Are you sick and tired of quoted movies during your D&D sessions?

[Angel Tarragon]

- Army of Darkness - "And this is my boomstick!"

You think that's bad, try to imagine a campaign set in the Dalelands (Forgotten Realms) with a cast of characters that includes:

- a medieval female wizard (and she's married to)
- a male Klingon Barbarian (and their son)
- a male Half-Klingon Fighter
- a male cyborg from the 21st century
- and Ash (Army of Darkness)

Yup, that is the group of characters that I currently have to deal with.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

Under no circumstances are TV commercials worth discussing.

Unless, of course something devastating happens to the PCs, then you can say: "Okay [insert situational happening here], but I do have good news. I just saved a load of money by switching my car insurance to Geico."

 

[mikedidthis]

People, you are gaming with human beings, your friends (presumably), and they deserve more from you than stale leavings of pop culture, which in itself is simply voracious, taking all, and giving so very little… so very little. Humans are capable of so much, and at the same time are so often bereft, or distanced from one another (and themselves), and when a chance comes to connect, to throw something out that might link to something genuine, it’s a misfortune to crush any real hope of achieving this by expressing something NOT of yourself (for that is what this sort of incessant quoting represents, indicating a deep lack of understanding, or perhaps it’s simply an artifact of fear, fear of saying something that might reflect upon internals, and there is nothing as glossy an shiny and ultimately forgettable as pop culture superficiality) – it’s worse than that, it’s a tragedy, it’s heartbreaking, this self-inflicted wounding. Don’t cover yourself with another’s presumed humor.

[snip]

Some people take comfort, I suppose, in cleaving to the expected. Some people, I suppose, want to be nothing except that which is expected, that which the culture produces. I don’t want that, I don’t want that in the people around me, I don’t want to see it in anyone else either.

While I applaud the idea of digging through the pop-cultural facade and making real, human connections with each other, it seems to me that once you suppose you understand the motivations of others and declare that you don't want to see that behavior, you have chosen to stop the conversation and sever the connection. By assuming that pop culture references can be nothing more than lightweight--that they can't be the beginnings of a deeper conversation or even of a relationship, or perhaps that they may hold a deeper meaning for the person expressing them--then you have chosen to shut yourself off from the community. You chose not to dig through the facade, not the other guy. Pity.

I know a girl who loves the song "Uptown Girl" by Billy Joel. Songs don't come much lighter-weight than that. She seemed pretty intelligent in all other respects, so why would she like this song so much? Seemed a bit out of place, really. I found out that her father used to sing this song to her when she was little. She was his "uptown girl". He used this song to create a connection with his young daughter. He died in a car accident while she was still young. She will always carry this shallow little piece of pop culture flotsam with her because it reminds her of her dad. And I think that's a great reason to do it.

Please don't be so dismissive of things that bring a smile to other people's faces. There might be more to it than you know, and you won't know unless you ask. Even if movie-quoting is used only to fill the empty spaces between us, at least it's trying. If you really feel that strong about it, use it as an opening to make a connection instead of telling the quoter to get lost.

As Wayne and Garth said, "Game on."

[edit: whoops...spelling error. Sorry 'bout the overly-serious tone...was feeling in a bit of funk last night :\. Just for the record, I'm a serial quoter, so a lot of quoting has never bugged me much. Lately, I've been favoring Buffy the Vampire Slayer and M*A*S*H quotes, but I also pull a lot from comic strips. Calvin & Hobbes, Bloom County, and Far Side probably top my list. Anyone else do that?]

 

[two]

Thanks for contributing

No, of course you're not.

Did I rankle, or do you just like saying not much of anything?

I don't really see what parts of my overheated post(s) was/were "pretentious." You might not agree with it all, ok, fine, tell me about it. You may think I'm full of it, but at least tell me what is smells like. Or is my simple and (obvious?) assertion that "pop culture" tv/movies/music are bare-bones bad and lacking in many ways somehow, I don't know... So radical it's necessarily seen as a pretentious stance on the part of a wind-bag? Seems pretty obvious and straightforward to me, and I'm hardly alone, nor at all a radical. What's the problem, exactly?

 

[two]

I'm sorry, I'm not allowed to argue any more. If you want me to go on arguing, you'll have to pay for another five minutes.

Sure, what's your email? I have $20 I can spare somewhere.

 

[two]

Well, when I started reading Two's post, I got angry and was going to post a serious rebuttal.

However, I decided Im not going to do it.

Ok, just a little bit: I am past college, I never drank, and Led Zeppelin? Inevitably? I dont own a single one of their songs. I tend toward an older crowd...Vivaldi, Holst, Grieg...the occasional Wagner.

