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Anymage
2021-07-10, 06:26 PM
I was recently talking to someone who was complaining about Hackmaster being overly convoluted, and was surprised to find out that they didn't know that it started its life as a deliberate parody of just that. Got me started thinking how, as someone who cut his teeth in the 90s, certain things were assumed to be part of the lingua franca; dread gazebos, the head of vecna, and magic missiles targeting the darkness were just things you assumed everybody knew.

It's been a while since then and I have a feeling a lot of those references would fall flat to a lot of newly minted gamers. So I'm wondering both what bits of lore you still think of as things everybody should know (even if they're a little too dated), or things you'd expect today's crop of gamers to all treat as common knowledge.

PhoenixPhyre
2021-07-10, 06:58 PM
My expectations are skewed by playing almost entirely with new players, including those new to RPGs. So I'd say "basically nothing".

OldTrees1
2021-07-10, 07:27 PM
The kind of common knowledge a new player will have about the new game, is the kind of knowledge that is not unique to that game.

Think of Elves. Most people on the planet have heard of "Elves", but how many of them are thinking of the Unseelie / Seelie Fae OR thinking about Santa's Elves rather than that RPG's Elves?

It gets even weirder with Dwarves. Some players might only know about Dwarves from Skyrim (aka not actually Dwarves!).

Mastikator
2021-07-10, 08:44 PM
None. I consider it to be similar to internet culture, most of my friends and family are uninitiated... or maybe they are and I'm not. Culture is big and I am small.

In game lore about the game they're playing? Also none, I can generally skim through some lore and instantly know more than everyone I know lol

Jophiel
2021-07-10, 10:05 PM
and magic missiles targeting the darkness were just things you assumed everybody knew.
I was playing a Starfinder game last week and announced my Magic Missile by saying I was attacking the darkness. Nothing! Just confused silence.

Anyway, I just assume by now that everyone is born with the knowledge that you need fire to keep trolls from regenerating. The corollary is that every troll will be a variant that tries to get around everyone knowing about the fire thing.

MrStabby
2021-07-11, 03:25 AM
I was playing a Starfinder game last week and announced my Magic Missile by saying I was attacking the darkness. Nothing! Just confused silence.

Anyway, I just assume by now that everyone is born with the knowledge that you need fire to keep trolls from regenerating. The corollary is that every troll will be a variant that tries to get around everyone knowing about the fire thing.

My latest experience with trolls was influenced heavily by the Hobbit. Some newish players at the table found they were facing a troll and were mostly concerned with getting it out of its cave and into sunlight.

Vahnavoi
2021-07-11, 05:05 AM
My expectations are skewed by playing almost entirely with new players, including those new to RPGs. So I'd say "basically nothing".

Same. I try to expect as little as possible, leading to me perpetually being surprised by players already knowing (and sometimes, players being annoyed at me for telling things they already knew).

Though I do get annoyed myself at some things fading out of public knowledge, 1) that's normal, 2) "common knowledge among participants of an idiosyncratic niche hobby" is pretty much antonym to "stuff everybody knows". :smalltongue:

Yora
2021-07-11, 05:17 AM
Expect? Nothing.

I regularly play with people who have never played and games before.

Imbalance
2021-07-11, 06:00 AM
Not much. How much do tabletop veterans know about dragons flying backwards or the technique of placing a bucket over a NPC's head to rob them blind? Do you expect cake to be honest? Does the name Leroy Jenkins ring any bells?

A former neighbor who'd led a sheltered childhood only knew about elves that made cookies.

Chronos
2021-07-11, 06:25 AM
Why, there are even people out there who don't know about XKCD! (https://xkcd.com/1053/)

KineticDiplomat
2021-07-11, 07:35 AM
None. I’ve been playing games for years, and I’m going to admit many of the items presented here are news to me.

Lalliman
2021-07-11, 07:57 AM
Think of Elves. Most people on the planet have heard of "Elves", but how many of them are thinking of the Unseelie / Seelie Fae OR thinking about Santa's Elves rather than that RPG's Elves?

It gets even weirder with Dwarves. Some players might only know about Dwarves from Skyrim (aka not actually Dwarves!).
On the contrary, I think dwarves are the one fantasy race you can expect most players to know about, because they're the same in almost every franchise. Skyrim is a notable exception, but if you know about Lord of the Rings or World of Warcraft, then you know the dwarves of D&D, because they're 90% the same. Elves and orcs and such are a little more varied. Of course there will be people who don't know, but dwarves will be high on the list of common knowledge.

