THE NET BOOK OF RPG ONE-LINERS

This is the net.book.rpg.one-liners.  This is a list (pulled from
various usenet newsgroups) of silly one-liners and stories that
ocurred in the course of role-play gaming sessions.  The collection
consists of stories which have been submitted mainly via e-mail and
rec.games.frp.  I hope you enjoy it.  The stories are organized by
genre (Superhero, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Other).

If you have a story, please submit it to rec.games.frp and I will get
it from there or you can send it directly to me at louis@ansoft.com.
If you have submitted a story but do not see it in the lists below,
please send it to me directly and I will add it in the next revision
(hopefully monthly).  If one of your stories is here and is authored
Unknown, please contact me.  If you notice a misspelling, or in the
wrong genre, or something otherwise incorrect please send me the
proper correction/info.

Disclaimer: I hereby throw this into the public domain.  I take no
responsibility for this book's merits, worth, humor content or
anything else.  You can use these stories however you see fit - so
long as you don't make any kind of a profit from them.  If you decide
you'd like to try to make money in some way through the use of these
stories - then you should seek the agreement of the individual
authors.  That's why I've included who they are - so you can find
them.  Enough said (I hope).

Thanks to everyone who submitted stories.  This is a lengthy list, so
I hope everyone will bear with me in this listing.  I hope you enjoy
the net.book.crack-me-up.lines and any (constructive) suggestions are
welcome and appreciated.  Thanks to everyone who has posted any kind
of a story to the Usenet.  A special thanks to
Canadian_Traveller@mindlink.bc.ca (Canadian Traveller) who started
this thread and dm6571@u.cc.utah.edu (Don Mappin) who suggested making
a book out of the posts and jasonp@wam.umd.edu (Jason Papadopoulos)
who did some of the compiling and sent me the posts I didn't have
already.  Thanks again everyone!
 

=============================================================================

*************
* Superhero *
*************

From: moolick@shrsys.hslc.org (Michael M. Moolick)

I'll never forget one Marvel Super Heroes game I played. My character had
been MAJORLY beat on.  I was hit by an almost-nuclear bazooka, been generally
pummelled, poisoned, and had a compound leg fracture.  The villains are
using a bomb to cover their escape in a back alley.  My character was totally
out of it, a bloody mess.  Everyone's response to the situation:

" Quick, throw the body on the bomb. "

Fortunately, they reconsidered before detonation.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: drac@wbb.com

   This crack-up line was among players i.e. out-of-character.  This guy
was involving us in the accountant's nightmare called CHAMPIONS, and
against the emphasis of the entire rules system he was trying to get us
to role-play.  So we the players were getting flak for not thinking
through the complicated plot-line of the story, and dealing improperly
with an NPC group.
   So the GM asks us, "Think a minute.  What are the two ways in
CHAMPIONS to get NPCs to do what you want?"
   At which point one player, Charles P., says, "Well...there's
violence, and...."

   We totally cracked up at that.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Kirsten M Berry <killashandra@delphi.com>

Let me tell you about Gregor.... (before he does it himself....)

Gregor, the Russian defective - er, defectOR - was the result of a failed
attempt in the Soviet super-soldier program.  He's strong, fast, fearless...
brain damaged....  His KGB masters got him to defect on the theory that he
would do more damage as an American.

Charles (Gregor's player - or perhaps that should be "keeper") is very
theatrical, and always spoke for Gregor "in hokey Russian accent, da?" - a
vocal trait Charles claimed translated into Gregor's native tongue, as well.

Some of Gregor's more memorable exploits:

While fighting a German supervillain, Gregor dodged an axe-blow, only to leap
up, level his plasma rifle at his foe, and inquire, "Remember Stalingrad?"
He then blew the bad-guy through the peanut-brittle windows of the Bank of
America building (an even longer story than this one....).

***

When confronted with a Lovecraftian eldritch horror, Gregor's only comment
was a hushed "Oh my lack of God...."

***

One of my husband's characters was an erstwhile biker who had been
melded with his beloved Harley.  The party had gone to one of
IronHorse's old hangouts, a notorious "outlaw" bar, for information,
and Gregor was getting *bored.* He sauntered over to the biggest,
ugliest group in the bar, sat down, and said: "Greetings, socialist
brothers - am being pleased for to meet you.  You are to be riding
fine Japanese motorcycles, yes?"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: rms@cnj.digex.net (Bob Schroeck)

From a V&V campaign I play in:

When asked in her first game (she'd never rpg'ed before) what she wanted
to do, my wife responded "I'm going to go for violence, 'cause I know
that works."
 

From a GURPS Supers game I ran at Origins a couple years ago:

A flying super going after a sniper on top of a high-rise asked, "If I
knock him off the building, how many seconds do I have to interrogate him
before he hits the ground?"
 

From a GURPS Supers/Horror game I ran at the same Origins:

"Wait a minute.  Dead people walking around get torched.  It's one of the
basic rules."
 

Not quite from within a game, but close...  a comment by a friend on a
character who had a bonus to his Fireball spell when he was in the
Hells:  "It's like having a better water gun for use only against fish."
 

And finally, from the GURPS campaign I run on eWorld:  A near-immortal
elf with the Destiny advantage commented:  "I'm destined for greatness in
*everybody's* lifetime!"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: jaknfat@.ibm.net

 I was playing Palladium "Heroes Unlimited" mission. I was
trying to assassinate a popular governor, and was planning my attack.
I said, "Now how do you hide a rifle??"

At least I thought it was funny.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: jmkaraka@eos.ncsu.edu (John Martin Karakash)

 In a champions campaign I was running, I had a villainess who
could make explosions, but required an expendable focus: quartz crystals.
She's sneaking around the hero's base holding this crystal when a hero
confronts her and asks what she's carrying.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Louis Reash <louis@ansoft.com>

I have two related stories to relay about two different Champians
games but dealing with the same player.

It all started when one of the players created a 16 foot tall, 6-armed
avatar of the god Shiva called "The Destroyer".  In one of the first
adventures he (along with the rest of a rag-tag 'hero' group) began
fighting a evil clown (yes, make-up, nose and all) named Bubbles.
After Bubbles had proceeded to pound most of the team to pulp by
swatting the team with a bus filled with passengers (a very tough
clown), the Destroyer got mad, lept on top of the clown and began
pummelling him.  He finally ripped the head off the clown, spiked it on
the ground and yelled "I am the GOD, I am the GOD!!!!!"  to
which the rest of the 'heroes' began saying "OK, you're the god, you're
the god." and began backing away slowly.

Several weeks later in another campaign, the same player was running
a cybernetic guard dog.  One the second session, the dog met a ninja
dressed completely in white who was at a hospital attempting to kill
another NPC hero.  Upto this point the players had been unable to hurt
this ninja and we getting kind of upset that the ninja was dodging or
blocking everything done to him.  When the dog's turn to attack came
up, the player turned to me with a completely straight face and told
me he was going to bite the ninja in 'the area' and he pointed to his
'groin'.  After the rest of the male players stopped groaning, he
rolled and made a successful 'grapple' and stunned the ninja.  On his
next attack, he decided to 'shake this head violently' to try to
inflict more damage.  By this time the rest of the players were
laughing pretty hard and were discussing how to get the dog to let go
of the poor ninja.  After several attempts (and about 15-20 of very
funny role-playing) the 'heroes' finally got the dog to let go, but
the dog was not done yet - he threw back his head and began yelling "I
am the DOG, I am the DOG!!!!" to which the rest of the 'heroes' began
saying "OK, you're the dog, you're the dog." and began backing away.
After things calmed down and we stopped laughing, the player of
the dog was awarded extra experience for great role-playing and for
making the whole session so much funnier (and completely destroying
the seriousness of a semi-serious campaign).

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: epawtows@cray-ymp.acm.stuorg.vt.edu (Eric Pawtowski)

Let's see here...there was the time in the TFOS game where the Gadgeteer
needed a weapon, and was standing in front of a fabric shop.  He ran in,
disassembled a few sewing machines, and came up with a shoulder-fired
contraption that knitted straight jackets around it's target.  We called
it "The Singer Missile".

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Bradley S. Ridnour <bridnour@delphi.com>

Game: Champions.

Setup: In this campaign I playing a magic-type character (Chip the monk) whose
       main feature was a staff that could heal or harm (as needed). Another
       player (who was something of a powergamer) was running a character he
       called *TH-H-HE WRAITH!!!!*  Note, it was important (to him, at least)
       to put the proper emphasis on the name (including Richard Nixion-ish
       "Victory" hand gestures).

       Anyway, during this one fight, *TH-H-HE WRAITH!!!!* (Emphasis, please!)
       was just not doing well at all--and as the party's "medic", it fell to
       me to keep bringing his character back from unconcosioness (sp?), just
       to watch him get knocked out yet again. *sigh*

       Well, at one point, a friend dropped by and asked us how the fight was
       goining.

       My Response:
        +-----(spoken in a bored/depressed tone)------+ +---(cheerfully)---+
Quote: "I wouldn't know; I've spent all my time healing *TH-H-HE WRAITH!!!!*"
 

Everybody at that point lost it.  Except for the player in question, whose
indignant (My spelling is off today!) response just made the whole thing
funnier!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Unknown

A less than appropriately concerned 4-color hero conducting hostage
negotiations:

"It won't do you any good to hide behind the girl.  She'll only stop three
points."

Actually this quote originally came frome Leading Edge Games "Living Steel"
RPG. Their books are liberally laced with comments like that in the
sidebars. The game deals with power armor suits, and feature one Axel, who's
always getting into trouble.

Here are a couple of them:

"Axel said there's 3 sub-basements in the building. Oh, and bring some
rope."

"Axel, how could you run out of ammo! It's got 700 shots."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: afj0001@jove.acs.unt.edu (Aaron F Johnson)

 One particular Champions module at Texas A&M several years ago
took the intrepid group of South Central Texas superheroes out into the
Gulf of Mexico in search of a secret underwater base.  One of the heroes
that came along was a martial artist-type named LoneStar (a Texas Ranger
and state hero).  LS had absolutely no Life Support, and only the bare
minimum swimming movement, and no Flight to use underwater.  All of the
other heroes dove off the rowboat that the Coast Guard had lent them and
engaged the underwater foes guarding the installation, leaving LoneStar
to guard the boat and wonder if anybody might attack him.  Everytime that
it would roll around to his turn (quite often, he was a Speed 6
character), LS's player would say (in his best Hollywood Texas accent):

 "I sit in mah dinghy and hold mah action."

 Since then, whenever a character can do nothing but wait for the
situation to change, this phrase often comes up.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: bizme@imap1.asu.edu (Brian L. Biswell)

A friend of mine was running a Justice, Inc. (Hero System) campaign, and
at one point the PC's enter the temple of the Kung Fu assassins that had
been following them around for several sessions.  As they enter the inner
sanctum, one of the martial artists stepped forward and said:
 "Who dares violate the Temple of Shao Lin?"

