One-liners, running jokes and catch-phrases

[Arraxis]

Have you ever played a game where someone said something that was just so impressive that the collective group just stared in amazement at how dramatic it was, or simply burst out laughing for 5 minutes?

Have you ever had a string of sessions where someone developed a sort of catch phrase that they use as often as they realistically can, and whenever they say it you know that something interesting is going to happen?

Has someone ever said or done something so memorable during a game that it has become a sort of in-joke for your group, where someone can simply bring it up at any time and everyone else will just understand what you mean, and just sigh, laugh, or simply reminisce?


I decided to start a thread dedicated to these stories, considering this happened in pretty much my 'first' game of D&D (I consider this my first game because the times before that were very disjointed with an irregular group).

The person who did this was my brother, who is playing a halfling rogue named Tobin. After derailing the DM's plot and joining the bandits, he encountered some sort of really small and aggressive pixie thing. After slaying it and taking its boot, he returned to the bandits, and said "I want to make a bluff check." He tried to convince them that it was 6 feet tall, and they proceeded to laugh at him, much like the rest of us were doing.

However, it didn't end here. While protecting a caravan, the party ended up fighting some zombies, which were taken out by a combination of Tobin's dagger, my cleric's great sword and the sorcerer throwing boiling water in their face. When the rest of the caravan came over to see what was going on, he again said "I want to make a bluff check." This time it was to claim that he'd slain them all, and saved the caravan from certain doom. Over the protests of my cleric pointing to the great sword wounds, they celebrated Tobin's victory by throwing him up in the air, toasting him and even giving him some spare change.

This continued over the course of the session, with Tobin managing to get us free food at the tavern, and, amusingly, trying to convince some cultists of Vecna that he was supposed to be in their secret temple examining the walls. He only survived by the DM declaring that he'd used up his one and only "Get out of stupidity" card. This culminated in him trying to get us free food at the tavern again by claiming that we had reservations. In the end, the only thing that saved him from a red-faced innkeeper was the sorcerer making her own bluff check, claiming that Tobin was 'special'. The innkeeper would forever on use his loud and slow voice on the halfling.

Needless to say, "I want to make a bluff check." has become a running joke in our group now, and we'll all laugh for a while whenever someone declares this, before they make their attempt.


Anyway, I've gone on long enough, so perhaps anyone with a similar story - or not - would like to contribute their own tales. It doesn't have to be as lengthy as this one, or it could be longer. Now's your chance for 10 seconds of slight (in)famy!

[Jack_of_Spades]

My current character has a few catchphrases that he gets to use fairly often.

"Great, more magical crap. Who do we kill to stop it?"

"All hail...yer gods."

"I need three things: a bed, a woman, and a bath. The order isn't important, but I need them all as soon as possible."

"Fox, leave it there and don't do what it says."

Fox is the party's halfling rogue. She tends to hear Cyric (only in name he isn't like the FR god) talking to her from anything that has a head. He tells her stuff like, "Rub my blood on that portal." or "Hey go see what's over there!"

[SilverSheriff]

Me: "I bust in Drunk"

It was said in every situation involving a door; weather my character was drunk or not, weather he was conscious or not.

Player 1: "I run over to point X"
Me: "I'm already there"

I had an obsession over Scout at the time.

[T.G. Oskar]

Eberron campaign.

The main protagonist: a male Dwarven Fighter, scion of House Kundarak.

The usual suspects: a male personality Warforged Paladin, and a Gnome Bard

The target: simply anyone who asks

The situation: whenever one of the NPCs asked about things, this would eventually happen. Word by word, I kid you not.

NPC: How's your mother?

Fighter: Fine

NPC: How's your father?

Fighter: Fine

NPC: How's your dog?

Fighter: Fine

NPC: How's your cat?

Fighter: Fine

NPC: How's your dragon? (trick question)

Fighter: Fine. (At the moment, oblivious)

NPC: YOU HAVE A DRAGON!?!?!?

Fighter: Yeah, in my backyard

NPC: YOU HAVE A BACKYARD!?!?!? (I mean, since when you have a backyard on a cave?!?!?)

Fighter: Of course, it came with the dragon. (not exactly as it happened, but the joke ends in "the backyard came with the dragon")

It's bizarre that the same chain of events happened more than twice. It's one of the running jokes.

I could say another two, but those are a bit on the side of the red-light district and not fit for kids. One of them is based on webcomics and someone desperate, but unfortunately those are ones I cannot tell.

[The Rose Dragon]

"Is she, by any chance, a hottie?"

That was uttered when facing a lich. Who was a skeleton. Who had little flesh left clinging to her bones.

That was the standard question asked about any female character in the game, but some players take it a bit too far.

[MisterSaturnine]

"Is she, by any chance, a hottie?"

That was uttered when facing a lich. Who was a skeleton. Who had little flesh left clinging to her bones.

That was the standard question asked about any female character in the game, but some players take it a bit too far.

Some people like their women really skinny.

EDIT: Or, perhaps not skinny. 'Cause she doesn't have any skin. Get it? Get it? Enhhhh.

[Castaras]

My character managed to get infected with lycanthropy. And cured of it, in the end, might I add.

Now, whenever she gets angry or annoyed, or whenever *I* get annoyed, I always get "I'll go get the dog collar then, shall I?"