Trask
2021-07-11, 08:47 AM
The kind of common knowledge a new player will have about the new game, is the kind of knowledge that is not unique to that game.

Think of Elves. Most people on the planet have heard of "Elves", but how many of them are thinking of the Unseelie / Seelie Fae OR thinking about Santa's Elves rather than that RPG's Elves?

It gets even weirder with Dwarves. Some players might only know about Dwarves from Skyrim (aka not actually Dwarves!).

This was my first experience with people outside the fantasy culture. I invited my girlfriend and my brother's girlfriend to play D&D with my regular group and on the drive over I was explaining the various races and when I said elves one of them said "Like Santa's Elves?" and the other said "Like Keebler Elves?" and then I knew I had to change my expectations.

OldTrees1
2021-07-11, 08:58 AM
This was my first experience with people outside the fantasy culture. I invited my girlfriend and my brother's girlfriend to play D&D with my regular group and on the drive over I was explaining the various races and when I said elves one of them said "Like Santa's Elves?" and the other said "Like Keebler Elves?" and then I knew I had to change my expectations.

That is a great example.


On the contrary, I think dwarves are the one fantasy race you can expect most players to know about, because they're the same in almost every franchise. Skyrim is a notable exception, but if you know about Lord of the Rings or World of Warcraft, then you know the dwarves of D&D, because they're 90% the same. Elves and orcs and such are a little more varied. Of course there will be people who don't know, but dwarves will be high on the list of common knowledge.

This is not contrary to my point. I said the Dwarf situation was weirder because you might run into some players that assume or only know about the Skyrim Dwarves (which most would agree are a misnomer). At least with Elves, the variations are all elven.

Vahnavoi
2021-07-11, 09:23 AM
Notably, the elf example doesn't happen in my culture, because we have different words for the different types of creature. Even in English-speaking world, I'd argue it's less a case of people knowing and more a case of semantic ambiguity: the word is used for many distinct things, so people tend towards assuming the most common meaning. A person could know about Tolkien's elves and still think of Santa's elves first.

Related, there are a lot of words which are synonyms or near-synonyms, which have somehow acquired very specific meanings among hobbyists. For most people, mage, wizard, sorcerer, warlock, conjurer (etc.) are the same damned thing and even in D&D were all included in the roof category of Magic-User before someone had the bright idea to split them to dozen different things. Ditto for ghost, spectre, wraith and shade. Or dragon, drake and wyrm.

MoiMagnus
2021-07-11, 10:00 AM
Almost none.

Assuming we're talking about a new player at the table, who already played once or twice to RPGs during some events, and know D&D as "the default medieval-fantastic RPG", I don't even think that's reasonable to assume that they know that the current edition of D&D is the 5th edition of D&D, and that different editions of D&D are significantly different games and not just reprints with updated art-style and bug-fixes.


dread gazebos, the head of vecna, and magic missiles targeting the darkness

I have a vague idea of what the "dread gazebos" is about, and no idea about the other two. And I had no idea that something named "Hackmaster" existed before reading this thread

[I'm playing D&D for 10 years now (both player and GM), and started looking at online D&D forums 3 years ago. In my group of more than fifteen players, only one of them is more knowledgeable than me on the history of TTRPGs, partly because I'm one of the older players of the group. So I'm not "new to this hobby", I'm just "relatively young".]

Max_Killjoy
2021-07-11, 10:29 AM
The kind of common knowledge a new player will have about the new game, is the kind of knowledge that is not unique to that game.

Think of Elves. Most people on the planet have heard of "Elves", but how many of them are thinking of the Unseelie / Seelie Fae OR thinking about Santa's Elves rather than that RPG's Elves?

It gets even weirder with Dwarves. Some players might only know about Dwarves from Skyrim (aka not actually Dwarves!).

Or they've seen both from the LOTR/Hobbit movies, now.

Jophiel
2021-07-11, 11:25 AM
if you know about Lord of the Rings or World of Warcraft, then you know the dwarves of D&D, because they're 90% the same.
Heck, if you're familiar with Snow White you have a decent foundation regarding what dwarves are.

