What's a joke you put in your character/game that took forever for the players to catch on to? 

Played a goblin who didn’t have a name since my parents didn’t love me enough to name me. Spent three months just being called “the goblin” before people realized I actually don’t have a name and my character sheet was left empty. My plan was to have the party chose a name for my character but no…they just keep calling me goblin.

I had a player who made a female tabaxi who grew up on the streets and was a street brawler. Her name was Allie and it took till near the end of the campaign when someone connected the name, race, and the backstory. She's an alley cat.

My DM introduced a Dragonborn NPC named Scales. We thought we understood the full meaning of the pun. We did not. Scales is also a Bard. He is also overweight. His name is a three-way pun, and none of us picked up on it until our DM made a one-off joke about it

For our entire campaign, our dm would play music for boss fights, major story moments, ect. One day, close to the final arc of the campaign, one of the players gets true sight. The first thing he sees is a trio of bards watching us, alarmed that he appears to see them. These guys, as it turns out, had been following our party around for years and playing all the music for us. Got a good laugh out of that.

I played a character from a tight-knit family. The oldest was Aurora, I played Borri, and my little sister was Alice. My dm told me she knew i was up to something but didnt know. My character loved his family and would always be happy to talk about his family to anyone like it was part of his name during introductions. "Yes there's Aurora, myself - borri - , and Alice." A player asked ooc what color my character was and i showed her a drawing i did. She remarked they were cute and i was flattered saying "you really like Aurora, Borri, and Alice?" When the DM groans as it dawned on her, "oh my god. aurora borealis."

Didn't take extremely long, since it was a one-shot, but it ended up taking two full sessions of that "one-shot" for the others to realise that my tabaxi was in fact two cats in a trenchcoat. As a matter of fact, they had to go down due to a magical attack from a beholder, and as they did, the DM described the two cats flying out of the coat into opposite directions. Their names were Thomas and Gerard, just to have a second joke in there.

Had a master Thief named "Oswald Weathers Orland" he left cards with his Initials at his crime scenes took months before a player realized he was leaving OWO and was a cat burgler. Almost got punched it was worth it.

My best one: A merchant hires the party to track down a magic staff. it has a gold duck.head on top an has the ability to record and replay speech. They retrieve the item, but after they give it the merchant police arrest the merchant for possession of Quack Quote Cane

There was a tribe of druids who had mastered Power Words beyond Stun & Kill. When you met them & they commanded you to "Knee" you took a knee or took damage. So there they were surrounded by these tall knights with fur & deer antlers shouting "Ni" 😈 and yes, they demanded a shrubbery!

EDIT: made things less weird to read, a few explanations here and there to avoid confusion, spacing for easier reading, and a few corrections. Me and a few friends sitting around in a discord call trying to figure out our characters. we come up with: An antisocial half-orc barbarian who screwed up his "find steed" spell and the horse is too small for him. He lives in a mud hut in the woods. a "Donkle" lore bard. Donkle is the DM's homebrew Donkeyfolk race because Donkeys are their favorite animal. great strength, terrible int. you could say that donkles are literally dumb asses. A verdan noblewoman druid who's surprisingly fierce when push comes to shove. unfortunately she tends to get on everyone's nerves. a tabaxi swashbuckler who's way too confident in his own abilities. this particular DM lets him have 9 lives, mostly for fun, but also because his tabaxi always do CRAZY damage and losing him would pretty much cripple the party. a halfling who was cursed to always have a part of his body grow to show when he was lying. it's a character he's had for years, and was inspired by Pinocchio as it was his favorite movie as a child. the verdan player has a realization: "wait, this is literally just Shrek." a collective lightbulb goes off, and we decide to play the entire campaign like a Shrek movie. We somehow get through the entire campaign without the DM ever catching on, and miraciously, nobody died. The Donkle even managed to befriend (not seduce) a dragon with a lucky nat20 persuasion check, prompting a few of us to mute ourselves to hide the laughter. We get to the BBEG, and the DM gives us the option to get a surprise round with the trade off being the fight being a bit harder. the half-orc and the rest of the party, and we come up with the perfect plan: break through the door and rush them. Cue the half-orc kicking the door RIGHT off the hinges while he plays the beginning of All Star through a soundboard. The DM stays silent for a good several seconds, finally realizing the joke that has been right under his nose for the entire campaign, and says "you guys are assholes."

I did a one shot playing as a sorcerer. I themed him as a Godfather style crime syndicate of werewolves. When we were creating our characters we were allotted some magic items, so I picked some wands, reskinned a bag of holding to be the pockets of his jacket and an immovable rod. The rod puzzled the DM but allowed it. Anyway, things start hitting the fan and one of the other players (in character) tries starting a fight not knowing I'm a werewolf. "Oh, you want to do this?!" I say pulling out the rod. I click it into place and put my coat on one end and the hat on the other. "So you're making a coat rack?" Asked the Dm "Yeah, that's the only reason I wanted to take it" DM erupts with laughter

One time in a homebrew campaign we had to meet an NPC underworld/criminal contact in what was basically a fantasy russian city named Mikhail. Thankfully we already knew where to find him, at a local dance club he often frequents (the campaign took place in a modern-ish setting that was also very fantasy and a bit lower tech). When we arrive we inquire about Mikhail until someone gets a high enough social roll that an NPC points out someone. A sharply dressed man in a suit and fedora, who after a few quick spins and impressive dance moves, starts approaching noticing the party talking to his friend. He introduces himself... He is Mikhail Jackson, the smoothest criminal in the city.