Then there's the time where I had to dress up as a blonde bimbo noblewoman to sort out some evil spellcasters. So now it's always "Yes, my lady". :smallsigh:

[RMS Oceanic]

Thanks to a botched Knowledge (Religion) check, whenever we see Nerull's holy symbol, we identify it as the holy symbol of the Fluffy Bunny God of Waughter and Wuv.

[elliott20]

well, there's the infamous "NINJA!" storyline that's been floating around for a while... that's the most famous case of the catch phrase break out joke.

In my old group, when we were all just wee little new D&D players, our first encounter, with our level 1 squishy selves, was against some undead that were just lying in a pile on a snow covered mound. One of us walks up and pokes one of the lumps (not realizing it was a body) with his walking stick. It suddenly rose from it's resting place and proceeds to put all sorts of hurt on the player.

the law of "never poke things with sticks" arose from this day. And every single time after, for some reason, we always managed to poke things that will either set off traps, alert monsters, or just generally cause all sorts of unpleasantries.

So, "never poke things with sticks" became sort of that adventuring groups rules to live by.

[mikej]

we had one of those events, it's still pretty funny now. happened a few years back, everyone was asleep after a night of drinking, the low intelligence dwarf barbarian was the only one ( Nat 20 ) to notice the DM's female NPC silently moving across the room. the player decided to follow her. sure enough, the dwarf overheard her conversation with some unknown male entity through some portal. the player kept his character out of sight of both of them.

Female NPC "Yes, they're all here."
Male NPC "Good, any other information?"
Female NPC " Yes, can you get a pen and paper?"
Dwarf Barbarian "ohhh, okay, i'll get you pen and paper"
[All] Laughter

[Korrash]

"I challenge it to a drinking contest."

Uttered by the group barbarian whenever we encountered anything that looked even vaguely capable of ingesting liquid.

To clarify, the group barbarian that had the worst luck you can imagine for his fortitude saves. I mean like, natural ones were the norm with a high of rolling a 7.

It continued like that for the entire session.

We encounter a mysterious old man who attempts to give us advice: challenge it to a drinking contest.

We accidentally set off a trap that unleashes a golem ready to smash the party: challenge it to a drinking contest.

We encounter a creepy guy in a hooded cloak that seems to bend light around him so no matter where he stands he's in the shadows: Challenge it to a drinking contest.

Eventually the DM got fed up and decided that the character died of liver failure, but every campaign we do now "I challenge it to a drinking contest" still gets thrown about during tense situations.

[Zergrusheddie]

In an all Bugbear game, my character had a Goblin henchman. Apparently, the DM and the rest of the players decided it would be great to suddenly imply that Skull was a homosexual goblin. It eventually ended with him becoming an Elf from a Reincarnation spell, so everyone said that "he was first an elf 'in-training' but now he is really flying the flag." When he was hit with a Cone of Cold and was dropped to negative hit points, I ran to him and said I was grabbing a stretcher. In hindsight, I should NEVER have said the word stretcher.

DM: Skull drops unconscious.
Me: I run over to him with the stretcher.
DM: I thought you only used that when you two were alone?...

It has come up at least twice a session. This encounter was about 4 months ago. Even though that we are no longer playing the Bugbears anymore and that Skull was killed by a Demon, some joke about a stretcher emerges.


There was also the case of Vivian the Pure. Rob was playing a Male Human Paladin by the name of Vivian. He said it with complete honesty. The entire time they played those, everyone made very subtle (and extremely funny) jokes about him actually being a woman. Ron didn't get it until the very end of the campaign like a year later. He never thought that the group was making fun of him because of his name even after comments like:

DM: So you are charging down that stairs? Roll a Dex check.
Rob: Ehh, that's a natural 1. So I fall down the stairs?
DM: Yes, you roll down every single stair making an incredible racket.
Tony: Must have tripped on his high-heels!


Long story short, the same group of characters were running away from a rather nasty and disgusting monster who was a giant pile of dung. James, without missing a single beat, shouts off in a loud voice: "This brings a whole new meaning to the term s***'s rolling down hill!"

Best of luck.
-Eddie

[Tsotha-lanti]

"[Player X] will pay!"

This started 10 years ago (we still repeat it) on a session where [Player X] wasn't present and his character was unconscious and feverish from severe injuries. The rest of the party used all of his money on healing herbs, of which maybe 1/10 were used on the injured character...


Thanks to a botched Knowledge (Religion) check, whenever we see Nerull's holy symbol, we identify it as the holy symbol of the Fluffy Bunny God of Waughter and Wuv.

Newuww?

[Malacode]

(Insert-class-here)-DOKEN!
I remember the Cleric throwing the paladin onto the back of a Young Adult Red Dragon (An encounter 2 above our CR at the time) at the behest of the Sorcerer (Me) and the Duskblade (Another member on this forum) in a campaign I'm part or IRL. We were informed there would be a bonus to attack and damage if the Cleric screamed FIGHTERDOKEN!
She did. Now, if we're having trouble with an enemy, characters get flung at them. At the moment, we're taking on a Babau, and having our backsides handed to us (Thanks to the fact that none of us can deal damage that bypasses its DR). Next session, I'm throwing my (Heavily buffed and quite impressive) Familar at it, just to see if it helps. CATDOKEN!