Given that the OP started with someone who knew enough about Hackmaster to complain about Hackmaster, I assume the thread intent is about RPG players at least nominally in the scene rather than people who are still impressed that dice exist in shapes other than "cube".

LordCdrMilitant
2021-07-11, 11:28 AM
I was recently talking to someone who was complaining about Hackmaster being overly convoluted, and was surprised to find out that they didn't know that it started its life as a deliberate parody of just that. Got me started thinking how, as someone who cut his teeth in the 90s, certain things were assumed to be part of the lingua franca; dread gazebos, the head of vecna, and magic missiles targeting the darkness were just things you assumed everybody knew.

It's been a while since then and I have a feeling a lot of those references would fall flat to a lot of newly minted gamers. So I'm wondering both what bits of lore you still think of as things everybody should know (even if they're a little too dated), or things you'd expect today's crop of gamers to all treat as common knowledge.

I wouldn't expect people to know about Gazebos, Head of Vecna, or Missiles at Darkness, because those are all from various external sources that the majority of people dont engage with or have to engage with to be part of the hobby

I would expect people to know the following:
TTRPG's are derived from wargaming
That different styles of GMing exist from the very narrative driven to a hexcrawl.
That this isn't a video game

Pex
2021-07-11, 01:20 PM
Use fire when attacking trolls.

Use silvered weapons against lycanthropes.

Drow use poison.

Dragons have breath weapons.

When 4 bad guys show up demanding your surrender, you fight. When 40 bad guys show up demanding your surrender, do so. It's only an adventure plot point set up.

Don't touch anyone else's dice to roll without permission. 99% of people will give permission when asked, just ask first.

When playing at a food place buy their food.

Time Troll
2021-07-11, 02:43 PM
Just about nothing.

Really, there is no easy way to learn the lore. There really is no place to go online. Even if you just narrow it down to D&D, the Wizard web site has very little lore and more "wow, zing, buy our new thing!"

MoiMagnus
2021-07-11, 03:14 PM
Even if you just narrow it down to D&D, the Wizard web site has very little lore and more "wow, zing, buy our new thing!"

I've learn quite a lot of D&D history here: https://www.tribality.com/columns/history-of-the-classes/
It goes through a lot of classes, and how they evolved from one D&D edition to another, and giving some greater context about those editions and the associated supplements.

Sadly, it's been more than a year since the author stopped writing this column.

Pauly
2021-07-11, 06:49 PM
If you’re playing 40K I expect you to know what a psycho-womble is. And why it caused GW to change from Mk6 power armor to Mk7.

KorvinStarmast
2021-07-12, 07:48 AM
Not much. How much do tabletop veterans know about dragons flying backwards or the technique of placing a bucket over a NPC's head to rob them blind? Do you expect cake to be honest? Does the name Leroy Jenkins ring any bells?

A former neighbor who'd led a sheltered childhood only knew about elves that made cookies. I saw the Keebler(TM) commercials many years before I began playing D&D; all of my D&D elvish cultures make cookies. All of them. ( Lembas bread is really a cookie, ya see ... ) :smallsmile: . Also, I heard the story about the elves and the shoemaker as a child. All elvish cultures in my games make the best, and the most stylish, shoes. (And this fits well into how desired elven boots have been since I picked up D&D in 1975 ...)

I have a vague idea of what the "dread gazebos" is about, and no idea about the other two. Were it not for the internet, I'd have no idea what a dread gazebo. Vecna I know about, but the internet is what brought me Vecna's head. Leroy Jenkins is part of my lore due to WoW fused with youtube. By the way, the "internet is for porn" song I first saw as a WoW spoof video, and only later saw Avenue Q via a youtube broadcast.


I would expect people to know the following:
{snip} That this isn't a video game I have discovered that I have to make this explicit in some cases.

Use fire when attacking trolls.

Use silvered weapons against lycanthropes.

Drow use poison.

Dragons have breath weapons.

When 4 bad guys show up demanding your surrender, you fight. When 40 bad guys show up demanding your surrender, do so. It's only an adventure plot point set up.

Don't touch anyone else's dice to roll without permission. 99% of people will give permission when asked, just ask first.

When playing at a food place buy their food. I'd like to add to this list:
"Whomever hosts the game at their place, someone else brings the pizza/chips/snacks."

Xervous
2021-07-12, 08:22 AM
The session will not start at its scheduled time.

