Memes / Dungeons & Dragons

You have angered the gazebo.

Memes for Dungeons & Dragons.

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Please add entries in the following format:

• The name of the tabletop game (if it belongs in the "Other" folder).
  • The meme. [[labelnote:Explanation]]The explanation behind the meme, if necessary.[[/labelnote]] ^ExplanationLike this.
  • Further mutations and successor memes, if any.

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D&D in general/Multiple editions

• The Alignment Chart^ExplanationThe iconic D&D alignment chart is a familiar sight to anyone who has ever used the internet, with the alignment used to label pictures as anything from lawful good to chaotic evil, or switching the alignments out for something else while still retaining the setup.
• Dice dragons/dice goblins^ExplanationA common meme among players is that D&D inevitably leads to a crippling dice addiction, leading to people owning hundreds of sets that they'll never need.
  • Math rocks^ExplanationAn Affectionate Nickname for dice.
• Rolling a nat 20 ^ExplanationShorthand for performing an incredible feat, often against seemingly impossible odds. It has gone beyond Dungeons and Dragons and become part of purified gaming lore. In the game itself, rolling a 20 on the d20 is the highest possible result, and may, depending on edition and the type of roll, qualify as an automatic success or gain other significant benefits.
• Rolling a nat 1 ^ExplanationShorthand for screwing up in major fashion (often with the odds stacked heavily in one's favor), or to bring about an Anti-Climax because of sudden bad luck. In the game, rolling a 1 on the d20 is almost always an automatic fail on any check, often in hilarious and/or self-defeating ways.
• I'm attacking the darkness! ^ExplanationA brilliant and absurdly popular parody, made by Deadale Wives, of all the Media Scaremongering directed towards D&D and roleplaying games in general, the entire video became a meme, with this line the most popular.
  • If there are any GIRLS there I wanna DO them!!!
  • WHERE'RE THE CHEETOS?
• IT'S A GAZEBO! ^ExplanationAn unfortunate player named Eric is confronted by a gazebo, believes it to be a monster of some kind and is tragically unaware of their diabolical nature as inanimate buildings in gardens. The DM (after his player starts trying to detect the alignment of a small building) went along with it and Hilarity Ensues.
  Is it friendly?
  It's not friendly, Eric. It's a GAZEBO!
  I shoot it with my bow (roll to hit). What happened?
  There is now a gazebo with an arrow sticking out of it.
  I run away.
  It's too late. You've awakened the gazebo. It catches you and eats you.
  • This one gained enough notoriety that it's actually listed in That Other Wiki.
  • It's also in Munchkin with the restriction "No one may help you. You must face the Gazebo alone", based on how only Eric attacked the gazebo because everyone else knew what a gazebo was.
• Rogues do it from behind!
  • And paladins do it on horseback!
  • Samurai do it for their family's honor!
• I roll to disbelieve! ^ExplanationIf the target of an illusion spell has a reason to think that the spell's effects are illusory and can pass a saving throw against the illusion the effect is negated, or at least weakened. In sufficiently dire straits many adventurers would try really, really hard not to believe in the dragon that was currently ripping him apart, just on the off chance that it wasn't real.
• Eberron: Loli-pope! ^ExplanationThe head of one major church (and, more or less de facto, the theocratic nation in which it is based) in Eberron is a ten-year-old girl. Note this is not "looks like a ten-year-old girl but is Really 700 Years Old and an immortal vampire", or something; she's an actual mortal ten-year-old girl. The immortal vampire is the head of a different country.
  • Sailor Pope! ^Explanationsame as above, referencing Sailor Moon and the ridiculous level of power said ten year old girl wields because of her connection with said church's symbol of the Divine.
• Jack Chick was right! ^ExplanationThe infamous "Dark Dungeons" Chick Tract is about as unrealistic a portrayal of D&D as will ever be conceived. For one, the characters seemingly Cannot Tell Fiction from Reality, and think that whatever happens to their characters happens to them. Also, they're using D&D as a passage to learning real black magic, despite the fact that D&D contains no such ways to cast spells in the real world, black magic or otherwise.
  • "Blackleaf! NO!!!" ^ExplanationIn "Dark Dungeons", one player is expelled from the group after the death of her thief character, Blackleaf, and ultimately commits suicide over the character's death.
  • "I don't want to be Elfstar any more! I want to be Debbie!" ^ExplanationA line from "Dark Dungeons", when the heroine— er, central character decides to break off ties with a witch's coven her DM runs.