The GM, expecting a MA fight was shocked when one of the PC's said:
 "I do" and then blew his head off with a lucky aimed shot.

Needless to say, the PC's soon had a new Enemy.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: UNKNOWN

From our V&V campaign, after discussing various tortures that could be
inflicted upon the most powerful character:  "Even without feet, I could
kill you."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: UNKNOWN

A "Famous Last Words" comment to come from my original GURPS
International Super Teams playtest sessions:  "Relax.  You're just having
a metahuman reaction."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: UNKNOWN

This is more of just a weird line, or one that made everyone laugh when,
after the player said it, everybody realized how odd and quirky it sounded
out of context.

It was a Champions/Hero superhero game, a 200 point game. They were confronting
a sorcerer supervillan and his animated spellbook (which was just another
character bought as an ally or whatever, I forget, and it looked funny,
and had its stats altered). The spellbook kept flitting about blasting
characters. It was really harassing us. When it went down, the GM said "The
spellbook is unconscious." A player then said "Yeah! I killed the spellbook!"
Suddenly, everyone had a nervous giggle as they realized how out of
context it sounded. It's just something you hopefully dont hear in
everyday conversation, like those blurbs Letterman used to do: "Things
you know Have Never Been Spoken Before."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: UNKNOWN

Champions Line.  (Its important that you've played champions)

GM: "[sigh...]  Somebody help Chris with the subtraction."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: UNKNOWN

Another classic came from a Champions game in which a playuer was running the
villain. The master plan he presented to the GM to escape from a high rise
building included the following two steps:

1. Jump out of window
2. Secure rope to window frame

Player, on realising his mistake: Execute step 2 before step 1

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: b_templ@pavo.concordia.ca (TEMPLETON, BILL)

I just remembered a moment in a Villains & Vigilantes game a few months ago
that cracked _me_ up. Maybe you'll get a chuckle out of it too. The heroes
were exploring a subterranean complex built by Sinister Forces, skulking
about the corridors from room to room.

I told them, "...the corridor turns to the east. On the west wall, you see
a door. There is a sign on it, labelling it _Supplies_."

At which point, EVERYBODY in the group shouted out "SUPPLIES!!" (to rhyme
with "surprise"). Well, _I_ laughed...

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: mnkobrak@ellis.uchicago.edu (Mark Kobrak)

OK, here's one only a HERO gamer can appreciate:

Supers game, one character is named Windlord and has (among other things)
an eagle as a companion, bought as a follower.  During a fight, the eagle
was making a nuisance of itself ("I'm giving them the bird!"), and one
of the enemy energy projectors took a shot at it.  It was then that we
discovered that, in designing his follower, the player had bought down
the BOD stat, but had forgotten to buy any defenses.  The result:
Kentucky Fried Eagle.

It was then that the player received the helpful advice:

"You should have bought your follower on charges!"
"Yeah, like Batman bought Robin."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 

**********
*Fantasy *
**********

From: epawtows@cray-ymp.acm.stuorg.vt.edu (Eric Pawtowski)

Let's see here...Fantasy Hero game.  Party has been stalked by an
assassin with a magic autofire bow for the past couple of weeks
travel through assorted cities.  Hadn't gotten a glimpse of him
yet.  Pretty much convinced ourselves that he had a cloak of
invisibility as well as the bow.

The party's warrior priest steps out from an inn and into the street.
A mage asks if the coast is clear.  He responds "Must be.  I don't
see any invisible assassins."

Later in that campaign, the caravan the party is guarding finds itself at
the foot of a rocky crag, with twelve longbowman at the top of it,
firing arrows for all they're worth.  The same priest raises his
War Axe and shouts- "Launch a Frontal Assault!  They'll never
expect it!"

(Strange thing is, it worked.....)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Carrie A Schutrick <cs82+@andrew.cmu.edu>

  Our group (Rolemaster, if you're interested) is fighting s group of
carnivorous (sp?) flying squirrels, and we're trying to decide if a
squirrel could knock a man-sized being off of his/her feet by ramming
him/her in the chest.  So we're sitting there with calculators (everyone
has one; this is, after all, Rolemaster) trying to work out the numbers.
 So we're geeks.  Sue us.
Player One, with perfect seriousness:  So what's the in-air velocity of
a flying squirrel?
Player Two,_sotto voice_: African or European squirrel?
  Time out while we laugh hysterically and quote _Holy Grail_ lines....

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: jsn@cegt201.bradley.edu (John Novak)

This reminds me of an _old_ AD&D game from long ago.
This is the first session, the group has found their way to the
entrance of a lair of kobolds or nasties or some such.

They send in the mage to investigate.  The mage, being paranoid,
casts invisibility and saunters on in, checking carefully for
deadfalls, etc.

I deal with him privately, but a few minutes later, one of the
players playing a fighter-type (Hi, Craig!) gets bored, and tells
me that his character hollers into the mouth of the cavern, "Hey,
invisible mage!  Find anything yet?"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: jmk1940@sigma.tamu.edu (Jay Knioum)

Okay, one of the characters was teleported into the midst of a deep, dark
jungle.  Another character divines his location, teleports to about 30
yards from it, and finds the first character has been captured by a large
group of natives.
 The second character shouts from the trees to the natives to let
the first character go, or suffer horribly.  Unimpressed, the natives'
leader shouts back, "Show yourself, or we kill him!"
 The hidden character, in all seriousness, shouts back, "Who?"

In another campaign, a bard in the party had been getting on everybody's
nerves for quite some time, so one of the mages sticks a permanent illusion
of fire around him.  The bard blows his disbelief horribly, and runs
screaming out of the building (they were hanging out in a party member's
townhouse at the time).
 One of the other characters, returning from an errand, enters the
room and asks in a totally casual voice, as if he were talking about the
weather; "Has anyone noticed the burning bard in the front yard?"

I hope you all see the humor; we still split our sides remembering these.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Kirsten M Berry <killashandra@delphi.com>

My husband was playing in a MERP session, where he was Sam to another player's
Frodo.  When they reached the point in the narrative which placed the pair in
front of the gates of Mordor, the GM asked how they wished to proceed. "As
God is my witness," the husband tells me, "this is how I responded."

SAM: It's 106 miles to the Crack of Doom, we've got a magic ring, two
 daggers, it's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses.

FRODO: Hit it.

The image of the Blues Brothers as halflings brought the game to a violent
halt for the next five minutes...but it came back to haunt them.  About an hour
later, two of the elves were interrogating a villager who asked, "Are you with
the authorities?"

ELF 1: No, ma'am.

ELF 2: We're mythical.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: BWADE@relay.nswc.navy.mil (Shadowmeister:Brian K. Wade )

"Anyone got a halfling we can throw in to see if it's a trap?"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: dterhune@sprint.uccs.edu (David A. Terhune)

 My character and his only friend (another PC) rented a slave girl
from one of the local markets and took her to the Garden of Obscene
Statues for a little fun.  While we were in the garden we were attacked
by assassins (it's a long story).  During the fight the slave girl was
killed.  When we took her back to the market, I asked the proprietor:

 "I don't suppose you take them back in this condition, do you?"

 Needless to say, I didn't get my deposit back.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: msherman@zeus (Marc Sherman)

The wrong people show up to a gaming session, so we play a game other
than our usual - an AD&D game that I have no character in.  So I play
one of the NPCs for the day - a 7th level fighter henchman in a party
with 3 10-12th level Magesses.  I am completely outclassed.  Some time
later in the adventure, we come across a rod of rulership, which the
Wizards decide I can have to make my character a bit more useful.

Pumping the rod up in the air, with my best Beavis and Butthead voice,
I shout, "Yeah, yeah, this rod RULES!"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: clark@thinker.csee.usf.edu (Matthew Clark)

|> "Anyone got a halfling we can throw in to see if it's a trap?"

I have something similar to this.  One of the characters in a game I played
in had a lacky (Bubo) who kept various and sundry peasants they had captured
"tokened" (iconed).  Whenever running across a suspicious location
(booby-trapped or otherwise), it was always:

"Bubo, a volunteer!"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: cjt1@Ra.MsState.Edu (christopher j taylor)

  The party always told the druid not to wander off by herself.....

The druid, Sheena, of course, always did.  Sheena wanders through a door
that was actually a portal to another part of the dungeon.  She steps through
to find a dozen or so orcs in a large room, armed with bows.  She surprised
them, amazingly enough, and used her free turn to throw down a small bush
(not to be confused with a small shrubbery :) ), and cast plant growth on
it for cover.  The orcs decide it would be humorous to shoot the bush full of
arrows so they draw their bows and nock arrows.

Meanwhile, Kyrric the cleric wonders where the druid wandered off to and
heads to the same door.....

Sheena, as she was casting obscurment on her general area, comes up with the
brilliant tactics of bluffing....

SHEENA:  "You'd better watch out!  My FIVE POWERFUL FRIENDS will be coming
         through THAT DOOR any minute now!"

The orcs look at each other, draw back their bows, and point them at said
door.

Kyrric steps through the door/portal and becomes an instant pincushion.

The fighter Anthrax (me) follows the next turn....

ANTHRAX:  "Ok, what do I see?"

DM:  "First you see Kyrric lying on the floor looking a lot like a pincushion.
     Next, you see a dozen orcs nocking another arrow.  Finally, you see a
     suspiciously hazy looking bush in the corner."

ANTHRAX:  (Covers his eyes, shakes his head) "SSSSSSHHHHHEEEEEEENNNNNAAAA!!!"

***

Sheena was also known for using Anthrax as a targeting sight.

DM:  "Okay, where do you want to target your entangle spell?"

SHEENA:  "Hmmmm, target it on Anthrax, he's in the middle of them!"

Of course, in other campaigns, she played a magic user who targeted fireballs
the same way......OUCH!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: droid@photobooks.atdc.gatech.edu (J. Andrew 'Droid' Flenniken)

In an AD&D campaign that I was in about a year ago I played one of a pair
of thieves.  We had come into the campaign late, and the DM had us meet
up with the existing party in the tomb complex they were exploring.  We
bluffed the rest of the party into thinking we were low level fighters
and they agreed to take us on as 'guards' since they were low on swords
at the time.  After a bit of combined exploring the party beds down for
the night.  Arthur (the other thief) and Smee (my thief) pull first
watch.

Being none too swift, we decide to get a head start on the looting and
leave the party, blissfully asleep (and now unguarded).  Bad move.  The
first room we enter is inhabited by Ghasts.  Lots of them.  We begin
backing out of the room, impressed by their numbers and, more
importantly, their sharp teeth.  As we back out Arthur tries to convince
them that not to eat us:

Arthur: Really, there's lots of you and only two of us.  What's the
point?  You'll only make yourself hungrier!

At that point Smee was dealing with about 3 Ghasts of his own and shouts out

Smee:  EAT HIM!  HE'S BIGGER!

They jump him.

