Running gags¶

PITF is a horror campaign that the table cannot stop laughing through. This page traces the jokes and bits that came back session after session, both in the fiction and around the table, followed by a record of notable dice luck. For individual lines, see Quotes; for the television framing of the campaign, see The show.

Gags from the non-canon one-shot are kept in their own section near the end.

The bedbugs of the Pay n' Stay¶

The Pay n' Stay in Radford set the standard for every bad motel that followed. The first night produced the bedbug saga: a shower curtain, aluminum foil, a wetsuit and a rash. (Radford Horror 01) Huell Kendrick was the main victim (Dante, as Huell rolled to shrug off the bites: "Hashtag built different"), and by the fifth session he had welts, the diner waitress was threatening arson if the bugs spread, and the party was proposing lye, Everclear and gunfire as cures while Kurt Larson scalded the sheets with coffee. Kurt's verdict: "At least the fucking Vietnamese jungle doesn't have bedbugs." (Radford Horror 04, Radford Horror 05) The table also kept up "pay-per-view" and thin-wall jokes about the place, and Dante ruled that "Nobody's taking a bullet for the Pay n' Stay." (Radford Horror 04, Radford Horror 05)

The motel followed the team out of town. In Georgia the motif came back with "Lurch" jokes and a vow of no more "Addams Family" motels. (Appalachia 01) In Utah Kurt was still asking for "some place where I don't have to sleep in a wetsuit not to get bed bug bites." (Walkers 02) When the task force went back to Radford, Andrew Howard told the IRS that "there's only two places to stay in this town, and the other one's full of bedbugs," the team was hosed with pesticide at the "Big Bug Hotel," and being "Pay n' Stayed" became a verb. Daniel Webster concluded that "Pay n' Stay is not getting a good review." (Radford Horrors 02, Radford Horrors 03)

The dental oncologists¶

Wherever the task force goes, a dental conference has already booked the good hotel. The seed is the "tooth botherers" joke about oral surgeons in the first session. (Radford Horror 01) In Dahlonega the Smith Hotel is full of dental oncologists, Andrew wonders whether "they're the Bigfoot perverts," and Kurt starts to suspect they are following the team: "Every time we go to a town, the hotel full up with dentists, every single time. It's like a curse or something." (Appalachia 01, Appalachia 02) Andrew later tells Donald McManley that the town is hosting the conference. (Appalachia 03) The complaint is still alive in Utah, where Kurt says the team has had to move "to a worse one because of an enormous conference of dentists" for three or four investigations running. (Walkers 02)

The Biz's digestion¶

The insides of Dick "The Biz" Baxter are a plot hazard from the first drive: gas station donuts and corn dogs, a failed Act Under Pressure roll at Harrisonburg, a no-flush toilet, the "toilet anaconda," and wet plumbing noises in the car. (Radford Horror 01) The Radford Arby's added a bathroom chapter. (Radford Horror 02) By the fourth session Andre had noticed that his crime move "is the one that by far gets the most use," and he had picked up the names "Mr. G.I. Tract" and a Wet Bandits calling card. (Radford Horror 04) A doctor's obsession with his fiber intake (kale salads) led Dante to announce, "We're switching the Biz to a different, higher-fiber wet food." (Radford Horror 08)

The bit never went away. The table was still joking about fiber and Gatorade in Georgia, and in Utah Kurt test-flushed the ranch toilet and glanced nervously at the Biz while Andre narrated, "You suddenly find yourself wishing you had bought vegetables." (Appalachia 06, Walkers 02) The Biz had the last word from Russia: "There's something honest about being made to shit in an ice-cold bucket." (Radford Horrors 01)

Arby's¶

Andre holds that Arby's is the worst chain in America, and the players disagree every time it comes up. The Radford Arby's supplied the "wettest pork sandwiches," Zack rolled a lucky 11 there ("he got a Big Mac"), and Zack summed up the town's dining as "either Arby's or Howard Johnson's." (Radford Horror 02, Radford Horror 03, Radford Horror 05) The smell and the jingle came back in Marblehead, and the argument resurfaced as a tangent as late as Utah. (Summer Service 05, Walkers 08)

