It’s Just A Game
is a panfandom Mystery Science Theater 3000 roleplaying game combined with a sporking community. It’s primarily crack in a slice-of-life setting, but also with some adventure/exploration on the side.
It’s Just A Game allows any characters from any medium, including very cracky or unusual canons, as long as they are canon-based. Characters are encouraged to raise morale through humor and various activities in the face of a variety of crack-flavored events, with the hope that raising morale high enough will enable them to return home. Players are especially encouraged to sign their characters up as participants in the bi-weekly sporking sessions, which drive the premise of the game.
The game concluded on May 12th, 2013.
Examples:
- Accidental Marriage: Minako and 90s Kid. In Vegas. Still canon because who'd have thought being in space and from other dimensions would cause problems with getting them divorced?
- Action Girl: Aqua, Iron Liz, and Minako, hands down. Is there any doubt why they're friends?
- The evil counterparts event makes Rarity out to be an Action Pony, herself.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: During the evil doubles event, what Link's evil double says to him: "That thing... It said I'll never be a hero again, that I lost my only chance to feel like I belong somewhere and that I'll never learn how to live with being a child again...And it called me short."
- Attending Your Own Funeral: 90's Kid casually walks in on his own funeral and asks Pinkie Pie who's funeral they were holding as if nothing went wrong.!
- Ass Pull: Invoked and parodied during Shyamalan Week. First, it was revealed that the Satellite was actually not in space, but in a huge nature preserve all along! And aliens and trees are competing to see who can kill off the residents first! But wait! Everyone's already dead! But for the final, most shocking twist of all... The entire week was All Just a Collective Dream caused by Mike accidentally dumping chloral hydrate into the drinking water while he was trying to change the chlorine in the pool water.
- Brought Down to Normal: Everyone, upon entering the Satellite. Larger characters are even shrunk down to a more space-convenient size.
- Burping Contest: Not logged, but one can assume that happened after Christmas when 90s Kid gave Pinkie a ton of pop rocks and cola.
- Butt-Monkey: 90's Kid. Just saying.
- Though to his player, he tends to swing between Butt-Monkey and
The Woobie.
- Though to his player, he tends to swing between Butt-Monkey and
- Car Meets Space Station : Guess Bella was right about those old Chevys!
- Chick Magnet: Terra. Especially after Cambot caught him leaving the shower. Every woman on the ship defended him against Linkara's...well, being himself basically. INCLUDING Iron Liz, who was the one to finally convince him to apologize. After a little tough love, of course.
- Code Name: If you are scheduled to riff (or even if you aren't, in many cases), Honorary Riff Commander Forest-Green Futon will assign you a code name. The code names have a theme of two adjectives (one being a color) and a noun, usually an article of clothing or otherwise notable accessory.
- The only exception to the color theme has been Riku's code name; Eighties Rock Mullet.
- Just for reference, other code names include: Short Silver Hair (Makubex), Spiky Brown Hair (Sora), Flashy Red Cape (Fawful), Shiny Red Bow (Minako), Shiny Gold Headdress (Kuzco), Ruffled Blue Feathers (Falco), Black Metal Shirt (Iron Liz), Fluffy Pink Mane (Pinkie Pie), Simple White Dress (Namine), and Giant Brown Pants (Terra) (whom Linkara originally threatened to call Big McLargehuge).
- Conlang: What Touched By Venom is supposed to have. The riffers think Janine Cross just wanted to win Scrabble.
-
Dawson Casting: Referenced in the Eighties Week event by aging up the high-school aged kids. - A Day in the Limelight: Frank recently took over Deep 13 after the disappearance of his favorite pet, revealing he is just as dangerous as any Forrester when pushed too far. And considering how successful his invention was, perhaps even moreso...
- Dead Hat Shot: Pinkie Pie found out that 90s Kid was eaten by a Utahraptor when she found scraps of his plaid shirt and his tattered hat among the wreckage left behind by the beast. She didn't take it well.
- Dope Slap: 90s Kid got quite deservedly smacked by Aqua during his first riff when he made a perverted comment. Four times, even.
- Double Entendre:
- Harry Dresden punches cocks.
- The Eye of Argon riff. Dear lord, the Eye of Argon riff.
- The '80s: One week's event gave everyone '80s Hair, synth music, and more legwarmers than you can shake a stick at.
- Eldritch Abomination: Missingno. took on this role when it appeared during Pokémon Week, causing headaches and nausea among those who encountered it and scrambling the satellite's systems (and Gypsy!) just by being there.
- Evil Counterpart: An entire plot full of them!
- Forced Transformation: iJAG LOVES this trope.
- One event turned everyone on board the Satellite into ponies, with the exception of Amaterasu, who became a Diamond Dog, and Falco, who became a griffin.
- A similar event turned everyone into Pokémon
- And then later, every human was turned into an animal or robot, and all the animals and robots were turned human. Animal-human hybrids were either turned fully human or fully animal.
- Godzilla Threshold: Harry pretty much says this when Sasami suggests calling Dr. Forrester to call off TV's Frank and Pearl Forrester's attempts to cage up the crew.
- Gory Discretion Shot: Cambot seemed a bit too squeamish to show most details of the more violent defeats of the evil doubles.
- Guinness Episode: Minako attempts to break the world record for longest ride on a mechanical bull. Doubly subverted in that Minako actually smashes the record...only to find that later that because she didn't have an official observer on hand, her attempt didn't count.
- Hollywood Board Games: Janine resources to employing a canonical fictional language just to win an Scrabble game.
- Hurricane of Puns: Put any of the resident punsters together in a thread at the risk of your own sanity.
