History FridgeHorror / TabletopGames

* Fridge/{{Warhammer 40K}}

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* ''MagicTheGathering'' has a few. Oddly, it's pointed out to you, but you just don't think about it. Mostly it's "Sacrifice a creature:...", which seems like it's as in "sometimes we need to make sacrifices", before you remember the players represent wizards and sorcerors. Eldrazi Spawn tokens take this to a whole new level: You can sacrifice them to generate one colorless mana each, which you'll most likely use to summon the huge, [[PlayerArchetypes Timmy]]-favored, {{Troperrific}} (MasterRace, EldritchAbomination, NonElemental, etc. etc.) Eldrazi. Yes, the Eldrazi eat their children.
** Not so bad if you understand the premise of the game. The players represent planeswalkers, powerful wizards who have developed the ability to shift from one plane of reality to another, each plane manifesting as some sort of world. The battle between players is to decide who controls the plane that they are on at the time, and all of the cards represent the memories of the planeswalkers. The lands represent all the places they've been to, and recalling them allows the planeswalkers to call forth the mana that flowed through that land. All of the creatures are sort of Platonic forms: Idealised representations of some remembered creature, made manifest by the planeswalker converting the mana into a physical form with a purpose. Sacrificing a creature merely means dissolving the integrity of the magical construct in such a way that the energy can be directed to some other purpose.
*** With the introduction of the word "dies" into the official jargon, it could literally mean you're not summoning an idealisation of the creature, but the creature itself, which can then die a horrible, horrible death.
** By contrast, because goblins are TooDumbToLive, sacrificing a goblin is funny. Or Mogg Fanatic (sacrifice to do 1 damage to anything), bloodfire cards (sacrifice to do damage equal to its power to everything), and Goblin Grenade (sacrifice a goblin to do 5 damage to anything).
** [[MookMaker Token creatures]] in general fit this trope, as they were mostly created by some sort of (usually asexual) reproduction. They were born to fight.
*** Certain tokens, such as Tuktuk the Returned and the Marit Lage tokens are meant to represent the great deity the base cards summon, after a certain condition are met.
** [[AndIMustScream Chimeric Idol and "Opal" enchantments]]. Chimeric Idol is a statue that turns into a creature. So are Opal enchantments.
** Titania's Song (makes artifacts into creatures with power and toughness equal to their mana cost) on zero-cost artifacts. Now, for the record, when toughness => damage a creature's taken since the last end-of-turn step, it goes straight to the discard pile, a.k.a. the graveyard. Yes, it's possible to animate artifacts only to kill them. Since any competitive Vintage deck will include a Black Lotus, a Lotus Petal, and all the appropriate Moxen for its colors, any competitive Vintage deck not including those will include Titania's Song or its aura (affects only one) cousin, Animate Artifact. Also, if Titania's Song is destroyed, though only two colors can really destroy it, AndIMustScream is invoked.
** Lord of the Undead (a card which, among other things, can return zombies from the graveyard to your hand) + Lord of the Pit (a card which requires a sacrifice every turn or it does more damage to you). What [[CompleteMonster sadistic bastard]] would play this? A sadistic bastard who wants to win, that's who.
** The Stuffy Doll/Guilty Conscience combo is particularly terrifying. Essentially you kill your opponent by making a voodoo doll of him feel guilt, which damages the voodoo doll, which damages your opponent, which makes the voodoo doll feel guiltier, which damages the opponent more. You give a doll a conscience only so that it can kill your opponent with its own shame. Over killing your opponent.
** A storyline-related one: [[TheVirus New Phyrexia]]. The good news is, Phyrexians can't planeswalk, so unless they get something like the ''[[CoolShip Weatherlight]]'', they're safe. The bad news is, ''every plane Karn has ever visited'' before Venser [[HeroicSacrifice purified him]] has Phyrexian oil on it! And so long as a drop of Phyrexian oil is on any plane, the Great Work can continue. And if the Mirrans with their [[GameBreaker affinity and Skullclamps and all the rest of their tricks]] couldn't beat the Phyrexians, what chance do (for instance) the Mercadians have?