Chronos
2021-07-12, 08:38 AM
D&D elves absolutely are Santa's elves (https://www.amazon.com/Father-Christmas-Letters-J-Tolkien/dp/039559698X).

And as for dwarves being the best-known, when I was playing as a teenager, my mom didn't play, but of course heard about the game from me and my friends. She assumed that dwarves would make good thieves (this was in the 2nd edition games before thieves were renamed "rogues"), because she knew that they were small, but didn't know that they tended to be very unsubtle.

And for an even more extreme example of "same word used for different creatures", how about trolls? They can be anything from cute tiny fey with wild, colorful hair, to nigh-unkillable man-rending giants (and the giants may or may not be made of living stone).

Eldan
2021-07-12, 10:27 AM
On the contrary, I think dwarves are the one fantasy race you can expect most players to know about, because they're the same in almost every franchise. Skyrim is a notable exception, but if you know about Lord of the Rings or World of Warcraft, then you know the dwarves of D&D, because they're 90% the same. Elves and orcs and such are a little more varied. Of course there will be people who don't know, but dwarves will be high on the list of common knowledge.

Not for people who don't game. At least around here, dwarves are about knee-high, with long white beards, they turn invisible, live under tree roots and they curse people. They are mostly famous for magic, in fact. And stealing children.

Edit: yeah, dwarves as I know them from my childhood would absolutely be rogues. Also illusionists.

Eldan
2021-07-12, 10:37 AM
If you’re playing 40K I expect you to know what a psycho-womble is. And why it caused GW to change from Mk6 power armor to Mk7.

… is that one serious? I thought I was relatively knowledgeable about GW in General and 40k in particular, having played for over 20 years now, but I have no idea what a psycho-womble is.

Quertus
2021-07-12, 11:26 AM
Just watch cartoons. Whatever the kids aren't supposed to get, that's the in jokes gamers should try to understand.


Why, there are even people out there who don't know about XKCD! (https://xkcd.com/1053/)

Huh. I had expected you to link this XKCD comic (https://xkcd.com/1262/) instead.


I don't even think that's reasonable to assume that they know that the current edition of D&D is the 5th edition of D&D, and that different editions of D&D are significantly different games and not just reprints with updated art-style and bug-fixes.

What do you mean? They keep updating the editions as a simulation of the underlying mechanics as the various setting worlds keep changing (Mystra's fault!), right?


I have a vague idea of what the "dread gazebos" is about, and no idea about the other two. And I had no idea that something named "Hackmaster" existed before reading this thread

[I'm playing D&D for 10 years now (both player and GM), and started looking at online D&D forums 3 years ago. In my group of more than fifteen players, only one of them is more knowledgeable than me on the history of TTRPGs, partly because I'm one of the older players of the group. So I'm not "new to this hobby", I'm just "relatively young".]

I'd say, "whoever brought you into this hobby failed you", but, really, the other two are dumb stories that I wouldn't mind just being known by gamers who also enjoy and have ranks in Sage: Darwin Awards.

But Monte Python, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars? These are much less optional cultural touchstones.


When 4 bad guys show up demanding your surrender, you fight. When 40 bad guys show up demanding your surrender, do so. It's only an adventure plot point set up. drop a Fireball / grenades / Neiglish Rot on them.

FTFY :smallbiggrin:


If you’re playing 40K I expect you to know what a psycho-womble is. And why it caused GW to change from Mk6 power armor to Mk7.

… what?? :smallconfused:

DavidSh
2021-07-12, 12:05 PM
… is that one serious? I thought I was relatively knowledgeable about GW in General and 40k in particular, having played for over 20 years now, but I have no idea what a psycho-womble is.
Sounds British, as The Wombles was the name of two shows on the BBC, that I'd only heard about because a parody of them appeared as the Rumbles in a book called The Borribles.

But Google is not as helpful for psycho-womble as it is for Head of Vecna.

Eldan
2021-07-12, 03:31 PM
Oh yeah... googling them, they have pretty pointed faces, so was there some kerfluffle with the old beaky helmets?

RandomPeasant
2021-07-12, 04:44 PM
Not for people who don't game. At least around here, dwarves are about knee-high, with long white beards, they turn invisible, live under tree roots and they curse people. They are mostly famous for magic, in fact. And stealing children.

In fairness, that is in D&D. They're just called Gnomes. Which, really, are not nearly as meaningfully distinct from Dwarves as D&D would like you to believe.

