You Can’t Do That In RPGs: Chapter Three: Excuse me, miss. Are you the Sacred Booty?
by Evil Overlord in
gaming editorials
during prime time on
December 13th, 2005:
2 years, 6 months ago
Due to the footnoting, this is a temporary sentence. Please click link below to read post.
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- Editorial Note
Lillithandrosoth[95] was going over the plan[96] for the sixth[97] time. She sighed, thinking that these moronic bandits[98] were not quite cracked up to be everything promised in the listing.[99]
“Okay, again. When the new hero –”
“Miss! Miss Lillithand…” interrupted one of the bandits, trailing off either in stupidity at having forgotten her name[100] or in a linguistic conundrum at it being virtually unpronounceable.[101]
“Yes,” she gritted her teeth.[102]
“I have to go to the outhouse.”[103]
“I told you to go before we left!” shouted the bandit leader, a bigger and badder version of the regular bandit.[104]
Lillithandrosth closed her eyes and counted to three, just like her therapist[105] told her to do when she was about to NUKE[106] the world out of existence. Freezing her heated emotion, she opted to simply freeze the unfortunate bandit in question.
Running down the hill, Tygar[107] tripped noiselessly[108] as he witnessed this event. “Cool,” he said.[109]
The other bandits backed away from the banditsickle.
“Now, as I was saying, when the new hero –”
“How do we know a hero’s gonna come here?” asked a bandit.[110]
“Prophecies![111] And our super-advanced satellite tracking system has pinpointed his location. He will appear here!”[112]
Just then, Tygar appeared.[113]
“Do not fear, fair maiden![114] I have a sword!”[115] he shouted.
He wants to save me. The hero’s gullible. Didn’t see that coming.
“Arrrr.[116] Attack –”
The bandit leader, was cut off by Lillithandrosth’s freeze spell, as were the rest of the bandits.[117]
Tygar skidded to halt, gazing at the now frozen horde of bandits.
“Er, I’m here to save you…?”
“Oh! My hero!” she whispered too innocently.
Tygar was gazing around at the bandits who now resembled some sort of demented[118] ice demon’s chess set.[119]
“Cool,” he said.[120]
“You saved me!” she lied through her teeth.[121] “How can I ever repay you?”[122]
“Er, yes, I suppose I did…” Tygar trailed off, somewhat distracted by fact that Lillithandrosth was wearing less than one square foot of rather sheer cloth.[123] Knowing the limits of the male mind,[124] she sauntered slowly, sambaing sensuously, toward the stricken simpleton.[125]
“What’s your name?”[126]
“Uh. Uh. Uh. Tygar? I think?”[127]
“Well, Tygar, I’m Lillithandrosth. I’d like to thank you properly for what you just did.”[128]
At this point, Tygar manages to regain some sense and sensibility.[129] A somewhat brilliant thought struck him.[130]
“Excuse me, Miss[131] Lillithandrosth. Are you the Sacred Booty?”[132]
“Let’s just slip – what?”
“Oh, I knew it. Wyznbach’s going to be so proud!”
“Wyznbach! What’s he –” she was cut off as he scooped her off the ground and slung her over his shoulders.[133]
Tygar started running back to the village, Lillithandrosth bouncing[134] behind[135] him, trying to keep Tygar’s sword from cutting off anything valuable.[136]
Wyznbach! I’ll finally be able to kill that old fool! Hey! Wait a second! Get out of my head![137]
And so the two hurried back, one to hand over the Sacred Booty, one to be handed over as Sacred Booty.[138]
[95] You think that it’s just a not-so-clever combination of Lillith, Andross, and Sephrioth? Think again! Er, wait. You’re right. Punk.
[96] She’s a little new to this evil thing; you can tell that it’s her only plan by the fact that plan is not capitalized. Competent evil doeresses should always have multiple Plans. And Planes. Of Existence.
[97] One short of the number of perfection, according to Christian numerology. Could this be a subtle foreshadowing? Or a not-so-subtle foreshadowing, now that I’ve footnoted it?
[98] It’s so hard to find good evil help, nowadays. Just ask any aspiring evil overlord. The loyal ones are too stupid to be trusted with slicing and dicing cheese; the smart ones are all after your position. And genocide just leaves you cleaning up after yourself, and no evil overlord worth his Ultima spell wants to scrub his own toilets. Or anyone else’s, for that matter.
[99] Bet ya didn’t know that pseudo-medieval fantasy worlds would have a Craigslist… or that it would be called Cloudslist. Actually… I’m not sure how you could have known since I just made it up. Never mind.
