Good times, man, good times.
Total newbie, I had to register JUST for this thread.
Reading all of these brought back some great memories of years past, playing and DM'ing (mostly AD&D2e. Here's a few of ours:
"Magical Dogass"
Whenever we would encounter a terrible creature that could easily kill us all, the Barbarian in our group would always "dog-ass run" away. "I'm going to run away, in fact, I'm going to DOG-ASS run."
Eventually, the DM gave the player an item for his dedication to the phrase; a magical strip of leather headband that increased his movement rate by a negligible amount.
Any quickly souring encounter with a "boss" would have players chiming, "Time to strap on the dogass!"
"Get the Phone!"
Once, during a serious and heavy roleplaying scene in which my cleric was communing with his Goddess, our DM launched into a terribly dramatic speech. Everyone was silent, as the DM recited a speech he had obviously memorized for the occasion, ignoring the noises from an adjacent room...until the telephone rang... and in the middle of his speech, without a pause, he shouted, "GET THE PHONE!"
This immediately shattered the mood, and I shouted, "Yes, my lady! I will get the phone for you, no matter the cost!"
After the laughter subsided, the DM realized the damage had already been done. For the rest of that character's tenure, it was a semi-OOC joke that he always asked the local parishes about an artifact called "the phone." (He never found it.)
"Johnny Ranger and Damyu"
One of the groups I gamed with included a tall, mostly silent player, whose Ranger character was named Johnny.
Johnny Ranger, as we called him, wasn't known for his eloquence, but he could make dice rolls that would turn vegas pros green with envy. With a bastard sword in one hand, and a magic long sword in the other, he was our primary offense, and when his turn came up to fight, the entire table would chant, "Johnny RAAANGERRR!!" The DM had to make battles harder, because he was so ruthlessly efficient and had the devil's own luck.
Games later, the player might be a drow mage or a half-elven bard, and yet he would always be called to bat by a chorus of "JOHNNNY RAANGERRRR!"
Johnny Ranger also had a large warhorse that was contractually obligated to him, as per the rules of the game; but being the quiet, largely unimaginative sort, Johnny didn't name his horse for quite some time. The horse would constantly balk at his orders, and each command was invariably followed by "Damn you!"
After a few gaming sessions of, "Get over here, Damn you!" or "Attack that thing, damn you!" The horse began responding to the name "Damyu." In successive other campaigns without Johnny, whenever someone would say, "Damn you." Someone else at the table would mutter an imitation of a horse neighhing, and the DM would look around conspiratorily.
"Cockroached"
OUR solution to the whole absent player problem was a curse that had been placed upon us by a god of mischeif, so that occasionally, one of our ranks would turn into a cockroach. Of course, this only happened when a player was absent, but it was easy enough to have a cockroach scurry into one of our bags and wait for the next game.
"Piffed and Splapped"
Like all groups, we had our own little pet phrases for attacks and damage...
During a gruesome battle with an archlich, our DM puncutated a hit on one of the PCs with a loud "pfff!" sound, and announced that the pc was now a pile of dust. After killing the lich, scooping our comrades up in baggies, and appropriating his "Rod of Disentegration", "piff" became the verb and the sound effect for a successful disentegration.
One battle, Johnny Ranger dropped his handful of attack dice, and ended up delivering damage equal to at least three times the monster's HP to said monster, to which one of us players leering over his shoulder cried "AWWW...SPLAP!!" After that, any hit that severely damaged an enemy, or in the case of Johnny Ranger versus a Kobold, splattered its entirety into a greasy puddle, would be punctuated by a visceral "SPLAP!"
Like Piff, Splap is a verb and a sound.
"Minty Green Incense Sticks"
In some old "Dungeon" magazine somewhere, I read an article where someone wrote about players deviating from the storyline, and sarcastically mentioned something about the theif sneaking into the church to steal minty green incense sticks.
During a game I DM'ed, I had to corral my players who all-too-frequently broke out of the adventure and ignored the plot, and I strongly advised them to stop hunting for Minty green incense sticks, and get back to their room.
They got a kick out of the phrase, and from then on, any game I ran or played with those people, the term "Minty green incnese sticks" became a synonym for aimlessly wasting time, seperating the party, distracting other players, or any other personal endeavor detrimental to the plotline.
(As a side note, In a later campaign, illegal trafficking in minty green incense sticks became a major part of the game, and the focus for quite a few adventures...)
Thanks for the memories, you've made me want to start up a game all over again.