Soon after the YA Red Dragon died in midair to a Lesser Orb of Cold from my Sorc. The Paladin was still on his back. Yeah, the paladin player was pretty annoyed for a while. Now whenever I cast Lesser Orb of Cold he squinty-eyes-of-doom-s me.

[darkblust]

One time,my friend who was playing an ice dwarf fighter.the dwarf was suicidal.so,we were at the tavern and he was sitting on a bench.ofcourse,what happened?he tried jumpping off the bench to commit suicide.he also attempts to hold everybody hostage,so lately my flaming whip-swords and gloves of burning hands have been used much more then i hoped:smallamused:

[Shades of Gray]

Knight: ARE YOU READY FOR A CHALEEEEEEENGE?! Said as loud and with a raspiest voice I've ever done whenever I knight's challenge. One time the enemy managed to pass their will save, and I had another use: YOU SUUUURE?! They said no. POSITIIIIIIIVE?! They eventually agreed.

My factotum: I cunningly *Players groan*. Gotta love Cunning abilities. I cunningly fish for trout...

I make a trip attack: That was another one.

[derfenrirwolv]

"I got stepped on by an elephant"

D20 modern game. Smart hero was chasing a cultist through a zoo. He ran into the elephant pen and had to stop to open the door into the equipment shed. Smart hero climbed into the pen after him and took a shot.

The elephant panicked at the gunfire and ran in a random direction... right at the smart hero. Roll trample damage, cry out for medic.

[Pramxnim]

I was playing a Dragonborn Monk who had an impressive Str score, Improved Trip and Defensive Throw (from CW) in a 6th level game.

DM: "The young Black Dragon attacks you with its claws" *rolls*
Me: "Did he hit?"
DM: "No"
Me: "Hah! I get to trip him!"

And so I did. I tried the same thing on various enemies, to varying degrees of success. Eventually the DM stopped getting enemies to hit me, for I would just trip them in return. It was the most fun I had playing a Monk :D

In another campaign, one of the favourite phrases we'd throw around is "exploding toilet". This arose after one of our players went to the toilet in a wizard's tower, and the DM let it rip with explosive runes :smallamused:

[Tyrmatt]

It's become a running joke in any game with cars we play that whenever we travel between a location, we hum the Beverley Hillbillies theme, with imaginary banjo strumming. In the game I started this week, I actually got a copy of the song and keep playing it every time they get in the car. Another popular one is "Accelerate to ramming speed!!" as they take whatever vehicle we're piloting and crash it into something -_-

Fun fact: At one point we did actually have an old woman in a rocking chair strapped to the roof of our humvee jeep. She was a mean old biddy with a wicked aim when it came to her shotgun :/

[Coplantor]

I started playing around 8 years ago with 2nd edition, psionic rules had the wild talents, every character durin creation had to roll a % die and had a fixed chance of beign either a wild talent or having his stats ruined for life, high constitution, intelligence and wisdom increased your chances of beign a wild talent, beign a demi human or a spellcaster halved that chance, so most haracters would have a 1 to 3% chance of beign a wild talent, while on a roll of 97 they would get thier con reduced by 1d6, the same happens to int on a roll of 98, to wis with a 99 and with a roll of 00 you get all three stats permanently reduced to 3! That's why, whenever someone rolls a 1 on a percentil die we say "Congratulations, you are a psychic!" and in the case of a roll of 00 we say "Congratulations, you are retarded!"

Related to this, two years ago, we still played 2nd edition, a friend of mine joined us just for a session, he made a fighter/wizard elf, he had a 1% chance of beign a wild talent and he rolled a 1! Not only that, he got teleport without error as his psychic power with enough PP to use it four times per day. He never played with us again, but sometimes, when players ask what they see I say things like: "An empty room, suddenly an elf appears! And now he's gone again!"

Also, we had a joke campaign once in wich both my character and another player's one tried to solve everything through perform (street acting or interpretative dance) checks.

Finally, once we went to a gaming club and joined a game, it didnt last for too long because it was hard to have the entire party to go. The master was really good, he used a lot of elves, and they were all... cold, proud and ussually violent, and we dont know actually, if he ever said this, but, everytime we have an elf in our games, someone always says "Elves, we are a very proud people" imitating that DM's voice and we all start laughing.

[yilduz]

One adventure, my buddy Anthony had a horse. He was riding it for days, never letting it rest, and somehow the horse kept making saves against fatigue. One day, it failed miserably and fell asleep in the path while walking. Anthony assumed the horse was narcoleptic. Of course it wasn't, but it made for some good jokes later on.

Later in that campaign, we were in a small building, being attacked by soldiers in some army. Anthony wanted to call his horse in to help him escape. To do so, he wanted to make a whistle check.
Anthony: "I whistle for my horse, do I have to make a whistle check?"
DM: *confused look*
before the DM could even say anything
Anthony: "What would that be based on? Wisdom, yeah... wisdom" *rolls* "YES! Nat 20!"
everyone: *laugh*
DM: *sigh - then laugh* "Okay, your horse busts through the door and falls asleep next to the guards"
Anthony: "NO!!! Stupid narcoleptic horse!"

