How can I better formulate this question about Easter Eggs in 5e adventures to make it stackable?

Question

My question here is about What popular culture Easter Eggs exist in published adventures?

There was a lot of discussion in the comments already, with the overall gist that the question is not hopeless and might be tweaked to be reopened. My impression from the discussion there

• The question could be somewhat off-topic as it is not the typical question for here, however this Stack Exchange is likely the best one to be able to answer it
• The question has similarities to a list question, but not in a bad way and there are many other successful similar questions, so this would not be a reason to close it
• The question could be considered opinion-based, if the proof about the pop culture reference is not conclusive / authoritative
• The question needs details or clarity, because it might be difficult to define what counts as pop culture vs. general fantasy literature background that inspired role playing games
• The question needs more focus, with too many modules published and therefore potential Easter Eggs.

So, did I miss any category for which questions can be closed, or did I manage to cover them all in one single question? Ah, no: it is not a duplicate. Well, can't win them all.

OK, back to the question: none of these reasons seems to be unequivocal based on the discussion. I personally would love to learn about more such cool Easter Eggs hidden in the published modules, and this is something that likely can be done best by a community, as one person may be able to make a connection where another would not, and prove it and share it. All together we may be able to find most of them.

One concern I hear is that the question will be flooded with meaningless or redundant answers, or it will take time of the moderators as people argue about if something is a valid Easter Egg or not. However, while the question remained open, nobody did venture even a single Easter Egg (granted ... that did not take too long before it was closed down). Does anyone even know of another Easter Egg similar to the example given?

What would be the most important thing(s) to fix, and how could you see it being tweaked? For example, a very simple approach would be to limit the question to a single adventure module, like Dragon Heist. How many Easter Eggs can there be in a single module? If the rest was acceptable I could then easily replicate this question separately for each module. Would this be a possible solution, or do you have other recommendations?

Answer 1

I think one issue is definition, what is an "Easter egg"?

One dictionary describes an Easter egg (in this sense) as a hidden feature in a commercially released product (such as software or a DVD)

That's hugely broad, and it's not clear to me that the Zardoz is an Easter egg, as much as it a literary allusion. And both of them are close to tropes or pop references.

Furthermore, somehow enumerating these things isn't about playing the games, it's a sort of literary analysis. You could change the references Zardoz is (alleged to be) based off of, and it wouldn't particularly change the game.

Also, there's a question of scale. A question or two about pop references isn't really going to change the nature of rpg.se. Churning through all the modules of 5e (and then presumably every other game) to produce reams and reams of questions and answers about pop references seems to me to shift the focus of rpg.se in a way that makes it less useful and interesting. There are lots and lots of sites and blogs dedicated to fan analysis of published content, there's only one rpg.se.

So in the end, your question seems fundamentally too-broad and off-topic to me.

Answer 2

The question invites speculation.

I think my biggest concern about the question is less that it solicits a list answer or multiple unrelated answers, and more about the type of answer that it asks for. To your credit, you provide a compelling example of an Easter egg:

In Dragon Heist, the flamboyant Illuskan captain Zardoz Zord is a hidden refrence to Sean Connery. The name of the character is a reference to the cult sci-fi-fantasy movie Zardoz starring Connery in red lingerie, and Zardoz's submarine is called the Scarlet Marplenoth, a reference to Connery's submarine Red October in the movie The Hunt for Red October (scarlet is a shade of red, and Marplenoth is the month matching October in the Forgotten Realm's Calendar of Harptos).

However, I don't think we can expect every answer to provide such compelling examples unless you can find a way to articulate clearly what it is about your example that makes it a good example, so that we can then apply that standard to other answers.

Consider this (closed) question about a possible Easter egg from Curse of Strahd: Is this statue in Curse of Strahd an easter egg? The question describes an object found during the adventure and attempts to use some context clues to make a connection to Vecna. The accepted answer cites a cryptic tweet from Chris Perkins as possible but tenuous confirmation of the questions suspicions, but ultimately, the answer rightly concludes:

the adventure does not actually ever specify so it really is just speculation (or left for DMs to decide)

The second answer to this question highlights what I worry your question is inviting. It provides a detailed, seemingly well thought out explanation of what the statue of a faceless god may be referring to, but in the end, it is entirely speculative. There is simply no way of knowing for sure what, if anything, the statue is referring to, except possibly that the author has taken to making their intent known.

The trouble here is that your question, even when applied to one adventure, is far more broad than this one about the statue. The statue question focuses on a single object. Your question asks us to search entire adventures. Anything and everything could be an Easter egg, as long as you can search far and wide enough for coincidental associations, and there really is no good way of confirming if the association is intentional, or entirely coincidental.

In my experience, this is often the point of including Easter eggs. Sure, sometimes you get things that are too good to be merely coincidence, but oftentimes, authors insert Easter eggs in ways that are much more subtle, for precisely the purpose of causing the reader or viewer to speculate.

Ultimately, I don't think this is a good question for us to workout the calculus of how we feel about list answers, because I don't think it is the number or scope of potential answers that is really the problem. It is the type of answers that it asks for: answers that cannot be reliably verified through objective citation or meaningful experience.

Answer 3

Questions about Easter eggs fall too closely to the bad side of designer-reasons to be stackable.

The one necessary feature of an Easter egg is that it was placed deliberately by its creator. As such, the only person who knows whether something is an Easter egg is its original creator.

Easter eggs don't have to be obvious, even when you know the secret. Some things stretch credibility when explained any other way, but some are more subtle. Trying to assemble an exhaustive list of Easter eggs for any product would almost always bring people pushing subtle Easter eggs backed by their own speculation, which would need the word of the original creator to confirm or deny one way or the other.