Running Gag/Card Games


 * No matter where you go in the Magic: The Gathering multiverse, no matter what magical wonders you may behold or fantastic creatures you may encounter, goblins are always the stupidest creatures on the plane.
 * Actually, the goblins were one of the smartest, most cunning groups in the Mercadia Block. They run every facet of Mercadia's society, and the human leader is a puppet dictator.
 * Both lampshaded and subverted in the comical "Unhinged" set, which had five (one per each basic color of Magic: The Gathering) Donkey creatures: Cheap Ass, Smart Ass, Bad Ass, Fat Ass and Dumb Ass. The last one's flavour text reads: "Envying the intelligence of goblins is a bad place to be."
 * Also, there is always an Ornithopter. Always. One Ornithopter even has a quote stating how every universe has an Ornithopter.
 * The rules of every edition of Munchkin feature a joke in the set-up rules about how players "start at level 1 with no class". In Munchkin Fu, you start at level 1 "with no class and no style", and later sets start lampshading this with the remark "We never get tired of that joke."