So... narcoleptic steeds has been an on-going joke in our group.

[Insert Name Here]

Knight: ARE YOU READY FOR A CHALEEEEEEENGE?! Said as loud and with a raspiest voice I've ever done whenever I knight's challenge. One time the enemy managed to pass their will save, and I had another use: YOU SUUUURE?! They said no. POSITIIIIIIIVE?! They eventually agreed.

Oh, hey, I remember that one!
And the one where you made up a non-existent ability on the spot so the one guy would come fight like a man.

And the dire eight-armed half red dragon wombat, was it?

[PrismaticPIA]

Halfing Warmage who was formally part of the Cormyrian Army.

"I HATE (x)!"

Example: "Undead? I HATE UNDEAD!"
"Orcs? I HATE ORCS!"
"Border guards? I HATE Border guards!"

etc.

[woodenbandman]

We had a few. In one group, there's the ever classic "You know, I find that when I'm doing X, I prefer to use a trebuchet." But one guy killed that. We kept telling that same guy "hey, go have sex," and he would reply indignantly "NO!"

In my other group, for a while we had "Can I sunder X with my penis?" after a guy sundered a bridge "with his penis." The running joke is that his half-giant character's penis is massive. That joke was buried in the yard, and is no longer funny.

We also had Mastur-burning, from the dragonfire adept, in a fit of sex deprivation after not having banged my character's mom in a long while.

And THEN there's this one guy who used to be the source of many lulz but we had to kick him out. The funniest thing he ever did, in my mind, was, after making a knowledge check as to what Gelatinous cubes actually do, and succeeding on finding out that they are, in fact, quite acidic, he proceeded to walk over to one, and put his foot in front of it, "to see if it will clean my shoe."

Nothing he did ever became an in-joke, though, because the barrage of funny stuff he did was just too rapid..

[ZeroNumerous]

Upon discovering that the BBEG we had been chasing was an single-classed Warrior:

Me: "Wait. Wait. The guy we've been chasing is even less effective than my animal companion?!"

It has since become a running gag that everyone we defeat "is even less effective than my [Class Feature]". Including one little joke about defeating a templated to heck and back canary.

Rogue: "So.. We just defeated Trap Sense, huh?"

[Crazy Scot]

DM: ...Then day breaks.
Me: I fix it!

And from the Gamers, but often used in sessions when we are getting off topic, "So we're in the forest, right?

[Flame of Anor]

One time I was in a campaign where one of the characters was an animated rosebush. In this situation, the rosebush was not able to be helpful because it was so slow. The DM said, "Well, at least she [the rosebush] can give moral support." And I said, "More like floral support."

[potatocubed]

Oh man, let's see:

"I bluff him. I seduce him. Look! Your house is on fire!"

"You hear a mariachi band!" - when you listened at a door and rolled a 2 or something, so you knew you'd failed. This got turned on its head when we were playing a fairly standard dungeon crawl, listened at the door, rolled badly - "You hear a mariachi band!" - and then kicked in the door to discover a bunch of orcs standing about with guitars. :smalltongue:

While playing Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, one of my players noted the similarity between Tharizdun's holy symbol and a pair of underpants. Then they found a second, different holy symbol of his... which looked even more like a pair of underpants. Hence "He bolsters the undead by presenting his underpants!" and similar jokes.

Our 7th Sea game had plenty of in-jokes: the doctor with the X-Ray eyes, the legend of the flying sea bears, epic shopping, exploding French ninjas, the inland pirates, etc.

[Kol Korran]

sigh, my story would make more sense to not native english speakers, but here goes: myself and my friends live in Israel, and our mother tounge is Hebrew. English is secondery. some are more fluent with it, some are less...

anyway, we decided to try to speak mostly english in one of our groups, mostly because people wanted to practice the language, and because lets face it- English is a much more impressive sounding language than Hebrew is. problem was, not all players think fast enough on their feet in english.

so, at some point the party realy angered their patron, who then refused to pay them, and threatened them with worse to come. the party, panicked, tried to appease her in various ways. and then the rouge decided to try a little sly talk to smooth things over.
problem: he didn't remember the english word "smooth". he opted for-
Rouge: "i try to lubricate her"... (the two words are far more similar in Hebrew)
we were stunned for a few seconds, and then burst out laughing. any time later when he wished to talk to anyone the rest of the party asked him if he got enough lubricant. poor rouge.

[Xallace]

"No, that squid." elicits hysterical laughter in my group up to this day. I don't even remember what the set-up was.

Animal Companions = Angry Metagamers
But in the same campaign we had a running gag involving a wolverine and the bodger (tinkerer). His previous character had been a druid with a wolverine animal companion that hated him. When that character died, it was decided that the wolverine lived in the air vents of the illithid Nautilus that the PCs controlled. From that point on, any time someone mentioned the wolverine, in or out of character, the angry beast would burst from somewhere within the workings of the ship and maul the druid's new character.

The sorcerer and the gunman decided at one point to see how many times they could say wolverine in a conversation and keep it in context.

"Man, that's convenient!"
In the same campaign still, my cities became notorious for their Information Centers, tiny booths near the train stations that knew WAY too much about anything the PCs would ask. While it was later revealed to be sub-plot significant to the party rogue (which was actually a ret-con), the PCs could never get over the fact that they found out where to find the evil necromancer they were hunting down by asking the information center.

