jkwleisemann Posted January 8, 2008 Report Share Posted January 8, 2008 Re: Most Oscure Reference You've Ever Worked Into a Game I worked in the stone head signposts from Ursula Vernon's "Digger" recently... before the players figured out to follow the waggling tongues, I had to give out serious Deduction and Intelligence rolls. ^^() Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MilkmanDan Posted January 8, 2008 Report Share Posted January 8, 2008 Re: Most Oscure Reference You've Ever Worked Into a Game I once ran a Shadowrun game where the main villain was named Sylvia. As in the poet, Sylvia Plath. I named NPCs after a bunch of her poems (Ariel, Lazarus, Colossus, others). I was in grad school, getting an M.A in English. Nobody else was an English major, and, subsequently, not a single one of them caught a single reference to it. Which made the whole idea a complete waste of time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darren Watts Posted January 8, 2008 Report Share Posted January 8, 2008 Re: Most Oscure Reference You've Ever Worked Into a Game I read somewhere of a Vampire: The Masquerade player who designed a PC with the Negative Mental Trait: Obsessively Counts Everything Around Him and went several sessions before anybody noticed the reference. dw Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Susano Posted January 8, 2008 Report Share Posted January 8, 2008 Re: Most Oscure Reference You've Ever Worked Into a Game I read somewhere of a Vampire: The Masquerade player who designed a PC with the Negative Mental Trait: Obsessively Counts Everything Around Him and went several sessions before anybody noticed the reference. dw :D:D Funny thing... you can back that up with folklore! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
st barbara Posted January 8, 2008 Report Share Posted January 8, 2008 Re: Most Oscure Reference You've Ever Worked Into a Game One of the NPC's in my "Pulp Hero" game got her Librarians Degree at "U Tex Brownsville", supposedly one of the most haunted campuses in the U S. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MilkmanDan Posted January 8, 2008 Report Share Posted January 8, 2008 Re: Most Oscure Reference You've Ever Worked Into a Game I read somewhere of a Vampire: The Masquerade player who designed a PC with the Negative Mental Trait: Obsessively Counts Everything Around Him and went several sessions before anybody noticed the reference. dw "One! One clueless gamer! Ha ha ha ha! Two! Two clueless gamers . . ." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jkeown Posted January 8, 2008 Report Share Posted January 8, 2008 Re: Most Oscure Reference You've Ever Worked Into a Game The personal correspondence between Jung and Freud and how it was connected to a Nazi plot to steal atomic weapons from the future. The Greek invention showed up as a colony administrator in another time travel game (and again in Gamma Hero) as "Archimedes Screw." Bits of Richard Feynman's Autobiography. Whole chapters of Ancestor's Tale by Richard Dawkins. Things Adam Sessler has said on X-Play. I could go on... but I won't. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wrestlinggeek Posted January 9, 2008 Report Share Posted January 9, 2008 Re: Most Oscure Reference You've Ever Worked Into a Game Being the biggest (if not only) wrestling fan in my group, I like to steal (er... I mean "borrow!") from that. I based one supervillain entirely on the MoD-Era Undertaker. I used the Rock's put-downs with a couple characters in different genres ("You guys come into our town and think you can terrorize the people!? Who the Hell do you think you are!?" GM starts to answer... "IT DOESN'T MATTER WHO THE HELL YOU THINK YOU ARE!"). And I even based an eccentric billionaire villain on Vince McMahon. If I ever get to play again, I want to run a brick/martial artist based on Samoa Joe. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JmOz Posted January 9, 2008 Report Share Posted January 9, 2008 Re: Most Oscure Reference You've Ever Worked Into a Game Being the biggest (if not only) wrestling fan in my group' date=' I like to steal (er... I mean "borrow!") from that. I based one supervillain entirely on the MoD-Era Undertaker. I used the Rock's put-downs with a couple characters in different genres ("You guys come into our town and think you can terrorize the people!? Who the Hell do you think you are!?" GM starts to answer... "IT DOESN'T MATTER WHO THE HELL YOU THINK YOU ARE!"). And I even based an eccentric billionaire villain on Vince McMahon. If I ever get to play again, I want to run a brick/martial artist based on Samoa Joe.[/quote'] This very week, when my Mississippi burning crew were stuck in a mall full of demon controled patrons stuck on Greedy, the toy of the year was "Turbo-Man"...no body got it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kenn Posted January 10, 2008 Report Share Posted January 10, 2008 Re: Most Oscure Reference You've Ever Worked Into a Game From a Star Trek game I was in... Ensign Aeth Nik, one of the large breasted relief helmsen that come in when the important (PC) helmsman gets called away. (Named for what some fans refer to as Ensign Ethnic when in fact she's buxom.) Ensign Bak Xiam, a relief ops officer of Asian descent that come in when the important (PC) helmsman gets called away. (Named for what some fans refer to as Ensign Buxom when in fact he's ethnic.) Ensign Reg Hurt, a security guard. But my favourite was Norallah Tam, an unjoined Trill. She almost had gotten a symbiote named Nek though. And this went unnoticed in the group for months. What was this in reference to? I used my brother's name backwards (and my own for the sybiote's name). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Comic Posted January 10, 2008 Report Share Posted January 10, 2008 Re: Most Oscure Reference You've Ever Worked Into a Game For true obscurity, I've used gaming references in everyday life. There's not much more obscure. Well, that's not entirely true. Sometimes I use excerpts from the speeches of politicians in the prior election, when I'm talking to them during the current campaign. The complete blank look of "Never heard of that before, doesn't sound too credible, which of my opponents promised that?" that I usually get.. now, that's obscure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matrix3 Posted January 10, 2008 Report Share Posted January 10, 2008 Re: Most Oscure Reference You've Ever Worked Into a Game Well, that's not entirely true. Sometimes I use excerpts from the speeches of politicians in the prior election, when I'm talking to them during the current campaign. The complete blank look of "Never heard of that before, doesn't sound too credible, which of my opponents promised that?" that I usually get.. now, that's obscure. Ooo, that's genius. Who've you pulled that on? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Comic Posted January 11, 2008 Report Share Posted January 11, 2008 Re: Most Oscure Reference You've Ever Worked Into a Game Ooo' date=' that's genius. Who've you pulled that on?[/quote'] In the tone of this thread, keeping in mind where I've lived, Canadian politicians.. Some of whom were actually quite nice people. But obscure. Being, you know, Canadian. Where you can't get elected if you're too famous, too good-looking, or too rich. Because then there'd have to be something wrong with you, or you'd have moved to California. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