My oldest brother told me of a character that sadly died before the joke coming to fruitation. He was a former slave, his family has a pottery business and he's a knight. His character was introduced as knight Ramic, he was waiting for someone to call him sir Ramic.

I was a 1st edition campaign in a world where magic items were rare, to the point that a +1 sword was something a 5th level party may not have ever seen. I gave the party an Arrow of Sleighing. It wasn't MY fault that they thought it was an Arrow of Slaying. They never asked for clarification when I told them. After almost a year of playing, they were going up against the BBEG in THE FINAL BATTLE FOR EVERYTHING, and the Ranger decided it was finally time. He shot the Arrow, and when it got a foot from the BBEG it turned into a sleigh, with 4 horses, full harnesses and tack. . . Smashed that sucker flat. Even though the Arrow killed the BBEG instantly, and despite the fact that the party now had a rather nice sleigh and 4 horse team, the ranger was still upset with me.

My friend was running a Vampire: Requiem game. My character was an influencer type with ambition named Simon. End of the campaign I became prince of the city. My final in-character line (a year and a half in the making) was "Now everyone must do as Simon says." Everyone at the table instantly learned that I had planned it from the beginning, and the ST friend of mine HATES puns and the like. He was soooo pissed, and it is one of my top 5 favorite roleplaying memories of all time.

I heard someone made puss in boots character a while back. He introduced himself as Tony the swashbuckler. Later on some official thing came up and his full name was finally read: Antonio Banderas.

I had a player who was running a character named "Chii," one of the things she would do was offer friendly people cake. This went on _for years._ She eventually became an NPC and _continued_ to give out cake. Eventually, one of my characters, in a game where she was a recurring NPC asked some one if they'd had any of "Chii's cake" . . . and I stopped. The player burst out laughing as _the rest of the group_ finally got the joke.

I gave one of my players a spell scroll for "Woe'Pei's Cursed Throne." They kept forgetting it was in their inventory until eventually, finally, casting identify on it, revealing that the spell in question would set a pressure -sensitive trap on a chair or related object within fifteen feet that, when activated, would produce a loud raspberry sound. I made a whoopie cushion expecting it to be a quick one-and-done joke and then the punchline was just skipped over for months.

Made a Ratfolk Cleric. Took people a while to figure out she was just a quiet little church mouse.

I out loud yellss goddamnit at Flint Stryker. But the moment you fucking said "about thirty feet back" I FUCKING KNEW IT

In one of my campaigns, a lot of the NPCs were backwards/reversed versions of gods and legends, and their names were also reversed. It wasn't just a throwaway joke, it actually turns out that this is part of a spell placed over the entire land. So Zeus becomes Suez, Pandora is Arodnap, etc. They even noticed a few of the name reversals, but not the whole thing. About a year into the campaign, one of them FINALLY noticed that EVERYTHING is backwards, including the name of the land, the people, and the BBEG. Cue fifteen minutes of brains exploding.

Taurubrum. A highland cattle-themed minotaur who had a special interest in making flight commonplace. It took months for the first person to guess it. They kept it a secret. Eventually another player and the GM figured it out. At almost exactly the year's mark, I finally got a wing suit manufactured and tested. Still got to make the pun at the end. Red bull did give them wings.

I made a character named Ann. she was a Gnome and was obsessed with theatre. No one got the joke until one day she introduced herself as " Gnome Ann of woman born"

One time in a wide-open game where characters from different works of fiction could be played I introduced a character named Val. She looked by all accounts a normal human, if with a knack for building stuff and a tendency to share some crazy stories about her distant relatives. About four months later an event happened that required all player characters to evacuate the area -- with GM permission, Val was the last to leave along with any remaining stragglers on the ride she just finished fixing, which the other players saw for the first time as a yellow school bus. It was at that moment the other players realized that "Val" was short for Valerie Felicity Frizzle. I still revel in the moment the others found out.

