Gaming catchphrases, expressions, and idioms--what are yours?

[Richards]

Here's one from today's gaming session: The current party consists of a human fighter, an elven sorcerer, and a half-elven druid with a dire wolf animal companion. We've never really bothered detailing the specifics as to who in the party is actually mapping out the dungeons as the party goes through them; I just draw out each room and show the players what they see, and we assume somebody in the party's actually taking the time to draw it all out. (They keep their maps after each adventure, and sometimes return to do further exploring.)

Today, the PCs were checking out a multi-level, domed building in an abandoned kuo-toa city. The building is circular in shape, with a spiral staircase in the center leading up to each level. As I was drawing the third level, the circle I had made as my guideline for the building's exterior was really sloppy and not very circular at all. When I was called on it, I merely replied, "Well, that's what you get for letting the wolf draw the map."

Johnathan

 

[alsih2o]

a hi-ho howdy to shadow stitch! welcome to the boards!

 

[thg jim]

A few old ones:

Save the cleric!

Our party, while very powerful, was small and always in need of healing. The cleric even started wearing the Red Cross as his sign.
.....
We once fell into a river. The dwarf's descent, who was wearing full plate and completely loaded down, was described as:

The Dwarf falls.
The river opens up.
The Dwarf hits the river bottom.
The river closes over the Dwarf's body.

Jim Govreau
Director of Thunderhead Games for MEG

 

[abri]

"wrong bag":
In a mage game (in the near future), we ended up in a templar's headquarter. Of course we were found: to cover our exit I threw my backpak (all our packs were equipped with 1lb of C4 and a detonator for this purpose). It's after I threw the bag than I realised than my backpack also contained 30lbs of experimental unstable explosive...
Now we use this sentence to mean "RUN, FAST, NO REALLY RUN!!!"

 

[Lurch]

1. "Dibs on the armor!"

In the early days of my gaming group, I had a player who ran a typically sticky-fingered rogue. In their first adventure, the party joined forces with a very elderly knight on his last quest. Keep in mind I had already informed the party repeatedly (in response to repeated questioning) that the knight's gear was extremely old, battered and rusty, and had about as much life left in it as the knight himself. At the end of the adventure the heroes confronted the main bad guy, and in the course of the battle the old knight delivered the final blow at the cost of his own life. As I described the villain's last desperate sword swing landing with such force that the knight's helmet was knocked off and the old man crumpled, the rogue, sensing the knight's demise, yells "dibs on the armor!" before the guy could even finish hitting the ground. Since then the term has applied to any party member prematurely grabbing for fallen "loot," or making a grab for any obviously worthless item.

2. "meat shield": any character being used as cover by another character, whether intentional or not. Also used as a reference to hostage-taking ("meat shields up!").

 

[MarauderX]

Players when they don't believe what they are facing:
"I want to roll to disbelieve"

It all sprung out of one fast adventure where the PCs were expecting to fight something around every corner only to have the party dwindle one by one to their 'fantasies'. Basically whenever they would look into these mirror-like walls they would start to see lots of riches, a large castle, beautiful women, etc. that would draw them closer... and the more the player looked the harder the save became. So they caught on quickly and realized that the sooner they rolled the easier it was to disbelieve, they would automatically ask to roll to disbelieve even when faced by the BBEG.

 

[EricNoah]

Wigga-Wigga -- when you're going to cast a spell but you're not ready to say what spell exactly. You wiggle your fingers like a wizard when you say it.

Thinka-Thinka -- same as above, but for psionic powers.

 

[Agamon]

My Living Greyhawk group has a few catchphrases:

"We Greyhawk the bodies." - This comes from the fact that in the first year of LG, you only got any loot in the game if you stripped the bodies of your enemies down and took everything. Refers to the fact that LG is the only game that one really does this...

"It's the Vampire Lich King!" - The first mod the group played involved lots of undead. The party decided that the leader must have been a "Vampire Lich King". It turned out to be a ghast with cleric levels, but everyone one convinced otherwise. Now if the the big bad of an adventure is ever in doubt, someone quips, "This looks like the work of the Vampire Lich King!"

player: Can I (something dumb)
DM: (Pause)... wait for it... (pause)... (pause)... no.

Consider this "Yoinked"

 

[Henry]

"Ah, Screw It!" has become an official expletive for any mages in our parties with fireball prepared, due to one particular player's habit of using it as his version of, "Fire In The Hole!"

"Picture it!" I still hear this phrase echoed back to me. I used to run a WEG Star Wars game, and used this phrase to start about 4 sessions in a row, to open with a cut scene. It somehow became my players' great amusement.

 

[Henry]

After checking the start date on this thread, I'm beginning to like the phrase that Chronosome coined:

"Thread Necromancers!"