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Arlanthe
2007-01-28, 05:30 PM
people begin using computer game and online RPG terms in D&D and other PnP games?

I try to be sensitive to changing culture, and not be an old fuddy duddy, but when players refer to beneficial enchantments in D&D as "buffs" and fighters as "tanking" and people "getting aggro" and other such terms, I feel somewhat annoyed.

Even among fantasy RPGs, each system has its own acronyms, rules, and feel, and I wouldn't blend too much between any two systems. Individuality is what separates one game from another.

To me computer games are ultimately very restricted, and terms like 'tanking" descrive what the mechanics of, say, a warrior in World of Warcraft does, but in a PnP game would only serve to dictate a characters actins. I prefer my players not use these terms, as they bias characters (which are supposed to be role played anyway) toward behaving a in a certain expected manner.

Plus I always thought the term "buffs" just sounded stupid outside of an MMO. We have these terms in a chat buffer because as instant messaging has shown, via typing it is easier to use abbreviations and acronyms for things rather than always spell them out- especially in the heat of battle. I don't see any excuse for this when everyone is around a table- supposedly role playing.

Maxymiuk
2007-01-28, 05:53 PM
The best (worst?) example of that I saw recently was someone complaining about "wife aggro." Funny, but not really conductive to the roleplaying experience.

You could always combat it through creative misunderstanding. Such as asking for a "buff" causes the addressed to produce a piece of cloth and polish the fighter's armor up a bit. :smallamused:

Shazzbaa
2007-01-28, 06:10 PM
Ehh, I can understand not wanting such terms to be used in-character, but I don't understand the big deal about players using them outside of the game.

What else would you call "buffs?" What else would you call "tanking?" They're legitimate spells and a legitimate battle tactic. Why would giving it a name that didn't arise from an MMORPG make it any different? These are just terms that the players are familiar with, they don't force them to act a certain way. The only one I can even see being a problem is the one about "aggro," and if that's an issue, it only takes a few battles to demonstrate to the players that D&D doesn't work on an aggro system. :smallwink:

If your players are looking at the D&D world as an MMORPG, then that's not going to change just because you're using different words. The real problem is the way they're looking at it, not the words they're using.

The fact that "buffs" sounds silly to you is merely an issue of unfamiliarity, honestly. When I hear it, I instantly know what it means and it sounds natural. [And I'm not even a gamer!] In fact, in writing this post, I was trying to think of what sort of phrase you expected people to use, and I couldn't think of one. *shrugs* Just as another perspective. :smallsmile: My mom thought the word "hoodie" sounded stupid for the longest time... but since I'd heard the word used a great deal more than I'd ever heard "hooded sweatshirt," it sounded fine to me. When I used the word, I wasn't trying to get on my mom's nerves, I wasn't trying to abbreviate the proper phrase, and I wasn't being too lazy to say "hooded sweatshirt," -- "Hoodie" was honestly the more natural word for me, the first word I thought of.

I suppose I could censor myself and replace "hoodie" with "hooded sweatshirt," when talking to my mom, but it wouldn't have made me think about it any differently.

AmoDman
2007-01-28, 06:19 PM
Blah, who cares? It's a a two-way road. I'm sure there's terms they (and I) use in MMOs they picked up from D&D. Hell, me and my bud were just playin Marvel: Ultimate Alliance and even there we just by default kept calling our powers spells w/o thinking about it, focus - magic, and melee weak power strong characters - casters (among other things).

The only out of place term I saw there was "getting aggro," because in D&D the monsters don't have "aggro"...they do what they want. You could use it if you've properly pissed off a baddy onto yourself, but the only time I see it working similarly in D&D is with the Knight class.

Raum
2007-01-28, 06:36 PM
people begin using computer game and online RPG terms in D&D and other PnP games?Not really. Particularly since most of the terms used in computer games have a much longer history than computers. But even if they were created solely by gamers, a living language changes over time. It's actually amusing to read some older definitions.


I try to be sensitive to changing culture, and not be an old fuddy duddy, but when players refer to beneficial enchantments in D&D as "buffs" and fighters as "tanking" and people "getting aggro" and other such terms, I feel somewhat annoyed.The term "buff" used as a verb meant to make something shiny long before gamers started using it to mean make an avatar better. The term "tanking" has also been around a while.