Well this would be considered evil. But you might it funny. As an DM I noticed that one of the players was getting on the others on their nerves by being a homicidal and cruel (A Psychopath). In Real Life he wasn't but he wanted to play such a character, however he played the character a bit to well. So I then asked if there was a way if his character could perhaps start a redeem arc, to become a better person. Turned out he loved the idea and concept but he doubted it could happen. He argued his character needed a revelation to chance his ways, one that would shock him in the core. So I had to think a way that would shock such a person. What came up with is still brought up now and then when I meet with the group. So the party needed to find the lair of the big bad guy, and learned from a devil that only one person knew the location lair. So he brought them to the ring of lust where there was someone with a bag over its head and tied with chains on a chair. The devil then told the party that only way they could get the answer out of the said person, is to somehow force out of it. While smirking the devil also gave the warning whom ever would somehow force it out would most likely be sorry about it. Of course the psychopath comes forwards with glee on its face,.... and I will not tell you what gruesome things he did to the bagged prisoner because that even give Freddy Krueger nightmares. Eventually the prisoner screamed out the location, with voice of said Psychopath. The bag around its head dissolved as well as the chains. Revealing it was indeed the psychopath. The devil then explained that here in hell they yes the sinners own imagination and creativity to torture themselves. The devil smirked at the Psychopath whom had committed the torture and told he would send 10 minutes back in time before had entered the room, where he bagged and chained the same chair as his future self. And he would suffer the same thing his past self did to him. And he won't be able to speak out location of the big bad guy until the exact amount of time had passed nor would he be able to warn his past self. Because that would break the time loop. Because he only knew the location because future self had just told him it, messing with the timeline would have far more disastrous consequences then what he was about to endure. Needless to say that indeed broke the psychopath and thus his redemption arc literally started by his own hands.

It took me a few weeks to catch on to a couple of NPC's names. There was a greedy woman who was responsible for the high tax rate in the town our party used as a base, Iona Bentley (I own a Bentley), and the tailor who made the clothes we wore to a duke's ball, Swift (Tailor Swift). I thought he was called "Swift" because he was so fast at making clothes, which he was. It only took him one day to alter four outfits. I'm sure there were others I didn't get or didn't find out about. Our DM is clever like that.

I ran a game in a very ocean-heavy world and included 6 shopkeeper sisters scattered throughout the world, kinda Nurse Joy style. Their names were Attina, Arista, Aquata, Adrina, Adella, and Alana. My players figured something was up with it, but it was several months before one of them realized that they're all Ariel's sisters from The Little Mermaid. The fact that there was no Ariel in the game did help to keep them from catching on, haha.

I was an unofficial player in a dnd game a friend was running, where I essentially was this druid demon ‘Serthaan’. The running joke was he primarily disguised as a mouse to listen and spy on the party, so later into the story when he disguised himself as a human shop owner, he used the name “Mycenall.” (Mice and all). The players only realized during the very last session of the campaign, lmao

It was a dewy day a Tavern at the edge of a mountain, owner offers us “Mountain Dew”, took players 6 months of drinking it at the table, before it was realized it was Mountain Dew 😂

Grassland druid who loved casting Invisibility. Zhong Xie Na, you can't see me.

I had a particular homebrew world where I did the map but didn't think a lot about specific city names, so I'd kinda make them up on the spot, and one of the city names was Port Manteau, where everyone would commonly combine words, like "Welcome to my Frall. Oh, that's what we call fruit stalls," or "Oh, you guys are Tradeventurers. Wandering heroes like you are always great customers for our magic item sellers."

BBEG of our last game was the character of one of the players who could no longer join us anymore. The character's new name is an anamgram of what he previously had and the entire evil plan was made by that player and shared with the dm changing as we accomplished things. We only found out after we got team wiped and the butt of the joke was that we all knew his weaknesses and many npcs foreshadowed it but didn't noticed. Picture like seeing the saw movie and at the end it all makes sense look on our faces, the dm and him were laughing at us when it ended.

It wasn't really a joke, but more of a secret I held from the party. I had made a character that was blind, and the party was not privy to that information. The DM and I agreed that I would have disadvantage on all sight related perception checks, but advantage on other senses. This caused much hilarity as the campaign was centred around a murder mystery, particularly the kings advisor. From not bowing when the others did when the prince entered, to walking past a very obvious clue, only stopping when noticing the party had stopped. The reveal came when a mysterious person slipped something in my pocket, and I couldn't figure out what it was, so I held it up and asked. A member of the party just told me bluntly, its a piece of cloth you idiot. All I said was that I wasn't an idiot, I was just blind, and the party just went silent. Meanwhile the DM and I were laughing so hard. We had another player join us part way through and we just agreed to keep the secret from them because it would be funny. The reveal to them came when we were presented with a puzzle. The floor would light up in squares with markings and colours which would tell you if that square would be crushed or not. The DM provided diagrams for us, and one of the players started reading off the colour and marking of each square, in character. The player that didn't know, was confused, and said "yeah we know, its right below us, we can see it". And I piped up and said "yeah well I cant". Pause for laughter. There was a lot of it.

I love punny names. My favourite was a Pathfinder society character whose name was solely to riff on a common phrase in a GM's repertoire...Itgos B. Foryew was an Oread Aerokineticist who was afraid of heights. Initially I didn't have any idea what the B stood for but after a few sessions it came so naturally: the B stands for Badleigh. Itgos Badleigh Foryew.

