"Eat Chocolate! Level up!"

I played Old School Hack last night, with Risus Monkey, a few of his regular players, and Gaptooth, and it was pretty great. I have a good idea I'm going to use this one myself sometime: the awesome point system gives me pretty much exactly what I want out of a one-shot, and the character creation system... oh, man, the character creation system. Only one character in the party can be of any class at a time, and all the information for a class can be contained on a single page, so class selection is literally a matter of just throwing down all the class options the GM wants to make available down on the table and letting the players go through them and take them as they call dibs. I decided to play a Swashbuckler, and my goal was to rescue a princess -- any princess, I didn't really care who.

Risus Monkey is a great DM, his player's are extremely entertaining, and Gaptooth, in addition to running the most memorable goblin PC I've ever seen (he was convinced he was Link, and ended up on a leash for most of the evening), is an excellent artist. If he doesn't upload the picture(s) he drew of his character soon, go whack him until he does. The whole thing was pretty much perfectly in line with what I want out of a one-shot. Fast, goofy, fun.

More importantly, it was one of the few times I've had the opportunity to play with a DM who really knew his stuff. The vast majority of the DMs I've played with have been very new, and very young -- often people I'd gotten into the game myself. The handful of times I've played with who had played for a few years before I met them (in real life) it's been similarly disappointing -- either their play style clashed dramatically with mine, or they just weren't very good. RPG blogging has, in fact, been my only reliable system for finding good DMs: DMs who are as serious about the game as I am, and at it long enough to get good.

I'm not exaggerating (much) when I say that this was the most fun I've had in a single night of gaming in the last couple of years. The game I played at GenCon with Roger the GS of Roles, Rules, and Rolls was great, and I ran a few decent one-shots during college, but it's been a while since I did a one-shot that was kind of a party at the same time and where everyone was pretty much on the same page, game-wise. Been a player in that kind of a one-shot, never.

It's really reminded me that I need to play these dang things more -- in person, with live people who know what they're doing. Some other members of my high school group who have moved back to the area have been talking about running "something," but I'm really not convinced at this point that anything's going to happen -- it's one of those everyone-says-"we should run a game"-but-no-one-makes-it-happen things. Hopefully I'll be able to meet up with this new crew on a regular-ish basis, but otherwise I may need to start trolling the local game stores (Or maybe Google Plus? That's how I got this invite in the first place.) for games to join.

And now, quotes:

"Let's see if he can beat the whore's indifference."

"Hair creme probably looks like a healing potion to him."

"Red thing that appears to be Swiss! You said you would come with us?"

"Hey! Where's my rope?"

"Hey! Where's my lamp?"

"Hey! Where's my hair creme?"

"Every two weeks I am dipped in caramel, and then it's ripped off!"

"Gaptooth, the ogre proctologist."

"The only ogre proctologist."

"I'm invisible to horses!"

"This is how we roll."

"Poorly. Haltingly. And with a lot of innuendo."

Quoted for Truth

Role-playing is a social hobby, and a being able to be identified as a growing thing is the best way to get more people playing. Absolutely nothing gets people willing to try to play games more than the belief that it will be easy to find people to play with.

That sense of mass and momentum is the greatest tool we have to get more people.

If we disconnect, if everyone takes down their blogrolls, stops talking about each other's work, stops caring about the world beyond their table and just plays the game and says fuck everything else, then this doesn't grow, and it dies with us.

I've been on about this long before I had any sort of financial stake in it, and there's a hell of a lot more people than me that benefits from this. Not just publishers, either. Every single person who thinks they'd like to play but suffers from the old gamer curse, "can't find a group" benefits.

-- James Edward Raggi IV

I owe the OSR my current game group. Technically speaking, I owe it to some combination of Jeff Rients (who linked me to Trollsmyth's blog, and piqued my interest in this old school thing originally), James Maliszewski (who got me really interested in old school mechanics and the principles behind sandbox play and dungeon delving, and convinced Trollsmyth that maybe demi-human level limits weren't such a horrible thing after all), Melan (again, the idea that there really was something to dungeons), Daniel Proctor, for publishing Labyrinth Lord, the Knights & Knaves Alehouse and Dragonsfoot (for kicking off the retro-clones with OSRIC) whoever it was who linked Trollsmyth to me, and, frankly, pretty much anyone who wrote something interesting about old school roleplaying between, oh, the summer of 2007 and the winter of 2009. You guys just made this dungeon and Red Box stuff just sound so dang fun.

