Knights of the Dinner Table: Difference between revisions

* [[Analogy Backfire]]: In ''Java Joint'', Tank says that he is "as serious as Garrison Keillor", apparently not realising that Garrison Keillor is a humorist.

* [[Animated Adaptation]]: Fan Andrew Babb did a series of nicely-produced Flash cartoons, currently preserved [http://www.youtube.com/user/Kumeelyun on Youtube].

* [[Art Shift]]: In "Hounded" in #183, Sara has a dream about the Untouchable Trio Plus One. The dream is illustrated using art from ''Knights of the Dinner Table: Illustrated'' by the Fraim Brothers.

* [[Auto Cannibalism]]: While playing Weird Pete's new game "Fairy Meat", Brian has his character eat its own arm to demonstrate that the rule for recovering hit points via cannibalism is broken.

* [[Bathroom Break Out]]: Bob does it to escape from Nitro's game when sitting in for Weird Pete in "A Man Out Standing In His Field".

* [[Even the Rats Won't Touch It]]: The 'Limited Edition Haulin' Ass And Ammo "Meals Ready To Eat" Snack Pouches':

{{quote| '''Weird Pete''': I bought half a pallet of that crap two years ago... Didn't sell a single pack.. Squirrely wouldn't even touch 'em.}}

* [[Everything Trying to Kill You]]: The Knights assume this about BA's dungeons and his npc's. This partly justifies their [[Comedic Sociopathy]].

** More often actually the case when Weird Pete GMs (his whole campaign setting is made of this trope. Nobody has made it above 3rd level in that setting.)

** Speaking of Tremble, while he doesn't carry the same kind of ominous mystique that Marvin has, the fact that B.A. recruited [[Drill Sergeant Nasty|Nitro]] to guest-play as Tremble's personality more than makes up for it.

* [[The Faceless]]: 'Hawg' Waller

* [[Formally-Named Pet]]: BA's cat is Colonel Prowler.

* [[419 Scam]]: One strip deals with the results of the Knights receiving a [[419 Scam]] email.

** Bob also claims to have been in a ''[[Fatal Attraction]]'' style situation with a woman at the Harness & Hoe Insurance Company; a claim which Dave finds hilarious.

* [[Global Ignorance]]: Dave. He is convinced that Canada is behind the Iron Curtain, and thinks that the language of Israel is Orcish. His grasp of history isn't much better.

* [[God Mode Sue]]: Timmy Jackson GMs his campaigns this way, throwing damage every which way without even rolling. It doesn't help that his father created Hackmaster. The Knights "defeat" him by playing by his rules.

* [[Go Look At the Distraction]]

* [[A Handful for An Eye]]: Bob once defeated Nitro by blinding him with a salt cellar before coldcocking him with a dinner tray (a trick he claimed to have learned from watching B.A's infamous fistfight with Sheila Horowitz).

** Weren't you paying attention? The man ''[[Berserk Button|touched his dice!]]''

* [[Hanging Judge]]: Weird Pete when he is presiding over 'Gamer's Court'.

* [[The Hard Hat]]: A throwaway gag in a filler strip has Newt claiming his character is crouching real low and taking cover behind his 'kevlar watch cap'.

* [[Heart Is an Awesome Power]]: Brian once scammed Bob into selling him a rare, expensive mini dirt cheap. To settle the score, Brian gave Bob an IOU for in-game gold...and a thimble that [[What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?|fixes sails and nets.]] B.A. counters by steering the party into a seaside town, making Bob the leader of a massive economical empire.

* [[High Class Call Girl]]: Trish

* [[Honest John's Dealership]]: Weird Pete, in relation to his store. Brian also shows these tendencies.

* [[Human Notepad]]: Brian carves his character's spells into the backs of Bob and Dave's characters so he could always have access to spells.

* [[I Resemble That Remark]]: Bob ranting about how he'd like to kill all those media pundits who claim gaming promotes violent behaviour.

* [[Jerkass]]: Every character has held the "Jerkass ball" at some point or another, with Bob, Stevil, and Pete being the most common. Brian often falls into this trope as well though less frequently in later issues.

* [[Jump the Shark]]: The title of issue #151, which features {{spoiler|Gary Jackson coming [[Back From the Dead]].}}

** What's funny is, they included this as an example of when you know they're jumping the shark in an earlier "Parting Shots" feature (a humor section on the back page.) The explanation they put forth actually makes a lot of sense given the character {{spoiler|He was in deep to the mob due to his compulsive gambling which had long since been an established character trait, so he turned states evidence and they faked his death with old airplane wreckage and forged reports to protect him. The evidence of the writers setting up Gary's return pretty much goes back to his "death." The only thing they haven't explained yet was how Gary faked his open casket funeral though they hung a lampshade on that in the latest issue (#152 as of this writing) suggesting they've thought of something.}}

* [[Loads and Loads of Characters]]

* [[Local Hangout]]: Weird Pete's game store; the "Hawg Wallers" bar.

* [[Long List]]: Happens twice in the Bag Wars saga when someone reads off the list of things in the [[Bag of Holding]]. Dave makes note of a perfectly ordinary sausage grinder both times ("Mmm, fresh sausage!").

