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  • In-universe example from BattleTech. Kai Allard-Liao is widely regarded to be one of the best pilots of his generation. In a simulated combat test on the home planet of Wolf's Dragoons, he managed to defeat five elite opponents, including his trainers, his own father, and his liege lord, in a trial where defeating three was a mark of exceptional skill. The test was an analogue to the Trial of Position of the Clans — three kills would have made him the equivalent of a company commander, four kills the equivalent of a major. Five kills effectively made him the equivalent of a front-line regimental colonel and was unheard-of in Inner Sphere or Clan space. When he was stranded behind enemy lines, the Jade Falcons who controlled the planet thought it only just and fair to send fifty Power Armor wearing Super Soldiers to apprehend him because of his reputation. That he manages to kill one in hand to hand combat is a feat in and of itself, given that his enemies were eight feet tall and five hundred pounds of muscle. After that, they actually start the bidding war to capture him in armor. Upon encountering the Falcons later in an Enemy Mine situation, one of the Falcons, after hearing the details of the aforementioned test, murmurs something to the effect that three Stars (seventy-five) of the Super Soldiers in armor would be required for a fair fight against Kai. That is an entire Clan Battle-Armor infantry company, and is considered the formation-equivalent of an entire Drop Ship-load of fifteen Humongous Mecha. In all fairness, at that point in the narrative, Kai had over fifty kills to his credit just on the Jade Falcons alone, as the Falcons themselves point out.
    • To clarify three things:
      • When the above troper says in armor, he's not talking about armor as we know it today. Elemental Power Armor can soak damage that would kill 10 unarmored men, has a jetpack that can carry it 90 meters per jump, and carries 3 weapons, an anti-personnel gun (think an Uzi strapped to your arm), a twin missile pack with an extra reload, and a modular weapon, either a MG (.50 Cal equivalent), flamethrower, or a laser.
      • The entire bit with Kai and the elementals happened about a month after Kai destroyed an entire cluster (3+ Trinaries of 15 mechs each) in a single go, in one of the greatest bits of combat theatrics I've ever read. He planned an ambush in a canyon, setting explosives on both cliff faces, but the men who were to set of the explosives were killed by some of the aforementioned Elementals. So he marches his mech, which was out of ammo and had lost all its laser weaponry, now only armed with a Hatchet, into the canyon and challenged the enemy commander to single combat. This allowed him to get right on top of the entire enemy formation. Then he stripped out the containment systems on his mech's fusion engine and ejected. The resulting explosion set off the explosives, burying the entire enemy cluster under thousands of tons of rock.
      • Kai's Career spans 25 years of nearly constant war. I could add a half dozen other stories about him and it still wouldn't do him justice. IIRC, when he finally is killed, its because the city he's in is bombarded from space.
    • Kai shot Vlad Ward, Khan of the Wolves, out of his 'Mech despite a twenty-ton weight disadvantage during the Great Refusal, the fight being horribly onesided in Kai's favor. He became Champion of Solaris, a world whose entire economy is based on 'Mech duels, in a single season, defeating most of the best warriors in the Inner Sphere. His canon record has only two draws and one defeat. Only one of the draws was on a real battlefield, where a Clan warrior sacrificed himself to push both their 'Mechs off a cliff into water several hundred feet deep. Kai survived. The other draw was during a simulator duel against one of the other best pilots in the setting, Phelan Kell: they shot each other's 'Mechs to ribbons and both had to eject at the same time. The only time Kai has been confirmed to have actually lost was in a reduced-power weapons combat against Morgan Kell, who has either supernatural powers or some kind of lostech device that prevents his 'Mech from being properly targeted by anyone.
    • An example from Battletech that leans much more into the 'memetic' part (Kai being very much Famed In-Story) is the UM-R60 "Urbanmech", or "Urbie" to the game's fanbase. The Urbanmech is probably the third most well-known 'mech in the fandom (behind the Timber Wolf/MadCat and the Atlas) and probably the most beloved, with its much-vaunted 'badassery' being a long-standing joke within the fandom. The "Urbie" holds this fearsome reputation because, in-game, it possesses absolutely none of the attributes that makes a 'mech fearsome — it is small, looks like an egg on legs with a gun bolted on to the side, and is the slowest 'mech in the game bar none, with the only 'mech not able to outrun an Urbanmech being the Annihilator. Despite (or perhaps exactly because of this) expect any thread on 'mech power levels to sooner or later bring up the optimized fearsomeness of the Urbanmech.
      • This led to the case of a heavily modded Urbanmech, the UM-AIV, which had an Arrow IV launcher that fired tactical nukes, canonically being the final doom of the Kell Hounds mercenary band. That's right, one of the most famous mercenary bands of the Inner Sphere met their doom at the nonexistent hands of a nuke-launching litter bin on legs.