And it is. And I could not have gotten to it on my own. Without the OSR? Without old school bloggers and linking to each other and the retro-clones? I might be running Pathfinder, giving a curious glance at OD&D every now-and-again but convinced that it was too arcane, too inaccessible, fundamentally in some way not for college punks with more enthusiasm than sense. Or who knows? I might have picked up a copy of Moldvay/Cook in a used bookstore and figured it out on my own. Maybe. But the OSR sure got me here a lot faster.

Take that for what you will.

And here's your Obligatory Argument Content:

Antoine's Ring of Lizard Power
This white jade ring is etched with crude scribbles that, based on appearance alone, might be large lizards or small dinosaurs. Or birds. Can't rule out birds. Anyone who puts the ring will eventually discern that they were probably intended to be lizards: the wearer gains the ability to understand the speech of lizards, but birds remain unintelligible. Furthermore, there is a 50% chance to understand the speech of any given snake or turtle, a 25% chance to understand any given amphibian, and a 25% chance to understand any given dinosaur.

Once per day, the wearer can cast charm monster on any creature whom the ring allows him to communicate with.

The wearer also experiences one of the following effects while wearing the ring. The effect should be chosen at random, but an individual will always experience the same effect when wearing the ring. If the wearer removes the ring, the effect lasts for another 24 hours.

1. Ectothermic -- irresistibly drawn to sunlight and sources of warmth. Becomes lethargic in surroundings significantly cooler than comfortable room temperature.
2. Forked tongue
3. Yellow, slitted eyes
4. A patch of scales on the back of each hand
5. Clawed toes
6. Nothing visible

There's a reason our game is set in an original wacky fantasy land, and not in any attempt to recreate an actual historical era.

Members of the public who find themselves curious about those chat games I'm always rambling on about shall note that Trollsmyth has written up a second State of the Campaign covering both in honor of the end of the year.

The public shall further note that Grognardia has just published a missive that can only be described as a vile and untrustworthy slander on the style of play that Trollsmyth and I and the other good folk of the Doom & Tea Parties game have heretofore enjoyed. What other motive than base treachery could he have for the following?

Granted, this isn't a fault with Oriental Adventures itself, but it's very much a product of a gaming culture that conflated immersion with roleplaying and thus promoted the accumulation of reams of social and cultural details as necessities for "properly" roleplaying. It's not an approach I've favored in some time and I don't miss it at all.

It's almost as if he means to imply that there's something wrong with spending several hours discussing, in character, the courtship rituals of the various creatures and cultures that populate the milieu.

In all seriousness--it's good to be reminded, every so often, of the weaknesses of one's chosen style of play, and the ways it can go wrong if handled poorly. Just as, say, more pure dungeoneering is often slandered as inevitably devolving into nonsensical powergaming, the kind of game that I currently find so engrossing can easily take a turn towards navel-gazing alpha-nerd one-up-manship. (Though apparently I have not escaped an infestation of en dashes. Curses and lamentations!) Perhaps more importantly, someone who likes a more freewheeling, whimsical style of play would get just as bored with Doom & Tea Parties as I would with a game where the main difference between various gods was the name I wrote on my character sheet and the particular peculiarities I imparted upon my cleric.

But mostly what I worry about is the alpha-nerd thing. Thus the quote from Trollsmyth: "There's a reason our game is set in an original wacky fantasy land, and not in any attempt to recreate an actual historical era."

Quote of the Day

“I enjoy the challenge of building characters” and “I enjoy the challenge of playing (a character)” is the biggest division in the games hobby. It’s at the root of most other perceived differences new/old, tactical combat/roleplay, DM arbitration/Killer DM, crunch/fluff, “I walked uphill to the dungeon both ways!”/”gimmie fun on a silver platter”, 3d6 in order/point buy, character skill/player skill, etc/etc.

-- a comment from njharman of Troll and Flame on a "A Study of 2 different Playstyles" at Life and Times of a Philippine Gamer.

Paranoia Quotes

"We are the computers friends. And friends clean each others stuff." Hygiene Officer Peter-R-WQR-1

"Greetings, citizen! We have no plans to eat you, no matter how tasty you might look." Loyalty Officer Mel-R-BOK-1

"Ah! There's blood everyone, just like in Beta Complex. I'll clean it!" Peter-R-WQR-1

"On a scale of 1 to 10, how clean is the dead body?" Peter-R-WQR-1

"I ate a grenade!" Mel-R-BOK-1

(From the game of Paranoia I was in about a week and a half ago. I was waiting to see if the other players had any more quotes, because this list is woefully incomplete.)

