Magic Ampersand: Difference between revisions
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== Real-World Examples == |
== Real-World Examples == |
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=== [[Tabletop Games]] === |
=== [[Tabletop Games]] === |
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As mentioned above, the [[Ur Example]] is [[Dungeons & Dragons |
As mentioned above, the [[Ur Example]] is ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]''. Other examples include: |
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* ''Axis & Allies'', the most famous [[World War II]] wargame franchise of them all. |
* ''Axis & Allies'', the most famous [[World War II]] wargame franchise of them all. |
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* ''Wizards & Warriors'' (not one of the real ones listed above), in [[DC Comics]]' ''Robin''. |
* ''Wizards & Warriors'' (not one of the real ones listed above), in [[DC Comics]]' ''Robin''. |
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=== [[ |
=== [[Fan Works]] === |
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* The ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic]]/[[The Martian]]'' crossover fic ''[https://www.fimfiction.net/story/396744/the-maretian The Maretian]]'' by Kris Overstreet, references ''Ogres and Oubliettes'' as a game played on the Pony homeworld. |
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=== [[Fanfic]] === |
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* ''Cities & Cyclists'', an RPG played in the ''[[Rosario + Vampire]]/[[Ranma ½]]'' crossover fic ''[[Big Human on Campus]]: After School''. The monsters try playing perfectly ordinary human beings going about their daily lives. It goes hilariously wrong. |
* ''Cities & Cyclists'', an RPG played in the ''[[Rosario + Vampire]]/[[Ranma ½]]'' crossover fic ''[[Big Human on Campus]]: After School''. The monsters try playing perfectly ordinary human beings going about their daily lives. It goes hilariously wrong. |
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=== [[Newspaper Comics]] === |
=== [[Newspaper Comics]] === |
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* ''[[FoxTrot]]'' had a series of strips where Jason and Marcus were playing ''Houses & Humans'', which is [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|pretty much what it sounds like]]. |
* ''[[FoxTrot]]'' had a series of strips where Jason and Marcus were playing ''Houses & Humans'', which is [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|pretty much what it sounds like]]. |
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=== [[Recorded and Stand Up Comedy]] === |
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=== [[Tabletop Games]] === |
=== [[Tabletop Games]] === |
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* The Dungeon Master's Guide for [[Dungeons & Dragons|''Advanced Dungeons & Dragons'']] actually parodied itself, with an insert cartoon showing several fantasy characters playing a "mundane life" RPG titled ''Papers & Paychecks''. |
* The Dungeon Master's Guide for [[Dungeons & Dragons|''Advanced Dungeons & Dragons'']] actually parodied itself, with an insert cartoon showing several fantasy characters playing a "mundane life" RPG titled ''Papers & Paychecks''. |
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{{quote|''"We're pretending we |
{{quote|''"We're pretending we're workers and students in an industrialized and technological society."''}} |
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** ''[[Robot Chicken]]'' had a similar parody in one of its small in-between scenes. |
** ''[[Robot Chicken]]'' had a similar parody in one of its small in-between scenes. |
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** One college comedy magazine in the US had another "mundane life" RPG called ''Driveways and Desk Jobs''. |
** One college comedy magazine in the US had another "mundane life" RPG called ''Driveways and Desk Jobs''. |
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=== [[Web Comics]] === |
=== [[Web Comics]] === |
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* The webcomic ''Dungeon Damage'' had a group of Dragons playing "Humans and Houses". |
* The webcomic ''Dungeon Damage'' had a group of Dragons playing "Humans and Houses". |
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* ''[[Something*Positive]]'' of course, has [ |
* ''[[Something*Positive]]'' of course, has [https://web.archive.org/web/20140109050206/http://somethingpositive.net/sp01142005.shtml its own take on it]. |
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* The title of ''[[Square Root of Minus Garfield]]'' strip [http://www.mezzacotta.net/garfield/?comic=2666 No. 2666: Lasagnas & Litterboxes Revisited], a retelling of a ''Garfield'' Sunday strip as a tabletop RPG session. |
* The title of ''[[Square Root of Minus Garfield]]'' strip [http://www.mezzacotta.net/garfield/?comic=2666 No. 2666: Lasagnas & Litterboxes Revisited], a retelling of a ''Garfield'' Sunday strip as a tabletop RPG session. |
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==== [[Campaign Comic]]s ==== |
==== [[Campaign Comic]]s ==== |
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** [http://darthsanddroids.net/docs/0050.html Docs & Deloreans], based on ''[[Back to the Future (film)|Back to The Future]]'' |
** [http://darthsanddroids.net/docs/0050.html Docs & Deloreans], based on ''[[Back to the Future (film)|Back to The Future]]'' |
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** [http://darthsanddroids.net/hypnotoads/0050.html Hypnotoads & Hyperchickens] based on ''[[Futurama]]'' |
** [http://darthsanddroids.net/hypnotoads/0050.html Hypnotoads & Hyperchickens] based on ''[[Futurama]]'' |
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** [http://darthsanddroids.net/chocolates/0050.html Chocolates & Chumps] based on ''[[ |
** [http://darthsanddroids.net/chocolates/0050.html Chocolates & Chumps] based on ''[[Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory]]'' (1971) |
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** [http://darthsanddroids.net/ids/0050.html Ids & Idiots], based on ''[[Forbidden Planet]]'' |
** [http://darthsanddroids.net/ids/0050.html Ids & Idiots], based on ''[[Forbidden Planet]]'' |
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** [http://darthsanddroids.net/egons/0050.html Egons & Ectoplasms], based on ''[[Ghostbusters]]'' |
** [http://darthsanddroids.net/egons/0050.html Egons & Ectoplasms], based on ''[[Ghostbusters]]'' |
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{{reflist}} |
{{reflist}} |
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[[Category:Title Tropes]] |
[[Category:Title Tropes]] |
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[[Category:Tabletop Game Tropes]] |
[[Category:Tabletop Game Tropes]] |
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Latest revision as of 18:18, 12 January 2023
Ampersand Law #1. Early RPGs always had names in this format: [Something] & [Something Else That Usually Begins With The Same Letter]. (Dungeons & Dragons, Tunnels & Trolls, Villains & Vigilantes, Chivalry & Sorcery, etc.)
