Most Obscure Reference You've Ever Worked Into a Game

[Mike W]

We've all done it. We went looking through our other "stuff" - Cds, books, comics, whatever, to try and find inspiration as either a player or GM. So what is the most obscure thing you've ever come up with.

 

As a GM, I'll plead to dredging up the Credit Card Soldiers from a Thor storyline. One storyline, lasted about 1-2 issues, and they were never heard from again. But they made for a good mystery for my players.

[Comic]

Re: Most Oscure Reference You've Ever Worked Into a Game

 

Possibly Reginald Scot's "Discoverie of Witchcraft", if by 'obscure' you're including only English language sources. 2 original copies survived the book burnings, so it's pretty rare. Used as a source for a witch-hunting organization and the hero who believed all witches were merely psychologically disturbed and in need of his protection.

 

Then again, I've also used Bertrand Russell's private correspondences, which was never published, so that's extremely obscure. Nice source for my mad science villains.

 

"The Handbook of Watch and Clock Repair" - more copies of the original print run of this, possibly the most perfectly written book of all time, survived, but it's sadly nearly unread. Great for gadgeteering references.

 

Wacousta -- the most unreadable book of all time -- so obscure, it's Canadian. Transposed the whole thing into the near future. Worked like a charm.

 

Beowulf.. in Old English, which at the time I could read with fair fluency. The players were not so fluent, and didn't much like every NPC only speaking the language.

 

The Heimskringla.. I can't actually read the thing, it's that obscure, at least to me. But at least only the NPCs who weren't saying anything crucial to the plot were given lines from it.

 

Oh, and there was the time I introduced the Anunga Runga into a campaign, with the PC's convinced it was either a Manual of Puissant Skill at Arms or a Libram of Gainful Conjuration.

 

Is that what you meant?

[Mike W]

Re: Most Oscure Reference You've Ever Worked Into a Game

 

Possibly Reginald Scot's "Discoverie of Witchcraft", if by 'obscure' you're including only English language sources. 2 original copies survived the book burnings, so it's pretty rare. Used as a source for a witch-hunting organization and the hero who believed all witches were merely psychologically disturbed and in need of his protection.

 

Then again, I've also used Bertrand Russell's private correspondences, which was never published, so that's extremely obscure. Nice source for my mad science villains.

 

"The Handbook of Watch and Clock Repair" - more copies of the original print run of this, possibly the most perfectly written book of all time, survived, but it's sadly nearly unread. Great for gadgeteering references.

 

Wacousta -- the most unreadable book of all time -- so obscure, it's Canadian. Transposed the whole thing into the near future. Worked like a charm.

 

Beowulf.. in Old English, which at the time I could read with fair fluency. The players were not so fluent, and didn't much like every NPC only speaking the language.

 

The Heimskringla.. I can't actually read the thing, it's that obscure, at least to me. But at least only the NPCs who weren't saying anything crucial to the plot were given lines from it.

 

Oh, and there was the time I introduced the Anunga Runga into a campaign, with the PC's convinced it was either a Manual of Puissant Skill at Arms or a Libram of Gainful Conjuration.

 

Is that what you meant?

 

Pretty much. Most gamers have enough exposure to traditional fantasy, sci fi, and comics that the obvious references are pretty easy to figure out(we know, for instance, when someone is doing a Wolverine type character or when someone seems to be standing in for Gandalf) but we also have less well known favorites that we make into PCs or NPCs and dredge up ideas out of the more obscure and esoteric bits of our experience just because we know that at least half the group will spot certain references.

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Most Oscure Reference You've Ever Worked Into a Game

 

I've worked in parts of The Descent of Inanna, and the staples such as The Iliad and the The Odyssey. Bits of Beowulf have shown up, but mainly, my inspiration will come from a single sentence, or a turn of phrase that for whatever reason catapults the rest of my imagination into doing new, weird things it hadn't done before.

[Superskrull]

Re: Most Oscure Reference You've Ever Worked Into a Game

 

I try to limit myself to primarily the superhero genre when making my weirdo references. Occasionally a movie or so might work it's way in.

