What's the longest running "inside joke" at your table?

[Rabelais]

Amity the paladin

when 3e first came out a newbie player decided that she would like to play a Paladin. She is married to one of the players, and had watched us play for about 6 months before she decided to play. She understood the whole "Holy Warrior" role and wanted a challenge for her very first character.

We had befriended some wounded Selkies (Read: Cute little baby harp seals). Amity, remembering that we were having problems with a trapped room promptly, and calmly announced that since we had befriended the Selkies that we probably wouldn't have any problems getting them to move across the floor, setting off the traps for us.

Our whole group was gobsmacked. Ever since then, we've joked about Amity's Army of Selkies... "We who are about to die." or Ilsa, She-Wolf of Pelor

Whenever Amity comes up with a plan, or has an idea we ask her about her Selkie Army.

BTW she decided to play a rogue instead of a Pally.

 

[Nellisir]

I'm pulling a blank on inside jokes at the moment; all I can think of is "Keith the Indestructable Donkey", who was less of a joke than a DM's (me) whimful oddity.

The PCs had established a solid tradition of abandoning or causing the deaths of their mounts and pack animals, but persisted in hauling away carpets, chairs, thrones, tables, benchs, and the complete furnishings of every dungeon they entered. Appalled at the equine casualty rate, I finally gave them Keith, the Indestructable Donkey. Keith was immune to all forms of damage. Keith did not set off traps. Keith did not attack. Keith could not be hidden behind. NPCs could not see, hear, or touch Keith. Keith was smarter than you, and he was laughing at you.

Two campaigns later, the players still want their Indestructable Donkey for carrying benchs.

Cheers
Nell.

 

[cidak]

Lounge Elves

I was Dm'ing Monty's Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, and the group was working it's way throgh that moster of a cave complex. Anyway by now they are pushing 11th to 12th level and overpowered for the area and they come across 1st level elf warriors. The 11th level rogue goes in, sneak attacks, goes first on initative and clears the room. This happened a few times and always with the element suprise. For ever after they and any other easy encounter the was name Lounge Elves.

Of course then there was the time a female vampire PC in a party of orcs (don't ask) in a long white slik dress proudly proclaimed to the party that she was going "commando". Later in a fight in order to get a better position in combat she used spider climb to stand on the roof.

Me "did you tie your dress down?"
PC "no"
.....!

Ahhh the memories.

 

[DiFier]

There are a few but the longest lived one is that the acolyte of the temple of Knowledge in Freeport, Brother Norton, Is scared to death of Dru, the other charachter in our game.

Brother norton's job appears to be to wait by the front doors of the temple of knowledge and be a greeter. His fear started when he first met Dru & Di'Fier they wanted to talk to the high priest in one of our first sessions. Dru got impatient and antsy while the high priest tried to wait us out. Norton was a little worried.

Brother Norton got his first jolt when Dru threw a dead serpent person down at poor brother Norton's feat. "see they do exist" She wasn't trying to prove it to norton but to the high priest but norton got the front row seats to the show.

Poor norton was there when serpent people assumed the identitles of a groups of temple acolytes they had murdered and tried to wipe out the temple of knowledge. So not only were his friends trying to kill him, but when we killed them they turned into serpent people.

That was what sent him to the insame assylum. Of course that wasn't all fun and games either cause soon afterwards the asylum was overrun by the undead. and who saves him but Dru & Di'Fier. Norton Wasn't well off for quite a while. He was sent to the Temple of Knowledge in the Mainland city of Highgate (bluffside). But after what happened to the temple of knowldge in Freeport they decieded to close the temple in freeport and move everyone to Highgate.

We vistied Highgate about a year and a half later and Norton wasn't there but he was doing much better. but when We run into him the next day he has a terrible case of the shivvers. he did well but just seeing Dru ruined year of work. then a few months later his temple was attacked by the Drow and who shows up the next day but Dru & Di'Fier.

So now evertime he see Dru he screams and panics and in a ode to conditioning he also starts to quivver when just Di'Fier shows up.

 

[Henry]

From my game:

"Ah, Screw it." One of our players coined this phrase back in 2nd edition (he goes by Torm on these boards) such that this was the phrase he uttered when tossing off fireballs, back inthe days where fireballs in cramped quarters were BAD NEWS. Now, whenever someone in the group says, "Ah, Screw it," it means there's about to be "fire in the hole."

"Suspicious-ass DM." One of my players mumbled this when his rogue was lied to by a PC; all of a sudden that epithet was gracing Players, NPC's, traps, and, well, everything that sounds funny when you call it that.