Quotes VII

"So the end of all life on the planet, and indeed the planet itself, could still happen anytime between now and next Tuesday." RPGpundit

"He's not ugly. I just hate his face." Emily

"I used to kill Hitler, then go back and stop myself. That was a pretty neat couple of Saturday nights." Deep Time . . . agent . . . guy (Does Starslip Crisis not have a character bible? Or did I just miss it?)

"At the top of the United States today sits a meritocracy, an elite who believe that their intellectual achievement earned them their high status. Meritocrats think of themselves as progressive and antiracist, but they are certified into the elite by the SAT, an IQ-like test on which whites and Asians consistently outscore blacks and Hispanics." Caleb Crain

"It's like, do they not have butter in space?" Gabe

"Mad with power. Post later." Dr. Cataclysm

"Smugglers aren't real. They're just manifestations of my fear of the sea. Combined with my fear of theft, secret caves, men with scars, and rum." http://www.scarygoround.com/?date=20080723

"You can trust me. I'm an English major." Oddysey

"Look, I'm not suggesting by any means that my readers should go kill George Lucas. And certainly not by using the swift, undetectable poison known as curare!" John Seavey

"Shush. There's nothing overcomplicated about Linux at all." Qem

"I can accept shallowness in my news media, but not in my comic books." Scipio

"What kinda gonzo-fantasy universe are you livin' in? In mine, a cut that lays your chainmail open and draws a line of gushing crimson across your chest is just an excuse to tear your shirt off." TonyLB

“Our party and our country are better off because of her, and I am a better candidate for having had the honor to compete with Hillary Rodham Clinton.” Barack Obama

"It is the opinion of myself and this website that the person responsible for this effect should go to jail, or gaol, or whatever the British call the place where you store your evil men." Tycho Brahe

"It's rare that you're simply presented with a knob whose only two positions are "Make History" and "Flee Your Glorious Destiny." Tycho Brahe

"Pirates: Is there anything they can't teach us?" Freakonomics

Quotes VI

"I'm starting to envisage a massive egg-thief campaign here, progressing from birds of prey, to griffins and hypogriffs, to dragons, but don't think I'd ever be able to justify it." noisms

"We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." Major Mike Shearer, UK military spokesman

"We're not shooting for authenticity here, but awesome-osity." Jeff Rients

"Being the biggest name in fantasy gaming since 1974, D&D has always attracted more than its share of players who didn't really like it in the first place and wanted to 'fix' it in ways that shredded its very soul." James Maliszewski

"I don't eat. I don't need to eat. When I do eat, I eat rocket fuel." "Bill"

"I eat rope. By the transitive property I could eat a guy named Rope." Mike Gravel

"Whoa, hold on! Are you saying that, should Obama be elected, all the white people won't be put on ships and deported to Africa?" Michael Clear

"Eating snakes is just as bad as being gay." Artemis

"Beowulf makes so much more sense in a tree." Amanda

"He kept throwing up. Until I killed him." Qwerty

"Develop AI, Orbital Mind Control, Google Football League, Buy New Zealand, Build Singularity, Crop Circles, Elimination of Evil." Google's Corporate Goals

"Note that this method works in any game that is awesome." Jeff Rients

"Being born is like being kidnapped. And then sold into slavery." William Shakespeare

"Facing the terrible trio is like some bizarre surrealist dream, where you're in battle against a law firm composed entirely of Egyptian gods and former high school mascots." Scipio

"Bah! Three little boys can't defeat the President! Riding a robot spider!" Franklin D. Roosevelt

"Not releasing Thundarr on DVD is an ongoing crime against awesome." Jeff Rients

"If religion is the opiate of the people, is UU the methadone of the people?" BlackBoc

"If they did three or four more National Treasure movies, getting more and more ridiculous, and then had a movie where Nicolas Cage was running around swearing that the Egyptian Pyramids were put up by Abraham Lincoln as a clue to where Mark Twain hid Franklin Pierce's fabulous treasures, and everyone in the movie called him crazy, and then he was wrong? That would be amazing." Montykins

"....right or wrong? I so want to see that movie now.