• From a famous Dungeons & Dragons campaign, the Head of Vecna. It's even referenced in Planescape: Torment.^ExplanationFor context, the lesser god Vecna lost his hand and eye, which became magical relics. Anyone willing to cut off their equivalent body part and replace them with Vecna's gained great power, but also turned evil. The Head of Vecna (actually a prank played on one half of a D&D party by the other) supposedly worked the same way. The other party members fell for it and decapitated several of their members trying to get the power of the head.
• Truly Immovable Rod ^ExplanationAlso known as the Universal Stillpoint Rod. A player ended up killed by an Immovable Rod when he stood at the wrong side of it and the DM ruled that the rod remained fixed to one point in space, setting it off relative to the players at several thousand miles an hour. The party later used an Immovable Rod as a siege weapon.
  • *CLANG!* WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT? ^ExplanationPeople conjectured that, since the rod was now fixed to one point in space, no one would see it again until some unfortunate passed through the same region of space and got hit by the rod.
• Cats vs. Commoners. ^ExplanationBoth are almost One Hit Point Wonders, so it's "who scores a few hits first". Thus, even in D&D1/AD&D a commoner beats a cat only if allowed some good use of size advantage, like overrun attack not requiring charge (PO:C&T). In D&D3, a small dextrous cat is better both at hitting and dodging and has 3-attack claw/claw/bite routine, so cats win.
• Dungeon Masters/DMs are their own source of memes, as there's a lot of common expressions that go around.
  • "You can certainly try." ^ExplanationStandard DM response for when one of their players wants to try something stupid, impossible, or ridiculous. Expect hilarity to ensue, especially if the player gets a nat 1. Or, even better, a nat 20.
  • "Are you sure?" ^ExplanationAnother response in the same line, though more in the form of them saying "I am giving you one chance to backtrack and do something smarter". Expect to hear stories of players who don't heed these words.
  • "This should be interesting."^ExplanationGenerally agreed to be DM-speak for, "Start writing your will."
  • "*deep sigh* Fine."^ExplanationIn relation to the above, this is often the response of a DM whose player just rolled a nat 20 on something ridiculous. Just "*deep sigh*" by itself is pretty common, too.
  • If the DM smiles, it's already too late.^ExplanationDMs are notorious for finding new and creative ways to kill their party, or at least throw them into chaos. And they usually have a very fun time watching it happen. If your character tries something, and your DM's immediate response is a grin... say your prayers.
  • Beleaguered DMs.^ExplanationGiven how much the game revolves around player choice and improvisation, it's fairly common to hear stories of long-suffering DMs who have to put up with their players dragging their characters into various shenanigans that have nothing to do with the plot, and sometimes throw the whole story Off the Rails. This, combined with some players' tendencies to troll their DMs, often leads to the DM becoming The Chew Toy of the campaign. Some DMs accept this with good humor, while others... do not.
  • "You don't see anything./You don't see any traps."^ExplanationThe response of many DMs to their players asking if there's anything present or whether they find something when checking for traps. This is often said regardless of how well the player rolled, and whether there's anything there or not. It's specifically emphasizing that just because the players didn't find anything doesn't mean there isn't anything. Thus, it's a tool in the DM's arsenal for the sake of making the players paranoid.
  • "How do you want to do this?"^ExplanationThese words are often said when the next attack will kill the enemy and end the combat encounter. Used as an invitation for the player making the attack to describe the Coup de Grâce in detail to give the fight a Rule of Cool finisher.
  • "I'm so sorry..."^ExplanationUsually said when a PC is killed, especially by an unlucky critical or failed saving throw.
  • "I'll allow it."^ExplanationCatchphrase of the DM invoking Rule of Cool.
• Seduce the dragon/carp/chair. ^ExplanationA common Running Gag amongst most groups is attempting to roll seduction on things that should not logically be able to be seduced. Mainly because Hilarity Ensues usually should they succeed in such a roll. Although given the "dragons are perverts" meme below...
  • Which was probably done by the Bard. ^ExplanationThrough a combination of Bards' large bonuses to skill checks enticing players to try such esoteric ones, Bards' making heavy use of the Charisma statistic, and being interpretable as the Medieval European Fantasy equivalent of a rockstar, the Bard class is infamous among players for being used for gutsy/wacky/crazy seduction attempts on just about anything for whatever reason.