The sorcerer never learned a single divination spell. He didn't need it.

There is no such thing as "level appropriate."
One of the longest running jokes was my inability to understand proper CRs and Wealth by Level. My PCs could sometimes take creatures up to 5 levels above them with no problems, but creatures of their level were too easy. I never knew what CR creatures to use against them. This resulted in a couple of near-TPKs (and one city nearly getting obliterated by the sorcerer in an attempt to stop a monster).

But what I really had trouble with was Wealth by Level. I just handed out loot, really, and never really thought about its effects on the game. By the time I realized that a 7th-level character should not have a Helm of Brilliance, it was a little too late (remember the city nearly getting destroyed? Yeah).

Pyromania is a Real Problem
The guy who played the sorcerer mentioned above inevitably burned down a tavern in every city he entered. It wasn't even something he tried to do, and it didn't matter at all who his character was. Every town lost a tavern, some lost entire city blocks. We still can't quite figure it out.

[EndlessWrath]

I hate this feat!
So I'm running a game and the very first session included a Half-orc Barbarian, Human Wizard, Elven Sorcerer, and an Elven Hexblade. The Barbarians first feat wasn't power attack, or weapon focus, or Extra Rages. It was Quick Draw. Any time anything ever happened, he quick drew his Great-axe. Regardless of whatever it was. Lemme give you a few examples.

Feng (half-orc): I walk down the hallway.

DM: The walls are covered in sli-

Feng: QUICK DRAW!
-----
DM: You walk in the city streets, there's a few humans, elves, gnomes and a few hobgoblins here and the-

Feng: QUICK DRAW
-----
DM: A little girl comes up to ask you a que-

Feng: QUICK DRAW.

That last one was partly my fault, the previous campaign a little girl turned into a shadowy monster that ate most of the party and sent them to the 9th ring of hell. :smallamused: I've kinda grown a reputation from that.
----------
Dog-speech
I have a druid, animal companion wolf. I roleplay what speaking to my wolf is like.

Me: arfa arfa wolf wolf.
Dog (me again) : wolfa wolfa arf arf.

Needless to say, at any new turn of events or any new information, i relay it to my Wolf.
----------
Eggs
So the last campaign i ran, i had to round up all the players who just so happen to be in one town. I had to lure the barbarian and nothing seemed to work. So I basically said, "Krug receives an egg to the face."

Krug: What?
Me: You got hit in the face with an Egg.
Krug: I wipe it off
Me: the little kid who threw it throws another one and it hits you in the face again.
Krug: this kid is pissing me off. but i'll wipe it off and ignore him.
Me: He throws a 3rd at your face. He succeeds.
Krug: doesn't he have to make attack checks?
Me: he's a commoner level 20. and I've been rolling good. Too much time, another egg hits you in the face.

He finally took the bait, chased after the kid and ran into a frying pan to wake up and see he's tied up in a chair with the rest of the party just kinda chilling there. They untie him and start the game.

Egg to the face has been the catchphrase for anytime we need to do anything, including in magic.

[Rhiannon87]

One character has a catch phrase. Whenever something bad happens or upsets him, he'll say: "There's two things I hate. [Very random food] and [whatever has happened to upset him]." This has led to phrases like:

(While a zombie is drowning him) "There's two things I hate! Jackalope sausage, and (held underwater for three rounds)-- and YOU!"

"There's two things I hate. The combination of fruit and meat, and vampires."

"There's two things I hate. Key lime pie, and people who accuse me of lying." (This character is a con man, btw.)

Oh, and then there's rhino blankets. Our DM owns the bulette miniature. One of the players picked up the mini (not really that mini, actually...) and asked if it was a rhino. We said no. He ignored us, and proceeded to go into this whole speech about a rhino who was offering financial advice and selling blankets. "Buy some rhino blankets! They're a great investment!" "I'm joining Obama's task force! Buy some rhino blankets!" And so on. It's not uncommon for any of the DMs now to describe a room as containing a rhino in a business suit. Botched knowledge checks often reveal information about rhinos and their terrible financial advice.

I also maintain a lengthy quote book for D&D, and it's a badge of honor amongst our group if someone says something that makes me crack up laughing and then grab my pencil to start scribbling whatever they said in my notebook.

[TheCountAlucard]

Well, last session involved a magic pool in which a random transmutation effect was bestowed upon the drinker. The party Healer ended up with his clothes turning into gold (which he had to burst out of in order to move around) and sprouting massive butterfly wings. When I asked him how he'd be getting back to the group, the party Scout's player said, "Please don't fly."

[Kylarra]

I randomly make the appropriate animal sound of whatever animal my druid is wild shaped into at the time.

[Ovaltine Patrol]

In our Eberron game, I've managed to figure out what our enemy was going to do with pretty good accuracy so my Psion's catch phrases are "Called it," and "This isn't a surprise."

[AdmiralCheez]

Over teh last few months, our group has been running the World's Largest Dungeon. It was still pretty early in the area, and we managed to come across a +2 Greataxe (the most powerful item the party had). Instintively, my Dwarven Defender with an affinity for axes grabbed it.
Now, I already had a decent armament of axes, so to keep the party balanced, everyone else insisted we sell it and buy potions. To try and convince me to sell, they said I'd be profiting by around 3,000 gold, which led to the quote:

"Oi don't care about tha gold, Oi like axes!" in a disappointed dwarvish accent.