In Marblehead, McDonald's was treated as the only safe food in town. Andre said he ate McDonald's himself "for the sake of immersion," and the table began joking about a sponsorship deal; Dante's version was "We just really want you to associate the taste of McDonald's with worm parasites." (Summer Service 03, Summer Service 05) The team kept ending up there in Georgia too, where Huell explained his trust: "McDonald's is a big corporation. They hire lawyers in case I get a tapeworm." (Appalachia 01)

"Perverts"¶

Sheriff Frank Roosevelt used one word as his catch-all explanation for the Radford case. His position on the bait-dog plan: "It's not fishing. It's perverts. You don't go fishing for perverts." (Radford Horror 02) The table adopted the word as a theory of first resort. Andrew proposed "Bigfoot perverts" in Georgia, and after ruling out UTAW Kurt concluded, "Kinda narrows it down to pervert, doesn't it?" (Appalachia 01, Appalachia 06)

Kurt's trunk¶

Kurt travels with an enormous inventory, tracked by the players in a shared document. Its first audit turned up stilts, wolf urine and didgeridoos ("Why do you have that?" "Why wouldn't I?"). (Radford Horror 03) Later sessions added waders, a Super Soaker, glow sticks and a welding mask ("Never approach a hitchhiker without a welding mask"). (Radford Horror 04, Radford Horror 06) The Biz noted that Kurt packs stilts but no shovel; Kurt said he likes stilts for minefields. (Radford Horror 07) Of the wolf urine he later protested, "You know how hard that was to get?" (Radford Horror 08)

The list kept growing: a duct-taped coffee thermos, a fanny pack full of grenades, a stack of women's shelter cards that he presses on everyone (a detail Andre loved), stacks of fake IDs, and Hawaiian shirts as "the real urban camo." (Summer Service 03, Summer Service 04, Appalachia 04, Appalachia 07, Appalachia 08) When a rental car was crushed in Utah, Kurt mourned at the trunk: "I had those stilts since Vietnam." Replacement stilts turned up in the trunk of Betsy. (Walkers 04) His spear gun got the same treatment in the final arc: confiscated at the airport, admired because "clearly it has presence" in an interrogation room, used on a rabid mouse, and defended at length as "a piece of sporting goods equipment... Not a weapon." (Radford Horrors 02, Radford Horrors 03) The table's own summary is "Always with the flamethrowers." (Roulet Estate 01)

Kurt's pharmacy¶

Kurt's relationship with controlled substances began with expired Mandrax ("actually gets a lot stronger once it's expired") and the reveal that one of his teeth holds LSD, "one of four teeth," with the others holding "different drugs." (Radford Horror 01, Radford Horror 03) Heroin became a universal tool: a bribe for the pilot Freak, a sedative, something to blow in an opponent's eyes. The table's summary was "our party just collects drugs," and Dante added, "Every passing moment is reinforcing my decision to do drugs." (Radford Horror 07) After a mauling in Georgia Kurt's first words were "Please, please, do you have any yayo?", and he ran through the mine on ketamine: "Racehorses take this stuff. I'm like a racehorse." (Appalachia 03, Appalachia 09)

Later sessions kept it going with ketamine for Chester, the LSD tooth and cocaine in Utah (Andre: "You are now on cocaine and LSD, which is clearly superior"), a cocaine comedown, "I rubbed some coke on it" as first aid for Huell's shin, and the last line of an episode: "This isn't coming out of my coke budget." (Walkers 01, Walkers 05, Walkers 06, Roulet Estate 01, Radford Horrors 02)

Kurt's war stories¶

Any situation reminds Kurt of his service. He was shot "in the exact same place, twice, in Vietnam, five years apart," spent "a lot of time in Vietnam pretending to be dirt," and regrets what he "could have done to Castro with that heat ray." (Radford Horror 03, Radford Horror 04, Radford Horror 08) Tabasco-boarding is his standard interrogation threat, first as a table joke and then in character. (Radford Horror 02, Summer Service 01) The stories grew to include an accidentally exploded dog belonging to Fidel Castro and lines of yayo "done in front of a dolphin." (Appalachia 09, Walkers 05) In the Roulet house the flashbacks became literal: he was "back in Saigon there for a second" and shot at a buried corpse's hand because "I thought it was the VC." (Roulet Estate 01, Roulet Estate 02)

His signature technique is the "psionic flashbang," a phrase said aloud while resisting the creature in the fight with the Radford Moth: "The accident wasn't your fault." He later offered a list of alternatives, including "I still love you" and "Do you forgive me, Mother?" (Radford Horror 07, Radford Horror 08)

