Magic Ampersand

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The essential element of this trope.

Ampersand Law #1. Early RPGs always had names in this format: [Something] & [Something Else That Usually Begins With The Same Letter]. (Dungeons & Dragons, Tunnels & Trolls, Villains & Vigilantes, Chivalry & Sorcery, etc.) —RPG Cliche List

Any fictional roleplaying game can be recognized as such, because it will have a title consisting of two alliterative plural nouns suggestive of its genre separated by an ampersand. A writer in need of a fictitious parallel to Vampire: The Masquerade, for instance, would probably dub it something like "Cloaks & Coffins". Bonus points if the two nouns are a place name and a monster name.

The Magic Ampersand form serves the same instant-identification purpose for ad hoc roleplaying games that the Chest Insignia does for ad hoc superheroes. It's also frequently used to make jokes about fictional creatures playing a roleplaying game based on our own mundane lives.

Of course, sometimes there is Truth in Television: Bunnies and Burrows, Castles and Crusades, Mutants and Masterminds, Villains and Vigilantes, Tunnels and Trolls... all paying homage to the mother of them all, Dungeons and Dragons. In real life, the Added Alliterative Appeal is optional but common.

(Note: Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility are aversions of this trope, being Jane Austen novels that predate tabletop RPGs.)

Compare The Noun and the Noun.

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Examples of Magic Ampersand include:

Real-World Examples

Tabletop Games

As mentioned above, the Ur Example is Dungeons & Dragons. Other examples include:

• Axis & Allies, the most famous World War II wargame franchise of them all.
• Bunnies & Burrows, where the player-characters are rabbits and hares.
• Castles & Crusades
• Chivalry & Sorcery
• The superhero RPG Mutants & Masterminds.
  • And the supplements for different comic book genres: Wizards & Warlocks (sword'n'sorcery comics) and Mecha & Manga (guess).
• The (unnecessarily complex, at least for this first-edition AD&D veteran) Powers & Perils fantasy role-playing game, published by Avalon Hill, if you can believe it.
• Starships & Spacemen
• Two different games called Swords & Sorcery; one by SPI, one by White Wolf.
• Tunnels & Trolls
• Villains and Vigilantes, one of the oldest superhero RPGs (and one that dares to be different by using the word "and" instead of an ampersand).

Video Games

• The computer RPG Might and Magic
• Sword & Sworcery[sic] by Superbrothers
• Two unrelated video games titled Swords & Serpents: one by Imagic for the Intellivision, another by Interplay for the Nintendo Entertainment System.
• Wizards & Warriors, a trilogy of video games developed by Rareware for the NES.
• Another Wizards & Warriors, developed by David W. Bradley for the PC in the style of his earlier Wizardry games.

Fictional Examples

Comic Books

• Wizards & Warriors (not one of the real ones listed above), in DC Comics' Robin.

Comedy

• Firesign Theatre: Ah, I don't wanna play Dungeons & Vikings!

Fanfic

• Ogres and Oubliettes, set in a My Little Pony universe.
• Cities & Cyclists, an RPG played in the Rosario + Vampire/Ranma ½ crossover fic Big Human on Campus: After School. The monsters try playing perfectly ordinary human beings going about their daily lives. It goes hilariously wrong.

Film

• A sketch in The Onion Movie featured the game Wizards & Warbeasts.

Literature

• Rona Jaffe's Mazes and Monsters.
• Neal Stephenson's The Big U explicitly compares the LARP Sewers and Serpents, played by characters in the novel, to Dungeons and Dragons.
• Esther Friesner's fantasy novel Majyk by Hook or Crook has a brief mention of a game called Palaces & Puppies.

Live-Action TV

• A fictional roleplaying game/laser tag hybrid called Aliens & Asteroids appeared in an episode of War of the Worlds
• Another Wizards & Warriors, in an episode of Quantum Leap.
• Yet another Wizards & Warriors was a summer replacement TV series in the early 80s. It parodied many themes and tropes from fantasy stories and FRP games. One episode even featured the hero gathering a "Dungeons and Dragons"-style party of specialists to go on a quest.

Newspaper Comics

• FoxTrot had a series of strips where Jason and Marcus were playing Houses & Humans, which is pretty much what it sounds like.

