what house traditions do you have?

[Imperialus]

Every gaming group I'm sure has strange little habits that they've picked up over the years, House traditions are those wierd little quirks that make your gaming group unique. They differ from house rules in that they are all out of character and rarely have any appriciable effect on gameplay other than perhaps occasional diversions. Anyhow here are a couple that my group has adopted over the years.

1) Special Stars. Also called "short bus stars" and "stupid stars". They are awarded to players who accomplish (or attempt to accomplish) somthing praticularly asinine, from insulting an obviously more powerful NPC to his face, to catching the cleric in a poorly aimed fireball it's a catchall "reward" that literally takes the form of a little gold star that the player must affix to his or her character sheet with a little note recording the incident for postarity. Generally when someone does somthing stupid the rest of us will start chanting "A star! A star!" and Heather (the player in our group who started the tradtion) will decide if it is worth of one and award it.

2) The Fuzzy Tombstone Award. Granted to a player who's character dies. It's a little miniature of a tombstone with a grim reaper standing beside it. The player is allowed to keep it until someone elses character dies. Generally the DM will make life a little easier on someone posessing the fuzzy tombstone but that isn't a hard and fast rule praticularly if the characters death also involved the awarding of a star.

 

[StupidSmurf]

I mentioned this elsewhere, but it works here as well...

We have a Pun Fund. It's a small ceramic piggy bank with a large cork where the nose should be. An out of character pun is .25. A war story that sidetracks the game is .50. The money is used to defray costs of our Chrismas party, Halloween party, or summer cookouts. For some reason, the female gamers seem to end up being the most consistent enforcers. A groaner is usually followed by a female voice saying "Pay the Pig!"



I think we have other traditions, but coffee hasn't kicked in completely yet...

 

[Tinner]

Somewhere along the way we instituted the rule that if you're speaking OOC, you must have your hand on your head. I think this was originally to clarify OOC comments from IC ones, but now we do it all the time, even if we're just changing topics in a non-gaming setting.

We also have the House Tax rule. We all bring various snacks and stuff to munch during game. Anything that gets opened but not finished becomes the property of whoever hosts the game. It's not really a hard and fast rule, but we try to leave some goodies for the host out of courtesy.

 

[Sunderstone]

We usually roll new HP openly, ancient tradition (though not needed).

 

[Doc_Klueless]

When I was DMing (about a couple of years back. I don't count my online games):

1) I would always cook up something that could sit in a crock pot and simmer the entire game or finger foods. When someone got hungry, they'd just scoop some into a bowl or grab a plate and continue playing.

2) If there were any leftover snacks/sodas/etc., they're the DMs.

3) No LOUD cursing at the table. I have a child. She doesn't need to hear it all the way into her room.

4) Sit in the same place around the game table every time, please. I'm HORRIBLE with names (fact is, I only know my current group by their character names. Their real names just won't stick in my head) and it's easier for me.

5) I get to keep an updated copy or the original character sheet (player choice). This is for basically two reasons: 1) So I can make up appropriate adventures that use each characters schtick so that the player doesn't feel like they wasted their feats/skill points/whatever on abilities that will never be used and so the character can have the spotlight from time to time and b) so that character sheets are never forgotten.

6) Players can veto my decision to either allow or not allow the inclusion of some spell/ability/class/skill/etc. from a non-core book into the game. This vote is taken after I've explained the why/why not of my decision. This is a secret ballot so no one feels singled out if they vote differently than the rest of the group. This keeps the campaign as OUR campaign and not just MY campaign. (It was used veeeery seldom because my explanations for my decisions were almost always enough. The few times it was used was actually for the betterment of the game.)

 

[Ferrix]

6) Players can veto my decision to either allow or not allow the inclusion of some spell/ability/class/skill/etc. from a non-core book into the game. This vote is taken after I've explained the why/why not of my decision. This is a secret ballot so no one feels singled out if they vote differently than the rest of the group. This keeps the campaign as OUR campaign and not just MY campaign. (It was used veeeery seldom because my explanations for my decisions were almost always enough. The few times it was used was actually for the betterment of the game.)

I have to say that is a very nice way to do it.

 

[Teflon Billy]

We have one of AlsiH2o's "Demon Head" dice rollers that is used only when the players need good rolls. We refer to asking for it to be unveiled as "selling your soul" (looks like Jack Chick was right).

For years when Dice were rolled into the crack of the table or half onto a book or somesuch, you would announced "Dice it cocked" or just "Cocked" and re-roll it.

When the ladies joined the game, they started using a...different...terminology involving a new term that would be gender-appropriate for them--in the manner that "cocked" would be for guy--and would make Eric's Grandma get out her gun

It has completely supplanted the term "cocked" amongst the entire group now.

 

[kolikeos]

whenever the party enters an empty room the dm say 'oulooloo oulooloo' (kind of a bird like voice) and all the others will say 'the sound of nothingness'.
we have at least one break during the game in which we go outside and fight each other with broomsticks (kind of larping) it really hurts when someone hits you on the fingers.
the first spider never kills, the players always remind the dm whenever they fight a huge spider.
if the pcs come across a hole in the ground they should never look in, if the do a huge spider will leap out and grab them.
whenever someone speaks in a high peached voice everyone is reminded of the 'barbarien', an elf barbarien (that once defeated the whole party) that had a voice as if (as the dm described it) his balls were being cut off.
and the newest one (introduced to the game by me), if someone looks up a tree an aligator will jump down at them.
there is also that people like mentioning a titanic dire elephant, but i'm not sure where this came from.

 

[Turhan]

We use a gambling die. It has the faces of 6 poker cards on it: ace, king, jack etc.

The ace is a spade. If something really bad happens, or if a critical fumble is rolled, and I want to find out just how bad it might be, then I roll the gambling die. If a spade comes up, I say something like, "Oh, that won't be very nice."

If something good happens, I roll another 6 sided die. This one has a squirrel on one side (the one pip). If the squirrel comes up I announce. "Ah, The rabid squirrel of Death." And everyone rejoices.

Since I usually roll both dice at once when evaluating a potentially tragic scene, it is possible for a bad situation to be turned into a good one. Slightly so at any rate. The squirrel can easily mean life instead of death in a tough spot, but usually it just acts to indicate a mitigating factor that keeps a bad thing from being so bad, or showing that a good thing is really good.

Rolling the dice also gives me a few more seconds to think up a good story about what just happened to explain the player's dice rolls. "Oh, darn, you stepped in a gopher hole." "Jeez, my orc slipped in a pile of guts." "You lucky dog. The stone giant tried a massive overhand swing but got his warhammer caught in a thick tree branch by the trail."

and so it goes.

 

[demiurge1138]

Stolen from the old Gamer Jargon website, my games use the Moose Rule, in which you put one hand to your head in sort of an antler shape to denote OOC talk. In my dorm, it was so well known that people who didn't play but wanted to stop and interrupt us for a while used it.

Demiurge out.