I run back to the party, wake them and breathlessly try to get their
help.  After not making much sense and being shouted at for waking them
up I proclaim:
(holding out left arm)  Arthur!
(holding out right arm) Teeth!
(bringing arms together)  EATEN!  Now come on!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: rms@cnj.digex.net (Bob Schroeck)

From my fantasy campaign:

On learning that various members of the party, separated by great
distance, were being simultaneously briefed by individualized divine
visions about a holy quest they were about to undertake, the cleric in the
party declared, "I continually marvel at the efficiency of the gods."

In a different adventure, the party had just discovered that a warehouse
they had bought (because it housed an entrance to an underground city)
had been "occupied" by the local military, who refused to let them in,
even though they were the ones who asked the military to guard it.  (Long
story behind this...).  They were referred by the enlisted grunts to the
captain running the operation.  The mage turns to the rest of the party
and says, "Okay, let's break the captain's kneecaps."  After they meet
the captain, said fellow claims he answers *only* to the king, and
refuses to give them access.  The mage then turns to the rest of the
party and says, "Okay, let's go break the *king's* kneecaps."

A third incident:  The party had been gathering a large amount of
intelligence on their current project.  After a particularly detailed but
rather irrelevant chunk of data had been acquired, the
fighter-not-a-thief said, "That tells us... um... actually, that tells us
absolutely nothing."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: bjvincen@mtu.edu (Benjamin J. Vincent)

A large low-level AD&D party based in the city of Greyhawk is the source
for a lot of memorable quotes.  They had been hired to recover some
treasure that had been taken by a dragon.  They found the lair atop a
huge rock spire in the middle of the Bright Desert.  Rendaur, the party's
priest, came up with a plan:

"I'll get around in front and cast _Light_ in it's eyes to blind it, then
you guys jump out and kill it."

The others agreed, and Rendaur cast his spell.  The Dragon cracked one
eye, and blew him out the cave (500' above the desert floor).

The rest of the party escaped.

***

Later, returning to Greyhawk, the party was shipwrecked on the Pomarj (A
peninsular country controlled by humanoids).  Not knowing where they
were, they went straight to a city and knocked on the gates.  The locals
weren't to pleased to see a large group of armed humans walking around,
and soon they were being chased cross-country by at least a hundred
orc-types.

Getafix, resplendent in bronze plate armor, was getting a little tired...
he needed a rest:

"I turn around, draw my flail, and surrender."

The rest of the party didn't want to leave him, so they turned and
started lobbing every fire-based weapon they had at their pursuers; which
happened to start a prairie fire...

***

Finally, in "safe" country once more, the party was making good time back
towards Greyhawk (though they had been gone MUCH longer than planned,
taking the overland route).  Suddenly they were ambushed by a group of
ogres.  In the ensuing battle, the gnome Guido McDougal took a near fatal
blow, rendering him unconscious.  The party decided retreat was the best
option, and ran for it.

Several weeks later they arrived in Greyhawk, and finally had a chance to
recuperate from their ordeal.  It was then that Guido's best friend,
Wolfbane Amadeus No-heart, made the astute observation:

"Who picked up Guido when we ran from those ogres?"

No one had.

***

A later adventure with some of the same characters (those that had
survived :): the party was exploring a tomb.  The had gotten past the
first room, but the second was giving them quite a problem.  There were
eight corridors leaving the central area, but any time they ventured down
a corridor, a stone wall lowered in front of them, and a statue in the
center of the room swiveled and fired off two magic missiles into the
party.  When they backtracked, they wall raised again.

For some reason (totally random, I assure you!), the same character
seemed to be getting hit all the time.  The party didn't like him much
anyway: he tended to be a loner, and didn't seem to help too much in
combat.  So when one of the missiles finally knocked Jojo unconscious,
someone came up with a brilliant idea:

"Garth will throw Jojo down that hall, then we'll all turn and run down
this one"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: william@carsinfo.com (William Harris)

I saw the crack-me-up lines in RPGs thread; I have none to contribute at
the moment, but that brought my current campaign's crack-me-up situation
to mind.  We're playing GURPS.  The starting scenario of one of the
characters is that his teacher of ten or twenty years, Tarvack One-Eye,
has taught him all he can for the moment and thrown him out of the
university to go out, journey, and learn from the world.

Old Tarvack was -supposed- to be a pretty good teacher, moderately well
known in his country, but not very well known in other countries, one
of which was the starting place for our current campaign.

For the first three months, Tarvack made his reputation role EVERY
STINKING TIME.  EVERYBODY had heard of him.  Bartenders.  Old hermits
out in the woods.  Famous heroes.  Kings.  Shopkeepers.  Enemies.

The DM started out taking this in stride, but by about
month two, every time that roll came up (which was almost
every time) the players could tell by the disgusted look he got on
his face.  The DM took a break for a while and switched with one of
the players for a while and Tarvack STILL kept making his rolls.

By month three, every time we met somebody who recognized Tarvack (which
was darn near everybody, whenever the subject came up), the group
would collapse in laughter.

Finally, the DM conceded that fate seemed to be taking a hand, and
raised Tarvack's reputation to "well-known all over the world" - and
Tarvack hasn't made a reputation roll since.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: ECZ5RAR@MVS.OAC.UCLA.EDU (Anthony Ragan)

I was GM'ing a group through the third adventure in "Something Rotten
in Kislev." The game system was WFRP.  The party included a
spiked-and-tattoo'd Giant Slayer dwarf, a communist Halfling, a
militant priest of Ulric, and an elf necromancer, among others.

They had been sent by the Czar to investigate what had become of one of
his spies in the town of Bolgasgrad, a town in rebellion against the
Crown and rumored to be under Chaotic influence.  So, when they got
there, they knew they had to operate subtly, incognito.....

So, of course, when they make their way to the house of the missing
agent, Julius Olvaga, they are met at the door by his elderly wife who,
naturally, is rather unnerved by all these strangers who have just
shown up at her door.  The Halfling just about has her confidence when
the Giant Slayer decides this has gone on long enough and cries out

"Stand aside, we are agents of the Czar!"

Woman screams, slams door, and the rest is History. :)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Jo@kenjo.demon.co.uk (Jo Walton)

I've just remembered another one from our Harn game. Helen who always plays
characters exactly like herself, playing Helena, erstwhile Queen of Kaldor,
fumbled a sword strike and the villain escaped: "I'm more lethal than this in
real life!".

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: stdjla@SHSU.edu (Klaatu B. Nikto)

One of my favorite characters would have to be my priest of Lathandar, Will.
Since I'm the only cleric in the party, I'm the one stuck with handling the
undead, like its that much of a challenge when you're basically 13th level
(he's 12th with the +1 level Ioun stone).
For a while I was saying the same boring stuff "OK I attempt to turn them."
Then I started getting more into it:  "Demonspawn, BEGONE!"
But it hit an all time high when I had recently watched Ghostbusters again.
I believe it was a heucuva but instead of the usual "I turn the undead."
I went amok saying:

"Good evening.  As a duly designated representative of the church of Lathander,
I hereby order you to cease any and all supernatural activity and return
forthwith to your home plane or the nearest convenient parallel dimension."

We had to wait until everyone regained their composure and the DM ceased to
look like he was going to explode from laughing so hard.  Later though since
that was a bit long to say over and over when we fought undead, I switched to
a shorter turning speech:

"Back off man!  I'm a cleric!"

Yeah.  Ghostbusters is one of my favorite movies, next to Big Trouble in Little
China and Army of Darkness.  *grin*

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Jo@kenjo.demon.co.uk (Jo Walton)

Harnmaster is incredibly detailed. Our party visited a wizard's
chantry, and were told that x in an upstairs room might have some
information that would help our quest. We went up to his room, and
were greeted by a man who whispered "Come In,". He continued to
whisper, and of course, we all whispered back.  After some time, one
of the PC's whispered "Why are we whispering?" and the guy said "Well,
I've got a speech impediment, I don't know why you're whispering!"

It was in the module that the person who lived in that room had a speech
impediment. It wasn't an adventure, just a location. That's what I mean by
detailed.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: megF91@hamp.hampshire.edu (Matthew E Grossman)

Here's one from a high-powered, dimension hopping fantasy campaign I
played in, in which the puns were flying fast.  We're just about to go up
against the bad guy, and Ka-te (a PC) is missing.  One of the characters
had a magic sack, which he could pull things out of.  He says:  "I'm
going to try to pull the Ka-te out of the bag."  It didn't work.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: nicklean@perth.DIALix.oz.au (Nick Leaning)

Reminds me of a similar situation where I was magic-user in a party also
trapped in an underground complex with a dragon between us and the
exit. The dragon was alert, aware of our presence and hostile.

In the safety of an adjoining chamber we discussed for ages what to do...
I was getting frustrated at the delay and so I stepped into the dragons lair
with a Wand of Lightning in hand... I reckoned if only I could get the drop
on the dragon  I might have a chance to survive the encounter.

But then, as so often happens to me when I'm role-playing, a perverse
muse (inspired by the John Wayne movie, True Grit) took control of my
mouth and instead of filling the dragon with electricity without
warning, my character issued a challenge (where winning initiative
would be all too critical)...

I yelled:   "Go for your dice, you sonafabitch".

The sorry end to this tale is the dragon won initiative and fried my butt
before I was able to trigger the wand. End of character.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Dirk Walls <???>

In a AD&D game I was running years ago.  The party was trying to get
out of a dungeon complex of some sort or another, I forget the details.
They were beat up pretty bad. They happen upon a large dragon.
I expect them to retreat. The player playing a fighter announces he
is charging. As he moves his figure into place beside the dragon he tells
me, the GM, "Remember, I only have 17 hit points!"  !!!
I don't know what he was expecting me to do about it. I think he thought
I would cut him some slack or something.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: nicklean@perth.DIALix.oz.au (Nick Leaning)

Fantasy rpg group have just about successfully negotiated their way
through an encounter with a minotaur lord in its lair. They have
bargained their way onward past the minotaur without recourse
to violence and are feeling pretty pleased with themselves when
the group's cleric, Abel Zeek wanders up to the minotaur and without
realising what he is doing wrong says...

"Kind sir, please accept this token of our gratitude, some food
from afar, BEEF JERKY..."

Later, the same group enter a vast underground chamber which has
a description something like this...

"Four stairways leading down, three doorways along both N & S
walls, a set of double doors facing in both the E & W wall and
spiraling iron stairs going up through the ceiling...
What do you do?"

Abel Zeek promptly responds...

"I'm checking this place for secret doors..."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: MATOCIQUALA@news.delphi.com (MATOCIQUALA@DELPHI.COM)

Not a game I was in, but one a heard about: (one of my friends ran)

A party of mostly clerics and magic users, who noticed in the midse of an
assassination attempt that Silence, Darkness, and Fireball all have
roughly equivalent radiuses.  Cast them all simultaneously, and you get:

"Dwarmigi's Inconspicuous Fireball-- I don't know what it was, but it
sure hurt like hell..."

---

Also, from the same game, the Cleric blesses a dead NPC:

"Ominus, dominus, you still dead."

