History Fridge / TabletopGames

This is a personal moment for the viewer, so every example is signed by the contributor. If you start off with "ThisTroper", really, you have no excuse. We're going to hit you on the head.

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* When I first picked up ''{{Deadlands}}'', I started with "Hell on Earth" (The After-The-Bomb one.) and there were so many items that said "This will be answered in Lost Colony" (which wouldn't be published for another 3 years) that I actually wrote a complaint letter to the author about how it felt like the whole game was just a marketing ploy to sell this other game. Shortly thereafter, a friend gave me the original Weird West books, and upon reading them, I realized that the whole storyline is basically an incredibly detailed three-act play and I'd come in on the second act. Mysteries in Weird West were answered in Hell on Earth as well. Now I've got almost everything made for all three games and happily run them at any opportunity. -- {{Doctor X}}
* This Troper has a friend who complains that {{Warhammer 40K}}'s writers have screwed themselves over with the Tyranids. He says that this is because the Tyranids have been made out to be the biggest boogeymen of them all and so unstoppable that they cannot be stopped in universe. Then it hit me. THAT'S THE WHOLE DAMN POINT! The 40K universe is MEANT to be completely screwed. The only thing that prevents the Apocalypse from sticking is the fact that [[KillEmAll everybody is trying to wipe everyone else out!]] And [[ThirtyGambitPileup they keep getting in each other's way]]. Heck, the players are LateToTheParty for the apocalypse, because that's what the Horus Heresy was! Therefore, the Tyranids will be dealt with, but the Imperium (and everyone else) shall endure and everything will remain happily screwed. [[RuleOfCool Because that's the way we like it.]] -- {{Hariman}}
** This troper had a similar experience. My first view into the 40k 'verse was through Dawn of War, and since the Space Marines were portrayed as the protagonists, I always wondered why they seemed so utterly ignorant of everything around them. Then I learned some more about the universe. Silly me, thinking that there were good guys in this game. - Invertin
** Isn't it possible that he meant that with the Tyranids, the apocalypse will go through permanently this time, and that anything else is going to be bad writing? This is the impression I got. Yes the whole universe is completely screwed, but now the logical conclusion WILL come and end it, instead of somehow being delayed.
** And yet, some of the Eldar still seem to think there's a chance. The quotes that reveal this are usually presented in a manner so as to highlight how hopeless the situation is in the impossibility of what is required (hated enemies working together being the least of it), but the race that can see glimpses of the future ''can'' still see outcomes that aren't the destruction of the universe.
** Perhaps the Tyranids and Necrons will cancel each other out to an extent. Biological versus Mechanical, both with a certain 'unstoppable tide' feel, endless production against endless ressurection, Life VS Death...
*** I've seen another theory that adds Chaos in a kind of rock-paper-scissors. The Necrons are inorganic and deny sustenance to the Tyranids, and are unaffected by their psychic disruption. The Tyranids can disrupt Chaos- they don't feel the emotions that Chaos feeds on, just a raw psychic block of hunger. And the Necrons are vulnerable to Chaos, which is all about passion, life, survival and psychic powers that can ravage even the C'Tan. -SabreJustice.
** Speaking of 40k, having so many factions that are so different in themes, style and aesthetic, and often have tons of variety even within them, may make the setting seem inconsistent. But you may have noted that there's stereotypes about the players of each faction, as if different types of people were attracted to certain armies. Then I read (and added to) the page for MultipleDemographicAppeal, and it all makes sense. -SabreJustice again.
** The Tau turned from cavemen to having technology on par with the Imperium of man in 6,000 years, and they are still advancing. Every other race seems to be fixed technologically, never advancing. Give them another 1,000 years and they will likely have all the tech they could ever need to take out the Tyranids.