"You ever been shot?"¶

Huell asked an elderly witness named Howard, "Hey, Howard, you ever been shot?" Andrew Howard answered instead ("Yeah, what's up?"), and Zack had to explain that he meant "the other Howard." (Radford Horror 03) The payoff came at the end of the arc, when Huell greeted the other Howard in the hospital: "Hey Howard, you've been shot, buddy. Welcome to the team." (Radford Horror 08)

Believing in aliens, and hating them¶

Andrew wants every case to be aliens, and the others resent it when he is right. The Biz declared that "Aliens are back off the menu. So, you know, sorry, Andrew Howard," and Huell thanked Andrew sarcastically for a case that was "unusual in that there weren't aliens involved." (Radford Horror 03, Radford Horror 04) Then the craft arrived. Kurt summed up Huell's conversion as "I didn't believe in aliens, and now I'm racist against them," and the Biz followed a session later with "I now believe in aliens, and I hate them." (Radford Horror 06, Radford Horror 07) Andrew's disappointment is its own bit: he was "really hoping for, like, a tractor beam," complained after a near miss in Utah that "I almost got abducted. Why weren't the windows open?", and Rita noted of Andrew that "He wants to be abducted." (Radford Horror 04, Walkers 05, Walkers 07) When a crash was reported in Russia, Dante's comment was "Somewhere Andrew is tingling." (Radford Horrors 03)

1992 and the anachronism police¶

The campaign is set in the early 1990s, and the table polices the period closely. One half of the joke is dramatic irony: World Trade Center and Oklahoma City postcards ("Those things will stand for a thousand years, I swear"), O.J. Simpson as a hero, and Huell hearing Howard Stern and predicting "This'll never last." (Radford Horror 01, Appalachia 01) The other half is fact-checking. Andre and the players have looked up, mid-session, Crystal Pepsi, Combos, Safeway, the Reservoir Dogs trailer, HIPAA, Sour Patch Kids, SoBe, Beast Wars, keycard locks, the Bellagio, Utah's stand-your-ground law, Netscape, Tasers and the Taco Bell menu. (Radford Horror 01, Radford Horror 02, Radford Horror 04, Appalachia 01, Appalachia 02, Appalachia 04, Walkers 01, Walkers 04, Radford Horrors 03, Radford Horrors 04) Andre once wanted a purple Game Boy in a scene, but they did not exist yet. (Appalachia 03)

Characters slip anyway. Kurt said "Sometimes you really gotta pull out the rizz" in 1992, and the table has joked about Yelp reviews of towns, Googling "mud room," and Twitter. (Radford Horror 05, Summer Service 03) Dante's contribution from Utah: "In a few years, everybody's gonna be photographing their food." (Walkers 03)

The Perot-verse¶

The campaign's alternate history became a running joke once the election went to Ross Perot. The table joked about Perot winning before it happened, Zack asked on Election Day "Have we entered the Perot-verse?", and in the next arc Dante said, "Guess what, Ross Perot? You're gonna have a rough first fucking day." (Walkers 01, Walkers 07, Roulet Estate 01) Andre looked up Perot's voice to play him; Dante said the result sounded like a D&D goblin. (Roulet Estate 03) Perot-verse jokes continue through the last recorded sessions. (Walkers 08, Walkers 09, Radford Horrors 01, Radford Horrors 04)

Blame Bill Clinton¶

After the Clinton surveillance scandal broke over the task force, Bill Clinton became the table's answer to every open question. Andrew's defense to Big Bill set the tone: "We're not surveilling Bill Clinton. We're surveilling dead Chewbacca." (Appalachia 07) The theories escalated to exploding people, a clone army, the ape-man's father, and Andre's "The sex scandals were a cover-up for Scanners," with Dante adding that "the Biz has nothing to do with it." (Appalachia 08) After the portal, the Biz wished the state police would come and look: "This is way weirder than Bill Clinton." (Appalachia 09)

The scandal follows the team to Utah, where the Biz is recognized everywhere, Huell tries to use it to flirt, and Robert Bigelow tells them it "didn't even make the list." The bartender Maggie doubts that "Bill Clinton would be caught dead in Ballard, Utah." (Walkers 02, Walkers 03) In Rhode Island, when the Biz dials the FBI, Dante sighs, "It's Bill Clinton again, man, I'm afraid." (Roulet Estate 02)