Tabletop Games

• The Dungeon Master's Guide for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons actually parodied itself, with an insert cartoon showing several fantasy characters playing a "mundane life" RPG titled Papers & Paychecks.

"We're pretending we are workers and students in an industrialized and technological society."

• • Robot Chicken had a similar parody in one of its small in-between scenes.
  • One college comedy magazine in the US had another "mundane life" RPG called Driveways and Desk Jobs.
  • Kingdom of Loathing has "Cubicles and Conference Calls".
• In Werewolf: The Apocalypse, one rival to Black Dog Games' Talespinner system and World of Shadow setting (a Self-Parody of The World of Darkness) was the venerable Labyrinths & Lamiae, formerly owned by LSD Inc, and later by Magicians of the Bay.
• Black Dog themselves produced Axes and Arcana, parodying White Wolf's Swords & Sorcery.

Video Games

• "Grottos and Gremlins" from the video game Bully.
• In Spellcasting 101: Sorcerers Get All The Girls, a group of students at Sorcerer University is always playing "Malls & Muggers".
  • And they're still playing - with no evidence of having stopped at any point in the year between games - in the next game. One of the tasks that your would-be fratmates have to accomplish in order to get through hazing week (which you can watch) is to make them stop.
• Simon the Sorcerer II features a group of characters interested in a game called "Apartments and Accountants". Since Simon the Sorcerer is a fantasy series, A&A simulates real life.

Web Comics

• The webcomic Dungeon Damage had a group of Dragons playing "Humans and Houses".
• Something Positive of course, has its own take on it.

Campaign Comics

• Benders and Brawlers, based on Avatar: The Last Airbender
• D&DS9, based on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
• Jutsu and Jinchuriki, based on Naruto
• Wizards and Wands, based on Harry Potter
• Darths and Droids.
  • Due to the Celebrity Paradox, in the Darths & Droids universe, the makers of Darths and Droids are working on a similar comic about an RPG version of Harry Potter: Wands & Warts. Every 50 episodes, they add a new burrow to this little rabbit hole.
  • In the Wands & Warts universe, the makers are working on a screencap comic about The Sound of Music: Notes & Nazis
  • In that universe universe, the Irregulars are making Mutants & Miscreants. (X-Men)
  • In THAT universe, they're writing Enlisted Men & Extraterrestrial Biological Entities (Aliens).
  • Then Magicians & Munchkins, based on The Wizard of Oz
  • Sandals & Spartans, based on 300, for the 300th strip.
  • Avatars & Avi-Fauna, based on Avatar
  • Terminators & Temporal Paradoxes, based on Terminator.
  • Carcasses & Carcharadons, based on Jaws.
  • Trenchcoats & Turncoats, based on Casablanca.
  • Amphibians & Anthropomorphisms, based on The Muppet Movie.
  • Heists & Hypnagogic Hallucinations, based on Inception.
  • Barnacles & Bilgewater, based on Pirates of the Caribbean.
  • Docs & Deloreans, based on Back to The Future
  • Hypnotoads & Hyperchickens based on Futurama
  • Chocolates & Chumps based on Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory (1971)
  • Ids & Idiots, based on Forbidden Planet
  • Egons & Ectoplasms, based on Ghostbusters
  • Hellenes & Harryhausens, based on Jason and the Argonauts
  • Misadventures & Marionettes, based on Thunderbirds
  • Arks & Archaeologists, based on Raiders of the Lost Ark
  • Theme Parks & Theropods, based on Jurassic Park
  • Darcies & Diaries, based on Bridget Jones's Diary
  • Marmosets & Meerkats, based on David Attenborough's The Life of Mammals
  • Gags & Griswolds, based on National Lampoon's Vacation and Terminator 2
  • Elliotts & Extraterrestrials, based on E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial

Web Original

• From the web series, "Gold": Goblins & Gold

Western Animation

• An episode of Dexter's Laboratory, (Itself called D & DD) features the titular character running a game of "Monsters & Mazes". Dee-Dee replaces him as the Game Master, with amusing consequences.

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It eventually came to the fans' attention that while Dungeons & Dragons had Dragon magazine and Dungeon magazine, one niche remained glaringly empty. Here you go: & Magazine!