* ''WitchGirlsAdventures'', on the surface, seems like a cute little game designed to get tween girls interested in pen-and-paper [=RPG=]s. Until they point out the fact that the Witches' World Council is completely okay with witches-in-training telling other people that they're a witch AND messing with {{muggle}}s' lives (including the fact that ''it is okay to use your powers to bully others'') as long as it doesn't cause an international incident and they follow the other big laws of interaction (No messing with {{muggle}} governments, the economy, or time on a massive scale), since this would be the girls exercising their "rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". Keep in mind that the average age of a player character is 12, and witches can get their powers as young as 6. [[KidsAreCruel Do you remember how the girls in your school were when you were 12?]] (For added fun, the opening comic shows a bunch of witches murdering an LA gang member by turning him into a fly and having him get eaten by his comrade, who had been turned into a frog.) [[FourChan 4chan's]] /tg/ board even has a long thread dedicated to how messed up the game is in hindsight. [[http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/5772445/]][[http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/5774945/]][[http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/5778327/]]
** It never stops, try reading the comics. They're worse in many ways...for example we see a small clan of people who've been turned into frogs, that story opens with a discussion of how many died over the winter and the rest of the story is how these people where transformed over trivial matters and miss their lives. And after that comes a short about two witches turning and entire coffee shop into a variety of things, including turning two people into drinks and -drinking them-.
*** Granted, all the examples cited here are by characters who are explicitly evil, and the comics are intended to be BlackComedy... but it can still be scary as all hell, especially if your sense of humor doesn't like up.
* ''MaidRPG'' has you roll for the colors of your maid's uniform, hair, and eye colors all on the same table. This is perfectly normal, except that one of the options is "Transparent." If you can't wrap your brain around the idea of transparent eyes, consider yourself lucky.
** Be comforted: The color you roll is for the iris only, and a transparent iris would mean you'd see the blood cells in the eye. So transparent means "[[RedEyesTakeWarning shifty red]]" here.
*** Somehow, being a bald, naked maid with "just" creepy red eyes is not comforting.
* ''Warhammer40K'' casually mentions that after the many years of early FTL research, the Warp was considered the best! So one must ask, how much worse were the other forms?
** It was considered best in that it was possible through human science.
** Arguably, it is the best. And it is Fridge Horror. Look at the webway, and what it is now. Your soul, in the warp, can be protected by advanced shielding, and a million other unreliable things. In the webway? You can only hope to god that an indescribably vast horde won't find you. Primarchs have become lost there. For the record, a Daemon Prince breaking one Primarch's back didn't kill him. The webway has seemingly killed at least 2. All other primarchs were killed by another primarch. And the Warp Spiders basically dance through that.
*** As long as you have protection from the Harlequins or the regular Eldar you're safe. The Emperor was trying to give humanity access to the Webway because while it was dangerous it was also reliably dangerous thus letting you safeguard yourself and actually being able to have a set in stone arrival date rather than I might get there in a week or i might get there 10000 thousand years 'ago'.
**** It is also shielded from Deamons.
* ''FadingSuns''' interstellar travel is also an example. The PortalNetwork is the safe way, since the interstellar space is full of Lovecraftian monstrosities which just wait for you to leave the safe haven of a star system. And the fun fact is, before the Solar System's Stargate was discovered, several [[HumanPopsicle sleeper ships]] were already on their way.
* You know, in ''ForgottenRealms'' people in Toril who are faithless get sent to the Wall Of The Faithless for not believing in gods. In the most recent edition, the Abeirans got transposed bodily into Toril, where there have been no gods (that we know of) for thousands of years. Does that mean that the first Abeirans who died got damned for an eternity in a wall because deity worship was pointless when they were born?
** I would say not necessarily. Belief does not imply existence and vice versa.
** This troper would like to remind you that, in some cases, a deity can speak up for a soul that they particularly liked but no one had claimed, and that demons and devils both can harvest souls from the wall (devils orderly, demons in huge raids that would make the WH40K Orks proud). So some of the Abeirians may have been rescued by the likes of Sune or Ilmater.

