The Easter Eggs

[Jack7]

Some time ago (a coupla years back) I was working on a video game script, placing Easter Eggs in the storyline. It occurred to me that I could do the same thing with my RPG adventures, missions, and scenarios.

So I started making a list of Easter Eggs, categorizing them, seeing how they might be of various advantages to the players, etc. then began inserting them into adventures, missions, and scenarios, as well as fixing some to particular NPCs, locales, devices, etc.

It has worked out excellently as a DM technique and one my players really seem to enjoy. (I think the first one I ever placed was in an area where one of my players was vadding. At first he didn't understand what it was or what it did, but it intrigued him and later on he made the connection.) Although occasionally my eggs go rotten and have effects which are not so much good to eat, as end up being sour, or giving one indigestion. (I am saying this metaphorically of course.) Some eggs are bad, or can go bad over time.

Anyways, I was kinda curious who else might use this or a similar technique. If you use Easter Eggs then how do you do so? How do you classify them, place them so they can be discovered, attach them to the storyline, adventure, game, or to other things, what kinds of advantages do your eggs offer, do your eggs ever go bad, what effects do your eggs have, how well are they hidden, do your players like discovering them? Came you name some of your eggs or describe what they do? What is their relationship to other kinds of treasure, to magic, to secrets, clues, and hidden advantages in your game or world?

Anything else you wanna talk about regarding your Easter Eggs and how you use them, go right ahead.

 

[weem]

I never do, but to be honest I never thought about doing so.

You mind sharing some specific examples?

 

[Jack7]

Weem, I don't. But I gotta go to a party in a little bit. I'll say some more about it when I get back.

But you might think about it as a video game Easter Egg adapted for or in RPG form.

Hopefully some others might use this or a similar technique and can say more about what they do in the meantime. See ya later.

 

[Asmor]

A friend uses "geek points" in his campaigns... He'll make a mildly obscure pop culture reference, e.g. name a magic sword after one in an anime, and if someone recognizes the reference they blurt it out and get a geek point.

Geek points can be used for various benefits.

 

[MatthewJHanson]

How are you defining easter eggs?

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Sure, all the time, but usually D&D-based ... one campaign example: in a ruined necropolis, the largest tomb-mound had a cluster of large, dark rocks which seen from the air formed the shape of a grinning skull. Somehow my players could not be convinced to investigate that particular easter egg.

Another: I once had a "magic item" of strange construction that the players found ... it consisted of an egg-shaped object with ridges, and a small button on one end that could be pressed in and rotated. It was found on the body of a skeleton which wore strange colored fabric that was almost tear-proof, in whose pocket was a colored thin square carved from a smooth opaque gem-like substance.

 

[Pbartender]

I've got a few that I use almost as running gags... They are odd little items that refer to classic D&D figures and locations, and they almost always show up somewhere in my campaigns.

One of my most infamous is a small scarab beetle ornament made of amber and gold. It faintly glows with a golden inner light and is inscribed with the following hieroglyphics:

Practically, it functions as an Everburning Torch, giving off light equivalent to a torch. My players have run across it in every single campaign I've run in the last ten years. To date, they've never bothered to translate the hieroglyphs and never bothered to research its past. Though, they're just beginning to wonder about it, now.

 

[TarionzCousin]

I would like to encourage posters to reveal what their Easter Eggs mean. I sold down my heiroglyphics-reading skill to put points in touch typing.

I almost always have something from the Planescape: Torment video game show up in my Planescape face-to-face games. So far, none of my players have recognized any of those eggs. Even though they all have said they loved Planescape, they had never played the video game.

P.S. "Updated my journal."

 

[Pbartender]

I would like to encourage posters to reveal what their Easter Eggs mean. I sold down my heiroglyphics-reading skill to put points in touch typing.

hieroglyphics alphabet chart - Google Search

"Lord A-s-r-r-k spirit"

 

[TarionzCousin]

"Lord A-s-r-r-k spirit"

aka "Acerak"? Ouch. Put down the shiny object and back slowly away.