---

From a D7D campaign, the party Cleric (of the God of war)  faces down a
demon.

Demon:  "Are you a god?"

Cleric:  "No, but I work for one..."

Matociquala
 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: halamir@vnet.ibm.com (Vic Alteria)

The funniest line in our game actually happened out of character.

In a long running Palladium FRP game, our party was in the Infernal regions,
in an area where time seemed not to move. The Changeling character (who I
could write about all day) said to the DM, "I prick my finger." in an attempt
to determine the actual flow of time by the differnce in his healing rate.

For the rest of the adventure this character had a puncture wound that
wouldn't heal. When we got back to our plane, he passed out as the blood loss
caught up with him. So the line "I prick my finger" became the tag line for
saying you thought another character's action was, well, less than brilliant.

Anyway, months later in real time, the player of the Changeling character
used the line to express this sentiment about another player's idea. The
player he was refering to replied:

"You roll a 1, and finger your prick."

The game was halted as everyone laughed hysterically. The DM was taking a
drink at the time, and did a spit take all over the table.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Unknown

We were looking for a few mercenaries for a 'guard the caraven' scenario
and introducing a new player to our group.  The player was a bit of a
combat monster, and he had put together an acrobatic, swashbuckling
character who was a master of all bladed weapons.

In order to verify that he was competent with his weapon, we agreed to a
sparring match as a test of skill. "Don't be too embarassed if I
humiliate you," the character said in a horrible accent, "as I am
considered by many to be the finest swordsman in all of France..."

He and our best fighter square off, roll their to-hits, and... thunk. 18.
Critical failure.

We rolled to see what it was, and turned out he had dropped his sword and
stabbed himself in the foot.

Our inscrutable Ranger-type bent over, picked up the sword and dusted it
off. Handing it back to the PC, he squinted at him and said;

"France must be a lot smaller than I thought."

The weapons-master never did get any respect after that...

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Unknown

After spending several gaming sessions tracking down "The
Sword of Immortality" to it's fianl resting place.  The mage
in the party, a rather cynical, sardonic man walked over with
his hands in his pockets, blew some dust off it and turned to
the rest of the group saying,

"So this is the Sword of Immortality.  What's it doing in a
crypt?"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Unknown

One character, scouting alone, finds that the tower is being guarded by
archers in black robes.  He asks me (the GM) how many.  "Ten in front;
you think there are probably ten more in back."

About five minutes later he rejoins the party, and they ask him how
many.  "Twenty."  Pause.  "Twenty in front, probably twenty more in
back."

There is some goggling from the other players (they heard what I said)
but their characters accept this story, until about ten minutes later
they've made their plan.  The scouting character, they say, should try
to take out the archers with spells.  He's shocked.  "But there are
forty--just in front, and probably forty more in back!"

At this point everyone else burst out laughing, but the player just
didn't get it.  I'm not sure he ever *did* get it.  On the other hand,
he was working on his PhD dissertation at the time, which is enough to
rot anyone's brains....

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: nez@thepoint.com (Tom Stevens)

dungeon game: A seductress, whose spellcasting is limited indoors, finds
herself in the front of the line, when the first two party members fall
into a pit, and are faced to face with a mindless golem
immediate reaction of the bimbo/seductress
"Yoo hoo, mister golem! i'm cute don't hurt us!"
interestingly, this character was played by a female.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: jasonp@wam.umd.edu (Jason Stratos Papadopoulos)

Our party is exploring Greyhawk Ruins (AD&D) on something like the 5th
dungeon level. We find a giant stone dragon's mouth with some levers
nearby. We find out the thing can belch fire, but when we turn it off
we unknowingly leave the gas tap open. HOURS later, at the other end
of the level, we're battling a hydra and someone wants to throw a flask
of burning oil at it. BOOOOMMMM! While the DM is rolling a huge fireball
for the lot of us, my character yells:

"No! BUD Lite!"

---

Same adventure. We find a pleasant looking study, and greedily begin
turning it upside down for loot, not really paying attention to the
DM's description. There was a giant bear in the room, but we didn't
hear about it. Suddenly, this monster bear out of nowhere attacks  us.

"Wait a minute! You didn't tell us about monsters in the room!"
"Sure I did. 'In the room is a bed, chair, bear, table..."

Later he tried it again.

"There's a chest, dragon, flagon..." That was as far as he got.

---

Same adventure. About 4 (real time) hours later, the DM, getting tired,
was asked if the thief hears anything behind the closed door.

"It sounds like an empty hallway."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: briang@OCF.Berkeley.EDU (Brian Gilmore)

 Okay, here's another one:  The party has just fought a hellish
battle against a whole passle of Drow.  We're about eigth level on average,
and have all been really torqued.  There's no clerical magic obove level two
spells, and my character, a Kensai (modified for 2nd ed), is down to about
half of his hit points after refusing any healing.
 So my character has taken some time early in the morning to practice
a bit, and being the most arrogant sword-saint on his world and several
others, he is off by himself.  After all, what could possibly harm the
greatest swordsman time has ever seen?
 So, about an hour into practise, GM asks for a perception roll, and
I make it, noticing that a large reptilian head is watching me, resting atop
a nearby boulder.  The dragon's head rears up when it sees that it has been
noticed at last and it lets loose a thunderous mocking laugh, expecting the
puny human to run in fear.
 Unfortunatly, the dragon (and the GM) forgot that Kensai are immune
to fear.  The conversation went a little like this (And yes, I do play the
character this arrogant and long winded.  It's quite a bit of fun):

Kuno (my character):  Ah, great worm, you have no doubt come to observe my
swordsmanship. As the greatest swordsman in the world, I am flattered.

Dragon: No, human. I come to deliver a message from my master.

Kuno: Ah, that is well.  Deliver your message.  I promise not to slay you
until you have finished it.  Hmm, on second thought, this is such a good day
I do not think I will slay you at all.  You may deliver your message and
then leave in peace, knowing you have been spared by my hand.

Dragon: Heh.  You are arrogant for a mortal.

Kuno: HAH! I AM ARROGANT FOR A MINOR GOD!!!  (group busts up) Deliver your
message, or I may revoke my earlier kindness.
 

 Surprisingly enough, Kuno survived the experience.  Showing that
Dragons can have a sense of humor.

 Of course, this is the same group that produced the quote
"The minotaurs release the rabbits!"
"AAHH!!!  I fireball the bunnies!"
 But that's another story.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: g9326443@mcmail.cis.mcmaster.ca (Thomas Michael Cantine)

   It is difficult to imagine that this line will inspire the same mirth
in others that it did in our gaming group, but it has nonetheless become
a sort of stock saying whenever something confusing or unexpected is
encountered.
   You see, our adventuring party (RuneQuest) was low on food while
tromping through the wilderness, when one of us noticed a panther
skulking in the woods. The animal had wisely decided not to attack a band
of seven heavily armoured and beweaponed warriors, and was trying to
sneak off, but one of the more bloodthirsty/paranoid of the group (I
forget who) let'er rip with a bow. Well, can't let a wounded creature
crawl off to die like that, in horrible pain and all, so my character and
the other nomad of the bunch decide to finish the poor beast off, which
we do in short order.  (Bows are SO much more effective in RQ than in
that other game I'm not going to mention...)
   Anyway, short on food as we were, we set to work cooking it. Later on,
when a new character joined the party, and was offered some of the
rations, reacted (in the same tone of voice as that guy on Monty Python
who says, "Lemon curry?!")  "PANTHER jerky?"

   Definitely in the You Had To Be There category...

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: UNKNOWN

Player: "I take their weapons and forge a battle-axe out of them."
Player: "Well, I just want to melt them down and make a new axe."
GM: "But you don't have a forge. You're in the middle of town."
Player: "Why can't I just melt them down?"
GM: "With what? Your fricking heat-vision?"

Poor Woody (the dwarf player) was pretty quiet the rest of the game....

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: UNKNOWN

The party had (unintentionally) set fire to a city long abandoned because
of plague.  In a desperate attempt to prevent the conflagration from
spreading, the mage in the party polymorphed into a Purple Worm and dug a
trench/firebreak around the city.  They were also desperately seeking a
way to fill it with water; in rapid succession they considered and
discarded the idea of digging to a nearby lake (there was none),
magically creating the water by spell (1 cubic foot at a time?  No.),
conjuring rain (no one could do it), and so on, until finally, one of the
clerics in the party looks in her backpack and says, "Oh, I have a
decanter of endless water.  Would that help?"

At another time, the same party was ensconced overnight in a Leomund's
Secure Shelter (they travel in style <grin>), cast in a rocky area, so
that it was made of stone.  A group of slightly brain-dead bandits
attempted to storm the Shelter, failing miserably, up to and including
shattering a tree trunk in vain attempt to use it as a battering ram.
The bandits, though dumb, were persistent, and remained outside the
Shelter all night, waiting to waylay the party as they left.  Knowing the
expiration time of the Shelter spell, they armored up and got on
horseback, and used a little clairaudience to determine the direction the
bandits were in, and faced that way.  The moment the Shelter vanished,
the mage stood up in his stirrups, waved his hands wildly at the
bandits, and shouted "OOGA BOOGA BOOGA!"  The bandits ran.

Two days later, the same bandits tried to waylay the party on the road,
not realizing it was the same party.  The PCs got advance warning, and
positioned themselves at the bottom of a hill, facing the oncoming
bandits.  The mage stood in his stirrups again, and as the bandits came
over the hill, shouted "OOGA BOOGA BOOGA!" once more.  The bandits, true
to form, ran even faster this time.

A little while later, the party met another, lower-level party, and
sicced them on "some really stupid bandits over that way."

---

From the same campaign:  "Our strength is as the strength of ten, because
there are ten of us."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: UNKNOWN

During a particulary nasty fight a thief had been planning a backstab on the
oppositions leader.  He was moving across a tiny ledge 20 feet above the
fight in order to get behind.  The one of his own party members called up
to him about getting down and helping, completly blowing his cover.  The
oppositions mage looked around, saw him and did a Fire-bolt. (similar to a
lightning bolt).  The thief took more damage than he had hit points, so he fell
unconcious to the floor.  Two other players looked at him as I described the
fact that he was on fire and had just fallen 20 feet.
One player turned to the other and said.
"Well, he got the Stop and Drop part right"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: UNKNOWN

 A character was trying to buy a horse in MERP. The opening line:

 "You better not try to play any tricks on me, I've been fooled before!"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: UNKNOWN

Fantasy campain, 2 clerics, 2 barbarians, 1 halfling thief/magic-user.
Leaving the dungeon/orc hideout, the "outer patrols" return meet us in
the first room -- we can see daylight, but we're hurt, out of healing,
and desparate.