    • The Lyran Commonwealth has been made to this. In the past they are mostly known for being a nation run by rich bastards who got their positions through money and connections. Fans however remember them best as the faction that love heavy and assault 'mechs. Even with their history of stinging defeats, it’s largely considered that the Lyrans were bored and have their attention elsewhere. But when they put their minds on something they are sure to rain the planet with massive 'mechs, and slowly but surely reach their intended target and level it to the ground with relentless fire power.
  • Three words: Old Man Henderson. This... gentleman, has a legendary reputation among Call of Cthulhu players. Originally the brainchild of a player stuck in a brutally grimdark campaign with a bad GM, Old Man Henderson was a heavily Min Maxed schizophrenic stoner who insists he fought in Vietnam despite being much too young to have done so and randomly lapses in and out of a thick Scottish accent despite not being Scottish. He joined the party because he believed that some cultists of Hastur (who he thinks are Mormons) were responsible for stealing his garden gnomes (they weren't, he donated them to charity while stoned and forgot about it once he sobered up). His finer moments include dropping a yacht belonging to the Hastur cult on a penthouse full of Cthulhu cultists (thus kicking off an Enemy Civil War), killing several cultists (along with every other Player Character in that session) with a tanker truck full of C4, taking out a Shoggoth single-handedly with his trusty shotgun, and permanently killing Hastur by luring him into an ice rink filled with explosives and detonating them (also killing himself in the process). And that was how Old Man Henderson won at Call of Cthulhu.
    • In a follow-up campaign (which unfortunately we never got to hear the full story of), Henderson and Hastur's fight was apparently so awesome that instead of going to the afterlife, they ended up in a sort of in-between realm where they had to fight each other again, with the winner getting brought back to life and the loser moving on to the actual afterlife. Henderson won, but then learned that dead gods don't get afterlives, they just cease to exist and a new god takes their place. Seemingly out of respect for his Worthy Opponent, he hijacked Hastur's power and used it to contact another god (he didn't care who). Nyarlathotep answered the call, and cut a deal with Henderson where he would reincarnate both him and Hastur as normal humans with no memories of their former lives in exchange for all of Hastur's power, although Hastur could reclaim it at any point. Henderson, now the 17-year-old Eli Burning, somehow regained his memories of being Henderson, and learned that his childhood friend Heather was the reincarnated Hastur. He got Heather drunk, got her to reclaim Hastur's power, and sealed it in an amulet. Nyarlathotep was naturally pissed off about this and sent cultists after them, so Eli opened a portal to a parallel universe that Nyarlathotep couldn't touch and escaped there with Heather, never to be seen again.
  • Exalted's Michael Goodwin, aka Nephilpal, is the true designer of the system, who died in the First Age but will return to save us all from crappy quality control.
    • Also from Exalted: the Mirror Flag. The greatest liar in Creation. She canonically rewrote her own history because it wasn't epic enough for her. Less canonically, everyone in Creation is the Mirror Flag in disguise and doesn't know it.
    • Demetheus, a.k.a. DEMETHEMANIA! Wandering badass righter of wrongs with the comportment of Tom Joad and the strength of ten bulls.
  • Doctor Kromm, the line editor of GURPS, has a cult following.
  • Heroclix both Franklin Richards and LiAnn were given the God Amongst Pogs status because of their low cost, their seeming inability to do damage and the anecdotal stories of them knocking out super villains and heroes several orders of magnitude above their power level.
    • Alfred was also known as the first God Amongst Pogs and would routinely win tournaments if run correctly. But to be fair it was a representation of Alfred.
  • Steve Kenson rolls twenties.
  • Many, many people in Legend of the Five Rings, but the greatest of them is Toku. Following his elevation to memetic badass-hood, he was elevated by the tournament wins (which determine storyline in L5R) to canon badass. Originally a peasant acting as a samurai, Toku ended up becoming a recognized samurai, hero of two wars, captain of the Imperial Guard, founder of his own clan, Empire-renowned legal and moral authority, and, posthumously, a god. All of this because people thought a free, unaligned character designed to be fed to demons was pretty funny.
    • Yoritomo was declared by Word of God to be the greatest warrior in history. Bear in mind that this is a setting that thinks nothing of having a god and his son duke it out in Hell for centuries, killing anything that dares to try to interrupt. There's even card art showing Yoritomo being offered the throne by another god, and Yoritomo walking away while giving her the finger.
    • Simultaneously subverted AND played straight with Bayushi Tangen, his heir Kwanchai, and their students in the Dark Sword of Bitter Lies, both in story and out. Created as a parody of OP powergamers, the Bitter Lies technique revolves around three things: luck, insanity, and loyalty to the Scorpion Clan. Without all three, the methods are worthless, lethal only to the chump trying to use them. With all three, the storyline presents the characters as literally unkillable: to date, no Bitter Lies swordsman is confirmed dead. The closest thing to an exception is Kwanchai, who went on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against the very dimension of Roaring Rampage of Revenge. It took Word of God to convince players that Kwanchai didn't destroy the dimension outright, and even then, nothing's stopping the writers from saying he's Not Quite Dead.
