For years now, my wife and I have been noticing that there are phrases that make absolutely NO sense to anyone who isn’t a gamer. Taken out of context, they’re gibberish at best, and can go all the way to deeply disturbing.
For instance:
“You finished your tree!”
“Just jump into that thing that looks like an asshole”
“I shouldn’t have eaten that glowing thing.”
“Do you want to get shot in the head? Because that’s how you get shot in the head!”
My personal favorite:
“Congrats! You haven’t wiped in like, two weeks!”
So, what have you said while gaming which would make a mother clutch her small child to her breast and run?
It’s been a long time since I played a role-playing game, but I follow Ursula Vernon on Twitter, and on some Monday night’s she’ll tweek her current gaming session.
Otyughs are the best. Somewhere, I read an account of a party who decided to negotiate with an otyugh, and one of the party members cast Tongues on himself, so he could converse with it.
Playing a game of Magic, Commander style, I said to a buddy…
“Guess you should have plowed your mom before I enslaved her.”
(For the uninitiated, mom is Mother of Runes, a creature, plow is Swords to Plowshares, a spell to removes creatures, and enslave is well, Enslave, a spell that steals creatures.)
My daughter was nine, and had been playing in my D&D campaign for a year, so she understood all about the classes & races & stuff. She was working on a project for school and walked in to ask me a question…
Daughter: What do they call those people who live in forests and take care of the trees?
Me: Druids.
Daughter: [eyeroll] I mean in the real world?
Me: Oh. … Rangers.
Daughter. FINE! I’ll go look it up myself. exit stage right
Me; No, really, Park rangers, forest rangers, that’s why they… never mind.