Splitting the party¶

"I like how we split the party, like, immediately in this campaign," Ezra observed in the third session, after dividing two, three and then four ways. (Radford Horror 03) Andre's view, given in Marblehead, is that "it just kills all your players." (Summer Service 03) It keeps happening anyway, and a late session is bookended by split-party scenes. (Radford Horrors 03)

Andre and the names¶

Andre names most NPCs on the spot and does not always remember what he chose. Early sessions had him forgetting a father, a doctor and a street; the whole table mixing up the Whateley twins as Albert, Walter, Wilbur and Abelforth; and Andre calling the Whateleys "Lucky boys." (Radford Horror 02, Radford Horror 06, Radford Horror 08) Douglas Douglas was named in the moment, with the table predicting "he's about to become the most important character." (Radford Horror 07) Esteban was briefly Alejandro and Jose before Andre landed on it ("Esteban. Ding."). (Summer Service 04) Deborah Wells was renamed Misabelle by mistake, and Andre asked the table to "retcon that in your minds." (Walkers 03) He has also confused Big Bill with Big Bob, had Big Bill call Kurt "Howard," and conceded, "I really gotta keep my notes in a more organized fashion." (Appalachia 09, Walkers 04, Walkers 06)

He does defend the method: names are hand-picked, with jokes or relevance, not generated. (Appalachia 04) The players are no better. Rita forgot Andrew's surname on the phone ("three-first-name boy"), Zack repeatedly mixed up Howard and the Biz, Zack forgot the names of Huell's ex-wife and daughter, and Ezra had to invent "Daniel Webster" on the spot: "Fuck me, I didn't actually come up with one." (Radford Horror 03, Radford Horror 07, Roulet Estate 01, Radford Horrors 01)

Andre's production values¶

Andre runs a soundtrack. He once cued Psycho-style shower music because he had forgotten to pack "relaxed suspense music," played "Tubular Bells" in the moth fight (Dante: "getting weird") before swapping to something scarier, and used "Baba O'Riley" in the arc finale. (Radford Horror 02, Radford Horror 06, Radford Horror 07, Radford Horror 08) He played real opera audio and showed pictures of the Hotel Metropol for the Moscow scenes, and once forgot the background music for an hour. (Radford Horrors 01, Walkers 01)

His maps are less admired. One had a rectangle "labeled dog." (Radford Horror 04) His props are better: he read out a roughly hundred-item Spud Hut menu in full, and he posted a photograph of the Davy Crockett when Kurt acquired one. (Appalachia 02, Summer Service 04)

The church mace¶

Andrew carries a church mace that sprays nothing at all. It prompted Kira to ask, "Where do I buy that mace?", and Andre to rule, "Your pepper spray is void." (Radford Horror 08) In Marblehead Andrew warned Kurt to "Hold it away from you!", and a bad roll sent what Andre called "the spray of nothingness" through Kurt's hand anyway. Rita's reaction: "Oh shit. Shit, I forgot this wasn't pepper spray." (Summer Service 05)

Toothbrush Man¶

The desk clerk Jester refused Huell a toothbrush: "Not a bed-and-toothbrush." (Summer Service 01) The grudge paid off in the finale, when Jester recognized him with "It's you, Toothbrush Man!", and Huell, discovering the truth, replied, "You motherfucker, you had toothbrushes." Andre described the crushed Jester as "this pretzel man," and Ezra took it up as a chant: "Pretzel Man, Pretzel Man." (Summer Service 06)

"Thanks, worms"¶

Once Andrew had announced "Guys, we have worms!", the worms took the blame for everything. (Summer Service 03) Huell's sudden fitness drew steroid, meth and hairline jokes, and when Zack was told the parasite had made Huell jacked he said, "Thanks, worms." (Summer Service 03, Summer Service 04) The Biz asked Kurt, who was loading grenades into a fanny pack, "Is this you, or is this the worms?" (Summer Service 04) Dante supplied the advertising copy ("Ask your doctor if being worms is for you"), Kira repeated a nematode fact "three or four times" by Andre's count, and by the finale she wanted to buy nightcrawlers and make worm chowder. (Summer Service 03, Summer Service 06) Kurt, meanwhile, could not stop mentioning that he also had chicken pox. (Summer Service 04, Summer Service 05, Summer Service 06)