** Which is what the Eldar wanted, a race unaffected by the warp yet under their own "Control". A mallaeble race as without psykers. The Tau refuse to believe in Eldar is using them while the Eldar manipulates the Imperium to being expendable meat shields to take care of the Warp Abominations. Although back in finding Fridge Brilliance. During Soulstorm, apart from the terrible writing, there is a Fridge Brilliance in Carron's stupidity. The Warp Storm and his worship of Khorne have driven him even more insane and drunk with power. If the storm never have had happened, there would be less insane ramblings.
** In [[HorusHeresy ''Descent of Angels'']] the Lion sends a lot of his Marines away, apparently for no reason other than a sudden bout of paranoia. However, after reading ''Fallen Angels'' his decission is much more understandable: [[spoiler:Jonson relied on Luther to tell him who was trustworthy. With Luther proving that he could not be trusted, the Lion lost faith in all the others Luther might have recommended as trustworthy.]]
* The moment you realise that from an outsiders perspective, an Ork Waagh! and an Imperial Crusade are pretty much the same thing. On top of that 'unorky' and 'heresy' are the same basic concept.
* With [[HurricaneOfPuns so many puns]] in ''{{Munchkin}}'', it would be astonishing if there ''wasn't'' one you didn't get now and then. This troper's younger sister one day just spontaneously realised the pun in "Fire Arms". This troper's version involved picking up the "Lust Monster" card and then suddenly remembering the ''D&D'' "Rust Monster". -- CountDorku
** The Sushi Knife of Doom in Munchkin Cthulhu. At first you wonder why a sushi knife gets to be so doomy. Then you realize that nearly all sushi is composed of seafood, and that many of Lovecraft's monsters ''were'' reminiscent of sea creatures (he had a deep fear of the sea) and that in LovecraftLite and [[{{Flanderization}} Flanderized]] works (like, I don't know, ''Munchkin Cthulhu''), eldritch abominations are ''nearly always'' [[EverythingsSquishierWithCephalopods tentacle monsters]].
* In one of the comics in {{Exalted}} corebook, there's this exchange between Chejop Kejak(basically the most powerful Exalted there is right now) and someone known as Nara-o. It goes like this:
--> '''Kejak''': How did you find me?
--> '''Nara-o''': Your desire for secrecy revealed your destination in my records. I looked it up.
--> '''Kejak''': Of course, I knew I should have told someone.\\
I had no idea what it meant the first time around and I dismissed it as some bit of pointless trivia, something created just to confuse/tease the reader. After reading just who Nara-o was, it suddenly became a bit of ''brilliant'', if confusing the first time around, trivia. Nara-o is the god of secrets in {{Exalted}} and he automatically knows everything that is known to just one person - if someone reveals that bit of knowledge to anyone else, he stops knowing it. - {{Tom}}
** I was wondering why the Solar Charm that stops shaping, Integrity-Protecting Prana, was in Integrity rather than Resistance, since Resistance is the generic "fortitude save" of Exalted, and I'd go to a fort save rather than will save if I had to pick something to resist mutation (which is pretty much the #1 use of shaping). Then I remembered how important the will is in Exalted. IPP isn't "you can't mutate me, neener neener neener". It's telling the universe "This is who I am. I will not allow ''anyone'' to change that." (Another minor one: I didn't realise until a post on the White Wolf forums that the name of the Yozi Charm "Heuristic Logos Shintai" is based on the initials of the freelancer ''Holden Lee Shearer''...) -- @/CountDorku
* There is a ''[=~Yu-Gi-Oh!~=]'' card called [[http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Fire_Kraken Fire Kraken]], which is [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin a paradoxically fire-elemental squid/octopus thing]]. At least six years after randomly coming across this card, and easily five years since I've played the game, I just realized it's a pun on "firecracker." -HyperZ
* The Meklords are meant to just dominate Synchros; taking them and using them themselves. Unlike in the anime, there is nothing stopping players from using Synchros after Exceedes are released. The Meklords are meant to discourage Synchros in favor of Exceedes, which came out about a month afteer the Meklords were released.