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Any fictional roleplaying game can be recognized as such, because it will have a title consisting of two alliterative plural nouns suggestive of its genre separated by an ampersand. A writer in need of a fictitious parallel to Vampire: The Masquerade, for instance, would probably dub it something like "Cloaks & Coffins". Bonus points if the two nouns are a place name and a monster name.[1]
The Magic Ampersand form serves the same instant-identification purpose for ad hoc roleplaying games that the Chest Insignia does for ad hoc superheroes. It's also frequently used to make jokes about fictional creatures playing a roleplaying game based on our own mundane lives.
Of course, sometimes there is Truth in Television: Bunnies and Burrows, Castles and Crusades, Mutants and Masterminds, Villains and Vigilantes, Tunnels and Trolls... all paying homage to the mother of them all, Dungeons & Dragons. In real life, the Added Alliterative Appeal is optional but common.
(Note: Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility are aversions of this trope, being Jane Austen novels that predate tabletop RPGs.)
Compare The Noun and the Noun.
Real-World Examples
Tabletop Games
As mentioned above, the Ur Example is Dungeons & Dragons. Other examples include:
- Axis & Allies, the most famous World War II wargame franchise of them all.
- Bunnies & Burrows, where the player-characters are rabbits and hares.
- Castles & Crusades
- Catacombs and Caverns was one of the earliest D&D variants (1976).
- Chivalry & Sorcery
- The superhero RPG Mutants & Masterminds.
- And the supplements for different comic book genres: Wizards & Warlocks (sword'n'sorcery comics) and Mecha & Manga (guess).
- The (unnecessarily complex, at least for this first-edition AD&D veteran) Powers & Perils fantasy role-playing game, published by Avalon Hill, if you can believe it.
- Starships & Spacemen
- Two different games called Swords & Sorcery; one by SPI, one by White Wolf.
- More creatively named Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea
- Tunnels & Trolls
- Villains and Vigilantes, one of the oldest superhero RPGs (and one that dares to be different by using the word "and" instead of an ampersand).
- Hellcats and Hockeysticks, "A Role-Playing Game of chaos, anarchy, and decidedly unladylike bahaviour". (Presumably, either they chose not to or they could not get a license for St Trinian's.)
- Steel & Flame
- Spitfire & Straightlace
- Blasters and Bulkheads
Video Games
- The computer RPG Might and Magic
- Sword & Sworcery[sic] by Superbrothers
- Two unrelated video games titled Swords & Serpents: one by Imagic for the Intellivision, another by Interplay for the Nintendo Entertainment System.
- Wizards & Warriors, a trilogy of video games developed by Rareware for the NES.
- Another Wizards & Warriors, developed by David W. Bradley for the PC in the style of his earlier Wizardry games.
Fictional Examples
Comic Books
- Wizards & Warriors (not one of the real ones listed above), in DC Comics' Robin.
Fan Works
- Ogres and Oubliettes, set in a My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic universe.
- The My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic/The Martian crossover fic The Maretian] by Kris Overstreet, references Ogres and Oubliettes as a game played on the Pony homeworld.
- Cities & Cyclists, an RPG played in the Rosario + Vampire/Ranma ½ crossover fic Big Human on Campus: After School. The monsters try playing perfectly ordinary human beings going about their daily lives. It goes hilariously wrong.
Film
- A sketch in The Onion Movie featured the game Wizards & Warbeasts.
Literature
- Rona Jaffe's Mazes and Monsters.
- Neal Stephenson's The Big U explicitly compares the LARP Sewers and Serpents, played by characters in the novel, to Dungeons and Dragons.
- Esther Friesner's fantasy novel Majyk by Hook or Crook has a brief mention of a game called Palaces & Puppies.
Live-Action TV
- A fictional roleplaying game/laser tag hybrid called Aliens & Asteroids appeared in an episode of War of the Worlds
- Another Wizards & Warriors, in an episode of Quantum Leap.
