Most Obscure Reference You've Ever Worked Into a Game

[Weldun]

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']Now you've got me wanting to write up a rip-o...err, homage to the Bushwackers. The question would be, would Butch be Luke's follower, or the other way around?

[Basil]

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

 

I once played in a Deendee game where the whole setting and all the things we ran into were based on operas. Damned obscure to me at least.

[Lucius]

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.

 

Now that I've looked up the lyrics, I want to know the story behind it....

 

But it reminds Me that I've used Cat Stevens lyrics for inspiration - even to having them written on the walls of a tomb...

 

"The inscription reads:

 

'Dark and empty was the place to which I'd come

Cold and silent was the house my name was on

Nine rooms, and a tomb in every one

So dark and empty was the place to which I'd come.'

 

There is more, but it has been defaced, scratched out as if by something with claws....the paladin can make a roll on his KS: Own Religion now..."

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Opening up the palindromedary's saddle bags to go through the CD collection

[Pariah]

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

 

Now that I've looked up the lyrics' date=' I want to know the story behind it....[/quote']

Lord Mhoram played in that adventure. I'll let him give you the details. If he doesn't do so in the next couple of days, let me know and I'll post it.

[ScrewySquirrel]

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

 

I ran a dark ages campaign in D&D D20 where the PC Cleric converted a band of Orcs to Christianity. Turns out it was the villiage of Haps. (the converted Orcs became the Hapsburgs)

[Zane_Marlowe]

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

 

I ran a victorian game where the characters were recruited by Jack Sparks, who was the inspiration for Sherlock Holmes in Mark Frost's book "The List of Seven." In my game, it was Holmes' alter ego during the hiatus between his "death" at Reichenbach Falls and his later return. When I described him, I used the physical description Conan Doyle supplied in Holmes' introduction. Their base of operations was a freighter named "Reichenbach." None of the PC's had read Frost, but none of them got the Reichenbach reference either.

 

Later in that game, I shamelessly cribbed from Anna Kostova's book "The Historian" for historical places related to Dracula. I also got the floorplan to Bran Castle, and printed location maps from Google Earth for Istanbul, Alexandria (of Lighthouse fame), and the monastery where Dracula was ruputedly interred. (Of course, by that time the players had good reason to suspect the Count was long gone.)

[wrestlinggeek]

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

 

Now you've got me wanting to write up a rip-o...err' date=' homage to the Bushwackers. The question would be, would Butch be Luke's follower, or the other way around?[/quote']

 

Personally, I would make them both followers of a more powerful villain. Mercenaries in his employ. And, of course, their most devastating attack would be the head-battering ram.

[Blackwulf]

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

 

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Repair: I gave one of my players in game this book after the eighth time he tried to take his motorcycle into combat and wound up having it wrapped around his PC. No one in the group but one player who actually owned a copy knew what it was.

 

Doc Savage: 'nuff said.

[AmadanNaBriona]

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

 

I've had a few others come to mind...

 

My VtM character, an 8th gen 17th century pirate Brujah, had a recurring "uncle" show up, mostly in helpful fashions (I guess he approved of my tactics) by the name of Jack Straw

although, honestly such things are pretty stock in trade in the immortals genre.

 

one of the NPC tank commanders in my SH characters mercenary company had the callsign "Laser Wolf", a nod to his background as a religious dissident from the Eastern Alliance (A Fiddler on the Roof nod, for those that didn't get it)

 

One of the characters in the same campaign was named Sawyer Mot.

My commander was Caspian D'Artagnan.

Both names were deliberate references, a double in my case

 

I recall a Stormbringer game that was largely based on some of Carlos Castaneda's writings

 

And I did a SH solo game that was essentially "Die Hard on an Asteroid", at a mining station. He never did pick up on where I was borrowing the plot from.

[mattingly]

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

 

Die Hard on an Asteroid

That sounds awesome.

[CrosshairCollie]

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

 

That sounds awesome.

 

Certainly better than Die Hard On A Hemmorhoid.

[lemming]

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

 

Certainly better than Die Hard On A Hemmorhoid.

 

Poor Elvis.

[Weldun]

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

 

Fairly recently, I did have several characters in my City on the Edge campaign enter astral space and have a talk with an Sorcerer who had followed his friend into a "heavenly realm" only to wander back into the timelessness of the astral. Yes, Alan Moore used him first, but I read the book in question between the two sessions that involved him. I had already decided to include him, and Moore's take is just to superb to pass up. With my own little twist, of course.