- I Call Her "Vera": "Dan" and "Theo," Twilight's names for her dictionary and thesaurus, respectively.
- Intergenerational Friendship: Iron Liz and Phineas are gradually getting this. Especially sweet since Liz normally doesn't like kids.
- Knee-capping: Rarity starts kneecapping the shades whenever she sees them; it doesn't quite go well with Aqua's, however.
- A majority of the Satellite thought this was a good idea, too.
- Moral Guardians: SAM THE EAGLE SAYS YOU BLUE-HAIRED PEOPLE ARE INCREDIBLY STRANGE.
- Musical Episode: After using a mysterious karaoke machine that had suddenly appeared, Zidane started breaking into song at random intervals. The effect has since spread like a virus via physical proximity throughout most of the satellite.
- Nietzsche Wannabe: Timmified Minako. Also known as the shade of the undead-and-brainwashed-by-Galaxia Sailor Venus from the Stars Arc of the manga.
- Most of the people affected by Discord's power would also qualify, but none more so than Zidane.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: Justified with Minako for obvious reasons...with varying degrees of success. It runs from being played straight for most folks on board, to being subverted by certain characters who have seen her in action on the ship, to being completely (albeit secretly) defied by other characters.
- Odd Friendship: Pinkie Pie and 90s Kid. She's a silly, giddy pink pony, he's a laid back, extreme idiot, and yet the two of them have a taste for hyperactive shenanigans that is simultaneously frightening, hilarious, and heartwarming.
- Pungeon Master: Iron Liz and Aqua. And the two of them are best friends. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
- To an extent, Minako. Who is also a friend of Liz. Oh Crap ...
- AND Harry Dresden
- Real Life Writes the Plot: When many character journals all received blue spider LJ gifts from an unknown source, the spiders quickly appeared on the Satellite as well.
- When the game had to move from Livejournal to Dreamwidth, as people were getting used to the different color scheme of the website, the Satellite also suddenly changed appearance.
- Running Gag: Highly encouraged in the riffs, but also tend to turn up either for a single sketch or even throughout the game.
- Riff Running Gags:
- Chuck Norris roundhouse-kicked the Washington Monument into the White House.
- Sora, put your fist down!
- Invisible Vampire Munny
- 90s Kid getting constantly Dope Slapped for being perverted
- Dead flyer on the welcome mat (from a practice riff)
- Terra doesn't know what the rules of the internet are
- The "Bury Dead Guy Here" sign left in the theater is constantly moved around, hidden behind, and even used as a notepad!
- Sketch Running Gags:
- It's a Chevy!
- Gamewide Running Gags:
- Linkara's color-coded codenames
- Arrive on Satellite, receive a customized homemade cupcake. No ifs, ands or buts; Pinkie Pie WILL find you.
- Welcome cupcakes now provided with song!
- 99% of the time Liz plays music in her videos, Cambot can't get the rights to it and thus plays the 8-bit version. This has nothing to do with the fact that her player just wants an excuse to find 8-bit remixes. Not at all.
- Call Falco a parrot sometime. No, seriously, he LOVES it.
- Oh, Terra.
- While it is encouraged to do sketches related to the riffing material, and some have once in a while, Minako has been the only one to do a sketch EVERY SINGLE GAME WEEK.
- If someone questions a specific word in 90s Kid's slang, Cambot pops a dictionary entry into the captions.
- Poor Terra just could not keep a pair of pants on this Christmas. At least he has plenty to spare since everybody gave him some in turn.
- After Rarity's player pointed out her strategy, practically EVERY fight with the evil counterparts involved kneecapping them.
- OOC Running gags:
- Don't let Minako blow up the satellite!
- It's not a fedora!
- After watching the MST3K episode Night of the Blood Beast for Thanksgiving, there was a brief period where everybody in the chat called each other Steve.
- A short-lived one from opening night: "So-and-so is going to get a such-and-such! And beat Linkara with it!"
- Short-lived chat greeting; "Sup ducks!" To which others in the chat would quack, of course.
- Kaldur'ahm is Old Spice Guy
- Rule Of...
- Riff Running Gags:
- Sealed Evil in a Can: The gang managed to beat Discord by tricking him into entering the first chapter of Left Behind, then getting the Mads to pull the plug on the experiment, leaving him trapped inside.
- Silk Hiding Steel: Rarity simply will NOT tolerate these evil doubles hurting her friends!
- Spit Take: Harry Dresden when Touched by Venom Chapter 1 suddenly took a rather...naughty turn.
- That Poor Cat: '90s Kid, while dressed head to toe in a black leather, spike-studded cowboy outfit, gets thrown off a mechanical bull and crashes into the nearest wall, accompanied by a standard feline howl. This gets doubled when it's revealed that he almost hit WilyKit in the process, making her shriek and knock over a stack of decorative hay bales.
- True Love's Kiss:
- Linkara kissed Liz to break her out of Discord's personality-distorting influence.
- During Fairy Tale Week, this is the only thing that will cure those who fell victim to the decks influenced by Sleeping Beauty and Snow White.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Liz and Falco are type 2 of this. They got off on a very bad start, especially since Falco is an admitted Jerkass, and the two of them argue and insult each other all the time. But secretly, they both enjoy their banter and would miss it if one of them disappeared.
- Vomit Discretion Shot:
- During the pony event, Wilykit learned the hard way that yes, everyone's new bodies were, in fact, strictly herbivorous.
- Later on during the same event, Riku got one after Discord left him floating helplessly, which screwed with his inner ear fluids and made him incredibly dizzy.
- Weird Currency: Invisible Vampire Munny. Be sure to grab a shotgun if it sparkles.