Just to see the pyramids start rotating when they push the right sequence of stones just after the put the giant counterweight on the Sphinx to make up for the missing nose that opens the Masonic cache that leads down into the Nile Chamber where the ancient dumbwaiter lowers them into Harriet Tubman's Underground Railroad to Riches." Eric Burns

Quotes V

"In the real world, superhero registration would be at least mandatory. However, let's be completely honest--not even the Ultimate universe goes far enough with how superheroes would be treated. These people would be dehumanized and used as weapons, period." Eric Teall

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled." Richard Feynman

"Orc is a recessive gene." Bamdy

"That means you're qualified to reach inside men's pants." Bamdy

"I'm illegitimate -- uh, illiterate." Tim

"Do they make saddles for cows?" Quantumelfmage

"I think we're just big dumb crazy squirrels that like to collect stuff." Paul Saffo

"Libertarianism is anarchy for rich people." Pete Sears

"A good story is like a garden carried in the pocket." African proverb

"Oh Martin, why'd you have to go and explode?" Artemis

"Next time a dorky guy hits on you at the bars, just look him over cursorily and say, "My analysis indicates that you are Genetotype 27R, Subset 79W, which unfortunately falls well outside my acceptable parameters." Not only does this let him down firmly but gently, it makes him feel better because he realizes you're much dorkier than he is." Scipio

"How many other people do you know who have a dollar bill signed by Dweezil Zappa?" Will Thornton

"Reminds me of an argument I got into with a pro-forced pregnancy dude who went on about the unique genetic identity of an embryo, and how that unique combination will never occur again and blah blah blah fetus magic." Vanessa

"I don't want to be dead. I want to be alive. Or a cowboy." Caboose

"Back off, man. I'm a scientist." Dr. Peter Venkman.

"You can lay back and enjoy the wall." Dustin

"It is okay to want to touch it, Superman. That is the natural response to a hat so sexy." Batman

"Ha, loser. A true tactician doesn't know WHAT the hell he's doing until he's halfway done with it." - Quint

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a completely ad-hoc plot device" - David Langford

"No movie shall triumph over Snakes on a Plane. Unless I happen to feel like making a movie called More Motherfucking Snakes on More Motherfucking Planes." Samuel L. Jackson

"You can't be both pro-life and anti-zombie." anonymous?

"The Fire King was intensely loyal to his friends. Growing up as basically an outcast wherever he went, he was not about to throw away friendships over something as minor as world domination." Rich Burlew

"Wild animals don't wear pants." David Landy

"You don't have relationships. I have relationships. You have 'hide in your room and swear at people.'" Qwerty

"Do you know how many times Elvis has come back from the dead? More than three, okay?" quantumelfmage

"To me, D&D is not about trying to recreate 12th century England. It's Conan meets Aragorn and Boba Fett to go kick Kulan Gath's boney behind." Hussar on EN World

"Maybe 'hooten blag' was just his accent." Oddysey

Who Does She Think She Is?

I think some of the Hillary-hatred arises simply because she's a woman -- and because that vulgar word, the one that rhymes with rich, is always available to describe a woman who gets a little too powerful, or acts like too much of a smarty-pants, or exudes a bit too much authority. That word isn't just a put-down, it's also a pointed question: Just who the hell does she think she is?

Stuff I Found in Drafts

There are no stupid questions. Only questions that tend not to edification.

"Snakes are basically the funniest animals ever. Except maybe weasels. But weasels are basically just snakes with fur."

"I'd say he's about a 4.5, on a scale of 1 to Hitler."

Realism is over-rated.

Today, I wondered if I could kill myself with Metamucil.

Kung Pao Squid

Whack-a-Mole is a universal principle.

Quotes IV

"My wizards are always taking off their clothes so they can cast spells." quantumelfmage

"Who equips their service cherubs with laser-beam eyes?" qwertyuiopasd

"The Presidency ought to be held at a higher level than having to answer questions from a snowman." Mitt Romney

"I'm willing to bet that the phrase "a really strange D&D campaign" conjures up a much more vivid image for most of my readers than "a really strange toaster." You know what to expect from the typical D&D game." Mike Mearls

“It’s hard to choose favorites among the lords of hell. Mephistopheles I think has the coolest name.” James Wyatt

"The effectiveness of schools isn't evaluated by kids (who are usually well aware of how poorly the system works), but by teachers and parents, who've bought into the system." Mark Rosenfelder

"Turns out that even if you’re a snake, and even if you’re on fire, adventurers will still kill you." Logan Bonner

"I game mostly because I never get to kill apemen in real life; I hate apemen and I was born to kill them. Therefore, gaming allows me to fufill my destiny." Aos on theRPGsite

"Any time a French word comes into play in an English-language discussion, you can be sure there are some class dynamics." Douglas Wolk

