"Why? What do you mean 'why'? Why do we do anything around here? Because the plot demands it!"
— The DM explaining the show in seven seconds
In a world where an epic band of adventurers roams the countryside, scouring dungeons and facing grave threats to all of existence with marvelous magic and massive might, these legends shall be forever engraved in the tomes of history.
Parties & Parodies is the ever-going tale of the Order of the Half-Priced Heroes, a radio drama that follows the adventuring party on an epic quest as they strive to force back the shadow creeping across the land. Hosted and DM'd on WUOG 90.5 FM by their very own DJ Ninjay (with a rotation of victims — I mean other players), the show features 2-3 hours of comedy and heroism as the players try to foil the Dungeon Master's plans (after all, he IS the one controlling all the villains).
Parties & Parodies provides examples of:
- Aerith and Bob: The Order of the Half-Price Hero has characters like Merthuvial, Kribnefka, Yaseilex...and Matt.
- All According to Plan: The Shapeshifting party gives an outline of their first master plan to the heroes, only doing so because, whether or not the Order actively tries to subvert their plan, their was no chance of doing so; all available options would have led to the Order failing.
- All Just a Dream: The K-Team seems to have been sent into the Ravenloft campaign setting (played like a Castlevania game), only to wake up from a dream.
- All There in the Manual: Knowing how to play D&D certainly helps the show to make more sense.
- Another Dimension: The heroes get flung into one when they talk to the shapeshifting party.
- Back from the Dead: This is Dungeons & Dragons, so dead characters seldom remain so.
- City of Adventure: Greyhawk
- Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Miserthal, the omnipresent magic shop owner, is exactly this.
- Commie Land: Kobolarus, home of the Union of Kobold Communists.
- Conveniently Timed Attack from Behind: Fharlanghn, god of travel, hits the Big Bad in the back for 4dPLOT damage.
- Darker and Edgier: "Parties & Parodies" became "Darkness & Despair" when the DM was going through a rough time in the semester (it didn't help that half of the villains wanted to annihilate all of existence, which was planned long before the series ever began).
- Vile Villain, Saccharine Show: No one caught one because they were too busy being Chaotic Stupid.
- Deadly Upgrade: Since the heroes did not get enough power to beat the Big Bad simply by becoming epic demigods, they had to consolidate their power in Kribnefka.
- Deal with the Devil: The members of the Order sign their souls over to Asmodeus, Lord of the Nine Hells, in exchange for them going back in time to before they released Tharizdûn. Unfortunately, they players didn't Read the Fine Print, so he only sent them back one round.
- De-power: The Order, especially Kribnefka, rises and falls in power several times in the beginning of the second season.
- Death from Above: Skullcopters can drop brown mold bombs (with alchemist's fire for automatic doubling its size), but they were absorbed by a sphere of annihilation the first time they were used.
- Death Is Cheap: Rather expensive actually. Still little more than a temporary inconvenience.
- Also, Asifa Skullhunter kicked Sid into a poisonous-spiked trap, of course killing him. He then was reincarnated as a Phanaton.
- Deus ex Machina: When the players are forced to fight Tharizdûn, this is how they beat him every time.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: The Order attacks with, and is attacked by, tentacles on a fairly regular basis, always leading to Hentai references.
- Earth-Shattering Kaboom: Singularity of Cheese, caused by noting that the True Creation spell has a volume requirement, but no mass requirement. used to destroy Atropus, the undead afterbirth of creation
- Elemental Powers: Worshipers of the Elder Elemental Eye are divided up into elemental sects, except those that know the real identity of EEE as Tharizdûn, which so far this story only reveals as being Lareth the Beautiful.
- Game Master: The DM wears all of the hats featured in the article.
- God Mode: The Order of the Half-Price Hero become epic AND gods.
- Hentai: Matt Tenant and Lulu saying of the ubiquitous tentacles in the story, "I've seen enough hentai to know where this is going."
- Humongous Mecha: The Kobold War Engine (SYMBOL OF THE REVOLUTION!) even has it's own stats:
- Inexplicably Identical Individuals: Miserthal, the cloudcuckoolander magic shop owner.
- Kryptonite Factor: In an episode that only featured spellcasting heroes, the enemy simply surrounded themselves in an anti-magic field, rendering them helpless.
- Lampshade Hanging: If it can be lampshaded, it will by someone. Frequently by naming the very tropes used. This is so omnipresent, it leads to:
- Lazy Backup: The "In-Universe" explanation for why characters suddenly change in the middle of the fight. The real reason is that different people do the show at different times.
- Lethal Joke Character: Somewhat subverted by the fact that he isn't truly lethal, but Kribnefka's Diplomat has two levels, but can achieve a 50 on diplomacy checks, making him able to stop all fights except against Tharizdûn, who was immune because of his portfolio and madness.
- The Loonie: After the first few episodes, this ends up being pretty much EVERYONE except the DM, to various degrees.
- The Munchkin: Kribnefka Terunterik is always trying to make broken characters. Also, the DM min-maxes about half of his villains, only for them to get killed off in silly ways (or the DM gets out-munchkin'd).
- Our Elves Are Different: Grey Elves, the race Yaseilex, Merthuvial, Rebecca, and Uthreth are members of, are even prouder and more arrogant than regular ones.
- Our Gnomes Are Designated Butt Monkeys: For whatever reason, all the players seem to hate gnomes. Justified with the K-Team, who are all Kobolds; a race who canonically harbors Fantastic Racism against gnomes.
- Real Life Writes the Plot: Who can or cannot be on the show has a huge impact on what happens that episode.
- Reds With Rockets: The Kobolds have the Kobold War Engine (SYMBOL OF THE REVOLUTION), a space program, factories, and skeleton-based technology.
- Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies: This was the original motto for the show (which is now "Because the plot demands it!")
- Running Gag: Kobold hatred of Gnomes. Dartak and Sid dying.
- Rule of Cool: Not watching explosions is a sure-fire way of accomplishing this, as well as putting on sunglasses and screaming "Yeeeeeeah!"
- Rule of Funny: Everything in this show tries, at least.
- Shapeshifter Showdown: When threatened by the shapeshifting party, Kribnefka turns into a gold dragon...so does one of them.
- Silliness Switch: Why cast spells when you have a Greater Rod of Wonder? Dressmar and Matt, both primary casters, prefer random effects to any semblance of law.
- A rod of wonder roll actually does something useful when it removes Tharizdun's Well of Many Worlds, integral to his multiversal destruction plan, from existence... along with every other Well of Many Worlds in the mutliverse.
- Soviet Supermagic: Kobolds have a teleportation network, spells that can create an entire city in a day, and of course research ANY magical items that come into their possession.
- Vile Villain, Saccharine Show: It is actually impossible to make the setting scary…because the players will come up with utterly
- Walking the Earth: As adventurers, this is almost a requirement.