People are generalists and language isn't exact. We wouldn't have nearly as much fun with an exact language either...can you imagine life without double entendres? :)

Dark
2007-01-28, 07:00 PM
I try to be sensitive to changing culture, and not be an old fuddy duddy, but when players refer to beneficial enchantments in D&D as "buffs" and fighters as "tanking" and people "getting aggro" and other such terms, I feel somewhat annoyed.
My group was talking about "tanking" way back in 1994 :) Are you sure about where those terms come from?

Matthew
2007-01-28, 07:00 PM
I hate it. Meat Shields, Heal Bitch / Bot, Blaster.. I find these sorts of terms distracting to say the least. I try to never use them.

ExHunterEmerald
2007-01-28, 07:09 PM
I used Meatshield (and Meatwall) long before I had even played an MMO. Probably before the terminology was widespread.

AmoDman
2007-01-28, 07:20 PM
I hate it. Meat Shields, Heal Bitch / Bot, Blaster.. I find these sorts of terms distracting to say the least. I try to never use them.

Distracting from what? When discussing mechanics, they're quick and to the point. It'd be rather odd for the rogue to yell over that the enemy mage is buffing IC, but I'd imagine most everyone realizes that already (and if they don't...well, they have other D&D issues that need worked on).

p.s. The three terms you mentioned I've heard rooted from D&D more than I'ver ever heard them in other rpg's...how often, for instance, in most MMOs do you have to make a distinction between evocation and transmutation mages? Not often, in my experience. Blaster's a decent summary of what your wizard's about when they're an evocation specialist.

jjpickar
2007-01-28, 07:25 PM
This is what puzzles me, what in the nine hells is a munchkin? Your thoughts are appreciated.

Douglas
2007-01-28, 07:54 PM
Wikipedia on Munchkins (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munchkin_%28role-playing_games%29)

Matthew
2007-01-28, 07:58 PM
Distracting from what? When discussing mechanics, they're quick and to the point. It'd be rather odd for the rogue to yell over that the enemy mage is buffing IC, but I'd imagine most everyone realizes that already (and if they don't...well, they have other D&D issues that need worked on).

p.s. The three terms you mentioned I've heard rooted from D&D more than I'ver ever heard them in other rpg's...how often, for instance, in most MMOs do you have to make a distinction between evocation and transmutation mages? Not often, in my experience. Blaster's a decent summary of what your wizard's about when they're an evocation specialist.

From what they represent. In my head they just sound like nonesenses. I have never actually encountered characters who actually represent these functions. A Blaster is a Gun in Star Wars to me, a Meat Shield is a Shield made of Meat and a Healbot is some kind of Medical Robot (in my mind). It takes me a while to move from those images to what people are really talking about, so I find it distracting. Frankly, I don't really want to become familiar with the terms either.

mikeejimbo
2007-01-28, 08:06 PM
I thought aggro was British slang, though I did read that in Wikipedia and I don't know how old it is.

And I would wager that "Meat Shield" originated in the army. The only reference to this I can find is Wiktionary saying that in Canada, it's slang for an Infantryman. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Military_slang

Wehrkind
2007-01-28, 08:09 PM
Well Matthew, in your attempt to be provincial, you have defined the terms pretty well. Blasters blow things up. If you refer to a character as one, it means "He blows things up." A shield is something that you put in front of you to get hit instead of you. If it is another human, "meat" is a good description of it's make up. Your definition of "Heal Bot" is pretty exactly how most people define a class/character who only contributes healing.

So yea, you are familiar.


Edit: Yea, I picked up meat shield from war gaming, typically the largely worthless Russian infantry that was thrown in front of tanks to keep them alive. See "cannon fodder".

Sir_Banjo
2007-01-28, 08:50 PM
What else would you call "buffs?" What else would you call "tanking?" They're legitimate spells and a legitimate battle tactic. Why would giving it a name that didn't arise from an MMORPG make it any different? .

Here, here. You'll excuse me if I can't be bothered with a more eloquent response.

Frosty Flake
2007-01-28, 09:06 PM
It's kind of funny but... I've been using the terms Meat Sheild, Meat Puppet, Tank to describe characters for a long time... Sometimes in-character (My wizard referred to the paladin as a divine meat puppet). A few slang terms, OOC, are fine by me... though I dread the day that leet-speak takes over gaming circles and everyone starts "pwning teh boss" and then "T-P to base for wench-80085 celebrate woot!" (or whatever)

I thought aggro was British slang, though I did read that in Wikipedia and I don't know how old it is.

And I would wager that "Meat Shield" originated in the army. The only reference to this I can find is Wiktionary saying that in Canada, it's slang for an Infantryman. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Military_slang
Meat-shield may be a Canadian thing originally, I don't know... I know it was common enough here before all the on line hack and slash.