They all thought it was hilarious, while I was just being honest.

[KuReshtin]

There's one group that I play with where the running joke is that if my character hasn't dropped to negative hit points during the session, it's been a disappointing session.

This stemmed from a campaign a few years ago where I played a rogue who really, REALLY liked shiny stuff and did impulsive things to get hold of named shiny stuff.

For instance, we were trapped in a cave with some sort of dragon (it was a while ago, so I can't really remember what type it was) and my rogue rolled a higher initiative than anyone (including the dragon) so since the dragon is standing between us and all the shiny loot I boldly proclaim that:

"I step up to the dragon and hit it in the face with my rapier!"

Needless to say, I did minimal damage to the dragon, and the dragon reciprocated by taking a big bite out of me, dropping me to negative hit points in the very first round of the fight.


We also tend to get at least one instance of "you hear a dying giraffe" each session, no matter if we're in a cave, in a town or out at sea. I don't even know where that one came from.

[The Rose Dragon]

we were stunned for a few seconds, and then burst out laughing. any time later when he wished to talk to anyone the rest of the party asked him if he got enough lubricant. poor rouge.

Well, you know, rouge and lubricant are usually applied to completely different ends, so combining them would be... less than useful.

[Fishy]

While the party was sneaking towards a bandit encampment, we heard some noises ahead of us on the trail. The extremely rookie and combat-shy druid readies an action to Wild Empathy, because it is probably some sort of frightened deer.

And then the bandit archers open fire, of course.

Thus was discovered the majestic Northwestern Arrow Deer.

[Dogmantra]

"Are there any animals around?" and "I bluff the party!" (or some variation on that) are both running jokes.
The former being from a newbie (we were all new, and I actually knew the rules, so I was DM), who was playing a ranger. He had max ranks in handle animal. He constantly asked if there were any animals around. Eventually, I got annoyed with this and told him that yes, there was an animal, but it was the incarnation of a god, and would smite him if he "handled" him.

The latter was from the same session actually... There were so many bluffs told (primarily by the LG Cleric...) about all sorts of things. I think one player even wanted to bluff that their name was something else... I think I outlawed bluff...

Oh, and my catchphrase is "I'd like to roll a Knowledge (The Plot) check", which came from a rather convoluted plot that someone made up. I got a 1 the first time I actually rolled.

[Nahal]

Thanks to a botched Knowledge (Religion) check, whenever we see Nerull's holy symbol, we identify it as the holy symbol of the Fluffy Bunny God of Waughter and Wuv.

Hey, you can't spell slaughter without laughter.

One of my IC lines actually wound up in my then-GM's gaming magazine:

At the time we were getting ready to face off against yet another bizarre and bizarrely overpowered homebrew monster (this was sort of the campaign setting's trademark: Combat is a Bad Idea Because This Thing Will Kill You)

[Me] So what's the plan?
[Ranger] There's a plan?
[Me] ...First time for everything!

To put this in context, PC mistakes and unforgiving campaign design had caused us to:

-Depopulate an entire city
-Rewrite history for the (much) worse. Twice.
-Strip nearly all the gods of their powers
-Unleashing the god of Liches (most likely Vecna) by accidentally unsealing his prison
-Annihilating a BBEG by setting off what was essentially a bomb it was holding, surviving only through an Indy-in-the-Fridge-level act of GM mercy.
etc...

[spamoo]

My immediate group of friend subscribes to the philosophy of "kill it with fire". As you may be able to tell, this does not always lead to the best possible outcome. Now we have an unwritten law that no tavern, bar, or inn which we enter may survive the session. Most of the property damage isn't even directly our fault. It just happens that when an adventuring group enters a bar, there is either a plot hook or combat encounter. Both of these scenarios often lead to the use of fire as the resolution to the conflict. OOC, we have realized this ant now tend to stay away from these establishments as often as possible due to predominantly good alignments.

Another running joke that we have is that my friend always gets a +2 untyped bonus to perform (oratory) checks he makes. This one stems from some absurd RAW argument he made a while back which was completely absurd and made no sense, but the DM accepted. Nobody has argued this bonus since.

Finally, I have the fact that nobody in our party is afraid of werecreatures anymore. This stems from a RP-heavy campaign where I played a Barbarian (going for Frenzied Berserker) wielding a scythe. I forget how, but I raised it's crit to 19-20 x5 and damage to 2d6. The first round of combat (they got a surprise round) I attacked and critted the werebear. Due to power attack and rage, it was forced to make a save against massive damage and failed. My other attack rolled 2 20s in a row (our rules let you try and confirm insti-kill when you crit on a crit confirmation roll) and hit on my confirmation. That was two werecreatures in one round by a largely unoptimized character. To this point there are references to Almock the Wereslayer that still come up every once and a while.