I played a ghostwise halfling who was the sole survivor of a village destroyed by a red dragon. His skin and hair were discolored from a near miss with dragon fire. He was haunted as a background. He saw the ghosts of the villagers and the humble woodcarving halfling became a druid that spoke out for the dead villagers, the animals, and the trees. His skin was burnt orange, his hair bright yellow. And his name was Axaro L. Woodtalker. Nobody got the joke all year. So finally, in the fall, when all the party characters signed a poster, I spelled my name out in an ascending angle. I was A LORAX WOODTALKER. All this time, the small low charisma disfigured halfling named Axaro was never discovered. Even though. I had a figurine that more than slightly resembled Dr. SEUSS'S character.

My latest character is a 7 foot tall Goliath Rune Knight, who recently joined a party of a couple of elves, a tabaxi, and a halfling, so he's the largest one in the group. He also grew up in a tribe of Hill Giants, and he was always the runt since he was much smaller than any of the others. His name is The Small One, since thats all his family ever called him

I had an NPC that I would exclusively use to send the adventurers on my wildest quests. They were always just insane and weird... Like one was acquiring a pin from a raccoon that was secretly a forest spirit... In order to get the pin from the forest spirit they had to give it a list of strange items like 3 goose feathers.. Anyway the NPC that always sent them on their weird quests was named Riddick Oolus... He goes by his first name, is a very flamboyant aristocrat, and his butler would announce the party by starting with 'Mr Oolus, I present to you...' It wasn't until the maybe 7th or 8th letter from this NPC to the party, once again requesting their aid, that my wife goes 'That guy always has the most ridiculous quests.' and then she just stopped and started giggling... It had gone on so long that I legitimately had thought they figured it out and just ignored it.

As a DM, nearly every important character has a name which is either a reference or a pun. My players get it maybe 1/10th of the time. I don’t think they realize how many characters have important information literally seeded in their names. Like a mysterious plague befalls a town, and the foreign Navy officer named “Mayflower” never enters the subject list at all.

We were playing Final Fantasy d20, going through an underwater dungeon, and the party met a water flan who had a love of hamburgers. The party befriended him and, but he didn't have a name so the party started coming up with ideas. And that's when it hit me: What do you call a guy you find floating in the water? Bob. And what did I suggest the flan do after mentioning my idea for a name? Leave the dungeon and open a Burger restaurant. The rest of the party groaned when they figured it out, but the GM was in hysterics, so he decided the flan liked that name best.

I had steampunky artificer halflings brothers NPCs in my campaign. They were the Zucker brothers. One was very talkative and the other was very quite. Like Jay and Silent Bob and other comedy duos. So as a bit of a joke, the talker would always introduce themselves by name to the party, even if it was the Nth time they met. "Hello, adventurers! I am Rijkaard Zucker and this is my brother Cog." I purposedly tried to have the names said aloud so that the players could work out the stupid joke. They would eventually betray the party, and on their final confrontation, Rijkaard was working on a terrible machine that could blow up the city or open a portal god-knows-where. He gave a huge speech and I secretly rolled Perception for the party several times. Eventually one nailed the rather difficult DC and could spot Cog sneaking around, setting off a rather complex trap that almost neutralized the party. I informed the player of what he saw. He thought about it for a while and then, with a smirk of realization, he said his character would point at the silent brother and shout "HEY! THERE'S THAT LITTLE COG ZUCKER!" The party groaned.

Played a campaign with a couple friends and the DM set the story in the 1800's and a stipulation to the story is the players had to be evil. Well my character was an off brand Jack the ripper, Stanley the stapper. I was the last player to finish their character and when I told my DM about my character, he lost his sht. I had no idea why. 3 sessions later, we all come to the realization that all 3 PC's are off brand Jack the Ripper's 😂

I put my players in a situation where they were faced with three factions. Whoever they chose to help, something bad was going to happen. The NPCs they met from each faction were named Koba, Yashi and Maru. The players didn’t see it at all until I pointed it out after several sessions.

The smashed mouth one got me. I had no clue where it was going and the fact they played all star is the cherry on top

I don't know if this counts as a long con, but there is a funny moment in Just Roll With It: Riptide. Very early on, the party is in a village and the Paladin is tasked with gathering some orange-like fruit for the innkeeper to make some juice. There is a funny scene where he debates between two food stalls, one with mandarins and the other with tangerines. While he eventually goes with the tangerines, the Paladin learns the name of the mandarin seller: Amanda. Later, after they save the town from a curse, the party enjoys a huge celebration where they get drunk and the Rogue wakes up the next day having gotten married to Amanda the previous night while blackout drunk. The party learns her last name: Rinn (I think it was something to do with the fact that the Rogue doesn't have a last name so they were debating if he was going to take her last name or not, but I could be misremembering that). Anyway, hijinks ensue of the Rogue attempting to get out of the marriage, both by trying to avoid her and by being a terrible husband. He eventually resorts to faking his own death, but even that doesn't work. Eventually they talk it out like adults and decide to separate (they didn't officially divorce, though) and the Rogue gets ready to leave with the party. Only at that point do they hear the character's full name again and put it together. Amanda Rinn. A-manda-Rinn. A mandarin. Bonus: 88 sessions later, the party is sailing through the ocean and spots a pirate ship in the distance bearing a Jolly Roger with a mandarin instead of a skull, though they don't get to say hello to the Rogue's wife because they are busy with a life-or-death mission.