Saithis Bladewing
2007-01-28, 09:09 PM
OOC-wise? Not in the slightest. It doesn't distract me from the roleplaying...in fact, almost nothing distracts me from the roleplaying. I can stay in-character and suspend disbelief better than anyone I know in real life. :P

IC-wise, it bothers me because its completely unrealistic and breaks character.

PMDM
2007-01-28, 09:11 PM
It's a game that reflects life. Why should people suddenly ignore their other hobbies for this one?

Scorpina
2007-01-28, 09:16 PM
The terms bug me, but I can't justify it at all. Well, I dislike 'Healbot/Healbitch etc' because I have a tendancy to play Clerics and a desire not to be one...

JaronK
2007-01-28, 09:23 PM
I actually like using such terms in character. Soldiers in real life use such terms, calling people Jarheads or Sappers or whatever. Why shouldn't D&D characters use similar terms for things like Paladins and Clerics? Of course, I don't generally use the same terms, but sometimes it's appropriate. I don't use "tank" in character, because that word originates from the method of manufacture for creating those things... a method which would not exist in a fantasy setting. "Meat Shield" however seems fully appropriate. I also have characters with terms like "Boomer" (mage focused on fireballs) or "Bandage" (cleric focused on healing).

JaronK

oriong
2007-01-28, 09:24 PM
Almost all the terms mentioned here don't originate from MMORPGs, they were first used in Pen and Paper RPGs, it's just MMORPGs are of course more popular and terms like this get thrown around a lot more because there is no perceived need to talk 'in character'

Frosty Flake
2007-01-28, 09:30 PM
Plus I always thought the term "buffs" just sounded stupid outside of an MMO. We have these terms in a chat buffer because as instant messaging has shown, via typing it is easier to use abbreviations and acronyms for things rather than always spell them out- especially in the heat of battle. I don't see any excuse for this when everyone is around a table- supposedly role playing.

You know, on second thought, maybe this sort of thing IS appropriate in-character... Think about it from an in-character perspective. Realistically, if you want to convey something to a party member during whirling combat, you would want to fit the greatest amount of accurate and precise information with the least amount of syllables. “Father Archibald, can you not aide poor Sir Roderick the Gallant with some of your Palor-given powers of healing? I fear this vile animated plant will overcome him, and send him to the grave!” is pretty absurd compared to “Archie, Heal Tank!” (OK, maybe not “Tank”... I like Meat, it's a good one-syllable code-name,:P) Maybe the party would make up their own short terms for objects, tactics, etc.. but it would be essentially the same.

In fact, MMO speak might be especially appropriate for a modern or cyberpunk game that had magic in it... maybe the Urban arcana characters play WoW in their free time, so they all speak like that when they fight the radical hobgoblin eco-terrorists?

Jestir256
2007-01-28, 09:52 PM
I feel that the intrusion of MMO lexicon into tabeltop RPG's actually represents a disturbing trend; unfortunately it's a trend that Wizards promoted with the release of D&D 3.0. More and more of the new players I meat think that D&D is just a computer game without the computer. Their first consideration for how "good" their character is is how effective they are in combat, they have no idea what I mean when I talk about metagame logic (the fact that we even NEED such a term is disturbing; it represents an even more dismaying trend), and the absolute limit to their roleplaying is coming up with their character's name.

There's an entire school of linguistics that believes that our culture is determined by the evolution of our language, rather than our language by our culture. If it can be true of a parent culture, it surely could be true of subcultures within it, and if that's the case, PnP is already dying.

DeathQuaker
2007-01-28, 10:16 PM
Almost all the terms mentioned here don't originate from MMORPGs, they were first used in Pen and Paper RPGs

Yep. In fact, I'm feeling like the MMORPGers are stealing from me and getting all the credit. :smallwink: I've never played an MMORPG in my life and I've talked about "tanking" and "buffing" for years, having picked up the terms from other PnP gamers. Some of them have played MMORPGs, yes, but were PnP gaming and using those terms before the string of letters "MMORPG" had any meaning.

More like, PnP gamers are bringing their old terminology online and seeing it used more frequently. It's the prevalence of gaming tradition growing.

Fizban
2007-01-28, 10:20 PM
I'd take that even further: with the advent of MMO's, there's a lot more people thinking like this than those that play tabletop RPG's. Practically everyone plays WoW now (an exaggeration I know, but it's scary sometimes), and most of them think WoW is the base of everything else. I'll see them applying WoW logic and garbled leet-speak to any RPG, any video game period, practically anything that has ever been associated with nerds ever. It's really annoying having to explain to someone that some term or idea that thought was so cool and new has been around for years, originated with the DnD they so despise, and means something completely different.