      • As a bonus, simply meeting Kwanchai was enough to balance the kharma of Bayushi Shoju, generally considered the greatest traitor in the empire's history. Shoju has since reincarnated, and is set to lead the Scorpion to victory, and to redeem his name in the eyes of the empire.
  • Some Warhammer 40,000 fans make Commissar Yarrick out to be the series' answer to Chuck Norris. Two of their claims:
    1. The God-Emperor of Mankind is merely warming Yarrick's seat.
    2. The Tyranid extra-galactic Horde of Alien Locusts encroaching on human-controlled space was a set of splinter groups fleeing from Yarrick's own extra-galactic adventuring, which had previously destroyed the majority of their forces. Or, should they say, "fleeing".
    • The Orks pass along rumors of Yarrick being able to kill with a glance. Yarrick simply thought "Good idea" and installed a fucking laser into the bionic eye made to replace the original he lost fighting Orks. This is after he also had his hand replaced with a Power Klaw, usually reserved for Ork Warbosses about three times his size. This is not a claim. This is actual, in-game canon.
    • Within the W40K 'verse itself, we also have Commissar Ciaphas Cain, HERO OF THE IMPERIUM, whose reputation for heroism has grown to the point that one Imperial cult has actually proclaimed him "a physical manifestation of the God-Emperor's Will". Of course, because Cain is an Accidental Hero who is actually a Dirty Coward, the whole thing is played for laughs.
      • Also Gunnery Sergeant 'Stonetooth' Harker, a Catachan who carries a heavy bolter by himself and is said to chew glass instead of tobacco.
    • For lack of a "Memetic Nice Guy" trope, we are using this page to remind you that Kharn the Betrayer is a real fun guy.
    • The OotS forum is attempting to turn Eldrad Ulthran into the man who caused everything in the universe, along the lines of "God created Earth, Chuck Norris created God, Rick Wakeman composed Chuck Norris, and Eldrad Ulthran gave Rick piano lessons." 1d4chan depicts Eldrad as a omniprescient dick who uses his psychic powers to be an annoying Troll to both his enemies and his allies.
    • The speed with which this meme has infiltrated the fandom is quite astonishing. It would have taken some sort of tactical genius t— CREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED! Ursakar Creed gets treated as a genius who can hide just about anything, anywhere. Hiding Leman Russ tanks behind lampposts, hiding squads of Stormtroopers in the reader's bathroom, disguising a Baneblade as a therapist, you name it.
    • Then we get to his Cousin, Lord General Castor (of Dawn of War II Fame) who is slowly turning into this trope, it helps that his trophy wall is the largest and most complete archive of all Tyranid species that have been encountered by the Imperium so far. His Manly Facial Hair is one of the Imperium's mightiest weapons.
    • And lets not forget Governor-General Vance Stubbs, with his famous Rousing Speech. Even if he did lose one hundred baneblades... note 
    • In-universe example with Duke Sliscus. The Dark Eldar, who can only be described as a Proud Space Pirate Race Guy, view him as an absolute legend. And given how some of his more epic moments include stealing three flagships from an Archon just to show off and then kicking his ass when he and his forces try to get them back, and completely owning fellow Memetic Badass Lukas The Trickster in a battle of wits, some players can't help but agree.
    • Since the Horus Heresy book Legion, absolutely everything that has happened or ever will happen ever is an Alpha Legion plot.
    • Eversor Assassins scream "WRRRRRRRRRRRYY!" whenever they're unleashed on the enemy.
    • The CRASSUS ARMOURED ASSAULT TRANSPORT is this to some fans. While the CRASSUS ARMOURED ASSAULT TRANSPORT is an impressively big, tough, and deadly Awesome Personnel Carrier, the real reason that the CRASSUS ARMOURED ASSAULT TRANSPORT's name is to be used in full and in all caps is because a forum post copied the name from the site (where it was written in capitals) and then inserted it in a normally-punctuated post. Memery ensued.
  • Gotrek is generally considered Memetic Badass among Warhammer fans. Dwarven (dwarfs are most badass race in whole setting) troll slayer (troll slayers are most badass of all Warhammer dwarfs), most (or, depending on perspective, least) successful of all dwarven troll slayers, because he's a Death Seeker who's too hardcore to die, to the point where he's still active in Warhammer: Age of Sigmar because the utter destruction of the Warhammer world only managed to slow him down. This is the canon part.
    • To some, every Chaos invasion of the Empire to date has crossed the Sea of Claws instead of going through Kislev because the Norscans are scared shitless of Tsarina Katerin.


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