Running Gags

[MaxKaladin]

Not quite the same sort of running gag as the ones previous, but in my college Forgotten Realms campaigns there was a particular inn at a crossroads a few days travel out of Waterdeep. The players enemies caught up with them at this inn a few times and attacked them. It became a running gag that they'd get attacked whenever they stayed at that inn. The gag evolved to include a series of owners who kept changing as previous owners were killed or gave up and sold the thing to the next sucker who came along. There was also pretty much constant reconstruction because it seemed like someone would always throw a fireball or something like that and burn part or all of it down. Then the stone walls went up to try to prevent some of that. It became a long term running gag until I graduated.

Another one we had was a princess held captive by a dragon. In one of those same campaigns, I used to produce issues of the "Waterdeep Daily Trumpet" for the players to read before the game sessions. One running gag came from the "looking for adventurers" ads I put in the first one. I put in something about a dragon holding a noble lady captive and the family needing adventurers to rescue her. The players didn't bite on that plot hook. As new issues came out, the rewards became bigger and better and it became a running gag in the group to see "how things are going with the dragon lady". A couple of stories ran about adventuring groups disappearing or getting wiped out trying a rescue. The rewards shifted from just money to offering to pay bards throughout the western realms to sing the rescuers praises for years to come and other rewards like that intended to bring in people more concerned with glory than money. The city government ran articles warning of the dangers posed by this dragon and advising people to avoid it at all costs and so on. The players never bit at the plot hook and the gag ran until the end of the campaign.

 

[The_Universe]

"Make a rock check"

One of my players had a irregularly shaped rock in the same box she kept her dice in. Anytime I wanted to make something I was going to do as a DM seem *marginally* less arbitrary, she'd "roll" the rock, and then assign a random number to the face. So, a typical exchange would be...

"I pick up the flower"
"Make a rock check"
"24,367.8"
"Sorry, the DC was an even 25,000. The flower stays on the ground."

And then there's "Rocks fall from the sky, crushing you all. You're dead. Roll up new characters." No story behind that one - I just like to insert it at random points in narration.

We also have the "You win D&D!" thing. I wonder where that came from?

 

[The_Universe]

Oh! Another one!

All inns are named the "Rusty Tabard." All of them. And Tabards can't rust, because they're made of cloth.

 

[the Lorax]

Although this is a relatively recent one, its grown out of proportion.

I ran a group of evil PCs on a side trek were they came across a rather seedy inn (the Immortal Kobold with some extra hooks for those keeping score). The players ended up murdering almost everyone at the inn except the kobold (who they recruited) and burning down the inn.

At one point the group actually thought of turning the inn into their own base of operations, so one character (a monk) made some foul mixture of blood, mud and wine and "repainted" the sign to read "the Wandering Monk Inn".

This has become the gag. Whenever any of these players run into a rundown/burntout building, they will make a reference to the sign.

As in:

GM: The firemen have finished putting out the burning building and are gathering up their stuff. The smell of the fire is heavy in the air, and soot marks all the windows in the 3 story building.

PC: "Why did someone write 'the Wandering Monk' in the soot on the front window?"

 

[Brain]

"+1 for Dogtooth!" is a common cry - Dogtooth was a beloved NPC who must be looking down from above giving bonuses. However, he gives +1 to everybody, and it cancels out.

 

[Mystery Man]

Another one:

I used a quick descriptive when one character poured a potion of healing down another who was unconscious and bleeding.."You're character is erect." I immediately realize my mistake.

The inevitable comments follow:"Hey what was in that potion?" "What were you doing to me while I was down?" "Get your hands off my codpiece!"

Needless to say I no longer use that phrase.

They always ask though.

