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

[Scarbonac]

''Uh..cocked die...?''

Usually said after rolling a ''1'' on a d20.



''Does a '1' hit/save/etc. ?''

The other thing said after rolling a ''1'' on a d20.



''Ouch.''


The other other thing said after rolling a ''1'' on a d20.



''My AC is so low that even I can't hit me!''

Used in our 1e-2e campaigns. An alternate phrasing ends ''...even God can't hit me!''



''Lots!''

The response, usually sarcastically, to the DM question ''How many hit points do you have left?'', which normally comes after a ginormous attack from the BBEG (or after saying ''...even God can't hit me!'').



''Is there a man in [city name] who has not slept with my daughter?!?''


Frustrated response of a PC cleric whose daughter (also a PC) is notoriously promiscuous. Based on a line from ''I, Claudius'', spoken by Augustus, played by Brian Blessed (who happens to be the character model for the cleric). Phrase is now a running gag.



''Keel zem, keel zem all...''

Signature phrase of one of my NPCs, first spoken (in an awt-rageous Fronch ox-CENT) by her when she was rescued from a band of gnolls who'd enslaved and, uh...molested her. Now used more-or-less jokingly (often OOC) when someone asks ''what do we do with these [whatever] we've captured?''




''What is your quest?''

Often said jokingly, OOC, when the party meets a new PC or NPC.



''Fireball...fireball...how's that go...?''


Said usually before unleashing Hell on Earth upon the BBEG in the form of a fireball spell or some other reasonably-flashy high-damage spell. Sometimes replaced with ''...you hear the ominous sound of pages rustling...'' From Dragonlancs, of course.


''What's it gots in its pocketses...?''


Said when looting a foe, whether it actually has ''pocketses'' or not.



''...you slime...'' or just ''...sliiiiiiiiime...''


Usually spoken by my DM, when we kill one of her BBEGs, particularly if we take (in her opinion) undue advantage of a slip-up on the NPC's part.



''...my theory, which is mine and belongs to me..''

Usually said when one party member is relating his hypothesis about what's going on behind the scenes or why a thing is a the way that it is; originally from a Monty Python sketch.



''...here's a kiss for you...'''


Said by one of my characters before she blasts an enemy out of their boots. From the ZBS SF radio play ''Ruby: Adventures Of A Galactic Gumshoe'', about a tough-as-nails female private eye on an alien planet; Ruby's favorite weapon is her Smith-Hitachi Godzilla-Blaster, but I make do with a wand or spell.



''Hey, suckah! Suck on this!''

Another Ruby phrase that has worked its way into my PC's dialogue, said usually before snuffing some poor bastard's life out, via sword, arrow or zap.


''...dies of fright!'', ''...invites us all to tea!'', ''...gives us his treasure and goes off on his merry way!'', ''...lays his/her sword at our feet!'', ''...trips and impales him/herself on his/her pointed shoes!'', ''...surrenders!'' or the like.


Various attempts, usually quite desperate, by PCs to finish a phrase by the DM, regarding the next action that the BBEG will take, which generally start ''He/She turns slowly and...''. ''He/She looks up and...'', ''He/She smiles and...''. The DM usually finishes the phrase with ''...actually, make a saving throw.'', ''...what's your AC again...?'', ''...he/she points a wand/staff/rod/finger at you, speaks a word, and...save.'' or ''...draws his/her sword/axe/other weapon and attacks.''


Not so much standard catch-phrases, that last bit, but more a standardized behavior.



More later when I rememember them.

 

[The_Gneech]

Some more I've remembered...

"You poked your eye out!" -- Said to anybody who rolls a 1 on an attack

"Swish." -- Ditto.

"Hasaaaaaan CHOP!" -- Said when rolling a boatload of damage in melee

"I say something witty and fascinating." -- When the player has no clue what to say, but the character has a high Cha / diplomacy check.

"Iiiii ... have a Cunning Plan!" or "I have a plan so cunning you could brush your teeth with it!" or "I have a plan that's so cunning, you could put a tail on it and call it a weasel!" -- The traditional segue into launching a discussion of tactics; all stolen from Black Adder, of course.

"Better part of valor! Better part of valor!" or "Our cause is DOOMED!" -- Said when the adventure is going south. Both stolen from Baldur's Gate.

-The Gneech

 

[Ashe]

Hey RUBE!!!

This is what our PC's would yell if we were seperated and needed help. Apparently back in the early days of carnivals this is the expression that would be yelled when there was trouble and they needed the other carnies as backup.

 

[andrew]

Re: Gaming Catch Phrases

We've adopted the standard RPGA in our game store.

"We Greyhawk him." First time I had to explain Greyhawking, I went through a long and complex explanation.

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...