The thief fumbles throwing flaming oil, and is consumed in the blast.  The
Barbarian fumbles, breaking his weapon.  A cleric goes down.  The barbarian:

"How much damage does a flaming thief do?"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: UNKNOWN

>From GURPS fantasy:

A character takes an all out attack to attack twice.  On both
strikes he aims for the neck, hitting both times.  For the
first roll the target makes his health roll and avoids decapitation.
He fails the second time and his head goes flying.

I say, "Ah, the patented Lift and Cut System."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: UNNOWN

>From AD&D:

We were using a laminated sheet of graph paper and felt tip pens
to demonstrate combat.  We would mark our moves by drawing an arrow
from our present positon to our final position. (This is important,
the board got quite cluttered.)  We [the characters] were about to
receive a charge, and I was separated from the rest of the group
Of course, a full 50% of the charging knights veer off to attack me.

To the GM I say, "See these lines?(pointing at old marks on the map)
                  I try to hide there."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: UNKNOWN

In a VD&D dungeon game many years ago, Ali, the best fighter of the party but
not renowned for brains (Int 3), led us into a room...

GM: You see several creatures which look like human-headed lions

Ali (happily): Lammasu!

GM: Ali is hit by several crossbow bolts.

Ali (indignantly): Nasty Lammasu!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: UNKNOWN

  "It's only a LITTLE demoness!!"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: UNKNOWN

  <THUMP!> "Do you repent?"
  "No!"
  <THUMP!> "Do you repent?"
  "No!"
  <THUMP THUMP THUMP> "Do you repent?"
  "Yes!"
  "Ref?  What's his alignment?"
  "Uh.. Lawful Confused, I think..."
  (enthusiastic paladin converting a troll)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: UNKNOWN
Greyhawk Ruins, the single most fun AD&D module ever made. One player is
running a chaotic chaotic dwarven fighter-thief, whose response upon finding
anything without monetary value is "I burn it".

Later he gets caught in a rug of smothering. When the DM asks how we propose
to get him free of the rug, someone in back pipes up "I burn it".

-----------

Same module. We find a giant dragon head made of stone, and further find
that if you crank the lever just so, it belches fire. Unbeknownst to us,
when we turn off the fire we leave the gas tap open. HOURS later, we're
fighting a hydra on the other end of the level, and someone lights a flask
of oil. BOOOMMM! While the DM is rolling a huge fireball, my player yells:

"No! BUD light!"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: UNKNOWN

My overenthusiastic elven fighter-mage runs to the rescue of a fighter
beset by gnolls. He calls in gnollish: "NOW IS THE HOUR OF YOUR DEATH!"
and rolls a horrible miss. "...more or less".

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: UNKNOWN

On a more disgusting note, having gotten through the very first few rooms
in Dragon Mountain, a gloating evil persona made himself apparent,
commenting that we would die since we had had so much trouble getting to
where we were, and that we had not even penetrated deep into the mountain,
I snappily remarked, "Well we're not to heavy on penetration."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: UNKNOWN

My character's introduction, the party's considering taking him on:

Mage #1:     Ah! Your reputation precedes you! You should be able to
            take care of yourself. But the job may involve danger.
Swordsman:   Ha! I love danger! I just qwish you could eat it!
Mage #2:    (Less impressed) How are you at fighting demons?
Swordsman:  (Thoughtful pause) This is hypothetical, right?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: UNKNOWN

My thief, Blackbird, watching one PC, a Flind, dig a hole for two
hours, then try to cover himself with turf, as camoflauge:

Blackbird: What the hell are you doing?
Flind:     How do I look?
Blackbird: Like a grassy Gnoll.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: UNKNOWN

I don't know if you ever read my signature, but it was a real quote.

Belchmore the Barbarous(a minotaur) and Ren the Repugnant(a Tren) were both
very high level munchkin characters(both had a str of 22, con 22). I was
getting tired of them putzing around, killing demigods, so when Ren said
"I Challenge anything to try to kill me!" I reply,"You see 6 many-headed
dragons flying toward you." He screams,"What do you mean, a PACK of Tiamats!!!"
Bye Bye, party!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------`

From: sht123@duke.usask.ca (Shane Hamish William Travis)

My friends and I were running an introduction to D&D at the local library
about 12 years ago, and had pre-made characters for everyone.  When the
group surprised a room full of Kobolds playing poker, we asked everyone
in the group what they were going to do. This fighter said that he was
going to hit one with his sword and another with his chain.

"With your what?" I asked.

"Here on my sheet, under Weapons and Armor - it says I have a +1 chain..."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: msamuels@vaxc.stevens-tech.edu (???)

        My players in my Middle-Earth campaign obviously have too much
 time on their hands.  They came up with this little gem;

 The Ecology of Middle-Earth

 Trolls eat Common Men and shit rocks,
 Dragons eat rocks and shit gold,
 Tax collectors (men) eat gold and shit shit,
 Plants eat the shit, the Common Men eat the plants, and the Trolls...
 ....well you know

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: mplauron@paju.oulu.fi (Mika-Petri Lauronen)

A few years ago, in our MERP campaign, this happened:

My character, a small hobbit thief (or merchant of used-up things, as he
called himself) was getting into trouble with a HUGE man (about 7 feet tall
very muscular guy). The guy called me "a dwarf", on which the dwarf of our
party, of course, said that I was a hobbit and HE was a dwarf (he was very,
very proud fellow).
 Well, the man tried to hit the dwarf. When the GM asked us what we
would like to do, I said, without any thought: "Well, I bite his leg from
behind."
 That was funny already, but it got funnier when I actually hit and
managed to inflict maximum damage with tiny bite! The fellow stopped his
fighting at that moment, and everybody exploded into laughter. Actually, the
damage would always had made our mage unconcious. I never managed to inflict
that much damage with my short sword (well, once to a giant spider...)
Afterwards, it became a slogan of my character:
 "Shut up, or I bite you in the leg."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: ripper@freenet.vancouver.bc.ca (Christopher Darquin)

In an AD&D campaign I was playing an elven mage named Narshes (his name's a
moot point), and he had an ego the size of China (not a moot point). My
group was trying to get through a castle's gates without violence. The
guards wouldn't let us through, and although we could have taken them easily
in a fight, we didn't  want to look bad in front of the king.

Anyway, one of the guards was quite offensive, and was making fun of my
character's elven nature. I walked right up to the guard and, quite
fumed, snapped 'so you think you're tough, eh?' (that's not the joke, but
the scene is kinda funny since I was 5'6", and the guard was 6'4").

The guard just laughed. "Hey, elf-boy, why don't you quit wasting my time
and go back to your mama." He shoved me back a couple feet.

I began pointing my wand (the one with lightning bolts) at him. "Look,
buddy, you'd better watch it..."

"Or what," said the guard "you gonna magic me, kid? Get lost and leave
the fighting to real men."

"So, think you're a real man, eh?" I walked back up to him again,
lowering my wand to my side.

"Uh, yeah..." said the guard.

"Not anymore." I said. I thrust the wand right into his groin, and
triggered a charge. Zap, point blank, right in the...

Okay, WE found it funny. BTW, the king wasn't impressed.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: CIS.IKE@CAPITAL.GE.COM

One of my all-time favorite lines was from a Role-Master Middle Earth
Campaign.  After a successful hunt in which we bagged a deer, one of
the characters decided to "bag" it in a more sexual sense.  After he
was through, one of the other characters said: 'Well at least now we
don't have to salt the meat!"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: kemowery@freenet.columbus.oh.us (Kevin Mowery)

     In yet another game, AD&D this time, the same player was playing a
gnome.  We needed to investigate a pit, and so we tied the gnome to a long
rope and lowered him into it.  After several minutes, we feel a tug on the
rope and lift up the gnome, who is some 50 pounds heavier and his backpack
is jingling when he moves.  "What was down there?" we ask.  "Nothing,"
says the gnome.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: d9bertil@dtek.chalmers.se (Bertil Jonell)

  DM: "You meet the village master, his name is Papa Curst and he has a
problem."

  Friend of mine who played an impulsive priest: "I cast 'Remove Curse',
that will fix his problem."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: awagner@aol.com (Alex Wagner)

Well, in one AD&D game I was in, the party (1st level) had just defeated a
couple of goblins or kobolds (I forget which) and were looting the bodies.
 We found a few grisly bones, 10 sp, a handful of beans, and two white
mice in a small cage.  I said, "At least if we get hungry we can have
beans and mice.  Together they make a complete protein." It took about 3
seconds for the group to catch up and then we spent about 20 minutes
laughing so hard that we cried.  For the rest of the night the mere
thought of beans and mice, would set one of us off on another fit of
giggles.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: UMAU52A@prodigy.com (Walter Smith)

The group cleric got in the way of a halberd and expired far from home,
so the barbarian put him in a sack and slung him over his shoulder for
later resurection or burial.  Two years (real time) later the cleric's
body was noticed in the barbarian's equipment list.
"You're still carrying Bruno around in a sack?!?"
"Well, HE didn't seem to mind."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: arius@immd2.informatik.uni-erlangen.de (Peter Arius)

As the usual warming-up for out next adventure (in a classical fantasy
setting), our party were amusing themselves in a tavern. The dwarf, a
priest of "Zornal", and not a very bright one, was sitting next to the
druid drinking some beer. As the dwarf didn't want to pay his bill, he
suggested to the druid to play for it.

The druid agreed: "Well, I know a fabulous game..." and explained the
"Rock, Scissors, Paper" (of course well-known to the players). The dwarf,
having listened only half-heartedly to the druid's elaborations, was eager
to begin and the game took the following course:

   Druid    Dwarf
   --------------------
   Scissors Rock    0:1
   Rock     Rock
   Rock     Rock
   Paper    Rock    1:1
   Scissors Rock    1:2

So the dwarf had won, and the druid exclaimed in surprise: "But you always
showed 'rock'!!!". "Umm, well, and what's again the matter with the other
things?"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: devlin1@freenet.vancouver.bc.ca (Michael D. Olson)

In the last session of Rolemaster we played we had quite a few comedic
situations, but the worst/best was carried out by our resident
beastmaster, Jeth.

We needed to spy out the Emperor's Palace, so Jeth doffed his garments
and changed into a falcon for some aerial reconnaissance.  He flew right
into a palace window and walked around for a bit before two palace guards
noticed him.  Jeth ran from them, and they gave chase (just the sight of
two mail-clad guards chasing a large bird down a corridor would've been
enough) until he managed to fly out the window again.  As he flew away,
he heard one guard say to the other, "Can't wait to see the look on
Jerry's face when he hears about this one...."

Jeth flew down to the barracks and stole a uniform.  Putting it on, he
attempted to talk his way into the palace.  He should've stolen a brain,
too.  The palace had three gates: a main gate and two side gates.  At the
first side gate, Jeth approached the guard with a reasonable predicament.
"We need more towels," he explained in a logical manner when questioned
about his business at the gate.  "We've run out of towels in the barracks."
And what better place to get towels than from the Emperor's Palace at 3 AM?
This did not work, and Jeth ran off.

