi-serious about it, but now he asks this every time they defeat a tough opponent or start on a new adventure. It sometimes comes up out of game as well. One of these days, I'm going to toss a +5 Holy Avenger in just when he least expects it.

"I want to play the Kobold Bard"
In my game, kobolds are not evil, and are sort of the "grunt labor" race for the humans, and often used for household servents, entertainment, etc. The option to play a kobold was there from the start, although nobody is playing one. When the group was getting ready to attend a festival, I mentioned that a troup of kobold bards was going to be performing, and this immediatly started Matt (same guy as above) talking about his next character being a kobold bard. Now, every time someone talks about their next character, they say they are going to play a kobold bard. It comes up so often that my wife even knows the phrase, saying stuff like "I'll go to lunch with you guys, but you can't talk about kobold bards" or You aren't going to sit around all night talking about kobold bards, are you?" which translates to "Are we going to do anything besides talk about D&D?"

"It must be... the MER-PEOPLE!"
This comes from my friend Leland, who is the newest player in our group, and just began playing last year. When I was setting up the game and explaining the world (they are adventuring along the coastal area of the continent), he said he wanted to fight mer-people. There are no mer-people in this part of the world, but it comes up fairly often from him, especially when something happens near the ocean.

 

[Testament]

"The Pianos say so!"
Used to refer to something being mandated by a module, the stupider the better. Came from the time someone said that if you interrupted boxed text, a piano would fall on you.

"I clog dance, and throw my clogs at him!"
Wasting a round doing nothing.

"Crazy Joe"
No matter what system or setting, Crazy Joe is ALWAYS there. Waiting for you. Crazier than ever. Usually he's a storekeeper.

 

[Romnipotent]

"Birefall!"
"You know this would all have been a lot easier if we'd been selling Avon products."
and a constant play on words... "We need to find a miner." "What do children have to do with this?"

 

[noretoc]

After playing for a while my group has come up with a few.
#1 The players had spent a long time on one area, which consited of a city and the surrounding forest. One night while in the forest, they set up camp and one of my players asked "Is there a tree around?" I replied "not in this forest", and he realized what he asked. He finished the request by adding "no, no. A big tree with a hole in it?" and I stopped it there. For a long time when it starts getting late or somoene asks a question he should know the answer to, we reply with "is there a tree around?"

When we thought that had to be the silliest question ever asked, another player asked
#2 "How long does a permanancy spell last?" In his defense he meant how long before the spell damaged the item it was placed on, but we all had a good laugh at it, and now "Is there a tree around?" is always followed by "How long does a permanency last?"

#3 "I take the damage" This from one of my player who had trouble putting aside his pride. It actually come from a magic game, where he refused to block an attack and died from it saying "I take the damage" even though he could have prevented it. This same player coined
#4 "I bite my tongue off and swallow it". His PC and the rest of the party had split up. He did not know where they were going or what they were doing, and was captured by an evil thief who wanted information. The thief used a paingiving dagger to torture the player's PC, who insisted that his character not answer the thief's questions. The questions were of course, where are you friends. Since he didn't know, there was no danger of him endagering them. When I started having him roll fortitude saves to resist the torture, he bit off his tongue and swallowed it so he would not reveal information he did not know in the first place. Now when somone is being obstinant for no reason we reply with "I bite my tongue off and swallow it."

 

[Bran Blackbyrd]

"Mohrg Barrel" We had a bard get killed when he raced another PC to a barrel in order to loot it first. Turned out a mohrg had been placed inside and it grappled him. That alone would have killed him in a few rounds but a (young) trigger-happy PC cast a lightning bolt at the two of them and they both got fried.
The whole concept of a mohrg in a barrel was so funny (especially since it proved to be fatal) that we made constant references to it whenever there was a mysterious container that needed searched or when someone contemplated what might be waiting in the next room. I've threatened on more than one occasion to "drop a mohrg barrel" on someone if they didn't behave. An image comes to mind of something like a can of spam... a can filled with spam with a non-threatening picture of spam on the front; except this is a mohrg barrel... a barrel filled with mohrg with a non-threatening (?!) picture of a mohrg on the front. I'll never know why those kobolds were living in the same chamber as a barreled mohrg.

"How much for the macramé? / Oh, you can't afford the macramé." The same PC that would eventually be killed by the mohrg barrel lost an arm and went to a "specialist" to get a replacement. He had his choice between various types and materials (admantium, iron, etc) and one was macramé. They all seemed pretty expensive so we asked how much the macramé arm was figuring it was nearly worthless. The reply was simply, "Oh you can't afford the macramé arm." Who'd have guessed...but we took his word for it. The PC chose copper or brass in the end, I think. Whenever someone tries to buy something, invariably someone will ask how much the macramé version is and someone else will tell them they can't afford it.

"So anyway, the local magistrates show up and take you to jail..." I was (and still am) having a hard time getting my players together because of Real Life and at the end of our last session of my homebrew the local magistrates showed up and took the PCs into custody. A year or so later one of the players was back from college and starting DMing for the first time. I joined the campaign after a few sessions and during a slow spot I said, "So anyway, the local magistrates show up and take you to jail..." The players from my campaign remembered the line and laughed. From there on out whenever a session was grinding to a halt or the DM was allowing people to take too long getting ready I'd say the line; a subtle, playful insinuation that I'd take over and start my campaign again if things took too long. It usually got a (sometimes nervous) laugh out of him.

EDIT: "You're part of the problem!" As in "Be part of the solution, not part of the problem." We've taken to yelling either "You're part of the problem!" or "Be part of the solution!" at anything from warlords and BBEGs to dumbfounded orcs and unsuspecting commoners if they aren't cooperating in the manner we want them to.

Also there's the exchange in my sig...

 

[Ry]

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).

Before that, it was Pauvolf, who winced every time someone mispronounced his name. His name turned out to be "Pav--sorry."

 

[Gnome]

In a D&D game, a foe was attacking us with a large hammer that the DM referred to as a "big-a**" hammer. People decided to interpret that as a big "a**-hammer" instead. After that, and for the rest of the campaign, people made references to "ass-hammers", like "can my character take exotic weapon proficiency - a**-hammer?", and several more, less clean examples.

 

[Nomad4life]

We have too many to post here. Two of my favorites are:

Evil Bastard

In every single “goofy” adventure we have run for over a decade, the primary antagonist is named “Evil Bastard.” He’s always behind everything, and nobody has ever seen him yet.

“Can I attack it 13 times?”

In a player’s first Star Wars game, the characters were hiding in the massive garage of an imperial operations station. Suddenly, the garage gates opened, and an AT-ST started to advance into the area where the PCs were hiding (behind some crates.) To the bafflement of everyone, the new player (armed only with a wrench) asks if he could attack it! After a long moment of silence, I replied “yes, but it will cost you an intelligence point.”

Still not getting it, and completely seriously, the player looks over his character sheet. After seeing that he has an INT of 13 he responds “So… I can attack it 13 times, right?” The phrase has been with us ever since.

Here are some infamous exchanges that became running gags:

D&D:

GM: Wow. You manage to get the window open after all.

Rogue: Does this mean I get “Windows XP?”

Call of Cthulhu

GM: “As the body on the examining table begins to writhe and scream…”

Player: “I use quick draw and point blank shot.”

GM: “On the body?”

Player: “No. On my head.”

 

[DungeonmasterCal]

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".

Also, the standard answer for finding nothing important when looting the body of a fallen foe is, "You find a dead robin, a canned ham, and a ball of string", and every town has a tavern called "The Sandy Jackboot".