"I Jump in the well!" Back in the days of 1st edition, we had a player of a cavalier who followed a prophecy. Part of the prophecy involved the terms "follow the light." THey encountered a bright light shining from overhead a well inside a dungeon. The player, not thinking about going UP, said, "I Jump in the well." a man in Full Plate who didn't know how to swim.

BLOOSH! New character. Poor guy.

 

[Nifelhein]

Orcs-ni

Not exactly on my group, but by then they all were.

When 3rd Edition came out I converted and started DMing an adventure I had made, in it th orcs were a lawful evil tribe with two powerful leaders, a fighter and a cleric, the cleric wanted nothing but to dispose of the ther one, but he knew he was too weak to do so.

The characetrs were sent by a church to a city that tribe, the Star Slasher, had taken over, their job was to observe and study them, no need to say that they have entered the city, I expected them to do so, and started trying to slay the orcs unnoticed.

It went well until some unusual and unexplained horn made most of the orcs retreat, leaving but a few stayed on the city (the orcs new an army was coming and prepared a trap by retrteating to the mountain top castle). The characters went right to the city square and attempted to overthrow the left commander in the building that used to be an inn, thus 2 floors.

The orcs locked the building's windows in the 1st floor and, after some attempts to set fire to the buildings interior and to make them out the player's decided to take a look at the 2nd floor windows.

One player got to a rope and, before looking through the window, he passed his dagger's pummel in front of it, there was an orc archer there and I ruled that given the speed and size of the thing the 1st level fighter orc would hit inly with a 20... It did.

The player could not believe and threw his dagge inside the window, then he got another one and did the same. Once again I said he would only hit with a 20. He did.

Unbelievable as it seemed it happened and the player went directly to Metagame mode and said "That orc will not roll another 20, I will look at the window, only enough to see where the orc is".

I said how he went and saw the room and after some small and slow movement he saw the arrow, the bow and then, the orc eye, all in a direct line with him, with it I rolled an attack and consdering the cover bonus and the fast reaction he would have (even though he was haging at a rope), I said only a 20...

He hit. Not only that, it was a critical hit. The characters were 2nd levelby then and the arrow sent the otherwise full character directly to a negative HP, he fell to the ground. I used a speific damage and made him blind of one eye, but that is another question, specially because it is not exactly by the rules and I had a lot of problems with the player because of that.

Anyway, ever since that game, which the players left because of the too many discussions and some other problems, they have started calling those Orcs "Orcs-ni" (my name is Raoni, get it?).

What I told them is that the orcs in the MM were a lot stronger, after all I took the scale mail and greataxe away from them. It was no use.

After some years, those who played with them have learned of the Orcs-ni. My nly problem with it is that they speak of it like I had done a Balrog Orc race, to take Tolkien as a base...

I used to think what the players would call me if they rolled 3 20 in a row against a powerful NPC that they would have to spend their lives to take out of game...

Cheers,

Nif.

 

[Dr. Talos]

"Form a Perimeter"

Spoken by the dimwitted Tiefling Fighter as a group of 4 characters encountered a group of 20 Vrock in a Forest Glade performing sacrifices. (A blatant attempt by the DM to push us in another direction).

Needless to say it turned out badly for the Fighter, the rest got away with minor wounds.

 

[Xael]

"You pay for the gas!"

In our Shadowrun game, my character had a custom-made jeep. One of the other characters needed a ride, so I told that this was okay if he would pay for the gas.

Then we all remembered that my car used electric fuel cells, and recharged itsef by solar cells...

After that, we would always ask everybody to "pay for the gas" when he needed a ride. Kinda "you-had-to-be-there", but whatever, we had fun.



Another one is the hate-syndrome case. One of our DMs is rather hack & slash oriented, and his monsters/NPCs never, ever run away (or surrender), and always attack us to the last monster. Whenever we cut our way through hordes of low-level enemies, and the rest just keep attacking us (despite the fact that they clearly can not beat us), either the players of the DM shout: "He HATES you/us!", and the DM rolls the dice to make an attack roll.

This was particulary used after out two PCs (11th level) killed about 199 gnolls, and the last one valiantly charged us.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Way back in 1st edition circa 1982, we all this crazy idea that the magic user should come up with verbal components for his spells. So when the player uttered "Eenie meenie miney moe, magic missile strike my foe" it brought the table down and has been used in every table-generation since.

So that's where they stole it from to put it into DSA

(There's a RPG named DSA where the spell names are/were all very ridiculous rhymes)

 

[Eosin the Red]

I had a wendingo attack the party, I think from an old Dungeon Adventure. At one point he spooks the party by causing bones to rain from the trees down onto the party.

THe ranger looks at me and asks if he could make a weather watching roll to know that we should have been expecting bone showers. Since that time, the way we check the weather in any campaign has been to ask if there are any looming bone showers.