Froggagog is a homebrew race in the GetherVerse. One particular froggy NPC named Mitker followed a player as a stowaway, then became an understudy to a druid player , turned full NPC adventurer, to eventually ascend to the position of the deity of wild magic. It took a year and a half of real time for them to realize he had his syllables switched...

My players met a halfling named Arieo, who was an a carriage driver who drove the party around and came from a long line of the fastest drivers in the land, and his family name was Speedwagon

I feel like it's probably bad that the first line of the Shia LeBeouf one was enough to tip me off to the joke. Literally all it takes is someone saying 'out of the corner of [their] eyes, they spot him' for me to burst into laughter.

I played an Horizon Walker, called him Vhent Saahs. It took 6 months for someone to catch in that it was an Among Us joke and he vented through time and space.

I had a character who, when introduced to the campaign/other characters, nearly every aspect was a lie. Race, backstory, organizational affiliations, the like. Even kept two character sheets, one public, one private. The only things that were consistent on the sheets were HP/AC, Abilities, and proficiencies. The public persona that everyone knew was of a goblin assassin working for a local gang/mafia, who turned on the crime lord when the heroes showed up, because he saw the winds changing with their arrival and sought to get on the winning side while he could. In truth he was a shadar-kai who'd been forcibly changed into a goblin and exiled from the Shadowfell, had been a spy for supernational agency who was initially infiltrating the aforementioned mafia, but had new orders to infiltrate the group of heroes to keep tabs on them. There were other plot/setting centric deceptions that would take too long to explain, but, suffice it to say, nearly everything they knew about this character was a deception of some sort. I named him Sobek, after one of the Egyptian Gods of the Nile (denial pun)

It took until my party encountered another lizardfolk for them to realize my character was not only a woman but a granny. I dropped plenty of hints like always disguise self as an old lady.

In my call of cathulu game my quest giver is named Nathaniel Philips Carter. And in my fantasy games the main quest giver is Control Polumous Casara. It took three years for some one, the brand new player, realized the initials of the name is NPC

My first session of the campaign I ran, my party ventured into a manor to stay the night at on the edge of town. There was a group of Aarakocra eagle bards there that played music for the manor. Their names were Leadon, Meiser, Frey and Henley. The party signed a ledger to check in, but when they tried to leave, they couldnt since their signature tied them to the building. And the faces they made once they realized this was all just a giant Hotel California joke was absolutely PRICELESS.

So many of these jokes went over my head. But then I'm missing a lot of these references...

I had an npc dragon named bjorn once... he was an NPC that asked the party to retrieve an heirloom stolen from his treasure hoard that was a keepsake that belonged to the last member of his family, before his entire bloodline was wiped out except for him. Pretty chill character actually, and ended up growing from a random one-off in encounter in the woods outside of town into a main NPC the party worked with... somehow it took the party 3+ months to finally realize that the dragons name was a dumb skyrim joke. He had told the party when he first met them that bjorn was a name that all the male dragons in his clan were given... since his family was all dead, he was the last dragon bjorn! it took them MONTHS to finally get the joke!🤣😰😓

For a level 5 one shot, it took literally the entire adventure for anyone to realize that Trevyr, the smarmy lovable jackass ranger/fighter who was always trying to convince party members they owed him a drink and pick up the tavern tab, seemed to know everything about everything about hunting monsters (especially vampires which were his favored enemy), wielded throwing daggers with Returning enchantment, bottles of Holy Water, Acid, and Alchemist's Fire, and a bladed whip... Was, quite literally just Trevor Belmont from the Castlevania show on Netflix. His name was even Trevyr. I in no way hid it. Nobody figured it out until I LITERALLY spelled it out for them at the end... despite literally ALL of them having seen and loved the show.

At "out of the corner of their eyes they spotted him about 30 feet back" I KNEW what was coming. Im disappointed i never thought to use this as a random encounter in the woods before

I instantly knew where the forest/cottage encounter was going, that shit had me screaming *"NO, DON'T DO IT!"*

Played a two-tailed Kitsune in Pathfinder. Nice fellow, disguised himself as a human all along, and introduced himself as Miles Prower. A couple months later, the big Sonic fan of the group was peeved he hadn't caught on sooner - Miles Prower, also known as the two-tailed fox "Tails". :D

I have an idea for a warlock/bard character who’s patron god takes the form of a swan woman, and he carries around a sort of spell book that she gave to him as thanks for his loyalty. She took him in as one of her own after being cast out by his community and would often tell him stories and call him her “little gosling.” His god is Mother Goose. His spell book is a book of nursery rhymes. I hope I can one day use this character.

I am currently in a group where my character, Cheshire, is a changeling. She's also a bard. Last session I was flinging inspiration around like confetti and - in order to cheer on the dwarf barbarian who she's decided is her big brother - She yells "I'm never gonna give you up. I'm never gonna let you down! I'm never gonna run around and desert you! Never will I make you cry, never will I say goodbye-" And then the party caught on and much laughter and groaning was heard. And I ended up paying the penalty (Yes, we have a penalty if you rickroll someone. This is not the first time. This is not the last time.)