 

Probably my most obscure superhero reference was from the movie Robot Ninja and I can't recommend avoiding this movie enough. Essentially, there's this comic book artist who freaks out after seeing a horrific act of gang violence and decides to have his buddy the amateur inventor build him a costume based on his character, the Robot Ninja. End result: artist wearing nightsight-granting mask and blades on each hand, whacked out of his brain on stolen painkillers and convinced he's become a butt-kicking cyborg before dying painfully killing gang members.

 

I take the seeds of this train wreck and drop it into my ongoing Champions game to see if I can teach a player to use restraint with his cosmic-empowered triggerhappy PC. I figure he'll realize how not really dangerous this guy is when he runs into him. Not one of my best ideas, as the PC freaks at the obvious "powerhouse" NPC and dumping his VPP into HA, kicks the blood clean out of this guy and leaves him spattered across the building across the street.

 

It went downhill from there as the character dumps his VPP into a transform intent on bringing the guy back to life.

 

Fine, I give up and turn him into a real buttkicker, earning the PC a new hunted. Obviously, not gonna work that way.

[Diamond Spear]

Re: Most Oscure Reference You've Ever Worked Into a Game

 

It wasn't me but a GM I was playing under in an Angel game put a copy of The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows in my character's Occult Library.

 

Rep for the first person who can tell me, WITHOUT USING THE WEB, what movie that book was in.

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Most Oscure Reference You've Ever Worked Into a Game

 

I'm guessing Labyrinth because that's what my instincts tell me -- but they could be totally wrong.

[Diamond Spear]

Re: Most Oscure Reference You've Ever Worked Into a Game

 

I'm guessing Labyrinth because that's what my instincts tell me -- but they could be totally wrong.

 

Sorry, not correct. Are you sure you’re not a Scarab maintenance technician?

[jtelson]

Re: Most Oscure Reference You've Ever Worked Into a Game

 

It wasn't me but a GM I was playing under in an Angel game put a copy of The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows in my character's Occult Library.

 

Rep for the first person who can tell me, WITHOUT USING THE WEB, what movie that book was in.

 

Is there a source other than the Depp picture? (The Ninth Gate) I can't remember the name of the book it was based on.

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Most Oscure Reference You've Ever Worked Into a Game

 

Sorry' date=' not correct. Are you sure you’re not a Scarab maintenance technician? [/quote']

 

*runs his thumb over the activation button on his Energy Blade*

 

Don't test me, son. I can still crack you in the back of the skull like a champ.

[Diamond Spear]

Re: Most Oscure Reference You've Ever Worked Into a Game

 

Is there a source other than the Depp picture? (The Ninth Gate) I can't remember the name of the book it was based on.

 

Is The Ninth Gate your answer?

[jtelson]

Re: Most Oscure Reference You've Ever Worked Into a Game

 

Not sure how obscure these are but two spring to mind

 

Homicide Detective; Inspector Hubbard

Parapalegic Villianess w/ Iced based armor; Mattie Silver

[jtelson]

Re: Most Oscure Reference You've Ever Worked Into a Game

 

Is The Ninth Gate your answer?

 

Yes

[Diamond Spear]

Re: Most Oscure Reference You've Ever Worked Into a Game

 

Yes

 

You have been repped.

[teh bunneh]

Re: Most Oscure Reference You've Ever Worked Into a Game

 

Supreme Serpent came up with the idea of using Big Wheel in our New Thunderbolts game. He's pretty dang obscure, if you ask me, since my Marvel-Trivia-Fu failed me on first mention.

[Supreme Serpent]

Re: Most Oscure Reference You've Ever Worked Into a Game

 

Supreme Serpent came up with the idea of using Big Wheel in our New Thunderbolts game. He's pretty dang obscure' date=' if you ask me, since my Marvel-Trivia-Fu failed me on first mention. [/quote']

 

I've always had a fondness for those types of contraptions, like the War Wheel from out of Blackhawk or the wacky things OMAC tended to run into. And Big Wheel vs. Stilt-Girl in an urban setting seemed to offer the opportunity for lots of fun and weird visuals.

[zaras]

Re: Most Oscure Reference You've Ever Worked Into a Game

 

So what is the most obscure thing you've ever come up with.

 

In D&D (put the stones down please):

 

Half-Giant Paladin called Maxwell, wielded a huge Silver Warhammer. Combats were intersperced with vocal sound effects 'Bang, Bang' everytime an evil-doer took a blow from it.