** I would say not necessarily. Belief does not imply existence and vice versa.

** By contrast, because goblins are TooDumbToLive, sacrificing a goblin is funny. Or Mogg Fanatic (sacrifice to do 1 damage to anything), bloodfire cards (sacrifice to do damage equal to its power to everything), and Goblin Grenade (sacrifice a goblin to do 5 damage to anything) ''were''...[[FunnyAneurysmMoment before 9/11]].

** I would say not necessarily. Belief does not imply existence and vice versa.

* You know, in ''ForgottenRealms'' people in Toril who are faithless get sent to the Wall Of The Faithless for not believing in gods. In the most recent edition, the Abeirans got transposed bodily into Toril, where there have been no gods (that we know of) for thousands of years. Does that mean that the first Abeirans who died got damned for an eternity in a wall because deity worship was pointless when they were born?

** It never stops, try reading the tie-in comics. They're worse in many ways...for example we see a small clan of people who've been turned into frogs, that story opens with a discussion of how many died over the winter and the rest of the story is how these people where transformed over trivial matters and miss their lives. And after that comes a short about two witches turning and entire coffee shop into a variety of things, including turning two people into drinks and -drinking them-.

* ''MagicTheGathering'' has a few. Oddly, it's pointed out to you, but you just don't think about it. Mostly it's "Sacrifice a creature:..." Eldrazi Spawn tokens take this to a whole new level: You can sacrifice them to generate one colorless mana each, which you'll most likely use to summon the huge, [[PlayerArchetypes Timmy]]-favored, {{Troperrific}} (MasterRace, EldritchAbomination, NonElemental, etc. etc.) Eldrazi. Yes, the Eldrazi eat their children.

** Arguably, it is the best. And it is Fridge Horror. Look at the webway, and what it is now. Your soul, in the warp, can be protected by advanced shielding, and a million other unreliable things. In the webway? You can only hope to god that an indescribably vast horde, the most pleasant of which seemingly the Dark Eldar who want to steal your soul and drink it, won't find you. Primarchs have become lost there. For the record, a Daemon Prince breaking one Primarch's back didn't kill him. The webway has seemingly killed at least 2. All other dead primarchs died to other primarchs, or the actions of another primarch. And the Warp Spiders basically dance through that. Ever play Call of Cthulhu? Imagine if you knew Cthulhu personally, he hated you, and it was your job to piss him right the fuck off.
*** As long as you have protection from the Harlequins or the regular Eldar your safe The Emperor was trying to give humanity access to the Webway because while it was dangerous it was also reliably dangerous thus letting you safeguard yourself and actually being able to have a set in stone arrival date rather than I might get there in a week or i might get there 10000 thousand years 'ago'.

** Be comforted: The color you roll is for the iris only, and a transparent iris would mean you'd see the blood cells in the eye. So transparent means "shifty red" here.

* ''FadingSuns''' interstellar travel is also an example. The PortalNetwork is the safe way, since the interstellar space is full of Lovecraftian monstrosities which just wait for you to leave the safe haven of a star system. And the fun fact is, before the Solar System's Stargate was discovered, several [[HumanPopsicle sleeper ships]] were already on their way.

** Arguably, it is the best. And it is Fridge Horror. Look at the webway, and what it is now. Your soul, in the warp, can be protected by advanced shielding, and a million other unreliable things. In the webway? You can only hope to god that an indescribably vast horde, the most pleasant of which seemingly the Dark Eldar (who want to steal your soul to sell to a god of pain and pleasure), won't find you. Primarchs have become lost there. For the record, a Daemon Prince breaking one Primarch's back didn't kill him. The webway has seemingly killed at least 2. All other dead primarchs died to other primarchs, or the actions of another primarch. And the Warp Spiders basically dance through that. Ever play Call of Cthulhu? Imagine if you knew Cthulhu personally, he hated you, and it was your job to piss him right the fuck off.

* ''MagicTheGathering'' has a few. Oddly, it's pointed out to you, but you just don't think about it. Mostly it's "Sacrifice a creature:..." Eldrazi Spawn tokens take this to a whole new level: You can sacrifice them to generate one colorless mana each, which you'll most likely use to summon the huge, [[FanNickname Timmy]]-favored, {{Troperrific}} (MasterRace, EldritchAbomination, NonElemental, etc. etc.) Eldrazi. Yes, the Eldrazi eat their children.

* ''Warhammer40K'' casually mentions that after the many years of early FTL research, the Warp was considered the best! So one must ask, how much worse were the other forms?