Before going to the next side gate, Jeth stopped off at the barracks
again to steal a bottle of wine, which he then poured on himself.  "Big
party at the barracks, guys," he said as he staggered up to Gate #2.
"You don't want to miss it!"  The guards thought he was insane and drunk,
and did not leave their posts.

At the main gate, Jeth came up with a plausible story.  "I'm here to relieve
a guard," he said to the dozen soldiers and their captain.

"Who?" the captain asked.

Desperate, Jeth blurted out the only guard's name he'd heard.  "Jerry."
Unfortunately for Jeth, this was the captain's name, and they once again
did not buy it.  As a few guards started for him, Jeth ran back down the
road tearing his clothes off and shouting "You can't see me!!  You can't
see me!!"  When he was wholly naked, he dove off into the shrubbery,
changed into a falcon, and flew away.

Another successful recon mission.  Why we sent the beastmaster and not my
rogue with the party's ring of invisibility, I'll never know.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: jcarl@cannet.com (Joe Carl)

I had a group of players doing combat in a wild magic zone at one time.
One of the mages was being attacked by a Shambling mound, another cast
a spell and it wild surged on him, but didn't sem to have any results

Secretly I rolled to see what would happen, and I rolled something like
the next thing the character says will come true as if by a wish.

The first mage ended up getting killed by the shambling mound.  Very much
unrecoverable too.  Something like -50 HP.

After the battle was over they recoverd the first mages body, all this
time the second mage not saying a single word.  Someone else said
"Looks like he's really dead."

To which the second mage said "He's not dead, just mostly dead."

I had to break out laughing as the first mage started breathing again!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 

**********
* Sci-Fi *
**********

From: frankie@mundens.equinox.gen.nz (Frank Pitt)

Captain Blaines A. Jerque sees something deadly in the viewscreen :

"Full astern, helmsman"

Crunch!

"Next time ensign, put "rear" in big white letters on the screen
when it's looking backwards "

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: girthlin@io.com (Girthlin)

In a Mechwarrior game:

The PC's are trying to strike a deal in a shady restaurant. Two blond,
muscular men in suits walk in. One paranoid player decides to see if
they  might be carrying any concealed weapons. His request to the
GM comes out:

PLAYER: These two guys who just walked in. Can I see any bulges on them?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: megF91@hamp.hampshire.edu (Matthew E Grossman)

From a cyberpunk game I was running:  Butch is sneaking around a
warehouse.  Just as he's about to leave, the two rent-a-cops (who were
guarding the place) come back in.  The dialogue went something like this:
1st guard:  Hey!  What are you doing here.
Butch:  Hey man, don't shoot!  I'm on your side! (draws his .454 and
shoots one of the guards)  Oh my god, I just shot him!  Did you see
that!(gets shot by the surviving guard)  I can't believe you just shot
me!  I'm on your side! (shoots guard)
Meanwhile, his buddy John Paul Winchester has been keeping an eye on the
warehouse from a payphone across the street, where he is talking to his
girlfriend.  He sees this shootout and says:
JP:  Oh wait, Butch just got shot, I gotta go save him. (hangs up)
Butch:  (staggering away from the warehouse, bleeding profusely)  Did you
see that?  He shot me right here, right in the chest, and I didn't even fall
down!

This is what happens if you have a _player_ with a fast talk skill.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: nicklean@perth.DIALix.oz.au (Nick Leaning)

Actually, this reminds me of yet another occasion when my mouth got
the better of my survival instincts, this time whilst playing Cyberpunk 2020.
I was involved in a firefight on the rooftop of a multistorey building, I had
semi-auto pistols in both hands when one of the nomad opposition simply
grabbed me by the collar and threw me bodily off the side of the building...

Faced with a long fall and certain death of the "red-jam-on-the-sidewalk"
variety the GM offered me a lifeline...

GM: "As you fall backwards you notice a safety-railing. What do you do..."

NICK's PC:  "I empty the magazine of both pistols at the bastard nomad!!!!"

My character plunged to his death all guns blazing.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: nez@thepoint.com (Tom Stevens)

player scientist meeting a robot charachter.
scientist: WOw! this is truly amazing! what a fantastic speciment you are!
What exactly do you use for power?
robot (Reacting in modesty to compliments): shiiiit!

______

after launching a LAW and viturally devastating a huge area.
"damn, i didn't think it was loaded"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: UNKNOWN

In a cyber-punk campaign, we needed some information about a street gang.
We had managed to capture one of the members.  I wanted the information, but
I knew that my intimidation skill wasn't too good.

Me:  Tell me what I want to know or I'll shoot you in the leg.
Him:  Kiss my a**.
<<BANG!!>>
Him:  ARRGH!!  I've been shot!!
Me:  I know, I'm the one who shot you...  Now tell me what I want to know or
I'll shoot you in the other leg...

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: UNKNOWN

In a cyberpunkish game I was running, the PC:s were a team of investigative
journalists, and one of them was the Ultimate Englishman - completely calm,
expressionless and collected, no matter what happened (any relation to
real Englishmen is purely coincidental). The first time we played, he
was assaulted by a hitman in the basement of a post office, and got kicked
in the groin, hard. Not surprisingly, he was stunned for a while, and then
the cops arrived to break up the situation. When they tried to question
him, he replied : "Terribly sorry, but my genitals have just absorbed
a substantial amount of kinetic energy, and I am momentarily incapable of
responding to any inquiries."

The line would haunt him forever... There are a lot more, related to this one,
but they are in pretty poor taste. Sick players, I've got...

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: UNKNOWN

 A police ERT member (the grenadier) on a space station, whilst engaged with
 a group of cybered hit men and after firing off a *very* special (and
 illicit) round:

 "Gee, I wonder what the yield is on that."
 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: UNNOWN

 A space marine Warrant Officer gets slammed against a bulkhead due to
 unexpected and sudden acceleration. The player is known for being, ahem,
 creative:

 "Don't I get to dodge the wall?"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: UNKNOWN

This one was from a Star Wars game I ran a few years back.  The PC's get in a f
ight in the Cantina in Mos Eisly.  The bartender is yelling"NO Blasters!! NO Bl
asters".  Two of the PC's dive over the bar, lob thermal detonators both ways.
The bounty hunter then turns to the Bar tender and says "no blasters"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: UNKNOWN

Our characters began in the FTL universe, and were shangheid into
the Star Trek one by some saboteurs who vented most of our hydrogen in the
process.  Our cargo ship was carrying several tons of beer, which we proceeded
to use as reaction mass, playing hob with the engines.  Finally, a Federation
starship approached us, only to be hit by a piece of our rapidly decomposing
engines. The exchange went something like this:
FTL GM: "The engine cone blasts off and hits the approaching starship."
ST GM: "Impact! Impact!"
ST Players: "Where!!??"
ST GM: (rolls some dice, consults hit charts) "Ummm, the ship's gymnasium."
FTL Players, all together: "IT'S DEAD, GYM!"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: UNNOWN

In a cyberpunkgame I played an combat-robot and this one wheighted (sp?)
over 180 kg (how mush thats in lbs i don't know but thinks it about 400).
 We entered a bar/resaturant becourse the human PC needed to eat.
We joked about how much the chair sqeesed under the weight of my robot.
the waiter came in and ask if I wanted something and I answeard
"no thanks, I'm on diet."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: UNKNOWN

CYBERPUNK: One of the PC's was a huge man with full-body implanted armor.
(You should have seen his handgun - bigger than most bazookas.) We were
raiding a warehouse (and having a little fight, I might add), when suddenly
we heard the police helicopters. This cyborg points at the combat map:
"I go out right here."
The GM: "There's no door there."
The PC: "I know. But I still go out there."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: UNKNOWN

Ok, here is the situation:

Once in our Star Trek campaign there was a time when two characters
got ambushed in the street, near an aircar. (Characters  were run by
Dan and Mark.)

Dan: I dive for cover.

Mark:  I dive into the aircar, start it up, and fly to where the
sniper is located.

Vicki (the gamemistress):  What is you Vehicle Operation skill?

Mark:  Ahh, I don't have any.

Vicki: If you don't have the skill you can't fly it.

Mark:  But I have Warp Dive Technology!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Simpson@Simpson.cpbx.net (David M. Simpson)

I did this one:

Game:
  Star Wars

Setup:
   The our group had stopped a Bounty Hunter and tied him up.
   The police stopped us, and the leader ask me, "What's wrong
   with that guy"(Tied up BH).  Not knowing anything better to
   say, said "Oh, he hurt himself falling down, and those are
   Splints."  Everyone about died!!!  I turned about 10 levels
   of RED!!!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: skeksis@buffnet.net (Clayton Miner)

In a Star Wars run I was refereeing, one of the players got nabbed by
this big, nasty, carniverous beastie intent upon eating (amongst other
horrible fates) the unlucky character.  While the rest of the stood
around looking rather dim, the player hanging by a foot up inthe air says
"Get me down, get me down, I owe you money".  :)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: ripper@freenet.vancouver.bc.ca (Christopher Darquin)

The very first game system my group played was Star Wars. In the first
adventure, the players were trying to talk to a wookie npc (none of the
spoke the language). Suddenly one of the players decided he wanted to try
his pick-pocket skill. The other players warned him not to, but he
reasured them 'look at my dexterity, nothing can go wrong!'.
Yeah, you guessed it. He didn't simply fail the roll, but he failed in
epic proportions. The wookie, not amused, turned around and used his face
as a punching bag. The player ended up mortally wounded (would have died
without immediat medical attention)

A couple years later, we're playing AD&D. A couple players (call them A & B)
are trading treasure, including the player mentioned above (he's player A).
Player B  said he wouldn't bother trying for A's healing potions since A
needs them often. Player A responded 'I don't get hurt that often'. Player B
put his hand on A's shoulder, and with a perferctly straight face said
'Okay, let's forget the wookie incident...' We were laughing for 20 minutes.

I guess you had to have been there.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: kemowery@freenet.columbus.oh.us (Kevin Mowery)

     In a Rifts game, when confronted with the awesome military might of
the Coalition, one player bravely remarked "I'd rather live on my knees
than die on my feet," and surrendered.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: J Andrew Lipscomb <themagpie@delphi.com>

Hmm... in our local Star Wars game, one of our characters bought a non-working
lightsaber.  My character (a Jedi, but one who can't use a saber) asked if he
ad checked to make sure it didn't have Supervolt batteries in it...
 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: thiber3@uwindsor.ca (Chuck Thibert)

In a CP2020 game I run my characters got caught up in a Mafia-Yakuza
crossfire.  Well, I hinted that they might now be recognized by the gangs
and that the gangs might be looking for them.  Later on  two of the
charcters were in a hotel elevator when another guest of the hotel got
on.  He looked at one of them and said "Don't I know you from somewhere."

Immediate paranoia ensued and after some  fast thinking the other
character said "Yeah he was on a fry commercial."

The guest said "I don't remember any commercial."