T. K. Bertram Posted January 11, 2008 Report Share Posted January 11, 2008 Re: Most Oscure Reference You've Ever Worked Into a Game I did once play in a Call of Cthulhu game where the GM managed to work in the Antikythera mechanism as a McGuffin. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AmadanNaBriona Posted January 11, 2008 Report Share Posted January 11, 2008 Re: Most Oscure Reference You've Ever Worked Into a Game Not my doing, but I remember playing a Morrow Project game where we ended up encountering other 20th century apocalypse survivors who'd apparently been saved by a mute boy named Artemis.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lemming Posted January 11, 2008 Report Share Posted January 11, 2008 Re: Most Oscure Reference You've Ever Worked Into a Game Not my doing' date=' but I remember playing a Morrow Project game where we ended up encountering other 20th century apocalypse survivors who'd apparently been saved by a mute boy named Artemis....[/quote'] I thought of doing that with a dimension hopping champions game. "You drank the water? There is nothing we can do." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Susano Posted January 11, 2008 Report Share Posted January 11, 2008 Re: Most Obscure Reference You've Ever Worked Into a Game Hmm... I'm missing these references. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lemming Posted January 11, 2008 Report Share Posted January 11, 2008 Re: Most Obscure Reference You've Ever Worked Into a Game Planet P Project - Pink World If I recall your musical tastes correctly, you might like it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
"V" Posted January 12, 2008 Report Share Posted January 12, 2008 Re: Most Obscure Reference You've Ever Worked Into a Game At the climax of an old Amber campaign, during a major battle between the forces of good versu... who am I kidding, Amber versus Amber, the player characters had one huge advantage. Benedict (ultimate unstoppable warrior) was one NPC who was definitely on their side. Naturally as evil GM I had to even the odds and leave the PCs to win the day, so I had the lead NPC sorceror on the other side, just before battle was joined, create an illusion of a feisty woman standing just in Benedict's peripheral vision and berating him in no uncertain terms. He was actually distracted - something unthinkable - just as the sorceror's follow up attack spell struck him - and took him straight out of the fight, him collapsing with the word "Beatrice-" on his lips. Now none of my players knew much Shakespeare and certainly didn't know that one of the great romances (IMHO) was between Beatrice and Benedick (ok so Shaxberd couldn't spell...) who was at the time just a young soldier... But it satisfied my sense of the obscure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucius Posted January 12, 2008 Report Share Posted January 12, 2008 Re: Most Obscure Reference You've Ever Worked Into a Game Quetzlcoatl's secret ID was Ethan Matsudo. If you don't know who that is, don't worry about it. A LOT of these references are going over my head too. Sounds fascinating, sounds evocative, but I have no clue.... Lucius Alexander The palindromedary notes that what makes it really obscure is that the only thing Quetzalcoatl and the real Matsudo have in common are the name and being 3rd generation Japanese American. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BoneDaddy Posted January 12, 2008 Report Share Posted January 12, 2008 Re: Most Obscure Reference You've Ever Worked Into a Game I stink at naming characters, so most of my obscure references come in there. In a Star Hero adventure (campaign is too generous, sadly,) I had a character named Hanuman al-Sahhaf d'Estienne d'Orves, named after 1) a character in a David Zindell book, the Broken God, 2) Baghdad Bob, everybody's favorite pre-invasion baathist, and 3) the leader of the French Resistance in WWII. Obscure? Maybe. I guess. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Comic Posted January 13, 2008 Report Share Posted January 13, 2008 Re: Most Obscure Reference You've Ever Worked Into a Game I did have a GM who used the names of exotic dancers, and names from Letters to Playboy/Penthouse, etc. as the names of NPCs. Inappropriately. Clerics, small children, parents, scientists (well, scientists are fair game), VIPER agents.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pariah Posted January 13, 2008 Report Share Posted January 13, 2008 Re: Most Obscure Reference You've Ever Worked Into a Game I based a Champions adventure on the song 'Tomb 19' by Kansas. Once one of my players actually heard the song, he said, "Wow, you totally ripped that off!" And the government liaison in one of my games was named McCarthy. Not obscure, but it made the players wonder whether they could really trust him or not. Which is precisely why I did it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nekkidcarpenter Posted January 14, 2008 Report Share Posted January 14, 2008 Re: Most Obscure Reference You've Ever Worked Into a Game I used the original playtesters list from the front of the Champions book for npc's. No one figured it out till I ran out and started reusing them and accidentally used a previously important name as a throwaway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mirage Posted January 14, 2008 Report Share Posted January 14, 2008 Re: Most Obscure Reference You've Ever Worked Into a Game I ran my players through Megazone 23 once. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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