 

[MaxKaladin]

Forgot one:

In a game I am currently playing in, we were examining something magical and all the mages were casting spells and so forth. My knight picked up a stick to poke at it. The DM referred to this as my "Medieval Tricorder" and it has been a running gag in all the games that group plays now.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

"A Rob's Paladin Maneuver"

This is a situation in which an insignificant or random encounter destroys one of the PCs because of the GM scaling for an overpowered character. It was a game I played in ... my dwarven Ftr/Pal/DD had an AC in the 30s, and most creatures of appropriate CR could only hit him on a natural 20. To "challenge" the PC the GM created a "random" encounter with three large elementals ... unfortunately they were "summoned" at the back end of the party. The dwarf, with 20' movement, couldn't arrive on the first round ... another player, "Rob", played a mounted human paladin who charged into the fray. On the elemental initiative count they moved into flanking with 5' steps, all attacked, all hit, all rolled near-max damage, and one of them confirmed a critical hit ... bringing the paladin from 76hp to -56hp instantly. The dwarf arrived the next round and was never touched through the rest of the combat. From there on out, whenever a GM is planning based on the abilities of one seemingly over-powered PC he's warned not to perform the "Rob's Paladin Maneuver".

"Jondar"

A one-dimensional, one-trick character based around direct damage. This from the name of a Wizard PC in a RttToEE game I ran, who took nothing but AoE and direct-damage spells for every slot on his list, and blew through them as quickly as possible in each encounter ... creating the "D&D Day". Common usage: "He's playing a Jondar." "We could use some Jondar, fireball-fireball-fireball."

"D&D Day"

36 seconds to 15 minutes of exertion followed by 8 hours of rest. Based on the effect in-game that one can use all of one's expendable resources in the course of a single 10-round combat, and need to rest for 8 hours to regain them or be useless for the rest of the day.

--fje

 

[Vraille Darkfang]

1. Send in Bait.

Referes to whichever character most often falls unconcious during combat.

2. I'll wanna spend my gold on the whore with the 2nd highest charisma in the room.

Refers to 1 character's oath about the whore with the highest charsima score in the room. Which happend to be a vampire chick sent to assisnate the party. While, ummm, you see, let just say a Bite Attack can have Vorpal Properties when being used on fleshy tissue lacking and skeletal structure.

6 levels later (when he could afford the Regeneration spell) he makes the same statement about the prettiest whore "to try ouy my new d***!" That was the succubus sent out to kill us. Second verse, same as the first. Only she kept the bit o' flesh as a scrying/spell component. And the DM had some voodoo supplement he wanted to try out. Let's say phantom limb effect is much worse when said limb is tossed into vat of liquid metal.

Thus, never talk to the girl with the highest Cha score, always go lower.


3. Don't insult the glove.

Refers to a sentient spike gauntlet & the issues it had with its owner. Boiled down to large argument bout being used in an unclean manner (hey, the dwarf had a lot of ale to drink, & you gotta go when you gotta go). While in the midst of 'watering the lillies' the dwarf failed his Will save vs the gauntlet. The NE gauntlet. You be amazed how many times one can punch oneself in the groin before his other teamates look to see what's going on.

 

[sniffles]

"I got a Rock."

This initially referred back to the Charlie Brown Halloween special where Charlie Brown keeps getting a rock in his trick-or-treat bag. But in one of our current campaigns one player is running a dwarf named Rock. One night he had a bad roll and someone remarked, "I got a rock". We now use this phrase frequently whenever someone rolls a 1 or makes a low roll that they know won't succeed. It's implied that we're referring to the dwarf, not the Charlie Brown joke.

"How many moneys for leg of lamb?"

This is our catchphrase for explaining a language barrier, or sometimes for when we're shopping and need to dicker. This is how my RuneQuest GM exemplified using the "tradetalk" language in that game.

"I do the rear-end plunge!"

This is another one from our former RQ GM - he was describing a bison attacking someone and announced that it did a rear-and-plunge maneuver, but we all misheard him.

"Not the lemur!!"

Anything we think is evil and horrible is a lemur. We had a short-lived RQ game in which all the PCs were beastmen, and the guy playing a sentient lemur made his character so annoying that all primates ever after have been declared lemurs and hence evil.

"I take one step forward to reduce the range penalty."

This one's kind of hard to explain, but we say it a lot. We were playing Champions and my PC was being held at gunpoint by a villain. Another player announced that his character took one step forward to reduce the range penalty, even though the villain had announced that if anyone moved he'd shoot. The player contended that taking one step in Hero didn't really constitute moving, so he'd be able to act before the villain could shoot. The GM didn't see it that way. Now we use that phrase mainly just to make ourselves laugh, whenever it seems appropriate. The guy it refers to still doesn't get the joke.