"The great thing about space cowboys is that they imply space cows." qwertyuiopasd

"Elves would make good cowboys. Especially in space." qwertyuiopasd

"We'll be starting the campaign in media res, which is Latin for 'Look out! TIE Fighters are zapping your ship!'" Jeff Rients

"If you can't knock buildings down, then it's not a real game." Godzilla

"Lunch: Something called a 'sombrero salad,' but it contained no actual hat." Jane Espenson

"This is not fanfic; it's focus [is] on using the characters to tell stories, not telling stories about the characters." Scipio

"Give me that chair! I'm a hundred and seven!" Aunt Muriel

"Is there a plan or do we just shoot things at random?" Deadshot

"There's nothing ironic about Hitler." Jon

"Quiet, you fool! That's how the Great Guam Fracas of '97 began." Mark Rogaski

"I match all donations -- so if you like my writing donate; if you HATE me, then donate MORE, and bankrupt me with your hate!" John Rogers

"Extinction, irrevocable loss of a species, causes pain that can never find relief. It is an ache that will pass from generation to generation for the rest of human history." Callum Roberts

"Hostility towards Microsoft is not difficult to find on the Net, and it blends two strains: resentful people who feel Microsoft is too powerful, and disdainful people who think it's tacky. This is all strongly reminiscent of the heyday of Communism and Socialism, when the bourgeoisie were hated from both ends: by the proles, because they had all the money, and by the intelligentsia, because of their tendency to spend it on lawn ornaments." Neal Stephenson

"There are no rules." Alberto Gonzales

"Treat people like idiots and they'll act accordingly; give them real power and they'll adjust to it." Mark Rosenfelder

Quotes III

"I don't want to attain immortality through my works. I want to get it by not dying." Woody Allen

"Incompetence is not a defense." Designated Sidekick

"The less I know about Japan, the better of a person I am." David

"Here, eat cake. It solves problems." David

"Nothing bad can happen to you on the internet. There is an internet in the way." quantumelfmage

"A blurdy blurdy blur!" Captain Blank

"If I were a Death Eater, I would have been sure to research my own jam preferences before impersonating myself." Albus Dumbledore

"The pope does not have power over time." Captain Blank

"Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain!" Arthur Weasley

"Free at last! You're all dead, but we are free at last!" Richard

"You can't pull an echidna backwards through a cardigan." Tanya Cochran

"The threatened houses are now out of the woods. The woods themselves, however, are still largely on fire." Los Angeles Reporter

"We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses." Carl Jung

"Edge will retain, probably by escaping the cage rather than by decisively defeating his opponent." Paul O'Brien

"If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge an evil mutant." Paul O'Brien

"Pudding is the only substance that is transdimensional by nature." Evil Jon

“Turning people inside out and sideways is wrong, and I can stop whenever I want to.” Dr. Bonefish

"Everyone knows God is larger than normal people, so he needs larger cookies." quantumelfmage

"Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced." Barry Gehm

"Time magazine won't put headless corpses on the cover! It doesn't play well with their target demographic of people with heads!" Desmond Fish-Man

"When the Phantom Stranger is at your wedding it means one of two things: either you are really really cool or your marriage is not going to turn out well." Scipio

"On second thought, let's not go to Guam." quantumelfmage

"And by halflings, you mean horrible subtraction errors." Oddysey

"Unfinished jokes and lies are probably an acquired taste, humor-wise." Tycho

"As long as we live in a culture where the good guys sometimes sound just like the misogynists, the misogynists are never going to get the message that they are not normal and that most people–strong, successful men included–do not hate women." Kate Harding

"NOBODY HERE IS TRYING TO SELL CRACK TO YOUR FUCKING CHILDREN, KEVIN." Josh Olson

"Begone, demon, or be plagued with high interest rates!" Lars Sturtz

"More games should feature bears attempting to maul the good guys." Jeff Rients

"You want the demon alive and uncancelled." Ray Chason

"Can't sleep. Future will eat me." Kestrel

"Writers write. Bees bee. Bears bear. It’s pretty simple." Kevin Arbouet

"No officer, it was failure to yield to bears." quantumelfmage

"You've definitely got to swoon like a man." Michael Oliver

Quotes II

"If I was in a gang, I'd totally run away from Wishbone, because I'd be all like 'Oh shit! It's Wishbone!'" -- David

"They sell themselves for money on the street. To inanimate objects." -- David

"I knew that someday Flava Flav would influence trends in European high-fashion." -- Dr. Thorpe

"You have failed to protect the Queen. Turn in your big tall hat immediately and report to the runway." -- Dr. Thorpe

"Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad with power." -- Charles Beard

“Wake up! We need to leave before the black market closes.” – Captain Blank

"No one ever shanked Jesus." -- Qwerty

"Anything genocide-related, I want to save as a last resort." Secretary of Defense Robert Stark

"I got a crush for the freaky one, and nothing feels better than Machinegun GoGo." -- Panzer AG

"Things are more like they are now than they have ever been before." -- Dwight Eisenhower

"A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week." -- General George S. Patton

"Cheerios are full of mystery!" -- Kevin Read (?)

