Binder of Shame

"And that was how our party ended up being a dwarven fighter with a piece of broccoli for a head, a chick in a chainmail bikini, two wizards, the luckiest fighter in the world and a ninja brandishing the dreaded halfling on a stick."

Al Bruno III's series of allegedly-autobiographical stories about the Tabletop Games group he endured throughout his college years. Al himself, known as Ab3 on RPG.Net, is led to the group by his friend Weasley Crusher and rapidly finds himself forced into the role of the Only Sane Man of the group. Arguments, dysfunction, and Total Party Kills abound as they systematically ruin every game they can find, from Dungeons and Dragons to Call of Cthulhu (tabletop game) to Rifts.

The title of the series, Binder of Shame, comes from the philosophy of the Killer Game Master Psycho Dave: "Every D&D game has many binders but each D&D game must have a Binder of Shame and a Binder of Glory. The player characters that die heroic deaths are saved forever in the page protectors of the Binder of Glory. The characters that suffer, humiliating, soul-crushing deaths go into the Binder of Shame. It's a sign of quality GMing to have a Binder of Shame three times the size of your Binder of Glory."

"Ab3: Night Ranger was a bitchin' band. Johnny: Really? I hate them, I just wear the T-shirt to remind me of my character class."
 * Ambiguously Gay or Armored Closet Gay: Biff Bam; the one time he runs a game at his house he suggests that they deal with the heat by removing their shirts (and he's quite insistent on that); and he deals with players not liking his rulings by wrestling them to the ground; and he rules that failed SAN checks make the character act increasingly swishy.
 * Attention Deficit Ooh Shiny: Johnny Tangent/Short Attention Span Larry (probably different nicknames for the same person).
 * Awesome McCoolname: El Disgusto's character "Lord Baron Whoopass Von Badass".
 * BBW: Annoying Girl.
 * Berserk Button: The author, when he GMs, doesn't care for Monty Python quotes.
 * El Disgusto has several, but most notably anything that can be linked to his injury. "Half-cocked," anyone?
 * Big Eater: Blobert Smith.
 * Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: Cheating Bastard compares stealing milk crates to "tearing the tags off of mattresses, trading bootleg videotapes and bestiality."
 * Butt Monkey: Weasley Crusher, and possibly Ab3 himself.
 * Canon Defilement: In-universe, any and every game based on an established setting.
 * Chaotic Stupid: The players take Chaotic Neutral characters as a free pass to "run around like a bunch of kill-happy lunatics".
 * Cloudcuckoolander: Most of them have their moments, but Johnny Tangent is probably the winner.

"Blobert Smith: "Your xenophobic gibes grow wearisome." Psycho Dave: "And your ass smells like cheese, what’s your point?""
 * Conspiracy Theorist: Collateral Darren, who believes resumes are useless except to make the paper manufacturers more money.
 * Distressingly, no one can actually think of any reason why his logic is wrong.
 * Delusions of Eloquence: Biff Bam is an exCELLerant example of this trOUPe.
 * Dirty Coward: Ol' Yellowbelly.
 * Drill Sergeant Nasty: Psycho Dave turns Yoda into one of these in "Trapped in Jedi Academy."
 * "Yoda force chokes you until you black out."
 * Dude, Not Funny: In-Universe, Ab3 gets up and walks out once he realizes that Psycho Dave expects the group to help Hitler.
 * Dysfunction Junction: The entire damned group with the exception of Ab3
 * At one point it mentions that Ab3 went into deep denial and actually convinced himself that this was just what a roleplaying group looked like, that this is how friends treated one another. The epilogue, happening several years later, reveals that he's come to his senses and has found a group of of supportive, likeable people to play with instead.
 * Embarrassing Slide: Deviant Boy and Asenath's photos from a gaming convention include some of these. Though Ab3 seems to be the only one who's actually embarrassed by them.
 * Everything Trying to Kill You: Psycho Dave's games.
 * El Disgusto's house, too. It's littered with bottles of...post-consumer Mountain Dew. And one day the group comes in and notes that the walls are a completely different color, which El Disgusto mentions is because his parents had them cleaned; apparently the previous color was the result of toxic mold.
 * Exactly What It Says on the Tin: One player is known as "Cheating Bastard". He is.
 * Extreme Doormat: Weasley Crusher is bullied by El Disgusto into buying pizza with the money he needed for insulin.
 * Funetik Aksent: Biff Bam's "habit of randomly mispronouncing things". The mispronunciations are capitalised so they're easy to notice.
 * Girlfriend in Canada: El Disgusto.
 * God Mode Sue: In-universe (or in-game, rather) Biff Bam's favourite NPC, "Dick Marvil".
 * El Disgusto maintains that his ninja survives attacks because it hides in the shadows. Every. Single. Time. ("There are shadows in the afternoon!")
 * Grievous Harm with a Body: The Amazing Boozehound's wizard character used a cat on a string as a weapon, and El Disgusto's ninja used Weasley's character.
 * Groin Attack: El Disgusto apparently lost the tip of his penis when he frightened the dog into biting him.
 * Helicopter Blender: Happened to El Disgusto's character in one of Ab3's games while trying to jump over a police helicopter using a motorcycle.
 * I Am Big Boned: Biff Bam was kicked out of the army because he was "a little too manly" and they were "intimidimated" by him. He's not fat, it's untoned muscle, and he's as strong as Olympic weightlifters...honest!
 * I Call It Vera: The "Stick of Pain". Word of God is that the Stick of Pain was a wooden yardstick.
 * I Take Offense to That Last One: Psycho Dave couldn't deny being "crazier than a crapfight in a monkey house" but objected to being called a "lousy Dungeon Master".
 * Incredibly Lame Pun: Schindler's Lich.
 * Instant Awesome, Just Add Ninja: El Disgusto's philosophy.
 * Intoxication Ensues: "Once More With Filking."
 * It Tastes Like Feet: El Disgusto apparently smells "like clowns crying."
 * Jar Potty: The end of "A Night at the Inn, a Day at the Racists" reveals that El Disgusto has an entire collection of Mountain Dew bottles he's pissed in because he doesn't like heading upstairs to use the bathroom when he's watching TV, and despite his intention of throwing them away, he hasn't thrown away a single one. It is the "rock bottom" moment for Ab3.
 * Jerkass: El Disgusto and Psycho Dave mostly, but everyone in the last entry (even Blobert).
 * Killer Game Master: Mostly Psycho Dave, but everyone gets their turn.
 * Lame Comeback