Pauly
2021-07-12, 06:57 PM
Oh yeah... googling them, they have pretty pointed faces, so was there some kerfluffle with the old beaky helmets?

People started painting Space Marine armies as wombles, and iirc someone did really well in a Grand Tourney but there were no photos of his army in White Dwarf.

GW will go a long way to protect the grim dark future of 40k ethos. Eliminating space dwarves (squats) from their history because they weren’t grimdark. As soon as psycho-womble became a known thing GW redesigned the power army to eliminate the nose.

Eldan
2021-07-13, 03:27 AM
In fairness, that is in D&D. They're just called Gnomes. Which, really, are not nearly as meaningfully distinct from Dwarves as D&D would like you to believe.

Sure, but at least half of the people I play with got their start on German or Scandinavian RPGs, not D&D. Now, the Dark Eye mostly follows D&D-ish tropes at least in Broad strokes for the races, but others don't. I'm just saying, I have played with people who have years of RPG experience and might still have entirely different assumptions if they hear some typical Fantasy words.

Eldan
2021-07-13, 03:30 AM
People started painting Space Marine armies as wombles, and iirc someone did really well in a Grand Tourney but there were no photos of his army in White Dwarf.

GW will go a long way to protect the grim dark future of 40k ethos. Eliminating space dwarves (squats) from their history because they weren’t grimdark. As soon as psycho-womble became a known thing GW redesigned the power army to eliminate the nose.

Eh, the Setting has been getting increasingly bright and heroic for at least ten years now. Plus, maybe they didn't want to be associated with wombles, but 90s Warhammer also gave us Obiwan Sherlock Clouseau, so I'm not so sure about serious.

KorvinStarmast
2021-07-13, 11:49 AM
but 90s Warhammer also gave us Obiwan Sherlock Clouseau, so I'm not so sure about serious. For that alone it is worth preserving. :smallsmile:

LordCdrMilitant
2021-07-14, 12:18 PM
Eh, the Setting has been getting increasingly bright and heroic for at least ten years now. Plus, maybe they didn't want to be associated with wombles, but 90s Warhammer also gave us Obiwan Sherlock Clouseau, so I'm not so sure about serious.

Warhammer 40k is a fundamentally parodical and humorous piece [and it still is]. This is something that I expect people who play 40k to be aware of, because it's very important.

The basics of the setting is that's depiction of fascism's/general totalitarianism's failures to a humorously over-the-top extreme. {Scrubbed}
If it ever stops being fundamentally humorous, it just starts being a glorification of fascism.

I have already met people who have missed the fundamental point that life absolutely sucks in the Imperium and it sucks because of the Imperium and have legitimately told me that they they out-of-character agree with the Imperium's dogma and policies towards aliens. This concerns me.

Max_Killjoy
2021-07-14, 01:28 PM
Warhammer 40k is a fundamentally parodical and humorous piece [and it still is]. This is something that I expect people who play 40k to be aware of, because it's very important.

The basics of the setting is that's depiction of fascism's/general totalitarianism's failures to a humorously over-the-top extreme. {Scrub the post, scrub the quote}
If it ever stops being fundamentally humorous, it just starts being a glorification of fascism.

I have already met people who have missed the fundamental point that life absolutely sucks in the Imperium and it sucks because of the Imperium and have legitimately told me that they they out-of-character agree with the Imperium's dogma and policies towards aliens. This concerns me.


Yeah, I've met them too.

I've also met the players who know it's a parody, but refuse to discuss it as such and treat it as dead serious in conversations because they think it's funny to wind people up.

Easy e
2021-07-14, 04:48 PM
I barely expect them to know what a d12 is.......

Quertus
2021-07-14, 07:58 PM
I barely expect them to know what a d12 is.......

Had a player just the other day who wanted to roll a d12 instead of a d20 because the d12 was prettier.


Yeah, I've met them too.

I've also met the players who know it's a parody, but refuse to discuss it as such and treat it as dead serious in conversations because they think it's funny to wind people up.

Can I be / start a third group, that doesn't care if it's a parody, and still demands it be treated as serious, and demands that it stands up to the level of logic of the evil overlord mandated 5-year-old advisor?