"I think it's a helpful thing for the development of the character of a young person to be different from their peers. It's a blessing to be different and stand up for that." -- Mitt Romney

"Oddysey, Marill breeding is not a valid hobby." -- Rae

"Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a best-seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher." -- Flannery O'Connor

"There's no excuse to be bored. Sad, yes. Angry, yes. Depressed, yes. Crazy, yes. But there is no excuse for boredom, ever." -- Viggo Mortensen

"I realize I am generalizing here, but, as is often the case when I generalize, I don't care." -- Dave Barry

"It's kind of like porn, Keith. It's Star Trek." -- Margaret S.

"Saving world. Please don't turn off your computer." -- Fable

"It's like trip spec'ing, except with the Force." -- Rae

"If you are of the opinion that the contemplation of suicide is sufficient evidence of a poetic nature, do not forget that actions speak louder than words."
-- Fran Lebowitz

"What was his name? Banjo or something? Played the drums for the Beatles." -- Qwerty

"It is my opinion that if you put a hat on a bear, you deserve whatever comes next." -- Gabe

"You know, there's a fine line between excessive sarcasm and permanent bitterness." -- Phillip

"This is America, which makes you the Prince of absolutely fucking nobody." -- Paul

"Oh, sure. We're safe from Lite Brites. But what'll happen when the Lego people of Connectitron-5 attack?" -- Mike Dowden

"Think of alignment as crusty ol' grandpa in his rocker. Old, wants to help you, and not always very lucid." -- Rick_TWA

"If I had a reason for everything I did, I'd be crazy." -- Fighter

"That quiet chomping noise you're hearing is the noise that my backbrain makes while it's eating my forebrain." -- Darren MacLennan

Quotes

"The meaning of life is 'bucket'" -- Richard

"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary." - James D. Nicoll

"I'm coming up there to get you! I'm walking up the steps now!" -- Batman, Ninja Master of Surprise

"Without my power ring, I'm superpowerless--except from the waist down!" -- Green Lantern, Hal Jordan

"So I built a third scientist! That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp!" -- John Seavey

"Lawyers make me think of the 70s." -- Qwerty

"Fear! The crack that might flood your brain with light!" -- Guildenstern

"Step away from the lobster trap." -- Batman

"The time to stop talking is when the other person nods his head affirmatively but says nothing." -- Henry H. Haskins

"Those of us make stuff up for a living face a wide variety of possible ways to make ourselves crazy." -- Robin D. Laws

"I heard a rumor that you're an idiot. Any truth to that?" -- Owyn

"The dumber people think you are, the more surprised they are going to be when you kill them." -- William Clayton

"Reality is a pie of which I do not require another slice." -- Shelley Winters

"It's an empty journey to triumph if you don't plant the seeds of catastrophe along the way." -- Tim Jones

"The safest way to approach lava is to have another person with you and he goes first." -- Volcano photographer Villi Knudsen

"Laughter is the best medicine. Next to sex, of course. And medicine." -- Vice Pope Doug

"True freedom is found by looking inside mountains filled with lava." -- Riff

"All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit it. I myself deny it." -- H. L. Mencken

"I wish I could find out who was responsible for the 'orcs look like orangutans, half-orcs look like Kramer' artistic decision." -- pawsplay, on RPGnet

"It takes a village to raise a child, but it takes a Viking to raze a village." -- Jeff Meija, a.k.a. "the Evil DM"

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." -- Lazarus Long

"It's all good clean fun until someone gets their sword polished with poison." -- Captain Blank

"How many boards could the Mongols hoard if the Mongol horde got bored?" -- Calvin

"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo."

"Dhaaaaa!" -- Dimo
“You cut his arm off!” – Lars
“Um . . . dis vos de right von, yah?” Ognian
“It’s melting!” – Lars
“Yop. Dot vas it.” – Ognian