 * Large Ham: Blobert Smith, in more ways than one.
 * Life Embellished
 * Monochrome Casting: We don't get much information on what they look like (which is probably a blessing), but considering Psycho Dave's... err... proclivities, we'd probably hear something about it if any of them were something other than White.
 * Munchkin: Most of the players, but especially El Disgusto, who wants to play a Ninja in every damn game he's in. A ninja with a motorcycle.
 * Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: See above. Most of the RP characters have at least a dash of this - see Deviant Boy and Weasley's incestuous lesbian stripper naval officers with matching toe-rings.
 * Noodle Implements: "Weasly had recently been expelled from college due to a freak accident involving a moped with faulty brakes, a Take Back The Night rally and an inflatable bath pillow."
 * Noodle Incident: "I don't owe you anything, I told you not to eat that damn salad in my car."
 * Off the Rails: "The God Trip."
 * Only Known by Their Nickname: To protect the author.
 * Only Sane Man: Ab3.
 * Pet the Dog / Fridge Horror: Psycho Dave mentions that "even with the sniveling and whining" Ab3 has been his best player.
 * Porn Stache: Deviant Boy has an "abnormally thick moustache".
 * Politically-Incorrect Villain: Psycho Dave (an actual Neo-Nazi), full stop. Especially when he's playing NPCs as blatant stereotypes. Most of the other boys have their moments as well.

""It's a green-skinned large-breasted elf chick dressed like a Catholic schoolgirl ... and she's peeing on Mayor McCheese!"
 * Punny Name: Weasley Crusher, Blobert Smith, and Collateral Darren (named after his Champions character Collateral Damage).
 * Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies: Most notably, "The Day I Killed The Entire Party Before The First Combat Encounter".
 * Rule 34: Deviant Boy's "Unified Porn Theory" involves attempts to find a single pornographic image which will appeal to everyone in the world. His first attempt:

"Yeah, but it's missing something, isn't it? Maybe if it was two elf chicks ...""

"Psycho Dave, regarding the broccoli-head incident: "It's magic, I don’t have to explain it.""
 * The Scottish Trope: Invoked when El Disgusto's ninja summons Hastur when Cheating Bastard tries to kill him.
 * Stealth Pun: Weasley claims that if he met his D&D characters he would take them to Denny's.
 * Stripperific: Asenath's outfit is described as "part schoolgirl outfit, part leatherwear".
 * Those Wacky Nazis: Psycho Dave.
 * Too Dumb to Live: "So you want to take a shortcut through the Desert of Certain Doom?"
 * Total Party Kill: Their record is three in one night - Ab3 left when Psycho Dave suggested they try for a fourth time.
 * Vitriolic Best Buds: Ab3 puts up with the group because he thinks the bickering is their way of showing friendship..
 * Although he may have been in denial about that; one early story mentions that, in spite of having sworn off gaming at the end of the last story, he came back because his only other option was another group of friends who liked to go to crappy strip clubs, and gaming with these freaks was the cheaper of two evils.
 * A Wizard Did It


 * You Do NOT Want to Know: In regard to parts of Blobert's insane character backstories, among other things.