[Zeropoint]

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

 

In a fantasy Hero game, I threw in an NPC fire mage named Carla Gustav.

[ParagonAlpha]

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

 

Weird thing is I played in a VtM Live Action game at Eastern Michigan University with a guy who played this character.

 

Not sure if he's the one of "myth" but it was damn funny.

 

 

I also played in a Star Wars (WEG) Campaign were all the "Chapter" titles were the names of episodes from Babylon 5.

[GamePhil]

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

 

For a silly game, I had Frank Castle, the Punisher, involved. At one point he got hit by a skateboarder, who didn't apologize but just picked up and ran away. He looked after him and said, "Youngsters these days." Later, there was a group of respectable looking kids at the local high school (New Atlantis High) going around trying to get people interested in psychology, cornering them in hallways and doing dream analysese, and generally making, well, not exactly trouble.

 

Same game, Doctor Crom (our Dr. Doom character that was an Old School Villain, and would beat you down if you did not follow comic book tropes) gained the power of the Punisher (he's Doctor Doom, he has to steal powers) and formed a team, Pun-is-meant. Yes, so it was Crom and Pun-is-meant.

 

Within this group were Outrageous Fortune, a lucky Joker-type that somehow could use a sling and a bow at the same time. Foe Paw, a clumsy but powerful creature with a stomp attack. Low Humor, who was dour and lacked a sense of humor and could drain the vital energies from his foes.

 

Then there was the pair, Raz and Nik. Nik was a shape-changing monster that would do everything Raz said, but tended to go wild in combat. Raz primarily had an acerbic wit and would deliver biting insults to foes, insults that could criple them if they received enough (she actually had a totally Invisible Transform, at the +2 level, that turned people into depressed husks of their former selves, but it never actually came up). Near the end of battles, it was not uncommon for Doctor Crom to give the order, "Raz, call Nik off."

 

People got everything else. Nobody got that one.

[GamePhil]

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

 

Isn't that one of the myths about vampires, though? Is that obscure among gamers (I think it likely to be in the general populace)? I only ask because I expect I'm missing a more obscure reference.

[Susano]

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

 

Isn't that one of the myths about vampires' date=' though? Is that obscure among gamers (I think it likely to be in the general populace)? I only ask because I expect I'm missing a more obscure reference.[/quote']

 

Yes, many vampire myths feature obsessive counting. However, most of the times it's seeds, nails, or pebbles. And I doubt they go around saying "1... 2... 3... peanut butter sandwiches!" *cue flash of light and crash of thunder*

[GamePhil]

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

 

Ah, duh, I figured I was missing something there. Thanks.

[matrix3]

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

 

Then there was the pair, Raz and Nik. Nik was a shape-changing monster that would do everything Raz said, but tended to go wild in combat. Raz primarily had an acerbic wit and would deliver biting insults to foes, insults that could criple them if they received enough (she actually had a totally Invisible Transform, at the +2 level, that turned people into depressed husks of their former selves, but it never actually came up). Near the end of battles, it was not uncommon for Doctor Crom to give the order, "Raz, call Nik off."

 

People got everything else. Nobody got that one.

 

Um, I don't get that one.

[GamePhil]

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

 

Um' date=' I don't get that one.[/quote']

 

Yeah, no one ever does. *sigh* I was really proud of that one, too.

 

PMed you.

[CrosshairCollie]

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

 

Isn't that one of the myths about vampires' date=' though? Is that obscure among gamers (I think it likely to be in the general populace)? I only ask because I expect I'm missing a more obscure reference.[/quote']

 

I assumed it was a pure Sesame Street joke, myself.

[Susano]

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

 

Yeah, no one ever does. *sigh* I was really proud of that one, too.

 

PMed you.

 

It sounds like a Russian name... that's all I get.

[GamePhil]

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

 

It sounds like a Russian name... that's all I get.

 

Good start, that's more than most.

 

If I stump everyone, do I win? What do I get? Not that I expect such a thing.

[CrosshairCollie]

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

 

Good start, that's more than most.

 

If I stump everyone, do I win? What do I get? Not that I expect such a thing.

 

Knowing this board? A small repstorm.