• Dragons are perverts! ^ExplanationThe number of part-dragon races and monsters has led to the fandom thinking that dragons will screw anything that moves.
• Thri-Kreen Erotica (WARNING: NSFW) ^ExplanationOne of many infamous stories from /tg/. In a bizarre thread, someone asked if playing a Thri-Kreen character (Thri-Kreen, for context, are a race of mantis-people) was Furry. Everyone declared that no, it was not Furry, claiming nobody wanted to bang a Thri-Kreen. Cue a writer in the thread taking that as a challenge and writing Thri-Kreen erotic fiction. And it was actually really good. Cue /tg/ being flooded with DND Xeno-porn posts for months, and it’s still a regular sight on the board. There have been many variants with just about every single race in the game, but the Thri-Kreen one remains the most famous.
• Muscle Wizard^ExplanationA hilarious homebrewed class that uses spellcasting based around stats like constitution or dexterity instead of the typical ones like intelligence. The result is a wizard whose “spells” mostly consist of punching people really hard, like a bizarre fusion of the mage and monk classes. Depending on the system and how you build your character, the Muscle Wizard can be a total Game-Breaker.
  • I cast FIST^ExplanationFamous line from a drawfriend's comic on the subject.
• Human Fighter ^Explanation According to statistics from DNDBeyond, the most popular race/class in D&D is... The normal human guy who uses normal weapons.
• Boblin the Goblin ^ExplanationAlso known as Sam Smorkle. An utterly inconsequential character that the players insist on interracting with for some reason, often inviting them to join the party. Boblin has taken on a life on his own as a beloved goblin character.
• The Mountain^ExplanationA DM once told a story about a game he played where the party went back in time. After the DM accidentally described a mountain that hadn't been there in the present day, the players started wondering what happened to it. What followed was a truly ludicrous amount of memes about what happened to the mountain, a lot of them suggesting that the mountain had levels in rogue and sneaked away.
• Warlocks have demon sugar daddies.^ExplanationWarlocks, particularly those that enter pacts with fiends, gain their magic via doing favors for their patrons or purchasing their powers in some other way. Many players jokingly paint this as a straight-up sugar daddy scenario, with the warlock allegedly doing favors for their patron. Some who play warlocks take it a step further and make it canon.
• Rod of Lordly Might^ExplanationYour number one source of dick jokes in D&D!
  • Portable Hole^ExplanationYour number one source of vagina jokes in D&D!
• Kill them and take their stuff. ^ExplanationThe standard m.o. of most D&D parties. Also often the recommended way of dealing with a problem player.
• Murderhobo^ExplanationA sometimes affectionate, sometimes derogatory term for an adventuring player character. The term comes from the player wandering around killing things without a permanent place to settle down, making the adventurer/PC akin to a hobo randomly killing people. The term has escaped tabletop gaming to move into the realm of video games as well.
• Silly characters, serious story^ExplanationMany players, first-timers and veterans alike, will make the most silly, ridiculous characters possible, even if they are playing a serious campaign. The joke is that the character will end up in some deeply tragic or extremely epic situation. And everyone will still call them Buttscratch Tumbledown.
• "Just use Fireball".^ExplanationIf ever playing as a casting class with access to Fireball, expect to hear someone say to use it in any battle you get into if you take it. This is because, bluntly speaking, Fireball is one of the strongest spells in 5th Edition, and thanks to its relatively low level, is acquired early enough that it can be a big help to a party. Due to this, many have taken up jokingly say that Fireball should be used all the time, even in situations where it doesn't make sense to.
  • "I didn't ask how big the room was. I said, I cast fireball." ^ExplanationOf course, one of the downsides of Fireball is the risk of party members getting caught in the blast radius. This means that some players have a habit of just selecting a target and throwing it out without thinking of how they could hit themselves or their allies, leading to jokes about players who use Fireball not caring about their party.
  • "You cast Fireball on yourself." ^ExplanationWild Magic Sorcerers have an ability that when used forces them to roll on a table that has random effects. One of them is that you cast Fireball, but with yourself as the center. Due to this, players like to joke about casting Fireball on themselves since it can practically wipe out an entire party as soon as they get the feature.