The nuke¶

Kurt asked his weapons contact what "would be the ticket" if he "ever had to shoot Godzilla." (Summer Service 03) The answer was an M28 Davy Crockett, and Andrew's response ("I'm sorry, you have a nuke?") opened a session of jokes: it was laundry, it was a telescope, "get a goldfish first." (Summer Service 04) In the finale a rock-paper-scissors for the nuke was sent privately to Andre, and Huell feigned shock afterwards: "That scoundrel. What?" (Summer Service 06) It remains on Huell's resume: "I've seen dogs on their hind legs before, and also I've nuked a monster before." (Walkers 04)

Bean juice¶

Esteban was certain that someone was "putting bean juice in the laundry," which gave the table the bean-smell bit, the phrase "bean virgin," and the Biz's reflection that "You never know when you might need to make someone smell like beans." (Summer Service 04) Esteban himself was remembered only as "Bean boy" when Zack tried to recall his name, and an arc later he was still "the character functionally known as Bean Boy," with Zack claiming credit: "I named him." (Summer Service 05, Appalachia 04)

Water people¶

Andrew corrected Kurt's Wicker Man comparison in Marblehead: "No, they're not wicker people. They're definitely water people. They're wet. They're wet people." (Summer Service 01) The phrase stuck. In Georgia Huell claimed that "My grandpa called them the water people," a hotel clerk declined to get "wicker-manned," and the table was still reaching for "water people" a session later. (Appalachia 01, Appalachia 02)

Spud Hut¶

Spud Hut is an invented restaurant chain that swallowed an arc. Andre read out its roughly hundred-item menu in full while the table refused to stop him ("stopping you would be like losing"), and admitted afterwards, "I should have prepared five hundred." Rita chose an order with a d100. (Appalachia 02) The savant counter kid became Kurt's project ("Son, you gotta get out of here. Your mind is an incredible gift"), with the unvarying answer that Spud Hut changed, or saved, his life. (Appalachia 02, Appalachia 06)

The team suspects the chain of everything ("It all comes back to Spud Hut") and eats there anyway. The whole table groaned at another dinner there, Kurt promised "Just one more dinner at Mr. Lecter's place, and then we'll start investigating him," and a joke about the team's expense receipts put the count at 72 visits in 36 hours. (Appalachia 03, Appalachia 04, Appalachia 07) Menu items include a spinach and artichoke spud that everyone loves, a shrimp scampi that mysteriously makes nobody sick, margarita spuds and an octopus spud. (Appalachia 03, Appalachia 07) The joke reached its peak when the counter man handed over a cryptogram with the words "That is the menu," and when Jan Martense explained the lowest floor of his plant: "Down here we do the toppings." (Appalachia 07, Appalachia 08) Huell dreaded another potato case as soon as the team reached Utah, and Andrew later complained about Kurt "recruiting high schoolers out of every case that we do. The Spud Hut one and now this one?" (Walkers 02, Walkers 04)

"We're getting a boiler"¶

Every member of the Covenant answers every question about hygiene with the same sentence, with the delivery date slipping from next year to February. Kurt was unmoved: "And the Viet Cong prison camps had hot water." (Appalachia 04)

Andrew looks like a fed¶

Douglas Douglas told Andrew, "You look the most like a Fed of anyone I've ever seen." (Radford Horror 07) It has been true ever since. He is identified as a cop in every scene in Georgia, including by a motel clerk who reads his Bigfoot T-shirt as proof that he "took off your cop outfit." (Appalachia 06) Kurt resolved to take him to dance classes once the case was over. (Appalachia 07) His flight from a Fox 5 microphone with a sweaty "Thank you for your time" became an in-fiction viral clip, complete with an imagined trip-hop remix. (Appalachia 08) In Utah the table settled on "ACAB" as "assigned cop at birth." (Walkers 09)

Evidence nobody wanted to carry¶

The task force's samples for McManley are a recurring horror. They have transported a severed arm that left its smell in the Biz's car through layers of Tiger Balm, a live dog head, and a folded face in a bag, which McManley received "Like Christmas." (Summer Service 01, Summer Service 05, Appalachia 03) The table eventually adopted a rule: "no transporting human remains unless it's really gross." (Appalachia 06) When Huell phoned to say "Get down here, we've got goo," McManley answered, "Is there a face this time?" ... "Small fucking mercies." (Radford Horrors 04)