- Yet another Wizards & Warriors was a summer replacement TV series in the early 80s. It parodied many themes and tropes from fantasy stories and FRP games. One episode even featured the hero gathering a "Dungeons and Dragons"-style party of specialists to go on a quest.
Newspaper Comics
- FoxTrot had a series of strips where Jason and Marcus were playing Houses & Humans, which is pretty much what it sounds like.
Recorded and Stand Up Comedy
- The Firesign Theatre: "Ah, I don't wanna play Dungeons & Vikings!"
Tabletop Games
- The Dungeon Master's Guide for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons actually parodied itself, with an insert cartoon showing several fantasy characters playing a "mundane life" RPG titled Papers & Paychecks.
"We're pretending we're workers and students in an industrialized and technological society." |
- Robot Chicken had a similar parody in one of its small in-between scenes.
- One college comedy magazine in the US had another "mundane life" RPG called Driveways and Desk Jobs.
- Kingdom of Loathing has "Cubicles and Conference Calls".
- In Werewolf: The Apocalypse, one rival to Black Dog Games' Talespinner system and World of Shadow setting (a Self-Parody of The World of Darkness) was the venerable Labyrinths & Lamiae, formerly owned by LSD Inc, and later by Magicians of the Bay.
- Black Dog themselves produced Axes and Arcana, parodying White Wolf's Swords & Sorcery.
Video Games
- "Grottos and Gremlins" from the video game Bully.
- In Spellcasting 101: Sorcerers Get All The Girls, a group of students at Sorcerer University is always playing "Malls & Muggers".
- And they're still playing - with no evidence of having stopped at any point in the year between games - in the next game. One of the tasks that your would-be fratmates have to accomplish in order to get through hazing week (which you can watch) is to make them stop.
- Simon the Sorcerer II features a group of characters interested in a game called "Apartments and Accountants". Since Simon the Sorcerer is a fantasy series, A&A simulates real life.
Web Comics
- The webcomic Dungeon Damage had a group of Dragons playing "Humans and Houses".
- Something*Positive of course, has its own take on it.
- The title of Square Root of Minus Garfield strip No. 2666: Lasagnas & Litterboxes Revisited, a retelling of a Garfield Sunday strip as a tabletop RPG session.
Campaign Comics
- Benders and Brawlers, based on Avatar: The Last Airbender
- D&DS9, based on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
- Jutsu and Jinchuriki, based on Naruto
- Wizards and Wands, based on Harry Potter
- Darths and Droids:
- Due to the Celebrity Paradox, in the Darths & Droids universe, the makers of Darths and Droids are working on a similar comic about an RPG version of Harry Potter: Wands & Warts. Every 50 episodes, they add a new burrow to this little rabbit hole.
- In the Wands & Warts universe, the makers are working on a screencap comic about The Sound of Music: Notes & Nazis
- In that universe universe, the Irregulars are making Mutants & Miscreants. (X-Men)
- In THAT universe, they're writing Enlisted Men & Extraterrestrial Biological Entities (Aliens).
- Then Magicians & Munchkins, based on The Wizard of Oz
- Sandals & Spartans, based on 300, for the 300th strip.
- Avatars & Avi-Fauna, based on Avatar
- Terminators & Temporal Paradoxes, based on Terminator.
- Carcasses & Carcharadons, based on Jaws.
- Trenchcoats & Turncoats, based on Casablanca.
- Amphibians & Anthropomorphisms, based on The Muppet Movie.
- Heists & Hypnagogic Hallucinations, based on Inception.
- Barnacles & Bilgewater, based on Pirates of the Caribbean.
- Docs & Deloreans, based on Back to The Future
- Hypnotoads & Hyperchickens based on Futurama
- Chocolates & Chumps based on Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)
- Ids & Idiots, based on Forbidden Planet
- Egons & Ectoplasms, based on Ghostbusters
- Hellenes & Harryhausens, based on Jason and the Argonauts
- Misadventures & Marionettes, based on Thunderbirds
- Arks & Archaeologists, based on Raiders of the Lost Ark
- Theme Parks & Theropods, based on Jurassic Park
- Darcies & Diaries, based on Bridget Jones's Diary
- Marmosets & Meerkats, based on David Attenborough's The Life of Mammals
- Gags & Griswolds, based on National Lampoon's Vacation and Terminator 2
- Elliotts & Extraterrestrials, based on E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
- Moonshots & Mishaps, based on Apollo 13
- Pac-Mans & Power Pellets, based on the original Pac-Man
- Drivers & Dubble-yas, based on It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
Web Original
- From the web series, "Gold": Goblins & Gold
Western Animation
- An episode of Dexter's Laboratory, (Itself called D & DD) features the titular character running a game of "Monsters & Mazes". Dee-Dee replaces him as the Game Master, with amusing consequences.
- It eventually came to the fans' attention that while Dungeons & Dragons had Dragon magazine and Dungeon magazine, one niche remained glaringly empty. Here you go: & Magazine!
- ↑ Coffins & Cadavers