Interesting! The LG group I play with in the UK is also very familiar with Greyhawking the bodies. I had no idea the phrase was so widely used.

 

[Dwarf_Bread]

The following phrases originated in 2e campaigns, and have been repeated in virtually every game I've played or run since:

Once, while I was drawing the characters' path in the ToEE, one of my players said "Stay frosty, people, we're near the edge of the map." (Players will often say this when they see a map, whether of a dungeon, city, or continent).

After finding a Helm of Brilliance, the party was faced with a 2e iron golem (which is not damaged by fire). The Helm wearer shot the golem twice with fireballs, which harmed it not at all but badly wounded the rest of the party. As the party members begged him not to fire again, he said "He can't take much more of this!" and fired again, killing the party. The golem killed him immediately after. (The players sometimes shout this when fighting opponents with high hp/DR/SR, or when there's a "friendly fire" accident.)

In another 2e game, a friend was playing the chaotic good paladin variation from a Dragon mag article; his chosen god was Sune, the goddess of love and beauty. The module involved several elaborate traps, the first of which was a circular room with identical doors that would spin around, confusing the party, until the correct door was chosen. The player said he was going to mark each door he opened; the DM reminded him he had no chalk, ink, etc. The player said "I'll mark them with my hand lotion." The DM demanded to see his character sheet, and sure enough the player had brought some hand lotion along in order to keep his hands looking good, as his goddess taught. The DM was baffled, and when we faced the next trap, a hideous affair with shooting blades, the DM shouted "Let's see your hand lotion save you now!"
(I sometimes say this after the players have outwitted my carefully laid plans and subsequently run into even bigger trouble).

 

[Imperialus]

Oh, I remembered another one.

"I send in the Black Bear Birgade" or "Black Bear Birgade to the rescue!" Used when we are useing large numbers of summoned monster/fodder NPC's to soak damage for us. We once ended up summoning something rediculous like 15 black bears to distract 3 Vrocks while our 5th and 6th level characters beat a hasty retreat.

 

[LGodamus]

Who is your B**CH , Daddy?????


Said by one of my overly excited PCs when he finally landed the killing blow on a baddie .....I think daddy and b**ch were supposed to be switched

 

[Griswold]

Our first 3E game we had a rules lawyer who used to drag things down with minutia and after awhile the rest of us grew weary of it all so my favorite expression when he went on one of his little "things" was this -

-S.

 

[gunter uxbridge]

From D&D games that I have played in the past...

"Nobody sh**s in the morning!" Battle cry of a priest of Lathander who insisted that everyone hold their business until after morning prayers.

"Moonbeams and pixie dust and LUBE!" - Making fun of a mage characters penchant for casting Color Spray, Glitter Dust and Grease.

"What are ya??? French?" Common reaction to elven characters.

"I boot the door!" A common expression where the character does something that pretty much lets fate take care of itself.

"I suggest powder keg." A solution that uses brute force. Taken from a game where the DM let us keep a few kegs of black powder. We used them to open stuck doors, clear out a room of evil priests, check out the mechanism of a trap...lots of good stuff.

"A screaming purple monk runs by." Used during quite points in the game. Taken from when one of our monk characters fell in a vat of acid. We pulled him out and washed off the acid with wine before hitting him with some cures. The damage to his flesh and the natural dyes from the wine led to give him an all over body tattoo. Last seen at the end of a campaign running through the woods from where his whole party was killed.

From a Star Trek Starship Combat Simulator

"Riker Effect" - Direct hit to the bridge. One officer dies. Taken from numerous episodes where Riker winds up with part of the bridge stucking out of his skull. Also knows as "Chunk-o-bridge."

"Boy Buzzer" - On a direct hit to engineering, roll d100. On a 00 the ship immediately explodes. No escape pods, no beaming off...all crew lost. I saw three Romulan Warbirds go up in flames due to this in one fight.

 

[Larry Fitz]

"When last we left our stalwart adventurers.."

Used to begin the recap each session.

"Mr. Bunny!"

A bit convoluted, but a reference to a line from an old bugs bunny cartoon, used to point out when someone comes up with a terrible idea.

"Taint!"

A reference to sneak attack damage delivered by a small rogue on a Large opponent. It refers to a particularly piece of anatomy...

"You see a frog covered in purple polka-dots.."

A not so subtle warning that OOG is detracting too much from IG and it's time to get back on track. First used a long time ago as some horrific spotted toads began trashing the party to get the players attention back on the game...

"Page 110"
A reference to the page in the 1st ed DMG that covered dealing with troublesome players. Used when players began deliberately getting on DM's nerves.

 

[Bobaloo]

"It must have been that (darn) Dark Elf."
Used when firing into melee and hitting your ally.