 

One of my GM's recently introduced a Wizard with a fairy familiar named 'Skreet'.

 

In Champs:

 

A team base came with a Butler called 'Jeeves'.

 

I plan to introduce an demonically inspired canine named Dog Sothoth the next chance i get

[proditor]

Re: Most Oscure Reference You've Ever Worked Into a Game

 

TORG game. The PCs are in Orrorsh, the land of all things pants-filling terrifying.

 

They're questioning a little boy who is picking his nose like he's trying to scratch his brain the whole time.

 

This goes on for like 5 minutes real time as I mime the boy's actions. As they wind down amid comments of "looking for gold" and "Scratch harder and it'll uncross your eyes", the little boy pulls out his finger, looks at it quizically for a moment and then extends it and its bounty toward the party.

 

"They mostly come out at night. Mostly."

 

Play resumed about 20 minutes later.

 

The reference wasn't all that obscure, but I'd argue that the setup qualified.

[zaras]

Re: Most Oscure Reference You've Ever Worked Into a Game

 

One more to add:

 

Talking Cats. Always a favorite to squeeze into any game.

[GoldenAge]

Re: Most Oscure Reference You've Ever Worked Into a Game

 

In a sci-fi game we had a ring of adventurers brought together by unusual circumstances...

 

I named their ship... The Fallow

 

Get it? The Fallow ship of the Ring

 

I almost got booed out of the room once the nimwits figured it out.

 

 

Sooo... Tying their space adventure to the fantasy adventure of the Fellowship Of The Ring was pretty obscure. No?

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Most Oscure Reference You've Ever Worked Into a Game

 

In D&D (put the stones down please):

 

Half-Giant Paladin called Maxwell, wielded a huge Silver Warhammer. Combats were intersperced with vocal sound effects 'Bang, Bang' everytime an evil-doer took a blow from it.

 

Maxwell Silverhammer was the name of the last Dwarf I played. I also slid in as many Beatles references in his dialogue as I could muster without going too anachronistic. For example, instead of saying 'regroup' he'd say 'Come Together' and the call for retreat was 'Get Back'.

 

As far as stuff I've actually stolen when running, I lifted the main villain from Power Rangers Wild Force and his general MO wholesale once; Master Org, who had the ability to infuse objects with hostile, corrupted demonic spirits and bring them to life as monsters.

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: Most Oscure Reference You've Ever Worked Into a Game

 

Mine isn't all that obscure, except apparently to me...

 

In one game, I created a supervillainess, Snafu, who threw glitter-filled balls and caused bad luck. One of the PC heroes (Hybrid) took a shining to her, eventually convinced her to mend her evil ways. She joined the hero team and fought at his side... then he started having bad luck. Eventually, he figured out that it was because of her, and they broke up.

 

It wasn't until months afterward that I realized that I had (unintentionally) copied Black Cat and her romance with Spiderman.

[T. K. Bertram]

Re: Most Oscure Reference You've Ever Worked Into a Game

 

Well, I did manage to work Steed and Mrs. Peel into a Vampire: The Masquerade campaign I ran in the mid-90s. However, I do stipulate that this only counts as an "obscure reference" because the majority of the players I had in the game (I was the unpaid house GM for a now defunct game shop at the time) hadn't even been conceived during the years when those characters had been on television. (And it was a couple of years before the truly godawful movie was released.)

[yamamura]

Re: Most Oscure Reference You've Ever Worked Into a Game

 

It wasn't me but a GM I was playing under in an Angel game put a copy of The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows in my character's Occult Library.

 

Rep for the first person who can tell me, WITHOUT USING THE WEB, what movie that book was in.

 

The Ninth Gate unless it has already been guessed. Of course it has been guessed.

[Susano]

Re: Most Oscure Reference You've Ever Worked Into a Game

 

I once sent the PCs on a cross-dimensional romp. Along the way they ended up in my Kazei 5 setting (sort of a test run). I alluded to (or they outright encountered) the MI-66 Automatic Infantry Robot, Kei & Yuri of the Dirty Pair, Grimjack, the Puma Sisters, Battle Angel (I think), and some characters from "Area 88".