My DM did the 'Newborn babie's shoes, never worn.' Thing but with a whole garage sale of children's toys & a drunken father. None of us mentioned it so he thought we didn't get it but we as an audience prefer to let the subtlety lie there & not engage w/ it because that's how *we* like it. Felt kind of bad when he said "None of you have any questions about the-" and we all answered "yeah we know it." Felt bad but like, damn. We don't need to talk about child death bro

The SECOND the Shia Lobuff one started I knew what was happenig, It is my favorite shitpost afterall. I burst out laughing the second i drealized, and after it was revealed, too

Mayors daughter and wife hasn't been seen in awhile. He's been seen wearing her distinct red hair ring around his wrist, fiddling with it worriedly in the rare occasions he's seen in public. Party heads to his fortified mansion to deal with the kidnapping of random women. Refuses to open the door and speaks with them through a hatch - perception checks reveal something red around his mouth, asserts his wife and daughter are just sick. Party gets jumped by zombiefied women on way back to town while discussing kicking his door in and catching him eating his wife & kid. go off to sort out the necromancer making himself a wife, still 100% convinced the mayor is a cannibal. ask them are they headed to town or directly to mayors mansion. stop off in town to restock/rest before going to kick his door in... Daughter meets them outside the tavern, her distinct red hair ring glinting in the sun, pays them and confirms she and mother just had a bad case of food poisioning - when the party came to the door the mayor had been enjoying wild boar in a thick red sauce. Party are later shipped a big barrel of red herrings as thanks for saving the town. Bonus: the necromancer BBEG they've met a few times, was one Richard De Stradly the 3rd, accompanied by his gnoll companion, "mutely" in full moustche twirling, damsel kidnapping glory

I had a mimic pet named Stu'arge (storage) Literally noone caught on until one of my players asked how he got the name

The moment I heard "when out of the corner of their eyes they rolled high enough on perception to spot him" *_I KNEW._*

The Actual Cannibal part I understood right away and I'm proud of it.

Had my players do a side quest that involved some accidental time travel. I foreshadowed it by introducing two NPCs named Tick and Tok. None of them caught onto it until weeks later.

I once played a Crabfolk Monk (Homebrew). The backstory was made in such a way that he's the type of a Homeless traveller type of monk. Searching for his own sense of self enlightenment. After a while the DM asked what kind of crab my character was and the Joke finally caught on. My character was a literal Hermit Crab

I played a magical knight who had been an apothecary before achieving knighthood. He had a variety of medicines on hand, namely to help the party get a good night's sleep. His name was Akwill. Sir Akwill.

It was a one shot level 20 campaign and my friend was playing a ten year boy old called Ashley who was a Shepherd-Druid/warlock with a rat as an animal companion and they explained to the DM that they had that skill where they use their animal familiars as the conduit for their magic. And his fey patron had tasked him to capture one of every kind of creature on the mortal plane and had given him a special portable sanctuary where he could keep them and call them out to fight for him when needed. Yes, all of that came out before the first fight and on his turn the player says ok I throw the rat at the zombie on the left shouting "Pikachu, I choose you, use thunderbolt" and I use him as a conduit for thunderwave. everyone groaned, it was awesome

4:12 "And then I saw her face, and I'm a believer"

I want to make a character called Yell O. Leather and have the party meet his brother, Red Leather. 'Red Leather, Yellow Leather' is a tongue twister.

Not made by the DM, but another party member. We were sitting around, progressing the story while only my character could see a demon. I told my party, and without missing a beat, one of our other party members just said “Schizophrenia?” And now it’s a legend known as the schizophrenia demon.

I didn't get to properly use them in a campaign yet (back-up character sheets already cleverly threaded in our story), but I got one. [Love this kind of stuff!] Let me tell you a tale: There's an incredibly stupid, happy-go-lucky tiefling girl that had a very diffucult life due to being rejected by Lolth's followers. She was effectively useless to them, so they ditched her in the underdark. Unperturbed by the abandonment, she gets up, dusts herself off, and starts her new life above ground... as a street urchin. But no matter how she'd get kicked out, knocked down, bamboozled, and humiliated, she'd just pop back up and try again or do something else. Because of her reputation of unwavering tenacity despite her dull wit, she earned herself a new name amongst the community in her ward... She gets passed around by sleazy adventurers and mercenaries from time to time as a front-liner, simply because she doesn't stay down and is easy to scam. Meanwhile in the harsh mountains, there is a cunning adult violet dragon that makes use of the thick, dark forests and unforgiving caves to ambush prey and intruder alike with large flashes of concussive light energy. He wants the world, and is willing to do anything to get over his rivals to accomplish it. [I unfortunately forgot his real name... T_T] One day, this dragon is hunted by a patchwork band of adventurers and mercenaries (which happens to include our tiefling), and the dragon infiltrates the group as a mountain guide. Some of the group is suspiscious, but our girl has taken a liking to this guide who "only wants to help." The group is easily guided to the dragons lair, at which point, the girl announces their presence to the dragon and waits for and answer. The "guide" asks why she would be so stupid as to give away the element of surprise, and she replies proudly, "It's rude to go in people's houses without knocking first! I did that one time, and that one ole' biddy let me have it for hours! She said that if I'm gonna be stupid, I can at least be polite! 😤" and refuses to enter the cave without an answer back. The guide belly laughs, flippantly tells the group to leave her there and get on the bounty. The rest of the party enter the lair. The "guide" sneaks the party leader. Party leader dies. The "guide" transforms back. He washes the party. He comes back to the entrance, and the girl is still there, terrified of his presence. He asks why she's still there after sparing her. She responds, "My bad, I didn't realize you was still sleep! We shoulda come back in the afternoon... I'm sorry my yellin woke you up! Is noon a good time?" The dragon laughs. She's confused. The dragon offers her a dragon knight contract... as a dragon disciple. She has no clue what that means. He has all the power in this contract in exchange for her getting to name him. He now has a brainless minion that somehow etched a soft spot into his blackened heart. She has a friend that (allegedly) doesn't treat her like squirrel dung. I present to you all the disciple and her sinister scheming dragon: Rise and Shine.