OldTrees1
2021-07-14, 08:01 PM
Can I be / start a third group, that doesn't care if it's a parody, and still demands it be treated as serious, and demands that it stands up to the level of logic of the evil overlord mandated 5-year-old advisor?

I am not sure. I don't think the Imperium follows the 5-year-old advisor policy.

Of course I know rather little about it. I get my info second hand and I am mostly interested in the fungi that go to Waaagh!

NorthernPhoenix
2021-07-25, 08:40 AM
Being much larger and more expansive mediums, i expect "everyone" in TTRPGs to get their pre-TTRPG assumptions from movies, books and video-games of the appropriate genre (in my case, usually fantasy or Sci-fi) that are popular at the time they get into the hobby.

Duff
2021-07-27, 11:32 PM
Really depends on the person.
And appologise every time an assumption of knowledge turns out to be wrong

hifidelity2
2021-07-28, 03:15 AM
Use fire when attacking trolls.

Use silvered weapons against lycanthropes.

Drow use poison.

Dragons have breath weapons.

When 4 bad guys show up demanding your surrender, you fight. When 40 bad guys show up demanding your surrender, do so. It's only an adventure plot point set up.

Don't touch anyone else's dice to roll without permission. 99% of people will give permission when asked, just ask first.

When playing at a food place buy their food.

..& buying the DM a beer is acceptable bribery

Witty Username
2021-08-04, 10:51 PM
I try to explain "Exterminatus" to everyone I meet, that doesn't know it. It should be common knowledge.

For those that don't know, Exterminatus is a Warhammer 40k lore term, both the command to and act of destroying a planet or eradicating all life on a planet in Imperium of Man terminology.
And have a free meme.
https://spikeybits.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/exterminatus.jpg

Kvess
2021-08-05, 08:13 AM
I try to explain "Exterminatus" to everyone I meet, that doesn't know it. It should be common knowledge.[/IMG]
I would have guessed it was a Harry Potter spell.

In my experience, new players will reliably understand the concept of hitpoints. Everything else depends on how TTRPG-adjacent they are. I don't expect new players to know memes spawned on TTRPG forums, Dragon Magazine or Usenet groups, because they're new players.

Pex
2021-08-05, 11:16 PM
I would have guessed it was a Harry Potter spell.

In my experience, new players will reliably understand the concept of hitpoints. Everything else depends on how TTRPG-adjacent they are. I don't expect new players to know memes spawned on TTRPG forums, Dragon Magazine or Usenet groups, because they're new players.

Sadly a Monty Python reference or "I attack the Darkness" have so few occurrences or comprehension these days. I still shudder when 5 years ago I played with a DM who literally had no clue who Ricardo Montalban was. I named my character Ricardo just because the mood hit me for the name's sake. He asked for a last name for character background. I joked "Montalban". He didn't even flinch, thus my character's name officially became Ricardo Montalban.

I can understand not knowing about his movie career of the 1950s and 60s. I'm fine with not knowing Mr. Roarke, but know nothing about "KAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHN!"? <throws hands up in despair>

Jophiel
2021-08-05, 11:27 PM
thus my character's name officially became Ricardo Montalban.
Tell me his armor was made of rich Corinthian leather.

Bohandas
2021-08-06, 03:25 AM
The kind of common knowledge a new player will have about the new game, is the kind of knowledge that is not unique to that game.

Think of Elves. Most people on the planet have heard of "Elves", but how many of them are thinking of the Unseelie / Seelie Fae OR thinking about Santa's Elves rather than that RPG's Elves?



A former neighbor who'd led a sheltered childhood only knew about elves that made cookies.

https://www.handbookofheroes.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/HH126.png
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/family-tree

NorthernPhoenix
2021-08-06, 08:17 AM
Sadly a Monty Python reference or "I attack the Darkness" have so few occurrences or comprehension these days. I still shudder when 5 years ago I played with a DM who literally had no clue who Ricardo Montalban was. I named my character Ricardo just because the mood hit me for the name's sake. He asked for a last name for character background. I joked "Montalban". He didn't even flinch, thus my character's name officially became Ricardo Montalban.

I can understand not knowing about his movie career of the 1950s and 60s. I'm fine with not knowing Mr. Roarke, but know nothing about "KAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHN!"? <throws hands up in despair>

Depending on their level of nerdom, a younger person might recognize that one from Star Trek: Into Darkness(2013) :tongue:

Grod_The_Giant
2021-08-06, 12:54 PM
Depending on their level of nerdom, a younger person might recognize that one from Star Trek: Into Darkness(2013) :tongue:
Hell, I'm 30 and have deeply immensed in RPG nerd culture for half my life and I didn't register that as an actor's name, even if I do know "Khaaaaan!"

