Friday the 13th! Superstitions in your Game?
- Thread starter Mark
- Start date
Keeper of Secrets
First Post
Not an 'in game' superstition but one that my players had:
We all know that many gamers have the superstition regarding dice. However, in two seperate games with totally different players they had superstitions regarding character sheets.
In one group, we were playing Call of Cthulhu. They got it in their heads that they had to light a match and burn the slightest bit of their character sheet after each adventure.
In another group, they believed that no matter how filthy or dirty, no matter how many eraser marks or pizza stains got on their character sheet, the sheet must never be transcribed and replaced. They felt that the sheets somehow had badges of honor.
We all know that many gamers have the superstition regarding dice. However, in two seperate games with totally different players they had superstitions regarding character sheets.
In one group, we were playing Call of Cthulhu. They got it in their heads that they had to light a match and burn the slightest bit of their character sheet after each adventure.
In another group, they believed that no matter how filthy or dirty, no matter how many eraser marks or pizza stains got on their character sheet, the sheet must never be transcribed and replaced. They felt that the sheets somehow had badges of honor.
Jeff Wilder
First Post
Wow. Ritual sacrifice. Fundies would have a field day!Keeper of Secrets said:
This one would kill me. I'd be reduced to a twitching, muttering wreck after about three sessions. I'm one of those people that updates his sheet and prints out a fresh one if my character spends a few gold pieces.
VirgilCaine
First Post
Tetsubo
First Post
The PC's in my last FR campaign had an extended adventure at low levels involving goblins. The goblins were raiding the surface because their cave system was slowly flooding. The PC's took on the task of reversing the flood so the goblins would go home. While looking for the cause they had numerous chances to face a species of giant, blind cave eels. They were dead white, quite large and rather dangerous. The goblins believed that if one bit you, it would steal your soul. The PC's ate that tale right up. Every time an eel bit someone they had to kill the eel to "save" their soul. They ended up fighting a lot more eels to the death than they needed too... 
In a homebrew campaign I had, it was considered bad luck to say the word "bear". The culture was loosely base on the Kalevala, and the translation I have noted that among Finns at that time it was ritually taboo to say the word for bear. I further worked this in to standard generic D&D mythology by having it somehow related to the fact the werebears were not generally hostile, but werewolves were.
In this campaign, most geographic features were named after European cylists (just as a lazy choice of Old-World-sounding names, since I followed cylcling but none of my players did). Clearly I should have been using race names from old TSR sci-fi games. The Vrusk forest, the Yexil river, the Aurumvorax hills; okay, on second though, perhaps not.
Mark
CreativeMountainGames.com
Susperstitions about owls are very popular. Perhaps because there are so many kinds around the world and because they are primarily nocturnal creatures. One I use in my own game I attribute to wood elves. They believe if you come upon an owl in the woods, and you can get him to remain perched while following you with its gaze in a full circle without the owl otherwise moving or looking away due to some other distraction, you will have good luck. Obviously wood elves have a bit of extra time on their hands.
Keeper of Secrets
First Post
Jeff Wilder said:
See, I'm with you. I am like Monk when it comes to that kind of thing. I found out about the ritual/superstition when I actually cleaned up all the sheets and gave them new ones. Boy they were mad . . . I had no idea until that moment.
Similar Threads