Nancy the goose¶

Nancy, the goose at Sherman Ranch, is the most feared creature of the Utah arc. She appears at windows as a jump scare, wins every battle of wills, and is protected by a house rule: "keep the fucking goose happy." (Walkers 02) Kurt moved to the Jeep in two-man elements to watch for her, complained that geese are "immune to capsaicin," improvised a "ham bang" when he had no flashbangs, and lost his baloney to her after a Preparedness roll produced it. (Walkers 02, Walkers 03, Walkers 04) He also called her a swan and reported feeling "less pressure from the enemy forces" in a trench. (Walkers 05) Walt "Coyote" Murphy considers her his biggest problem in life and intends to eat her. (Walkers 02, Walkers 03)

She was blamed for chewed wires and for most other things before the real culprits were known, and her name would not stay with the table. Zack decided that Huell thinks she is called Betsy, like the squad car ("It's a dumb joke"), and by the finale Rita could not remember the name at all while Dante guessed "Beatrice." (Walkers 06, Walkers 07, Walkers 09)

Half-Gallon Howard¶

In Ballard the team learned of the town's water contamination and began warning everyone they met: "We're from the government. Don't drink the water unless it's bottled or from a well." (Walkers 02) The nickname was the Biz's, coined at Maggie's bar during a conversation about what could have tainted the groundwater: he "couldn't imagine half-gallon Howard." He then introduced Andrew to the bartender as "my friend, Half-Gallon Howard," while Andrew turned further and further away. By the next session Andre reckoned Andrew had been called it "conservatively five times this evening." (Walkers 03, Walkers 04) The name has outlasted the arc. It came back in Rhode Island and ran all through the return to Radford, and Huell was still using it at the end: "Yeah, that's why we call you Half Gallon Howard." (Walkers 05, Roulet Estate 02, Radford Horrors 01, Radford Horrors 04)

Rental cars and Betsy¶

"We are not being very good with rentals lately." The Plymouth Voyager came back from the vanishing-car incident pancaked, and the Biz pointed out that all of the cars they had driven in Utah had been pancaked, on top of one irradiated earlier. Andrew reported the recovery as "Our car's back. It got unabducted." (Walkers 04, Walkers 05) The replacement, a loaner squad car named Betsy, smells of "high school sadness," is stuffed with Cats costumes and has a novelty horn; Rita is protective of her. (Walkers 05, Walkers 08) The table once tallied which arcs involved hitting someone with a vehicle: men in black were hit twice in the moth arc, including Agent Murphy, which Kurt regretted mainly because it was "a borrowed car." (Radford Horror 03, Walkers 08)

Ham¶

Carl, a hungover cop at the police station, says only "Ham." The table built outward from there: ham-boarding, ham choking, "Tim Hortons Ham Horkers," a clerk offering ham, and a plan to introduce the goose to the ham guy. (Walkers 06)

Magnets¶

The beam at the ranch gave the table "Magnets, how do they work?", "Utah, you can't throw a rock without hitting a magnet," and Dante's four-word case summary, "Magnet stole sheet metal." (Walkers 06)

"I hate it here"¶

The refrain of bystanders caught up in a PITF case. The assistant Henry ended a session with "I hate it here. It sucks so bad." (Summer Service 05) Yusuf Ansari, the junkyard owner, repeated "I hate it here so much" as a refrain. (Walkers 08) Dante used it out of character about the team's lack of a mobile phone. (Radford Horrors 01)

Phones¶

The task force has no phone it can keep. The Biz reasoned that "If they really wanted us to contact them, they would give us car phones," and Ezra's request for one was left "waiting to hear back." (Walkers 03) Andre later admitted a "small mistake" about a car phone, and Dante is still angry that a pharmacy in an earlier session had a mobile phone when the team has never held on to one. (Roulet Estate 01, Radford Horrors 01)

Roseanne¶

Roseanne is the show's symbol of rock bottom. Huell bonded with McManley over it, all three of Huell, Kurt and Andrew ended up watching it, and it was on the Biz's television in Moscow (Dante: "Goddamn, you can't escape"). (Appalachia 01, Roulet Estate 03, Radford Horrors 01)

"Ghosts aren't real"¶

Andrew, who believes in ascended Masters and flying saucers, draws the line at ghosts. "Oh, ghosts aren't real," he tells Diane at the start of the Utah case. The line broke up the table, and Zack explained why: "it's a long-running gag too... It's a callback to our last campaign." (Walkers 01)