• Swarm of X monsters^ExplanationThere are some enemies that, instead of being one single enemy, are listed as swarms, such as a swarm of rats, snakes, etc, to justify why you would fight something that normally would be easy to fight. This has lead to memes about making encounters that are swarms of enemies not meant to be swarm enemies, like a swarm of zombies, swarm of vampires, or more hilarious enemies like a swarm of Tarrasque's or Tiamat. This also has lead to jokes about a swarm of swarms. DND Beyond in particular has a number of homebrew encounters based on this joke idea.
• Inopportune Natural 20s^ExplanationNat 20s, the Critical Hit of D&D, is what all players hope to get whenever they roll their dice, frequently interpreted as an automatic success. Many are frustrated, however, at how the dice only seem to give that result when rolling for something completely pointless, like trying to make a meal, but never when fighting enemies
• "It's what my character would do"^ExplanationFew phrases are capable of inducing such rage in D&D players as this one. While being The Roleplayer is usually considered one of the best things you can be in D&D, which naturally requires you to act in accordance with what your character would do, the phrase is more often than not used as an excuse to act like a complete and utter Jerkass to everyone, including your fellow partymembers. Rogues who steal from their own party, Lawful Stupid paladins who kill indiscriminately when the party wants to be merciful, and so-called adventurers who refuse to help the party without personal incentive are all common cases of "doing what my character would do" poorly.
• Main Character Syndrome^ExplanationA mindset where a player thinks their character is the main protagonist of the campaign and should be the center of attention the entire time. Frequently guilty of bossing around other characters, inserting themselves into any roleplay scenario that doesn't naturally include them, and derailing events when they don't get their way.
• "Just write a book."^ExplanationA bit of advice that is often given to dungeon masters guilty of excessive Railroading, especially if they use a GMPC. If they want every action or event in a campaign to be exactly as they envision, then they're better off just writing their own stories outside of D&D rather than forcing players to play the roles the dungeon master wants for the story in question.
• The price of diamonds^ExplanationIn most editions, casting resurrection spells requires a diamond of a certain value, which is meant to avoid Death Is a Slap on the Wrist. Some players started questioning the logic of this, since the price of a diamond is not set and very much depends on a lot of different factors, including how much a society values it and artificial scarcity caused by the Real Life De Beers corporation which has a near-monopoly on diamond mining. This led to a meme that the De Beers corporation exists even in the Forgotten Realms.
• First character / 20th character^ExplanationA joke based on a common difference between long-time players and first-time players. First-time players tend to play relatively "basic" characters, which doesn't really break the mold of the stereotypes associated with the class they're playing. Not boring in any way, just expect to see lots of questing knights, sons avenging their parents, hedge mages, etc. As time goes on, however, those same players tend to grow more experimental in what they play as, resulting in oddities like time travelling witches from the future, 12-year-old drakewardens, and mages with 8 bee familiars.
• "I see my boots."^ExplanationUsed when a player rolls low (usually under 5) on a Perception check.
  • "Where have my boots gone?"^ExplanationUsed when a player rolls really low (under 1) on a Perception check, the implication being that they have failed to notice that said boots are on their feet.
• Cocaine wizards^ExplanationSeveral of the more oddball monsters in D&D are said to be the result of experimation by wizards, prompting specluation that said wizards must have been high on drugs at the time.
• CLANK! CLANK! CLANK!^ExplanationWhenever a heavily-armored character makes a Stealth roll.
• Kender Genocide. ^Explanation Most discussions involving the Kender usually devolve into rants about how awful they are and asking the best way to wipe them off the face of the plane.
• Let me tell you about my character...^ExplanationD&D players are stereotyped as boring non-D&D players with stories about their games.
• You step on a d4. You take 1d4 points of damage.^ExplanationD&D's many types of polyhedral dice include four-sided dice, which are very painful to players who accidentally step on them, often being compared to caltrops in that regard.
• "Cleric!" ^ExplanationUsed when a character is badly wounded. Derived from "Medic!"