To which the character in question responded "Yes you  have, c'mon you
know the jingle."

and proceeded to sing "Try, try my new french fries."

and a successful fast talk roll.  The guest then said "Oh yeah, can I
have you're autograph.  I've never met a commercial star before."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
 

*********
* Other *
*********

From: jmkaraka@eos.ncsu.edu (John Martin Karakash)

 In a CoC campaign a character that everyone thought
had been turned into a zombie (but actually wasn't) came to
a meeting of the PC's sporting a bit of tissue paper on his
face.
 "What's the tissue paper for?"
 "I cut myself shaving."
 "You don't have to shave, you're a zombie!"
 "Hey, just because I'm one of the walking dead,
doesn't mean I can ignore personal hygiene."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: xoanon@unm.edu (timothy k istian soholt)

A SHADOWRUN game. The PCs are storming the hive of a group of insect
spirits (trust me; if you don't know, you don't _wanna_ know!), and are
armed for armor-plated, cybered-up metabear. While the PCs are
slaughtering combat-ineffectual worker spirits, the warrior spirits come
up from behind and burst through the walls. The party's shaman is caught
completely unawares and ends up in the mandible of a rabid ant spirit.
One of the samurai turns around, levels his assault rifle at the thing's
head, and yells, "Hey, bug! Don't squeeze the shaman!!!"

To top it off, he blew the thing's head to little chunks.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: xoanon@unm.edu (timothy k istian soholt)

In a TORG game, the PCs have recently acquired a powerful mystic artifact
called the Possibility Chalice. They're being chased by a vampire who
wants to take the Chalice and bring it back to his master. The vampire
catches up to the party and cuts them off. "Give me the Chalice!" he
snarls.

In perfect streeophonic sound, two of my five players yell out "You want a
_phallus_?!?!?"

(The vampire was eventually killed by the group's New Ager psychic, whose
name was, of all things, Buffy.)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: cs_1@ksg1.harvard.edu (Computer Services Temp:Rick Silva)

From a paranoia game a played in once:

 Player: "I've got a fusion generator? What's the damage factor on
that"

 GM: "South America."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: megF91@hamp.hampshire.edu (Matthew E Grossman)

Other lines from that campaign that I remember were:
"A very disarming experience."  said by a character after his arm had
just been ripped off.

"I suppose I'll knock him out with a rock, only... I'll use a soft rock,
so it won't hurt that much."  the background to that one is just too
bizarre to explain...

This one wasn't actually said during the session, but in-between
sessions, when a bunch of us players were conspiring.  "Ok, we go to a
zoo.  We find a panda, and we make it sentient..."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: seurer@nordruth.rchland.ibm.com (Bill Seurer)

In a rather weird genre game with a mix of science and magic one of the
PCs had just pulled the pin on a grenade-like explosive when he was
knocked down by one of the "bad guys" from behind.  The bad guy demanded
his surrender to which the PC responded (after hearing the hiss of the
burning fuze)

  "Would you if I crawled over there before surrendering?"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: muffy@expert.cc.purdue.edu (John Hogg)

While GMing a game of RECON, a group of two mercenary helicopter pilots
(the PC's) were in a bar trying to relax and figure out their next move.
One PC turns to the other and says, "Wow, check HER out!"
the other PC whispers to the first, "That's a MAN."

It's been a reoccuring one liner in our sessions ever since.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: "VIRTUAL ADEPT" <s9102094@mail.student.utwente.nl>

Player 1: Hey, what was the name again of that girl you'r going to marry.
Player 2(me): Mary, yes Mary, Mary, or was it Jackie?

-------
Players from a low level tech enviroment find a laser distance measurer.
After fooling around with it for a while they figure it out. One player
points it at the sky. The display produces the infinity symbol. The player
turns it 90 degrees and comments:" Hey, the sky is eight yards high".

-------
Question to DM: Why do you hate players?
Answer: They kill my nice monsters.

-------

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: MATOCIQUALA@news.delphi.com (MATOCIQUALA@DELPHI.COM)

The secret last syllable of Azathoth's name is, of course, "Ski!"

(He is, after all, the Pole of the universe...)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: keallen@crl.com (Kevin E. Allen)

   Shadowrun.  On a snatch-and-grab mission, the runners bust into a
boardroom in the middle of a meeting (guards being eliminated quickly and
quietly courtesy the street shaman and a stun ball spell).  The lead
street samauri kicks the door open, racks a shell into his shotgun, and
cries

  "This is a hostile takeover!  Everyone down!"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Jo@kenjo.demon.co.uk (Jo Walton)

Very funny bit playtesting _The Khan Chak Experiment_, new adventure
for _Tales of Gargentihr_. In this world there is lots of weird
science sort of powered by sort of magic, and lots of aliens. We were
at a party, and the guest of honour was a previously unknown kind of
alien (although actually he wasn't, he was a weird form of a familiar
alien) in a large fish bowl equivalent, free floating a few feet above
the floor. One of the PCs saw this, and was a scientist and was really
impressed. To the GM (in perfect innocence) "I go over towards the
grav tank". We couldn't stop laughing and get our breath back for
ages.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: nez@thepoint.com (Tom Stevens)

GM: You see a vauge white shape in the distance, with large expansive wings
Player: IT'S A HORSE!
(Many confused looks)
--------

two people are knocked unconcious, and wake up in a room having no idea
where they are. Using various skills they free themselves from bonds

player 1: I Jump out the window!
Player 2: (hesitating): I LOOK out the window.
-------
player 1: (Frantically screaming so his partner will run away with him)
      There's 15 of them!
player 2: oh good, for a minute i was worried.
(brilliant playing of overconfidence, resulting sadly in player death)

--------
tracing a chemical that causes brain damage
hero: SO, exactly how much insanity has leaked into the water
(Perhaps you had to be there.)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: beiting@vax.oxford.ac.uk

 A few more lines, from this Sunday night's game.
 I'm running _Horror on the Orient Express_ for Call of Cthulhu.  The
characters were at the opening night performance of _Aida_ at La Scala in
Milan.  They had been given front-row seats by the lead, who had since
vanished.  So there they were, just across from the orchestra pit, expecting
the _absolute_ worst to happen during the performance, completely unarmed and
lamenting the fact.  They began cracking nervous jokes, and I had to deal with
lines like:

 "Maybe I can use the long stemmed roses I brought for the soprano to
defend myself."

 "How much armour protection does a slide trombone provide?"

One player "Let me check the tactical position again.  GM, where did you say
the bathrooms were?"
Other player, not thinking, "Well, you could always use the orchestra pit!"
 

 It made building a sense of tensiona nd foreboding impossible, let me
tell you.....

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: leifmk@kari.fm.unit.no (Leif Magnar Kj|nn|y)

Okay, my turn....

I was running a nice cosy little Call of Cthulhu game.  One newbie player
(not too bright) was present; the others had been playing for a while.
We were just warming up for the night; while I was helping the newbie get
his character sheet together, a couple of the veterans were discussing a
car they planned to buy together.  At this point, while I'm explaining
about skills to the newbie, he looks up and asks confusedly, "Do I have a
car too?"

This got *me* rather confused, until he explained by pointing to the skills
section of his character sheet: "It says 'Dodge' here...."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: jdmarquart@miavx1.acs.muohio.edu (Joshua "Cheese" Marquart)

Today at the first running of my PAranoia/Call of Cthulhu game...

One of the PC's had what he thought was a Disintegration Ray, which he told
everyone was a TEleport Ray.  It WAS in fact a Teleport ray... but he didn't
know that.  ANYWAY... The ray was getting overused... (It was shot back and
forth and what not , at everyone and everything, and even at the
Necronomicon...  which REFLECTED IT back at the players...)

Well, when using it on Great Cthulhu himself, the I said "Well, the gun begins
to smoke and all of a sudden it melts in your hands."

To which he replied "Not in my mouth?"

I wa on the floor.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: rkidd@osf1.gmu.edu (Father Bob)

 Here's another from my group of Shadowrunners. The players are in
the middle of a street shoot out (involving a number of snipers, a few
gunmen on street level and a couple of magicians). For some reason our GM
mentions "You see a car stop at the end of the block and a man step out."

 One of the more ..er.. reactionary players blurts out, "I shoot him."

 The GM blinks. "Okay. Roll." The player rolls. "Good. You just
shot a pimp."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Chris Burdett <C.Burdett@uea.ac.uk>

This one cracked the entire party up, 'though it could have been a
little terminal...

  My Cthulhu investigators were crammed into a cabin on the Orient
Express, armed with garlic, shotguns and sharpened bits of wooden
furniture.
  Being a kind keeper I had decided that the compartment counted as
a 'home' of sorts, and the vampire who was hunting them (for those
who hadn't guessed...) had to make do with floating along outside
their window holding an unconscious comrade, making threats and
generally scorning their pitiful mortal existance. At which point
came from a rather shaky character the fateful.

  "Come here and say that"

  It did.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

On first trying GURPS Bunnies & Burrows:

"But I don't wanna be a bunny.  Can't I be a cougar who's a friend to the
bunnies?"

He never did get into the game.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

There was this one con game of Amber, where we ended up in this
techno-industrial-wasteland, and we see this knight (or some such)
dressed in full plate armor made out of automobile parts. I don't know
when exactly it happened, but the words just came sliding out of my
mouth:

"Look! It's a Chevy Cavalier!"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: UNKNOWN

In a Teenagers From Outer Space campaign I run, one character
once remarked to another, "You're a *mercenary* little geek, aren't you?"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: UNKNOWN

 "A god was chasing me, so I ran."
 

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From: UNKNOWN

A comment made in between games by one of my players, who is an ex-street
gang punk:  "I know paladins don't exist in the real world, 'cause I
haven't killed one."

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From: UNKNOWN

  "I charge..."

  <A moment or two later, as he realises nobody else is joining in:>

  "... cautiously"

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From: UNKNOWN

 We were attacking a some sort of a lab in Spacemaster. One of the
characters was setting up a bomb, but he was attacked by a guard and
got wounded. His pal saves the situation and starts to give first aid,
but suddenly notices that the wounded guy is still holding some explosives
in his hands. Without further thinking he stics it (50 grams of C16????)
to a plasma grenade and throws it as far as he could.

 "I'll take this away so dont'n hurt yourself"

 The blast radius was 80 meters.......

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From: UNKNOWN

The game: Paranoia
The situation:  The group was guarding a really big tank (the Mark IV,
                in fact.)  We were getting attacked by a bunch of
                Commies on jet-propelled skateboards (or something
                like that.)  My character was a member of the
                Communists secret society and was talking to the leader
                of the attacking Commies, asking to join him:

Me:  I vould werry much like to join wit you, Comrade Borscht.

GM:  I think ve have an openink for you.

At this point the GM make a roll to see if one of the NPCs can control
his skateboard.  He fails.

GM: SCCREEEEECH CRASH! BOOOOM!

Me: Vhat vas dat?

GM: Another openink.

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From: UNKNOWN

 A security man on a ground survey team approaches his commanding officer to
 report seemingly aggressive plant life on the planet:

 "Sir, Dr. Lund says she's being stalked by a bush."