The Indestructo-twink¶

Jokes about Andrew's slight build started in Georgia, with his striped pajamas and sleeping cap, and Zack guessing that his unrevealed middle name is Marion. (Appalachia 01, Appalachia 02, Appalachia 03) Once he had proved bullet resistant, the plan became "We send in the Indestructo-twink first." (Roulet Estate 01) His condition supplied the next round: blood passed off to Webster as "my protein mix," a "Not a vampire" defense, and Dante's diagnosis that "Andrew appears to have load-bearing rabies." (Radford Horrors 02, Radford Horrors 03, Radford Horrors 04) Andre observed that Andrew "proved you were human... by being bulletproof." (Walkers 09)

Andrew's dad¶

Andrew's dreams usually involve someone "talking to me or crouching over me or licking my face." (Appalachia 03) The table's gag about a kiss from his alien dad was echoed when his double leaned in to kiss him. (Walkers 07) In the Roulet house Kurt talked him down from a hallucination with "Is it really worse than your dad?", and Andrew answered, "It's like I'm being swallowed by my dad." (Roulet Estate 02) A later dream had his father dunking on him at beach volleyball, and in the same session Kurt floated "a dad tulpa. That wouldn't be the first dad tulpa." (Radford Horrors 03)

Copies¶

When the Skinwalker plot produced duplicates, Zack said, "Copies is like my favorite thing," and imagined playing many Huells. Rita, secretly playing Andrew's replica, complained about "the fact that I have to play an idiot." (Walkers 07) The jokes about the copies as "Gundam" and "Stevangelion" lasted into the next session, and Huell later needled Andrew: "Of course, I didn't notice when you got replaced with an alien." (Walkers 08, Radford Horrors 01)

Every case is two things¶

The table tracks the pattern of its own campaign. After the moth and the worms, Ezra asked "What next, guys?" and Kira answered "Snail." (Summer Service 05) Ezra described the Utah mystery as thinking "you got the strawberry jelly bean, but it turned out to be apple." (Walkers 03) In Rhode Island the players listed "two things every time": a cult and aliens, a cult and worms, a gold mine with Yeti hybrids (Zack disputed the list). (Roulet Estate 02) Dante's verdict on the first arc was "Last mystery, we solved almost no questions," and the Biz's wish is on record: "what I wouldn't give to just investigate a regular serial killer right now." (Summer Service 01, Roulet Estate 02)

Krisp and other gremlins¶

The recordings are haunted by their own software. Noise suppression swallowed Dante's yell in the moth fight, caused a "warbly" glitch when Andre turned it off to perform the creature's fluting noise, and "ate" Zack's Geiger-counter mouth noises. (Radford Horror 07, Summer Service 06) Zack's space heater was "a jazz musician," his microphone has sounded like a Speak & Spell and been declared "haunted," and Andre's dropouts were once played as a seance. (Radford Horror 04, Appalachia 08, Roulet Estate 01, Radford Horrors 04) A music bot once looped through the call, and a broken dice roller left Andre rolling for the players in several late sessions. (Appalachia 08, Roulet Estate 03, Radford Horrors 03)

Private scenes¶

Andre runs secret scenes by moving the other players out of the voice call: Kurt's rooftop confrontation in Marblehead, the Biz's private business in Georgia, and a secret message for Huell in Utah. (Summer Service 01, Appalachia 01, Appalachia 06, Walkers 06) Ezra once did the reverse, sharing a theory with the table while Andre had his headphones off so that he could not react. (Radford Horror 02)

Kira's corner¶

Kira, a guest at the table, has her own recurring suggestions: a "roll to eat pancakes," steady urging that the party eat the mysterious root, a wish to adopt Lena Scott, and the worm chowder. (Radford Horror 05, Radford Horror 06, Summer Service 03, Summer Service 06)

Philosopher's Fist gags¶

Non-canon

These come from Philosopher's Fist 3.J/2: Unchainable, the non-canon one-shot.