1st Edition

• Minus 4 Strength.^ExplanationA rule from AD&D 1st Edition penalized Demihuman female characters on their Strength score: -1 for dwarves, -2 for elves, and -3 for halflings and gnomes. While the rule was misremembered as all female PCs having their strength subtracted by four, it remains a fact that female PCs of a few races still had their Strength reduced as a game mechanic. "Minus Four Strength" was even the former trope name for Game-Favored Gender. TSR dropped this rule when they realized what a bad idea it was; starting with D&D 2nd Edition's release, a player character's gender has had no effect whatsoever on their stats or abilities. The concept is now an Old Shame for TSR and longtime fans of D&D.
• Leering Green Devil Face. ^ExplanationIn the Tomb of Horrors, this is a mural in the front hall containing a Sphere of Annihilation in its mouth. It's easily the best-known trap of the entire trap-filled dungeon and gets referenced to this day, even in official materials.
• Glaive-glaive-glaive-guisarme-glaive. ^Explanation 1st Edition AD&D had a comically large assortment of available polearms, including the glaive, the guisarme, the glaive-guisarme, the glaive-voulge, the guisarme-voulge, and the Bohemian Ear-Spoon. This has spawned◊ numerous parodies. The 3rd Edition cut the list of polearms and weapons in general down to a more manageable number, with one of its Sourcebooks explicitly stating the intent to avoid making stats for weapons that are fundamentally similar.