"WHAM!"
(Said in a flat tone but loud voice by the DM.) When the PCs fail to break open a locked/stuck door.

"Floors, Ceilings, Walls?" (or "FCW" for short.)
Used as the inital visual check of the room. Followed usually by:

"Dungeon."
(As apropriate of course.) This grew out of me (as DM) usually responding to FCW as "Normal." "Normal compared to what," one of my players started to ask. So I went to, "Dungeon."

"Saving Throws are on 101."
As they were in the 2nd Ed. PHB. None of my players was good about keeping them current, nor was I about having them for the monsters, so I memorized that page number.

We use a handful already mentioned as well: Night Falls, take damage; Famous Last Words; others...

 

[heirodule]

First heard by me in a Living Greyhawk event:

"Relate story" - to prevent repeating everything one character has just learned from the DM (while the character is by him/herself (or communicating in a language no one else understands), but the players are all right there listening), we'll just say "Relate story" instead of repeating everything. Speeds up the game when you're tight on time (more a problem at cons than home games).

Another LG one:

"we greyhawk the bodies"

which means cutting them open to see if they have swallowed any valuable treasure.

 

[Holy Bovine]

Just to keep this on the front page that little bit longer I thought of another catchphrase our old Warhammer group used.

When some one was horribly mangled by the critical hits charts it was described in the book as being killed 'almost instantaneously'. Our catch phrase was - 'well at least he suffered a little.'

Another that has surfaced in the past year

'This is the corpse we came to this tomb to defile!'

 

[Sharraunna]

Synnibar

From Synnibar:

Whenever a question is ask about something in the game that doesn't make sense, i.e. "How can the grizzly fly?" the answer is "Synnibar."

Whenever something surreal happens, like a feather doing 10,000+ damage, it's said to "ring with authenticity."

The second comment comes from the author's bio in the back, which says he's dodged arrows and fought in life-and-death situations, so his RPG "rings with authenticity."

 

[Naar]

Whenever a door is opened with a high Open Lock check, or a trap disarmed particularly well, it is said to be 'Sven'. I have absolutely no idea how this started.

 

[Gellion]

My Dm was trying to be nice and give our Ranger an animal companion. So he has the Ranger encounter an owl while he is on his watch. The Dm says the owl moves close to him. The Ranger says "I pull out my bow ans shoot it
". The Dm then looked at the player like he was stupid and laughed and said "You kabobed the bird", the player was like "What, i something like owl demons in the MM".

He was referring to Owlbears, but owlbears dont look like normal owls. We actually manged to have the owl healed, but then it got taked away by an female orc named uniboob, who was the owls owner.

Every time i talk to the player i always try to slip in "You kabobed the bird"

 

[Salamander Napolean]

Any time the DM describes something particularly gruesome or horrifying that the characters see but aren't involved in, one of the PCs will to look to his comrades and say, "It's bad luck just seeing something like that."

In a campaign that involved lots of airships, anytime a NPC or villain went over board and someone asked what happened to him they'd say, "He's downstairs," or "He's downstairs kissing Sandy."

And then there is the everpresent war-cry/ threat, "Prepare to get sword-f**ked!" usually said in a pirate voice.

 

[Rugger]

"What's yer Flat-Footed-Touch Armor Class?"

I had been beating on my PC's pretty hard, and the BBEG managed to sneak up on one of the PC's...and tried to do the Death Domain Ability on him. (I think...it was something along those lines.)

Me: Okie dokie...what's your flat-footed AC?
PC1: Crap! Um...16?
Me: Oh, wait...its a touch attack...hmmm....
Now Frazzled PC1: WHAT? Is is flat-footed or touch? It can't be both...thats not on my sheet!
PC2: My god! Your flat-footed touch AC?!?!?!
<screams of terror>

Nowadays, any time the PC's are feeling death creep up, they ask me:
"Aren't you gonna ask for our Flat-Footed-Touch AC?"

-Rugger
"I Lurk!"

 

[nute]

Playing Mage: the Ascension. The party consists of a college football star, a martial-arts drifter, an antique store owner, and the drifter's "girl Friday" (being the person still relatively new to gaming).

Needless to say, the party finds themselves in trouble, being shot at by a man with a rifle atop the local Denny's. Through judicious reality manipulation, the ceiling under him collapses at the same time his internal organs decide to become external organs.

Girl Friday: "Dibs on looting the body!"

Storyteller: "... ... there's no looting the body in Mage!"

Thus, any time a character in any game now does something normally restricted to another genre, the cry of "there's no looting the body in Mage!" comes out.

~M.

 

[mmu1]

On the way to becoming a staple in my current game, following a particularly bad fumble and/or critical hit:

"Random fluid in the eye!"

Taken from a particularly awful fumble chart our DM used experimentally one session.