Oml that Shia-Lebouf one... the FIRST LINE in that tone was enough to make my arm hair stand on end, recognizing it immediately

In my college Gamer's Club, we did a one-shot adventure when our regular DM couldn't make it. The party was all dwarves, running a small caravan from the dwarf hold to a relatively new outpost way out in the middle of nowhere. We did the usual Oregon-Trail references, you know, fought some bandits, hunted for food, suffered from dysentery, the usual. Finally we approached our destination, leaving the treeline into a veritable hellscape, the ground and all the plantlife was burned to a crisp, there were wild elephants running roughshod over everything, dwarves running around trying to collect the bodies, and just chaos. As what was left of our caravan, a single wagon with about seven dwarves, entered the doors of the outpost, our stand-in DM narrated "As you pass by the Overseer of the place, a rough, tired-looking dwarf with a facial expression somewhere between "done with this sh!t" and "stark raving mad", he looks at you all and says "Welcome to f!cking Boatmurdered!""

I made a character for the Warhammer RPG. When discussing possible character names, the GM said something like, "Just don't name a character 'Dick the Brick" or anything like that." So, my character's name was Ticty Barique. The GM didn't catch on. Instead, the GM complimented me on the name, talking about the obvious influences from one language or another. But it was just a fancy version of "Dick the Brick". We didn't play that game much, so he didn't get a lot of chances to figure it out. Still, it's been about 30 years since then, so I don't think he's ever gonna figure it out.

In a oneshot, one of our party members had the name “Meepo.” He was a Kobold fighter whose story and personality was beloved as we went through the dungeon. The party unfortunately TPK’d (besides the Druid who wild-shaped into a bird to flee) and we decided to give it another shot with a different party and a new twist in the dungeon. This time, the same player made a barbarian named “Opeem,” and we had no idea it was backwards until about halfway through the session. Still a good laugh when looking back.

When I was 12 and making my first character (a human fighter, or course) I named him Aragorn, because I thought it was a cool name. It took ME about two sessions to realize Aragorn was Aragorn, from LotR, completely on accident.

I have a character named Professor Beatrice. Shes an Entobian, a sort of insect person, and is set up to be a librarian that focuses on scribe type spells then lightning as a followup. Best part is her name is the joke. I made her a Dr. Bees reference.

Every character I make I usually make a joke then try to make it serious. The best one was a monk who was a religious acolyte, because the party I played with are massive weebs they think if you are doing a monk you are tying to be Goku they got blind sided by me playing a friar. Half a year later the party was investigating a church (well more of trying to break into one), and I just walk in and got what was needed no problem. They where dumbfounded so I told them I am a monk and I am a monk. That is when it clicked with them.

A friend of mine, in our Shadowrun campaign, was called INAH, short for Im Not A Hacker. we did not figure it out until after the campaign

First one makes perfect sense. Unless you sing the notes when you say the names, it's hard to notice unless you see the names written down

A few months ago, a player in my campaign. What does character due to orcs. He decided to make a new character which two of us were introduced to in a session. However, the new character is highly suspicious and we didn’t let him join the party (we had major trust issues with this guy, especially since 3 NPCs traveling with the party betrayed us earlier). What myself and another person only realized at the end is that we never figured out what his race was, as he was wearing a cloak. We then come to learn he did Three Kobolds in a Trench Coat.

My character names almost always have some sort of reference, but they tend to be more subtle. My changeling bard, who usually looks like a red haired human female, is Rowan Aon Duine. Which translates as "redhaired nobody." My Warforged Warrior is Abram, because he's the tank. My white Dronborn barbarian is Morozonosets, Phonetical Russian for "frost Bringer" according to Google translate at least.

That pearl on the mantle story was great. Definitely the best.