* In the ''Scars of Mirrodin'' set for MagicTheGathering, the Phyrexians logo is a circle with a line through it. To put it in other words, its the lower case greek letter Phi. As in Phi-rexians. I facepalmed when I realized the connection.
** Speaking of which, I initially thought the "pay 1 life" thing was bad, but then I realized Yawgmoth's Bargain turns a plain ordinary Healing Salve into an Ancestral Recall. Awesome.
** Also note that the new [[LightIsNotGood White]] Phyrexians have as their defining feature the fact that their skin was flayed and replaced by white, porcelain covering. The end result is that many of them look somewhat skeletical, specially when combined with their exposed muscle tissue. This is likely a call back to Kamigawa, in which several villains were White since that is the colour of death in traditional japanese culture, and indeed some Red and Black spirits of the same setting were also naturally coloured that way (specially [[http://magiccards.info/query?q=!yuki-onna Yuki-Onna]] and [[http://magiccards.info/sok/en/76.html Kemuri-Onna]]).
** My basic thought upon seeing the various "seals" of Ravnica (which were basically instants like Terror and Shock redone as enchantments that would have the effect when sacrificed) was "hmm, vaguely interesting, but it does mean the opponent knows what's coming". Then I remembered one of the guilds of Ravnica thrives on having no cards in your hand, meaning that having a spell sitting out in the open in enchantment form waiting to be used is actually a tactical advantage. - @/CountDorku
* This troper was up in arms after seeing the announcement for ''DungeonsAndDragons'' 4th edition. But after I came to consider that I hadn't played ''D&D'' for nearly a year by that point, and hadn't [=DMed=] in about two, thanks to my growing frustration with creating adventures past 13th level, that my opinion shifted to more "wait and see." And then I picked up the preview books describing changes to the assumptions of the setting, which kicked off a great storm of world revamping and creative growth, and ''then'' got a chance to play with the quick-start rules and found it so much easier to use that my opinion did a complete 180. -- TheStray
** I was also rather concerned about a lot of the changes, and then I played some and discovered that the new Fighter rules and special abilities make me into the ultimate tank with much more ease than before. -- {{Crazael}}
*** Nobody ever doubted that -- HydroGlobus
** I originally thought the Primordials in the new generic campaign setting were a cheesy ''{{Exalted}}'' ripoff. Then I started thinking of them as more like the Giants of NorseMythology, powerful and chaotic elemental beings that are in opposition to the gods. They suddenly became much cooler, as I am a bit of a Norse mythology fan. -- {{Peteman}}
*** The dragonborn seemed like a cheesy, "here, you can play a dragon character" addition to the game, until our group started exploring the potential backgrounds in each of the races. With bonuses to Charisma, History checks, and a background involving a long-lost empire, the dragonborn sound less tossed-in, and a lot more like a race inspired by Persian/Arabic backgrounds, and even nods to Islam and Zoroastrianism. With that, my view of the dragonborn turned from "Why did we need this?" to "There is but one god, and Bahamut is his prophet." -- {{Delcan}}
**** And now I need to clean off my screen - and thank Delcan for giving me something new to play with in AD&D... -- {{Valandar}}
**** Reading this FridgeBrilliance entry inspired me to realize WHY they changed the death and dying rules the way they did. (Aside from RuleOfFun). ''D&D'' became more popular and more "mainstream" over the years. Therefore, trends in gaming changed from the "Let's simulate an adventure." to a "Let's be the perfect action hero who recovers and prevails during fights!", so ''D&D'' changed to suit the new audiences demands. Pity that's what annoys me so much. -- {{Hariman}}
***** I'd say that the reason is closer to "dying and creating a new character every session cuts down on the roleplay and makes fighting the only thing worth concentrating on." Why bother with real roleplaying if the personality you so painstakingly created, and the in-character friendships and contacts you've worked so hard to form, could be taken away at any second? Also, death is no longer a certainty in 4.0, as fate plays a part in whether a resurrection even works. This means that death has more impact and balance; it's more nebulous. There's no longer a sort of "resurrection hump" to cross, before which you're basically screwed and after which death is a mere annoyance. You should give 4.0 a fair chance; despite being flawed, it circumvents a lot of things in 3.5 that were plain nonsense. --Wynne
***** That just plays right into the "dumbing it down" argument. If you're smart about how you build and play your characters, you won't die very often in anything outside of the TombOfHorrors. On the other hand, you would have to be downright retarded to lose a character in 4th ed. Now a valid argument would be that 4th ed lets you get back in the fight faster. If that's what you want, 4th ed really is the better game. -- {{gibberingtroper}}
*** This troper's particular original point of contention was that 4E seems to be trying to enforce a 'level cap', {{MMORPG}} style, as if to discourage epic-level play. But later, I realised that pretty much everyone will admit that at epic levels in previous editions of D&D (and many other games), balance is an absolute joke in so many ways, combat takes forever to resolve, and gameplay itself becomes absolutely ridiculous. They're trying to encourage players to take their time levelling, or even be more willing to retire characters that become powerful enough and roll new ones. It's not something you have to agree with or like by any means (most of my friends don't like the idea) but they did that for a reason. -SabreJustice.
** This pales in comparison to the other examples here, but the 4th ed. Monster Manual 2 has a foe called the Human Gladiator. His Well-Placed Kick [[ShareTheMalePain dazes and slows its target.]]