2nd Edition

3rd Edition/3. 5

• Edit: Swordsaged ^ExplanationUsed in D&D forums. For instance: At the Giant in the Playground message board, they say swordsaged instead of Ninja'd, because of how they seem to out-ninja ninjas in 3.5.
  • In game, Dex based swordsages, despite being considered the weakest of the 3 Tome of Battle classes, have a notorious reputation for ganking opponents not correctly defending themselves. ^ExplanationThe reason for this is manyfold. Reason One is their initiative bonus. Heavy incentive for dex, the Quick to Act class feature, along with other potential but basic minmaxing such as gear, often means they're leaving NPC's in the dust, acting first. Reason Two is the combination of Shadow Blade, insightful strikes and Assassin's stance. Shadow Blade is a feat that allows them to add dex to damage when in a shadow hand stance and using shadow hand weapons. Said stance is often the assassin's stance, adding +2d6 sneak attack. Insightful strikes adds wisdom to damage when using maneuvers from a selected school. Thirdly is incidentally, the maneuvers. They let them do things like pop off 10d6 damage in a standard attack, do short ranged teleports as move actions, turn invisible for their turn as a swift action, or even move freely during a charge - giving them an array of heavy hitting options while avoid the riposte. Long story short: Massive initiative checks, stealth, damage bonuses and class features make them crazy-quick at getting the drop on foes.
• MY HAT (sic) OF D02 KNOW NO LIMIT! ^ExplanationFrom the questionable grammatical ability of a disgruntled poster on the RPG.net forums. For those not in the know, a d02 would be a two-sided die, ergo something that could easily be replaced by a coin with no functional difference. (He meant to type "d20".)
• Tordek is in it for all the bitches. ^ExplanationA new D&D player's character was Tordek. His motivation for adventuring was attracting female companionship. This was pretty much his entire backstory.
• Lightning Warrior was a class someone created on the WotC forums as a joke. It has a wizard's spells and a warrior's fighting ability and asked if it was underpowered because it didn't have a familiar (an ability that is actually considered a disadvantage to use, since if the weak pathetic animal that grants you meaningless bonuses dies, you lose a giant chunk of XP) and is unable to specialize (a more legitimate weakness, but generalist Wizards are still Game-Breaker class). The class is now a running gag when recommending a class, with notes that it "sacrifices power for flavor".
• "Katanas are underpowered in D20" ^ExplanationA complaint about Katanas and d20, and the attempt by the Japanophile author of the complaint to convince others to remedy this "problem" (along with them claiming to be an authority on the subject just because they owned one for two years), which became infamous for its truly staggering amounts of bad research and general ignorance.
  Katanas are thrice as sharp as European swords and thrice as hard for that matter too. Anything a longsword can cut through, a katana can cut through better. I'm pretty sure a katana could easily bisect a knight wearing full plate with a simple vertical slash^note Absolutely no katana would be able to do this (modern or past manufacture), as plate armor was thicker and stronger than any katana could handle. Most historical weapons that countered plate mail to any degree were maces (heavy enough to break plate or just bludgeon the man inside the metal armor) or gunpowder weaponry that eventually made plate obsolete. And that's not even getting into the knight wearing the plate armor having more than a few objections to the idea. The author also claims to be able to cut through solid steel slabs with their katana, which is possible, if by "slab" you mean "thin sheet" mounted secure in a frame and struck on the edge, conditions that will never occur against real armor. This video shows a well-made bronze sword can do the job.. Ever wonder why medieval Europe never bothered conquering Japan? That's right, they were too scared to fight the disciplined Samurai and their katanas of destruction^note  Europeans started trading with Japan in the 15th century and did so for centuries afterward, but stopped after Japan closed itself off at the start of the Edo period; at which point, most Europeans stopped caring about the tiny collection of islands far from European nations. Long story short, European knights didn't invade Japan not because they were afraid of samurai, but because there would have been no point in starting an invasion. Even in World War II, American soldiers targeted the men with the katanas first because their killing power was feared and respected.^note This was, if true, probably more because the katanas were a symbol of their owners' rank than their killing potential on a battlefield. Ground battles in World War II were dominated by guns and explosives; deaths from sword attacks were practically non-existent in that war. As well, the majority of said officers would have been given the lower quality, mass produced gunto rather than a traditionally made sword like the ones the author was hyping up, and it was for nationalism-related reasons instead of their "killing power".
• ACTION POINTS! ^ExplanationAction points allowed characters in d20 Modern or Eberron to add to a roll, allowing characters to go "above and beyond" their normal abilities. The Eversor Assassin is obviously using his.
• WEEABOO FIGHTAN MAGIC!^ExplanationThe Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords was an Animesque supplement book designed to mitigate Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards. The book included skills that gave melee characters things like Ki Manipulation to close the gap with pure caster classes. The name "The Book of Weeaboo Fightan Magic" is used both as an insult and an affectionate nickname for it, to the point that even people who like the Book of Nine Swords sometimes refer to it with this name.
  • IRON HEART SUUUURGE! ^ExplanationThis power, from the Tome of Battle, allowed the user to remove any negative effect. Since the term "negative effect" wasn't well defined, it was reasoned that one could Iron Heart Surge out of pregnancy, or wounds, or death. Additionally, instead of becoming immune to the effect itself, the cause of the effect is ended, so if you are in a desert or are a race somehow impaired by the sun, you can end its heat/light. Ironically, the ability can't be used as Heroic Willpower as intended, as any these situations, such as Charm or Hold Person, prevent you from moving freely.
• I AM THE MOON. (He is the moon...) ^ExplanationWhen telling lies in D&D, subjects receive an increasing bonus to their attempt to see through the lie based on how utterly nonsensical the lie is. D&D 3e has a spell called Glibness which gives huge bonuses to Bluff checks that outstrip the bonus the target gets for disbelieving even the most ridiculous lies, to the point where you can say something like "The sky is green" or, yes, "I am the Moon come down to check on the tides" and be believed. You can also have your friends come along and back you up to get a further bonus on your roll. ("He is the Moon.")
• Oh no! It's CoDZilla. ^ExplanationIn response to the accusation that 3.5 psionics was broken and that core was balanced, one person made a rather sarcastic response pointing out just how broken the core classes of Cleric and Druid are. CoD refers to Cleric or Druid

4th Edition

• Bear Lore! Roll a Nature check:
  • DC15: Cave bears live in caves
  • DC20: Dire bears like to attack with their natural weapons
  • DC25: Bears shit in the woods
  • DC35: Bears Are Bad News ^ExplanationD&D 4e had tables which listed stupefyingly obvious information for passing fairly difficult checks. Those first two lines are not even made up, they are condensations of the actual bear lore entries.
• Alternatively, roll a Religion Lore:
  • DC15: Bears do not attend any continuous services of worship. They are ready to kill at all hours of the week.
  • DC20: They mysteriously vanish every winter, perhaps to give reverence to their perverse fertility goddess while gorging on the souls of men lost to famine.
  • DC25: Bear society has no visibly ordained clerics.
  • DC35: SHIT NEVERMIND THEY HAVE THEM RUN.
• I'm a monster! RAWR! ^ExplanationThe gnome was taken out of the 4E Player's Handbook and placed in the Monster Manual, and in the animated videos by Adam Phillips, commissioned by Wizards Of The Coast, the gnome pointed this out.
• Durr *CLANG* ^ExplanationIn 4th edition, Rogues can get a power called Bloody Path during which they run past enemies, and if those enemies would make opportunity attacks, they instead target themselves. It's supposed to represent Deadly Dodging, but this makes little sense because, due to the nuances, a more skilled warrior is more likely to hit themselves. The only explanation some people could come up with was that the power was actually a form of short-ranged mind control forcing the opponent to turn stupid and hit themselves. Thus, "Durr... *CLANG*"