* [[MacGuffin]]: The Lyre of Hound Slaying, the Conch of Aarnd, the Feather of Victory...The list goes on. It is an RPG comic book, after all.

** Which is based on a true story originating from the exact same misunderstanding, that had been on the internet for years. Jolly Blackburn printed an updated account in the first Bundle of Trouble.

* [[Persona Non Grata]]: Nitro Ferguson got banned from GaryCon after his D-Day game ran amok even more spectacularly than games in KoDT usually do.

* [[Pig Latin]]: In the issue #170 segment "Channeling Gary".

* [[Platonic Prostitution]]: Chad initially hires Trish to pose as his fiancee. Tank later hires her to play Battleship with him.

* [[Powder Trail]]: The cover of ''Knights of The Dinner Table Special Edition'' #1 shows the Knights' ''Cattlepunk'' characters using one to blow open a bank vault.

** The trope then ''literally'' happened in an zany attempt by gamers to bless their dice by rubbing it on Gary Jackson's dead body. Any such dice not only become ridiculously cursed but also infected other dice in the batch, too. Mainly because {{spoiler|that wasn't Gary Jackson's body they rubbed the dice on...}}

*** Before {{spoiler|the reveal that Gary faked his own death}}, Sara pointed out another fallacy in that plan: how lucky could a guy who died in a plane crash be?

* [[Random Number God]]: Acts more like the Shinto spirits of individual dice. At the same time, occasionally combatted, like when Bob rolled one unlucky d10 and one lucky d10 to get a 01-05.

* [[Realistic Diction Is Unrealistic]]: The series constantly has people talking over each other.

* [[The Remnant]]: Colonel Quantrill (a.k.a. Juan Trail) and his men in B.A.'s ''Cattlepunk'' campaign.

* [[Right Behind Me]]

{{quote| Sara: "I WASTE HIM WITH MY LONGBOW!!"}}

** Immediately topped by the [[Humiliation Conga]] the Knights put Troy's Boys through for treating Sara like that. It was bloodless, but after {{spoiler|being kidnapped, having one of their heads badly shaved, and dumped in the labyrinthine steam tunnels with a map that led them to an exit outside a bikers' bar, where the bartender had been paid to take pictures of them after they emerged}}, they might've preferred death.

** Hard 8's service hotline offers an "ancient riddle service" for [[G Ms]] who need a suitably hard riddle for their campaign on the fly for sphinx, [[Speak Friend and Enter|cleverly-opened doors]], and so forth. Conversely, they can also offer the solutions to such riddles to desperate players. After being stumped by one, Brian tries to find out the answer to one of B.A.'s riddles, only to find out that he paid extra for the "No Easy Answers" premium deluxe package.

* [[Shmuck Bait]]:

** In B.A.'s case, its happened more than once unintentionally. He stuck a sphere of annihilation at the bottom of a waste disposal chute and, knowing his players, put up grates, plenty of warnings of danger and made the chute long enough so that they couldn't get a rope to the bottom, in order to protect them. They took it as a sign that he was hoarding the really good treasure down there and B.A. got a [[Total Party Kill]] out of the deal.

* [[Shoot the Shaggy Dog]]: The Knights go through one of the hardest dungeons ever, lose a favored NPC guide, and come out with the Lyre of Hound Slaying, trailing their vital organs...only for {{spoiler|Dave to get taken over by a magic sword and smash it.}}

* [[Social Semi-Circle]]

* [[Speech-Impaired Animal]]: Squirrely, possibly.

** Finally inverted with Bob. He's so dedicated to game that he lost his job as a claims adjuster, got kicked out of his fathers house and now lives with his girlfriend while working at a game shop for surplus product. So he is frequently shown wearing an apron while she sits and reads the paper.

* [[The Swear Jar]]: Patty, a kindergarten teacher, maintains one for her gaming group Patty's Perps.

* [[Tome of Eldritch Lore]]: When the Knights play ''[[Call of Cthulhu|Scream of Kachooloo]]'', Brian advises burning every book because they are always one of these. Of course, considering what happened in the last game...

{{quote| Dave: But that was a traveler's guide to Boise!}}

* [[Total Party Kill]]: A frequent occurrence.

* [[Tranquil Fury]]: B.A. gets like this when his players go too far with mistreating [[NPC|NPCs]] or derailing his campaign.

** In what doubles as a [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]] for B.A., after his group lost a paintball war with the Black Hands which he had timidly opted out of, {{spoiler|he kidnaps Gordo, steals his Dalek costume and infiltrates the Black Hands victory celebration to take them out [[Guns Akimbo]] at point blank range.}} He earns the respect of his group after that incident.

{{quote| "Will 'The Character Formerly Known as the Man With No Name' and now associated with this symbol please be advised that he has inexplicably attracted the unbridled wrath of the Gawds and has just been turned into a newt!!"}}

* [[True Companions]]: The Knights may bicker and fight with each other, but heaven help you if you humiliate one of them.

** Averted by the Black Hands; they're just that dysfunctional.