* A bit of ForgottenRealms fluff related fridge brilliance; a lot of people complained about them [[KilledOffForReal killing Mystra]] in 4e, after it had been established that Mystra is needed for magic to function. A lot of people also mentioned that Mystra had died more than once before, and asked what made this time so special. It occured to me that there were two constants for when Mystra died; 1: magic started going completely haywire, and 2: someone stepped up and became a new Mystra before things got out of hand. What makes this time different is that the second one didn't happen. No one took over, so magic just went out of control. But where as everyone had expected a complete collapse, instead you got the spellplague.
* I figured for a bit that the bard would forever be made of weak sauce when it occured to me everyone thinks bards are terrible so when it comes to attack I'm low priority.-Doomboy911

* In pathfinder I was wondering how a bard could cast spells while maintaining bardic performance. Then I looked over the bard class's description closer and relaised that they made it so all bard spells have verbalk components and these components depend on perform.
* Tabletop-related, I didn't know why one of fast usage options for Hamete's dice server was [=4D6-L=] until I learned how to make a D&D character.

*** [[CompletelyMissingThePoint Nobody ever doubted that]] -- HydroGlobus

** Which is what the Eldar wanted, a race unaffected by the warp yet under their own "Control". A mallaeble race as without psykers. The Tau refuse to believe in Eldar is using them. Although back in finding Fridge Brilliance. During Soulstorm, apart from the terrible writing, there is a Fridge Brilliance in Carron's stupidity. The Warp Storm and his worship of Khorne have driven him more insane and drunk with power. If the storm never have had happened, there would be less insane ramblings.

** Also note that the new [[LightIsNotGood White]] Phyrexians have as their defining feature the fact that their skin was flayed and replaced by white, porcelain covering. The end result is that many of them look somewhat skeletical, specially when combined with their exposed muscle tissue. This is likely a call back to Kamigawa, in which several villains were White since that is the colour of death in traditional japanese culture, and indeed some Red and Black spirits of the same setting were also naturally coloured that way (specially [http://magiccards.info/query?q=!yuki-onna Yuki-Onna] and [http://magiccards.info/sok/en/76.html Kemuri-Onna]).

** Also note that the new [[LightIsNotGood White]] Phyrexians have as their defining feature the fact that their skin was flayed and replaced by white, porcelain covering. The end result is that many of them look somewhat skeletical, specially when combined with their exposed muscle tissue. This is likely a call back to Kamigawa, in which several villains were White since that is the colour of death in traditional japanese culture, and indeed some Red and Black spirits of the same setting were also naturally coloured that way (specially [http://magiccards.info/query?q=!yuki-onna Yuki-Onna]] and [http://magiccards.info/sok/en/76.html Kemuri-Onna]]).

* In [[HorusHeresy ''Descent of Angels'']] the Lion sends a lot of his Marines away, apparently for no reason other than a sudden bout of paranoia. However, after reading ''Fallen Angels'' his decission is much more understandable: [spoiler:Jonson relied on Luther to tell him who was trustworthy. With Luther proving that he could not be trusted, the Lion lost faith in all the others Luther might have recommended as trustworthy.]]

* This Troper has a friend who complains that {{Warhammer 40K}}'s writers have screwed themselves over with the Tyranids. He says that this is because the Tyranids have been made out to be the biggest boogeymen of them all and so unstoppable that they cannot be stopped in universe. Then it hit me. THAT'S THE WHOLE DAMN POINT! The 40K universe is MEANT to be completely screwed. The only thing that prevents the Apocalypse from sticking is the fact that [[KillEmAll everybody is trying to wipe everyone else out!]] And [[ThirtyXanatosPileUp they keep getting in each other's way]]. Heck, the players are LateToTheParty for the apocalypse, because that's what the Horus Heresy was! Therefore, the Tyranids will be dealt with, but the Imperium (and everyone else) shall endure and everything will remain happily screwed. [[RuleOfCool Because that's the way we like it.]] -- {{Hariman}}

* There is a YuGiOh card called [[http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Fire_Kraken Fire Kraken]], which is [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin a paradoxically fire-elemental squid/octopus thing]]. At least six years after randomly coming across this card, and easily five years since I've played the game, I just realized it's a pun on "firecracker." -HyperZ

* This Troper has a friend who complains that {{Warhammer 40K}}'s writers have screwed themselves over with the Tyranids. He says that this is because the Tyranids have been made out to be the biggest boogeymen of them all and so unstoppable that they cannot be stopped in universe. Then it hit me. THAT'S THE WHOLE DAMN POINT! The 40K universe is MEANT to be completely screwed. The only thing that prevents the Apocalypse from sticking is the fact that [[KillEmAll everybody is trying to wipe everyone else out!]] And they keep getting in each other's way. Heck, the players are LateToTheParty for the apocalypse, because that's what the Horus Heresy was! Therefore, the Tyranids will be dealt with, but the Imperium (and everyone else) shall endure and everything will remain happily screwed. [[RuleOfCool Because that's the way we like it.]] -- {{Hariman}}

-> '''Kejak''': How did you find me?
-> '''Nara-o''': Your desire for secrecy revealed your destination in my records. I looked it up.
-> '''Kejak''': Of course, I knew I should have told someone.