5th Edition

• How bad True Strike is.^ExplanationTrue Strike is a cantrip for bards, sorcerers, warlocks and wizards. It takes an action, and gives advantage on your next attack against one creature. The obvious problem is that it takes a full action to cast, and lets you roll two dice on your attack next turn. In other words, it would be more efficient to just attack on both turns, with the same chance to hit but with double the potential damage. Unless you are playing a character built around hitting with a single attack, True Strike is the only spell in the entire game that's a net loss to cast, which led to a lot of memes. Note that the 3rd Edition version of True Strike, which gave +20 to hit, was considered one of the best first level spells.
  "But True Strike gives advantage..."
  "JUST ATTACK TWICE!"
• Similarly to True Strike above, discussing how bad Rangers are as a class has become a meme in the community. ^ExplanationRanger is not bad, but it is generally considered the worst of the 5th edition classes since it has underwhelming and highly situational abilities and doesn't really seem to have a proper identity like the other classes. It's become a joke to exaggerate the Ranger's shortcomings to the point of it being utterly useless. Eberron: Rising from the Last War added fuel to the fire by giving Artificers the ability to build a mechanical companion that worked exactly like the Beastmaster Ranger's animal companion, only far better. This was mitigated somewhat with the revised rules for rangers in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything.
• Wizards of the Coast hate Sorcerers/love Wizards.^Explanation5th Edition Sorcerers are often seen as one of the weakest classes in said edition, citing a lack of versatility, underdeveloped class features, and not enough sub-classes to power the class up. By contrast, Wizards are incredibly powerful, and get new spells, sub-classes, or features in just about all updates. This has lead people to joke that Wizards of the Cost hate Sorcerers and love Wizards, oftentimes joking that Wizards get more focus because it's in their name.
• X ordinary creatures could defeat Tiamat^ExplanationDNDBeyond has an Encounter Builder, which lets a DM compare and contrast monsters with player characters to see how balanced it would theoretically be in a game. Since Tiamat is the strongest monster in 5th edition, it quickly become a meme to see how many Mooks the encounter builder thinks it would take to kill her. In the actual game, Tiamat is more or less immune to that kind of munchkinry, since she has Divine Word innately, not to mention several breath weapons easily capable of one-shotting large numbers of weak enemies.
• 12d1^ExplanationStarted as a debate about which weapon is better, the greataxe (which rolls a d12 for damage) or a greatsword (2d6 damage). The argument eventually turned into which was more fun to roll, 2d6 or a 1d12, which led to a number of memes about other possible ways to roll damage, such as 3d4, 4d3, 6d2 or 12d1. If you're curious, the more dice you roll, the higher your average will be, even if the dice add up to the same number. 1d12 has a range of 1-12, 2d6 has range of 2-12, 3d4 has a range of 3-12, and this consistently pushes the average roll higher. At 12d1, obviously, the minimum, maximum, and average damage are all precisely identical: 12.
• Married for the AC boost^ExplanationIn 5e, clerics and paladins can cast the spell Ceremony, which serves as a standin for the various rites performed by priests (funeral, consecrating water, confession, etc.). The most interesting of these rites is the Marriage rite, which grants a number of willing targets a +2 armor class bonus as long as they're nearby each other. Players immediately started joking that a proper Munchkin could get married to their fellow player just to get the boost.
  • Widowed for infinite AC^ExplanationThe rules for Ceremony notes that a player can only benefit from marriage again if they have been widowed. Cue jokes that, by killing your spouse, carrying their corpse around, and marrying again, you could theoretically gain infinite armor class boosts
• Y'Gathok ^ExplanationOriginally from an Epic level campaign based on Tyranny of Dragons, run by DM Vigarath. Y'gathok was the Eldritch Abomination final boss, who quickly reached infamous status after a size comparison video of the "mini" started circulating, which had a base the size of a small table, and made Tiamat look like a pebble in comparison

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