[100] Smart readers are betting on the stupidity of henchmen. 4 to 1.
[101] Ancient names are always long and unpronounceable. At least this one can be written in English. What’s so bad about declaring an ultimate bad guy “Bob.” Like the titan planet?
[102] Yes, you can grit your teeth into forming a word. Especially in the Confederacy.
[103] You can’t go to the bathroom in RPGs! When’s the last time you saw an outhouse in an RPG? Hmmm… maybe they all go every time we turn off the console. I once left a PS2 on for a week. Poor Tidus.
[104] Ooh. Could it be? A boss character?
[105] She’s a soprano. No, that’s not non sequitur. You don’t even know what that is. I once had a talking parrot named Pete.
[106] Got to love the original Final Fantasy translation.
[107] Surely not a small side cut-scene would make you forget the hero and his plot?
[108] How do you trip noiselessly? Leave the kids at home.
[109] Frozen, Tygar. Frozen is the word you’re looking for.
[110] Bandits are known for brawn, not brains. If they were brainy, we might call them intellectual thieves: pirates. But just thinking the word pirate has been known to bring lawsuits, so we’re gonna stick with bandits.
[111] It all comes down to prophecies. There is no free will, much like there is no spoon, Neo.
[112] Funny how the bad guys in RPGs, especially RPGs that seem pseudo-medieval, always have mountains of technology at their disposal. And funny that they can’t manage to use said technology to wipe out the hero et al from a respectable distance. Remember kids, technology = evil but useless.
[113] Ah, convenience. It’s good when the plot devices add up nicely. Preferably to 7.
[114] Tygar, following in true hero fashion, has not the most original lines.
[115] In case she didn’t see the giant six foot sword he was waving around.
[116] The bandit leader does a good impression of a pirate.
[117] What? You’ve never seen a bad guy (girl) willing to sacrifice wave upon wave of their own men in order to reach the killbot limit? You should watch more Futurama.
[118] You ever meet a sane demon? Yeah, me neither.
[119] A very subtle reference to Apprentice Adept. Subtle, until this footnote.
[120] Brighter minds would have recognized that the frozen bandits had bizarrely arranged themselves into the Kieseritsky Gambit. Fortunately, the narrator is saved from explaining what the Kieseritsky Gambit is by the fact that Tygar is in moron mode, still unknowing of the difference between “cool” and “frozen.”
[121] Those teeth are getting a mighty fine workout.
[122] File that line under “stuff that will never happen to the narrator because he’s a classicist.”
[123] Using sex to sell my ed? Never! I am the pinnacle of literary principles! And principals! Okay, now that I’ve soothed the Muses: stay tuned next time for “You Can’t Do That in RPGs: The .JPG Edition.”
[124] Sex? No, I wasn’t thinking about that. I was thinking about… about… ah, crap.
[125] And they say that alliteration is overrated. That’s only T for Teen! You should see what I can do in a AO title.
[126] At this point, non-voice acted RPGs would query the user for input. Luckily, you have me. And I say his name is Tygar. So, yeah. Sorry. There was a point in there somewhere. Oh yeah, good voice acting is good. Wait, that’s lame. Lame voice acting is lame. Bloody… (The narrator kills the current Muse.) Ah, that’s better.
[127] All heroes, when confronted with devastating visions of cleavage, shall forget everything else. It really is too bad that evil overlords never realize the true power of the feminine form.
[128] Ditto on the whole “never happens to the narrator.”
[129] Mostly because I need him to actually do something and not stand there gaping at the sexiest creature alive. Yes, I know I would, and, yes, contrived plot device and all that. But when’s the last time you played an RPG that didn’t have at least one (if not several dozen) contrived plot devices?
[130] Much like Zeus hurls lightning bolts, so does this narrator hurl brilliant thoughts.
[131] Strike an “s” and add “tress,” and he’d be a little closer to the scary truth.
[132] “Brilliant?” “Why thank you.”
[133] File that under “things that would get the narrator arrested.”
[134] And bouncing!
[135] Behind!
[136] A common misfortune of those whom are friends with six foot sword wielders.
[137] Girl likes her privacy, apparently. Too bad the narrator is omniscient. And a pervert.
[138] Tune in next time to see what sort of history Lillithandrosth and Wyznbach have. If any. I could just be making that up. In fact, I probably am.
- You Can't Do That In RPGs: Chapter One: The Hero's Rude Awakening
- You Can’t Do That In RPGs: Chapter Two: In Search of Sacred Booty
- You Can’t Do That In RPGs: Chapter Three: Excuse me, miss. Are you the Sacred Booty?

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