And I like to quote Monty Python, Star Trek and anything else I enjoy watching. So there.

A shame, since you can't, therefore, claim ignorance as a defense.

 

[Mystery Man]

Nobody expects, the Spanish Inquisition!!!!

 

[dreaded_beast]

It's fun to quote. Just not the same one over n over n over n over...

Cool! This I agree with.

Although I didn't comment on it, when I read your first post, I believe I misunderstood what you were trying to get at.

Glad I was wrong.

 

[Hawkeye]

I guess I am lucky. While my gaming friends and I are known to use puns and movie/book quotes rather liberally, we have all developed the talent to use the appropriate quote at the appropriate time. This is particulalry true of a LARP group I am part of. A couple of examples off the top of my head.

We were running a LARP game one day, when one of the players, playing a Dread Pirate Roberts type character, came to the game wearing a mask. At an informational encounter later in the day, the NPC turned to the PC in question and launced in the Princess Bride Fissick mask questions, and the PC fired right back his answers and the game flowed right from there. It wasn't disrupting and fit very well.

In another LARP game, the PCs had finished with another informational encounter. While they were leaving the NPCs turned to the PCs and said "Have fun storming the castle" in true Princess Bride fashion. Of course the PCs laughed a little at this, until they came out onto the open field and there on a hill before them was a castle that had been built for the game. The game writer had written the castle encounter as a serious affair. The NPCs had a different plan and I am sure you can see where this is going. What followed was taken straight from Monty Python was the NPCs were the obnoxious French defenders of the castle, down to the insults, which had to be changed to make them germane to the characters involved. The PCs had to assualt the castle, while the French defenders were insulting them and launching animals at them with a "catapault." The animals were all stuffed toys from several years ago that had voice boxes in them that would make animal sounds while flying through the air. So you would see a stuffed cat coming over the wall going "meow meow" the entire time or a rooster crowing. The PCs were, of course taking damage if it. When they became annoying the NPCs "loaded the really big catapault" and dropped a large stuffed cow on them. It was very well done. Lots of fun had by all and not one bit of detraction from the game.

Hawkeye

 

[two]

While I applaud the idea of digging through the pop-cultural facade and making real, human connections with each other, it seems to me that once you suppose you understand the motivations of others and declare that you don't want to see that behavior, you have chosen to stop the conversation and sever the connection. By assuming that pop culture references can be nothing more than lightweight--that they can't be the beginnings of a deeper conversation or even of a relationship, or perhaps that they may hold a deeper meaning for the person expressing them--then you have chosen to shut yourself off from the community. You chose not to dig through the facade, not the other guy. Pity.

I know a girl who loves the song "Uptown Girl" by Billy Joel. Songs don't come much lighter-weight than that. She seemed pretty intelligent in all other respects, so why would she like this song so much? Seemed a bit out of place, really. I found out that her father used to sing this song to her when she was little. She was his "uptown girl". He used this song to create a connection with his young daughter. He died in a car accident while she was still young. She will always carry this shallow little piece of pop culture flotsam with her because it reminds her of her dad. And I think that's a great reason to do it.

Please don't be so dismissive of things that bring a smile to other people's faces. There might be more to it than you know, and you won't know unless you ask. Even if movie-quoting is used only to fill the empty spaces between us, at least it's trying. If you really feel that strong about it, use it as an opening to make a connection instead of telling the quoter to get lost.

As Wayne and Garth said, "Game on."

[edit: whoops...spelling error. Sorry 'bout the overly-serious tone...was feeling in a bit of funk last night :\. Just for the record, I'm a serial quoter, so a lot of quoting has never bugged me much. Lately, I've been favoring Buffy the Vampire Slayer and M*A*S*H quotes, but I also pull a lot from comic strips. Calvin & Hobbes, Bloom County, and Far Side probably top my list. Anyone else do that?]

You make a good point, I'm certainly not claiming that every pop-culture reference is devoid of personal meaning, referring to the Uptown Girl example you gave. I'm certainly not going to throw somebody out of my group for singing Uptown Girl or Do the Humpty Hump (I have a real weakness for that song, but anyway --). I am objecting to the kind of blind blithering quoting that goes on, one movie after another, one almost related ha-ha folllowing another not-so-closely related ha ha. There is no dead dad lurking behind these sorts of brainless voicings, and it feeds itself. One person quotes, another does, another does, and before long you are in the middle of a pop-culture whirlwind. Hell, more like it. And at the end of the evening, what do you have to show for it? That's the objectionable part. NOTHING, in fact the participants are quite interchangeable. So the question remains to be asked: why do something that thousands of other people are doing, which reflects nothing of yourself and creates humor (very occasionally) of the bland communal variety? Is it just lack of imagination, or personality?