Derk is not clever. Andre noted that "it's amazing how Derk being fucking stupid has dominated the tone of this one-shot," and Dante admitted that he "really pushed all the onus of, like, actual thinking, planning onto Rita." Derk is told to use his "inside voice," admits "I can't really count," and rolls with what Dante calls "my default minus one." (Philosopher's Fist)
Mr. Doggy. Derk keeps assuming everyone in charge is a werewolf ("you turn into a dog, right?"), not just the president. (Philosopher's Fist)
"Asteroid." Derk's word for steroids: "Mirabeth, I've been on asteroid before. Am I gonna get in trouble?" (Philosopher's Fist)
Hot dog accounting. Derk measures everything in hot dogs: a cart sells him 98 of them, and an $86 motel room prompts "How many hot dogs is that?" (Philosopher's Fist)
Mirabeth's lies. Mirabeth accumulates cover stories, among them an MLM and the claim, made to get the 21-year-old Derk under an age limit of fifteen, that "I do believe he's fourteen years old." (Philosopher's Fist)
Bugs. Derk's jumps coat him in insects, leading to a fountain bath and a licked-tissue cleanup. (Philosopher's Fist)

Notable dice luck¶

PITF uses Monster of the Week: two six-sided dice plus a rating, where 6 or less is a miss, 7 to 9 is a mixed success and 10 or more is a full success. A miss earns experience, which is why bad nights are also level-up nights. See Game mechanics for the rules as played.

Episode	Player	What happened
Radford Horror 01	Ezra	The Biz totals 6 three times, once even with +2 to Charm. Ezra: "I roll like bullshit. I got a six again."
Radford Horror 03	Ezra, Zack	Ezra rolls double sixes on the flashlight roll ("Double sixes, baby"), and both he and Zack level up. Andre: "Lots of experience this session."
Radford Horror 06	Ezra, Dante	Ezra rolls double sixes for a 14; snake eyes turn up for Dante late in the session.
Radford Horror 07	Everyone	Dante rolls snake eyes looking for a shovel, and the moth fight goes so badly that Rita sums it up: "So we just half-TPK'd."
Radford Horror 08	Ezra	So many misses that he is "marking X's over top of the X's," one failure short of a double level-up.
Summer Service 03	Ezra	The Biz, with +3 to Investigate a Mystery, rolls 14 twice.
Summer Service 05	Zack, Rita	Zack rolls a 14 and a 15; Rita's 2 sends the church mace's spray through Kurt's hand.
Summer Service 06	Ezra	Calls a 10 "Not great" and has to be reminded that on 2d6 it is a complete success. Dante: "This ain't D&D, baby."
Appalachia 01	Zack	Rolls a 3 and burns a Luck point to rescue it. Ezra: "He chooses now to burn a Luck point."
Appalachia 03	Dante	Snake eyes.
Appalachia 06	Rita, Dante	A hot night: Rita opens with a 12 and Dante rolls back-to-back 11s.
Appalachia 09	Dante, Rita	Dante rolls 11 three times, the second saving him from the ape-men; Rita rolls a 4.
Walkers 01	Ezra	Burns a Luck point to turn a roll into a 12, which is the only reason David Letterman says yes.
Walkers 03	Zack, Ezra	Zack spends Luck on a game of darts. Ezra: "I appreciate blowing it on stupid shit."
Walkers 04	Zack, Ezra	Zack rolls double sixes twice ("I'm gonna get a lot of 12s today"); Ezra rolls 12 twice running.
Walkers 06	Zack	Double ones for a total of 3, then an 11 near the end of the session.
Walkers 07	Zack, Rita	Zack's 15 on first aid; Rita rerolls a cocked die into a 13.
Walkers 08	Rita	Rolls a 3: "there's no amount of addition that will save that." Later she announces a 10 and Andre answers, "You actually didn't... You got a zero."
Walkers 09	Zack	Rolls 12, 14 and 14: "Damn, I'm on fire today."
Roulet Estate 01	Ezra	A natural 12 for a total of 15.
Roulet Estate 03	Zack	A streak of 11s: "I've been rolling good today."
Radford Horrors 01	Ezra	Finds his dice in a drawer in another room and rolls an 11 on the key roll.
Radford Horrors 02	Zack	A 6, a 4 and another 6 ("I'm not doing good today"), while Dante rolls 10s and 11s.
Radford Horrors 03	Ezra	Burns Luck three times in one session, once to turn a roll into a 12: "I don't know what Doomed means."
Philosopher's Fist	Dante	In the one-shot Dante rolls a 15 in spite of Derk's standing −1: "Holy shit, I got a fifteen."

Andre also keeps a roll's result to himself when it suits the scene: "'Cause it's more fun that way." (Appalachia 08)