Bohandas
2021-08-06, 04:21 PM
Plus, even those who are familiar with him, might be more familiar with him from his supporting role in the Spy Kids movies

Bohandas
2021-08-06, 10:45 PM
Warhammer 40k is a fundamentally parodical and humorous piece [and it still is]. This is something that I expect people who play 40k to be aware of, because it's very important.

The basics of the setting is that's depiction of fascism's/general totalitarianism's failures to a humorously over-the-top extreme. {Scrubbed}
If it ever stops being fundamentally humorous, it just starts being a glorification of fascism.

I have already met people who have missed the fundamental point that life absolutely sucks in the Imperium and it sucks because of the Imperium and have legitimately told me that they they out-of-character agree with the Imperium's dogma and policies towards aliens. This concerns me.

Ironically the imperum actually detracts from the setting's overall grimdarkness because it's so evil that it makes the chaos gods, the tyranids, and the necrons look like heroes for opposing it. In the contexy of 40k's setting Khorne and Slaanesh aren't even villains, they are defenders of the galaxy

Jay R
2021-08-06, 10:59 PM
As a Boomer, I am always a little off-balance to discover that a player knows Lord of the Rings primarily from the movies.

It's like meeting somebody who can listen to the William Tell Overture without thinking about the Lone Ranger.

Tanarii
2021-08-06, 11:45 PM
I've learn quite a lot of D&D history here: https://www.tribality.com/columns/history-of-the-classes/
It goes through a lot of classes, and how they evolved from one D&D edition to another, and giving some greater context about those editions and the associated supplements.

Sadly, it's been more than a year since the author stopped writing this column.
I read through the articles, and the author doesn't have a very good grasp of pre-WotC D&D, and it shows. In particular they don't seem to understand that higher levels were vanishingly uncommon. At least in an earned through play fashion.

Something that has escaped many folks over the years of course. Including WotC.

Cazero
2021-08-07, 02:24 AM
Warhammer 40k is a fundamentally parodical and humorous piece [and it still is]. This is something that I expect people who play 40k to be aware of, because it's very important.

The basics of the setting is that's depiction of fascism's/general totalitarianism's failures to a humorously over-the-top extreme. {Scrubbed}
If it ever stops being fundamentally humorous, it just starts being a glorification of fascism.

I have already met people who have missed the fundamental point that life absolutely sucks in the Imperium and it sucks because of the Imperium and have legitimately told me that they they out-of-character agree with the Imperium's dogma and policies towards aliens. This concerns me.

Really? I always thought the extreme totalitarianism was just a convenient excuse plot to get anyone warring against anyone in a pinch.
You know, stuff like "The captain heard the word heresy, or at least thinks he did, and now the Blood Angels are killing each others".

Tanarii
2021-08-07, 03:24 PM
I can understand not knowing about his movie career of the 1950s and 60s. I'm fine with not knowing Mr. Roarke, but know nothing about "KAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHN!"? <throws hands up in despair>
I grew up in the 80s and I had no idea who you were talking about until you gave the iconic yell.

I wonder what it's like to be famous for a yell, but no one knows your name? :smallamused:

Max_Killjoy
2021-08-07, 06:49 PM
I recognize him from his commercial work and Fantasy Island, along with the Star Trek appearances.

vasilidor
2021-08-07, 07:16 PM
this depends on how long the person has been playing the thing.
New to the game? nothing.
a year or two?
trolls die by fire in D&D, Dwarves are short.
10 years?
the only reason that Menzoberenzia (or however you spell that) still stands is because Lolth micromanages her pet Drow so that the little murder machines she turned them into do not render it a smoking crater out of paranoia, and that set free of her influence most Drow would eventually settle in at some flavor of neutral after a couple generations.

Bohandas
2021-08-11, 03:05 PM
Eh, the Setting has been getting increasingly bright and heroic for at least ten years now.

That's a good point. The Golden Throne's even starting to break down.

Though I suppose it would still be a bit nihilistic to have the big bad of the setting be defeated by his life support machine breaking down rather than because of something heroic.