Your Favourite Quotation in a RPG Book?

[ajardoor]

By quotation, I mean like in GURPS Basic Set Campaigns, page 423, just as they're giving you the crippling injury, mortal wounds and death rules.

The quotation? Part of the King Arthur and the Black Knight exchange from Monty Python and The Holy Grail.

[GrimGent]

Originally Posted by ajardoor

By quotation, I mean like in GURPS Basic Set Campaigns, page 423, just as they're giving you the crippling injury, mortal wounds and death rules.

Along the same lines... Paranoia, the second edition, the beginning of the combat rules: "It's not that they die, but that they die like sheep." --T.S. Eliot, "The Wasteland"

[Rendu]

Not a specific quotation, but the original Mage: the Ascension pulled quotes from everything from the Book of Ecclesiates to Darkwing Duck.

[Gardensnake]

Deadlands 1st edition the rulebook had a chapter dealing with the bestial nature of pc's that became undead called Bestiallity. The first sentence was " Get your hands off your horse, that's not what we're talking about". I loved that.

William

[mook]

"If the weapon was a laser, blaster, or flamethrower, you are also on fire -- GURPS (3rd) Firearm Critical Miss Table"

Dunno - just always makes me chuckle.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by mook

"If the weapon was a laser, blaster, or flamethrower, you are also on fire -- GURPS (3rd) Firearm Critical Miss Table"

Dunno - just always makes me chuckle.

This might not be quite what the OP was referring to, but it's one of my all time favorite lines from any RPG product: " You trip over an unseen imaginary deceased turtle. You are very confused.” From MERP.

I broke out laughing just typing that.

There were some hilarious lines in the old Shadowrun from the 'on-line discussion' sections.

[Michael Cule]

Originally Posted by Rendu

Not a specific quotation, but the original Mage: the Ascension pulled quotes from everything from the Book of Ecclesiates to Darkwing Duck.

I think it was second edition that had the best use of quotations I saw. Quoting Paul Simon's lines from THE SOUND OF A TRAIN IN THE DISTANCE:

"What is the point of this story?
What information pertains?
The thought that life could be better
Is woven, indelibly, into our hearts
And our brains."

Which is, in a way, what the game is all about.

[Hans Rancke-Madsen]

There are a lot of great jokes in GURPS:Illuminati. It's hard to pick a favorite. I love the Honest Man Detector.

Maybe this one:

"In this office, Adelman, we close with: "We anticipate your future compliance with the subject regulation(s)," not "Tremble and obey!" Where did you work before?"

Hans

[Rocket Man]

Originally Posted by Hans Rancke-Madsen

There are a lot of great jokes in GURPS:Illuminati. It's hard to pick a favorite. I love the Honest Man Detector.

Maybe this one:

"In this office, Adelman, we close with: "We anticipate your future compliance with the subject regulation(s)," not "Tremble and obey!" Where did you work before?"

Hans

One from the same book that I've used elsewhere:

"The power to cloud men's minds is WASTED fighting crime! I'm going to become a TV anchorman!"

For pullquotes, I love the use of the Back to the Future quote in the Technology and Artifacts chapter of Basic Set, Vol. 2:

"Are you telling me that you built a time machine ... out of a DeLorean?"
"The way I see it, if you're going to build a time machine into a car, why not do it with some style?"

For non-pullquotes, the one I reference the most may be from the Old West chapter of Toon Tales, under the sidebar Who is Steve Austin? (as in the Texas hero). I'm away from the books but as I recall, it ran somewhat like this:

Who is Steve Austin? If you said 'A man barely alive. Gentlemen, we can rebuild him,' close this book and hit yourself over the head with it. On second thought, use another book, we don't want you ruining the binding on this one.

[ULFGARD]

Originally Posted by Hans Rancke-Madsen

There are a lot of great jokes in GURPS:Illuminati. It's hard to pick a favorite. I love the Honest Man Detector.

Maybe this one:

"In this office, Adelman, we close with: "We anticipate your future compliance with the subject regulation(s)," not "Tremble and obey!" Where did you work before?"

Hans

That's how I used to end all of my memos back when I was the Senior Junior Assistant to the Director of Junior Senior Assistants back in the Department of Redundancy Department at IOU.