[Master_Rahl22]

My favorite running joke stemmed from our DM's creative and fun advantage/flaw table. You could choose to ignore it, or you could choose to roll once on each table. Of course, one of the entries on each table was "roll 2 more times and keep both results" so you could end up with multiple advantages/flaws if you were lucky/unlucky. One character had the flaw of falling asleep if he fell more than 10 feet, and after a while in the campaign was cursed to lose his entire memory after sleeping. Thus every morning was full of anticipation as to how the ranger would react to waking up with a bunch of strangers. If he decided that he was under attack, we would just have the Orc Barbarian NPC pick him up and toss him in the air, at which point he would fall asleep and we could try waking him up again. To this day, when somebody's character gets really upset with the party, we yell "Hey Krunk, reset him!" :)

[skeeter_dan]

The paladin in our group had this gem during one session:

"I feed the potion of spider-climb to my horse and jump on."

The absurdity of it all was fantastic...

[Pain~less]

"Um... I like coaches!"

Uttered by the low-level barbarian when asked to describe a bluff check against the coachman that just found her rummaging through his coach. A natural 20 later she had found a friend for life. He helped the group out several times in exchange for enduring his monologue about coaches, and still shows her the newest coach-magazines occasionally.

"It's 2:31 PM. It's always 2:31 PM"

I read that one on that board here and tried to get it into our game. It's supposed to make it easier on the DM, because he does not have to know the exact time things are happening. Very soon, everybody got annoyed by it. I still try to use it sometimes, just to see the looks on the players faces.

[Tar Palantir]

Oh so many.

The first occurred when the party was fighting a vrock. The party druid was trying to argue that his summoned creature, which was five feet away from and five feet up from the vrock, was outside of the ten foot radius for its spores. I slammed my fists on the table and shouted, "Pythagorean Theorum, b***h!" to uproarious laughter.We now use that whenever that player argues with me when I DM.

The second occurred when that same player was playing a fire-specialized sorcerer with some potent metamagic abuse on his fireballs. Whenever he cast his patented "super-fireball" (an Energy Admixture (Fire), Searing Fireball cast from two 3rd level spell slots for 20d6 of fire damage, ignoring resistance and reducing fire immunity to 50% reduction), he would call out, "By fire be purged!" And it was so (except for the time they fought a druid lich who cast Flame Ward. That fight ended with the sorcerer as a squirrel :smallbiggrin:).

[Olo Demonsbane]

My low level archivist has the uncanny ability to roll a natural 20 1 round after he makes a quip. Doesnt matter how origanal, he just has to say something IC. And despite rolling 7 natural 20s in one session, he has never rolled a 19.

Examples:

"Didn't your mother ever teach you to use the word 'please'?"

"My dog could whipe the floor with you!"

"...And...?"

"Look out below!"

"Taste...wait, what are you vulnerable to again?"

[Curmudgeon]

OK, it's not an original line (in fact, I don't even know what movie it first originated in), but this quote seems to be my go-to phrase:


Well, that can't be good.

[OracleofWuffing]

Detect Evil.

I know how the spell works, I keep the instructions to the spell close at hand, but it never plays out the way it should.

Example 1:
Paladin: I Detect Evil.
Me: Okay, roll fortitude.
Paladin: Uh, okay.
Me: That guy in blood-red armor that's motioning to you? On a scale of one to ten, he's EEEEEEEEEEEVIL!

Example 2:
Geomancer: I cast Detect Evil. Is the Lich nearby?
Me: *Looks at DM and starts whistling innocently*
DM: Uh, okay. Very close to you-
Geomancer: Okay guys, get ready, he's near.
Me: *Starts chuckling*
DM: No, no. You don't understand. Listen carefully. Very, very, close to you-
Geomancer: Uh, guys, I think we're in trouble!
Me: *Gets a pillow to muffle his laughter*
DM: ... Slash Daring is Neutral Evil.
Geomancer: Oh. I look at Slash. "You're spoiling my spell."
Me: What spell?

Additionally, my first-ever character was an orphan whose orphanage was burned down by water elementals. Because of this, whenever something burns down or involves an orphanage, it must be made explicitly clear that water elementals were not involved.

[Juggernaut1981]

From the Ocassus Playgroup in Sydney... some of the "One Liners"...

"By the power of the flame!" (this usually meant that the character was about to either a] burn something b] throw a sack of grenades that we had developed for the campaign world that would explode 1d3 rounds after being thrown)

"Now look, I just have this simple task..." (usually said by me just before the party was about to get screwed or used as bait by their Evil Overlord superiors)

"I'd like to sell my soul..." That campaign had about 6 or 7 characters make Faustian Pacts of some kind... it was gold from my DM's chair.


From our private playgroup...
"I get inside Drinkie" (Drinkie was basically what happens if The Luggage from Discworld ever bred with a Beer Barrel)

"I throw a tankard at him... [insert rolling damage] DM: And you cave in his skull at 50ft"

[Shadowbane]

I actually drop one liners all the time. Puns, one-liners, catchphrases, insane pop culture references that make me look like Belkar. :\

[sofawall]

There was one time we were playing and we encountered a succubus. With it's massive Charisma and skill ranks, I remarked (after we had defeated it) "Wow, that succubus could have bluffed the pants off you..." After a moment of thought, I added "Literally."

Also, in an Eberron campaign we managed to steal an airship. My mp3 player happens to have both a speaker and a sound byte of Peppy saying "Do a barrel roll!" and "Use the boost to get through!"