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From: UNKNOWN

 OK...
   The scene:  San Francisco, CA, in my Cthulhu:1999 campaign.  The PCs,
having defeated the villanous Dr. Deiter, have taken the transmitter that

...skipping 1 line

up to their van's satellite dish.  They point it at a nearby university,
then call a friend who works there.
  PC: "Hi.  Has anyone's head just exploded?"
  Friend: "Ummm... No...."
  PC: <twiddles some dials> "How 'bout now?"

  In this same campaign, people were frequently heard to say, "Ia Ia,
sure sure," and the favorite spell was "DWEAD CURSE OF AAAAAAAAZATHOTH!"
And one of the PC's suggested blowing up the Moon to prevent an eclipse.
He was joking.  The rest of the PC's eventually did that just that, much
to his chagrin (on Sept. 13, 1999, for you SPACE: 1999 fans).

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From: UNKNOWN

-here is one for you , courtesy of a TV show called : SheWolf of London .

the heroines' boyfriend is being attacked by a vampire , and was eating
dinner ...he tosses the contents of a container of chinese food at it , to
distract it , and low-and -behold , the vampire dies ...

He uses it to rescue the heroine , and as they leave , she remarks :

" If you kill a vampire with chinese food ( it was garlic chicken ) ,
does that mean he is undead again in an hour ? "

think about it ...

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From: UNKNOWN

: This is one of my favorites from a Vampire campaign I was running.  The
character was an Uppity Ventrue, very high-class, who had just botched a
hunting roll.  Character figures out he has contracted herpes from
his prey.
Gamemaster: As you sink your fangs into his neck, you feel the diseased
blood flood down your throat.
Player: I...I feel VIOLATED!

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From: UNKNOWN

On discovering a party member's ardent pursuer was a demon...

        "oh great, she's from hell. You didn't give her your adress did you?"

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From: UNKNOWN

Situation; PC Red Slaad (Gurps) bouncing through a forest, Scared senseless.
Her
Master Wakes up in the tree he's in, and contacts her mentally...

Master: "...SLAADI! Get a hold of yourself!"
Red Slaad stops in her tracks, and the player quickly wraps her arms around her
self. "Now what, Bossman?"

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From: UNKNOWN

        From my group's experiences playing Shadowrun:

To set the scene: A street sam is busily getting fixed up in a DocWagon
clinic.  The group suspects another attempt on his life and goes to the
clinic to break him out. Buck Naked, another street sam (played by a guy
who is playing for the first time), is told to make a diversion while the
rest of the group goes upstairs to the patient's room. Buck is sitting in
the waiting room.
        GM: You see a secretary at the counter.
        Buck: What? Nothing else?
        GM: [rolls his eyes] A box of mints.
        Buck: I take a mint but I don't leave a penny.
        GM: Roll your Stealth.
        Buck: [rolls]
        Secretary: "Hey! Put that back!"
        Buck: [licks the mint, puts it back and walks away]
    ------
        Buck: I look for a boiler room or something.
        GM: You see a door labeled "Electrical Room - No Admittance" down
the hall from the waiting room.
        Buck: I try the door.
        GM: It's locked.
        Buck: I shoot it.
        GM: [blink] You shoot it?
        Buck: Yes.
        GM: Okay. The door opens and you hear a few startled screams down
the hall.
        Buck: I go in.
        GM: You see a lot of electrical equipment.
        Buck: Do I know how to turn it off?
        GM: Roll your intelligence.
        Buck: [rolls]
        GM: You don't know shit.
        Buck: I shoot it.
        GM: [blink] [sigh] Okay, the lights go out, alarms go off and
people are running everywhere.
        Buck: I go get the box of mints and sit out on the steps.
    ------
        [the rest of the group has gotten the patient out by now]
        GM (to Buck, still sitting): Crowds of people are running by you.
        Buck (thoughtfully): Do I see that receptionist?
        GM: Er ... yea. Sure. Why not?
        Buck: I shoot her.

[shrug] For some reason it had us in hysterics.

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From: UNKNOWN

To set the scene: Koshhka's a Cat Shaman. He and his companions find that
part of completing their job involves nabbing a guy who has been busily
uniting Seattle's gangs. They find him (along with a number of street
punks, gutter rats and bored adolescents armed to the teeth) in a
dockside warehouse. The group nabs the leader which predictably attracts
the attention of all the gangers there. Koshka makes his way out of the
warehouse fairly unscathed but ...
        GM: [rolls] A bullet whizzes by and clips you in the arm.
        Koshka: [rolls body - Light Wound] Hmmm. [whirls around and casts
Urban Renewel on the (still occupied) warehouse which quietly falls to
pieces]
        GM: Roll your Perception.
        Koshka: [rolls]
        GM: You notice a network helicoptor with its camera trained right
at you.
        Koshka: I smile, wave, and polish my fingernails on my lapel.

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From: UNKNOWN

Spoken by one character to another who was going to become a blood-hungry
ravening beast as soon as the sun goes down...

"Uh, could you cast invisibility on everyone before you die?"

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From: UNKNOWN

In one CoC scenario, the players were chacing a villain in an underground bar.
One of the villain's friends ran out from the back door - directly towards
a car in which one of our characters sat on guard. The PC asked:
"Stop! This is police! What's going on?"
The guy: "You don't look like a cop to me."
The PC lifts up a Thompson smg, saying:
"Now what did you say?"
The guy: "Umm... Well, mr. constable..."

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From: UNKNOWN

MEGATRAVELLER: The guys were secret agents on a mission to kidnap a famous
scientist. Unfortunately the guy was working in a mine inside an asteroid.
There were one heavily armed guardian per five persons working at the mine,
and all kind of weaponry was forbidden. The guys were stopped by guardians
during they arrival, and I said as the GM:
"The guardians want to check on you."
One of the players: "Really? I stick my laser in my ass."
I was a little bit pissed off, so I said:
"OK. After two weeks in hospital they charge you, and you get a death
sentence. Make a new character."

We had to stop the session for several minutes.

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From: lea@hestia.demon.co.uk (Lea Crowe)

Our Shadowrun party tended to let its reach exceed its grasp, so the following
scene tended to recur again and again:

  GM:      "Do you have a skill in that?"
  Player:  "No... but I have a stat!"

I think the weirdest one was when I had to use dexterity as a substitute
for a Knitting skill.  (And yes, this was a serious situation.  Our lives
were riding on that knitting roll.)

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From: aliman@morinda.it.ntu.edu.au (Alister Lear)

Well I have a couple from Rpg experience...
While playing a Vampire(White wolf) campaign One player faced with ineviatable
 doom in one oppenent says "I will jump out the window"... The GM replies
"Okay but you do realise that you are on the 26th floor"... player
"... Ah yeah but at least this way I have a chance to survive :)".
The player did survive that encounter but died soon after when he fired a
rocket launcher in a sealed room full of petrol fumes.

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From: Justine@pepin.demon.co.uk (Justine Rogers)

In a mage game that I didn't play in:

PC1: Its okay I can drive it. (Talking about a big black cadillac I think)
GM: Okay, make your roll.
Player of PC1: Oh. Its actually an archery skill.

He made the dex+drive roll though.

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From: mbusse@ellis.uchicago.edu (Marty Busse)

 Statement by an IRS agent in a COC game to an avatar of Nyarlathotep
"Look, mister.  You may be the soul and messenger of the Outer Gods, but you
still have to declare all of your income."

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From: robs@eskimo.com (Rob Schultz)

In Busido:  The PC shock his sword at an NPC and warned him with, "I warn
you, the pluses inherent in the this sword undoubtably exceed your hitpoints."

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From: umfranzm@cc.umanitoba.ca (Jeff Scott Franzmann)

Upon entering the town square, the PCs are confronted by a wild haired
old man who begins shouting at them, begging them to listen, praying that
they will be the ones who save the town from the ravening hordes which
are about to descend upon them. He babbles some more about the demonic
coven which is attempting to subvert the town council, at which point my
Necromancer rolls his eyes and says,

"Drac...fancy meeting you here."

Well, I thought it was funny :)

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Duane Bowker <dob@superlink.net>
The PCs had just been jumped by members of a cult, who shouted at them "Are
you a believer or an unbeliever?" One PC, who had misheard, said "Um, I'm
NOT a beaver..."

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From: UNKNOWN

A compilation of amusing things people said or posted to the Vampire bboard...
 

"Send up more bell-boys!" -IS

"Seeing that the criminal justice system was not defending my rights, I
released myself into my own custody." -CE

"Let's meet in Central Pa- Let's meet NEAR Central Park." -JW

"Eight successes on the to-hit roll." -CE
"You miss." -DS

"You all remember Edward, tall, good looking, makes Satan look like a choir
boy? " -SB

"Give me a couple of Uzis, a 44 Magnum, a couple grenades, a USAS 20
automatic shotgun with napalm and explosive rounds, and... a crossbow."
-CE

"Maybe we'll all stay up to see the sun (SHEA RIGHT!  AND MONKEYS MIGHT
FLY OUT OF MY BUTT!)." -JW

"[Flame] looked like a pincushion.  He musta had some bad experience
with a wood shredding machine or sometin'." -JS

on Helga: "What's a name like that doing on a body like yours?" -BB

"Two weeks... 4th-gen Brujah... gives a whole new meaning to the word
"DEADline" -IS

"I'm told that most Vampires who meet Oblivion do it from an unconscious
death wish.  Not true.  From what I can see of Jason Flame, he's
completely conscious about it." -BB

"Someone has to tell him that he can't reach Golconda if he's killed
first." -IS

"Flame walks in to the Sabbat's meeting place and is immediately blasted
with enough lead to drop a tank.  He seems to enjoy that kind of thing."
-CE

"I'm the misfit of the group, and I think they need me like a beauty
pageant needs a Nosferatu." -JW

"WTGGTTDGH=When The Going Gets Tough The Dice Get Hosey" -IS

"Never noticed huge numbers of Sabbat taking over the Washington
Monument before.  I guess you miss these things when you're a mortal."
-CE

"I've always hated Sabbat, and now I hate their games too.  Now I know
how Rudolf the Red-nosed Reindeer felt." -IS

"Spiders, dealers.  It's all the same to me." -CE

"What's scary is that Jason Flame is now the sanest member of the party." -IS

"Why can't we fight a more congenial enemy who prefers the tropics?  No
doubt Babayaga could answer that.  (It probably has something to do with
how she looks in a bikini.)" -BB

"I'll Shoot!" -Stupid Nosferatu
"Go Ahead, Mine's Bigger." -BB

"They wouldn't know subtlety if it painted itself purple and jumped up
and down in front of them singing 'Subtlety is here again'..." -IS

"And you're high on life, saying nothing could ever be this good......
.......until you crash into shore and scream, because there's a crab
hanging from your testicles." -JW

"'I diabolrized Cain and all I got was this lousy generation.' 14th gen
Vamp" -CE
 

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