I once had a character in a swedish RPG called "Baffratt" which would be close to "Juzcoz" if I would translate it. Most of the party giggled at my description of the goblin barbarian dragging a great sword bigger than himself behind him. One member took a little longer to realise that his name really was "just because". And when I first started playing RPGs a friend named his character Justin Case and spent all his money on things that could be useful some day.

I played a masked wrestler going by the stage name "The Roc" whose real name was Wayne Maivia (so a mix of the Rock's last name and his first gimmick in WWF) who kept his real identity secret as he was being pursued. At one point, he recieved a curse that cost him an important memory (that he was living in secret because of his persuers) in exchange for the ability to summon a fire elemental, and so the DM decided every time he was about to introduce himself, an NPC would just cut him off. Nobody else at the table knew od his secret and so this was the DM's way of maintaining the secret until an appropriately dramatic time, and somehow nobody noticed for several sessions

Party was fighting demons and other such evil monsters and desperately needed Divine power and a good sword to swing it. So they ended up recruiting an npc paladin who humbly went by the name Paul. Paul fought with them for a while, using his sword and divine power to aid the party, dying at the end to neutralize the demon king's power long enough for the player characters to deal the fatal blows to kill it for good. The party solemnly gathers Paul's body, and brought him back to his order to be buried with full honors. The party was invited to, and attended the funeral of Ser Paul Aidan, their humble Paladin pal who aided them in their quest. It wasn't until i was reading off his tombstone that it clicked for the group.

I had one time scheduling problems and knew I would be present to only one of two sessions. So I made warforged which can transform himself to a chest with a set of wheels and everytime I was away I had a malfunction and had to go to a rest mode, transform myslef and just follow the party around... They even rode on me when they were too lazy to walk... I fell in love with that character and kept him even when my scheduling conflicts were resolved and Cheston Wheels became my main character for the rest of the campaign... Then he died and party didnt have any revivify... only knew an NPC who was able to cast reincarnate... I rolled a human male and went with rest of the campaign learning how be a living being which on of our player taught me... her name was Lilly Anne and at the end of the campaign I announced that I feel that Cheston Wheels is a bad name for me and Lilly is like a sister to me and I want to take her last name and I would like to have also a middle name to feel myself as mor human... They asked what is my new name and I said I like the name Hugh and may be Martin as my middle name. Okay those are good names said the party... Alright it is settled My name from now on is Hugh M. Anne.

Not D&D but played Godbound with a friend. We were playing twins with a different sides of the same coin gimmick, we were nature inclined so we decided to have our names follow suit. I was Eve and she was Dawn. (Evening and Dawn, sun up and sun down. We thought it was funny.) The campaign didn’t last long but one of our friends about a month after it ended asked about the names and after explaining it, he wasn’t pleased.

I can’t believe I immediately got the Shia LaBeouf reference from the first sentence

Homebrewed a knowledge domain deity for my cleric. Name Tel'al. Took a year for the dm to catch on. 4 months after for the group. 😂

In my personal OC canon, the was a halfling that joined the military as a pikeman, but had to use normal humanoid pikes. He managed to excel, eventually becoming a training commander and writing training guides. And during the course of his life, changed his surname to Longwood. One of the first from his family line I played was a Nature Domain Cleric named Harden Longwood. 😏

About the first story: "fasola" is the Polish word for "beans", so that feels really weird as a name

I had a character gain an obsession with kicking enemies in the privates as his only form of attack. I did it because the dm made a plant, I rolled several nat 20s to intimidate it, into my daughter and the embodiment of Nature. My character’s original trait was he was a terrible gardener that just tried to intimidate plants into growing better and the DM was not amused.

Ah, yes, Tido, the famous ruler of Yugomusicia.

In the first and only 5e game I played in, one of the other players was playing a female human barbarian named Noelle who used a big ass two-handed sword. Took me weeks to catch on that he was playing the character of the same name from Genshin... which is sad, because I play Genshin daily.

I played a goblin with a fluid naming convention, your name is the last nickname you were called by a goblin from your tribe. I introduced myself as "fumbles" to my party, and explained about yhe naming convention. It was around 9 levels later someone joked we should rename my very scary goblin because I never fumble. I explained that I was a member of (famous goblin tribe that was slaughtered in a previous campaign), when i noticed the group of experienced adventurers attacking our vanguard i threw my dagger and "fumbled" hitting my commander, and "fell" of a bridge 30ft into a body of water. The last thing i heard was. Ooo, fumble, you Fumbles now.

I was DMing some new players all female, and one wanted to be an assimar, but I told her no she could be something from the handbook. Then I secretly gave them all the assimar abilities in addition to their normal racial stats. Their back story was that they were all adopted and their father was named Charles Dewinter, and he was an ex-adventurer with a keep. His second was a wizard named Bosworth Pennywhistle. During the first adventure the keep was attacked by a dragon and their foster father was killed, and Bosworth helped them escape to safety. After the attack, they returned to the keep and were then taken down into a part of the keep they had never seen. Bosworth then revealed a giant gem and from the gem came the voice of their father Chares. He became the faceless benefactor who gave them their adventures while Bosworth was their helper. It took many adventures before they realized that they were Charlie's Angels in DND. lolz.