My party now hates Peppy.

[shadzar]

Possibly not PG-13

So whatever the BBEG was was trying to get a staff that we had. Well my kender was in "possession" of it. The BBEG gets it and my kender wants the 4-foot staff back. While fighting was going on my kender sneaks around to where the BBEG is and grapples (grabs? whatever in 3.5) the lower portion of the staff. Before anyone knows what is going on the kender uses his free action to shout out:

"Give me back my butt-plug!"

The BBEG, the rest of the party, and the other enemies just freeze in place and take no actions. (Save for staring at the kender, staff, and BBEG)

Everyone at the table stays quiet for about a minute or so and then the DM breaks the silence stating that BBEG releases the staff with a puzzled look and wipes off his hands.

Don't really remember how the battle ended, but the kender was back in possession of the staff at the end of the session.

:smallbiggrin: Got to love those crazy kender!

[Froogleyboy]

we had one of those events, it's still pretty funny now. happened a few years back, everyone was asleep after a night of drinking, the low intelligence dwarf barbarian was the only one ( Nat 20 ) to notice the DM's female NPC silently moving across the room. the player decided to follow her. sure enough, the dwarf overheard her conversation with some unknown male entity through some portal. the player kept his character out of sight of both of them.

Female NPC "Yes, they're all here."
Male NPC "Good, any other information?"
Female NPC " Yes, can you get a pen and paper?"
Dwarf Barbarian "ohhh, okay, i'll get you pen and paper"
[All] Laughter

I don't get it . . .

[mistformsquirrl]

"Wrong Door" - said in a low, booming, deific voice.

----

This one requires a little explaining <,< (Also note: This is all 3.0e)

It starts off with me playing in a friend's campaign; my character's fiance was captured by the BBEG, who turned her into a super-monster; which the party proceeded to kill (without me of course).

Needless to say, my once relatively quiet character snapped.

Add in a recently purchased 3rd party sourcebook that included a class that can create "Life" (I want to call it "Soulforger" but that's probably not the right name) - but said life always gradually breaks down and goes insane unless you constantly maintain it.

So my character becomes obsessive with re-creating his fiance; which of course never works; and after a time he decides his only option is to become a god.

Which he does.

Cue next campaign; where I am the DM >.>

Said god, who is quite mad still, occasionally opens portals throughout the campaign, steps through, looks around, and states "... wrong door." before walking right back through with the portal closing behind him.

He's since made appearances in a couple other people's campaigns as well <'x'> Hilarity ensues.

---

Same campaign also featured a band of goblin mercenaries who sang "Dirty Deeds" by AC/DC as they marched around looking for work. Said goblins have never been forgotten, and anytime goblins have come up since, someone inevitably began singing >.>

---

Oh, and then there's a different campaign where a friend had all of his halflings - every last one of them - act as crazy gymnists.

That means you walk into a shop owned by halflings and request anything; and you have a trapeze artist flip out of a hidden cupboard (his halflings were Tiny size), land on the shelf with your item, backflip off the shelf, deftly handing the item to a pair of other halflings standing on 4 more halfing's backs, who then proceed to to tumble to the counter - wherein a halfling pyramid forms and they hand you your item.

Every. Single. Time.

>_<

[Bugbeartrap]

In the 3.5 version of White Plume Mountain, the PC's first enter the chamber with the giant crab surrounded by lava. One of the players, his first time playing, was a gnome barbarian. He wins initiative and charges, nat 20, roll to confirm, nat 20, and what the hell why not confirm the insta kill, nat 20. After I describe how his hammer cracks the shell and sends crabmeat flying, he immediately grabs a peice, holds it near the lava and states, "I roll for butter".

This same player took a liking to the Intimidate skill. With no charisma and hardly a rank to his name, he informs me he wants to intimidate a pirate.

Me: "What do you say to him?"
Him: "INTIMIDATE!"

A natural 20 later and the group always yells "INTIMIDATE!" when the going gets tough.

One that I started was when a character utterly failed a listen check at a door, "You hear fine crafted mahogony." Even though the door was obviously a peice of junk. Now the players use it whenever they roll a 1... for anything. Fail a spot check? "You hear mahogony"

[Fitz10019]

A landlady was allowing us into the room of a missing person, waiting impatiently by the door while we searched. After finding nothing in or under the bed, and the footlocker to be empty, we had this dialogue:

Rogue (with enthusiasm): "I search the footlocker for a false bottom!"
DM: "Nothing."
Bard (mimicking the rogue): "I search the landlady for a false bottom!"
DM (throws dice at the bard): "She reacts badly. Take 5 damage."

--------
At a slave auction, and objecting to slavery, we pooled our money to buy the plot-relevant human, and everyone else, including a goblin, a bugbear and a troll.

Ranger: "Great, now what do we do with a goblin, a bugbear and a troll?"
Bard: "We make them walk into a bar."

[Pramxnim]

At a slave auction, and objecting to slavery, we pooled our money to buy the plot-relevant human, and everyone else, including a goblin, a bugbear and a troll.

Ranger: "Great, now what do we do with a goblin, a bugbear and a troll?"
Bard: "We make them walk into a bar."

Priceless :smallbiggrin:. Thank you for making me laugh out loud!