Edit: Gah, deathquaker simued me, took my post a little out of context.

AmoDman
2007-01-28, 10:28 PM
Their first consideration for how "good" their character is is how effective they are in combat

That's shocking. *Gazes at legions of human history and tendencies and multitudes of threads on combat mechanics/CoDZilla & balance* /sarcasm off (< First MMO originating term in this thread).

Raum
2007-01-28, 10:45 PM
Tis kind of amusing...term X was either originally PnP and you like or it was originally MMO and you detest it. Or maybe vice-versa. :)

Thing is, most of the terms referred to originated long before either MMOs or any PnP RPG.

Language is a living, changing concept. Terms used for one meaning will change over time...or even just from one location to another.

the_tick_rules
2007-01-28, 11:26 PM
well i try to keep them to a moderate level. we've had to put the smack down on one guy who tries to talk leet.

Thomas
2007-01-29, 03:40 AM
Most of the suspect terminology is definitely tabletop slang, originally. The only bits that I heard first in MUDs and then MMORPGs (Ultima Online) are "tank" and "tanking" (maybe "buff," too). In fact, considering that tabletop was around first (what do we count as the "first" MMORPG, anyway? The first Neverwinter Nights? Ultima Online? MUDs?), it's just natural that the terminology originated from tabletop gamers.

JadedDM
2007-01-29, 03:51 AM
I can tolerate some of them, as long as they are used in an OOC context. I'll slap any player who says "tank" or "buff" IC with a nice XP penalty. Although that's never really happened before.

There are some terms I just can't stand, though; namely 'mobs' and 'aggro.' Those terms just have no place in tabletop gaming.

AmoDman
2007-01-29, 05:25 AM
There are some terms I just can't stand, though; namely 'mobs' and 'aggro.' Those terms just have no place in tabletop gaming.

Oh dear! That large assemblage of goblins is heading our way!

--

You pissed off the mob.

Moral: Mob is a natural term. Aggro? Eh, I already mentioned it. It doesn't even exist in D&D, so it wouldn't be used relevantly anyway unless you were playing a Knight.

Wehrkind
2007-01-29, 05:34 AM
Actually "tank" comes from the British code words for their early tanks. They tried to pass them off as machines for carrying vast amounts of water to the front, and so refered to them as tanks to keep the Germans guessing. Like so many things, it just stuck after that.

Considering the horrendous use of incorrect English grammar most people tolerate, I am always amused when people complain about "1337" or the like. It isn't as though most people can properly use "good" and "well", much less "who" and "whom", and yet they rail against someone saying "Can I get a strength buff?"
Not to mention the fact that "buff" isn't 1337. 1337 is the annoying habit of mispelling words and inserting numbers and symbols to make a more difficult or amusing bit of text to read. It doesn't have a verbal analogue (other than perhaps Pig Latin).
If you are going to use phrase like "put the smack down", complaining about someone calling a mage a "blaster" really just makes it look like you are defensive about the fact that MMO's are vastly more popular than PnP, despite not having anywhere near the roleplaying value.
Besides, people were overly concerned with their character being "good" have existed forever. If you haven't ever heard a player dying to tell you about their "level 20 Kender death knight who has a magical +10 bastard sword that makes him go berserk and kill people" back when AD&D was new and shiney, you haven't been playing since AD&D was new and shiney. (Sadly, I actually had to engage with a conversation with a grown man about said character. I wanted to kill myself.)

Arlanthe
2007-01-29, 11:31 AM
Oh dear! That large assemblage of goblins is heading our way!

--

You pissed off the mob.

Moral: Mob is a natural term. Aggro? Eh, I already mentioned it. It doesn't even exist in D&D, so it wouldn't be used relevantly anyway unless you were playing a Knight.

Ah, thanks for inadvertently helping me out. I can see I'm in the minority here, but I HAVE heard the term "mob" used at my local gaming hutch, and no one here had better pretend they've heard "mob" before MMOs or MUDs. The term “mob” is an abbreviated term for “mobile”. I.e. a mobile enemy on a video game or MUD landscape. That being said, I too have heard the term “meatshield” in my pre-MMO days, and though I haven’t heard “tank” pre-MMO, I can see how others may have used it. However, I had never heard “mob” or “aggro” or “buffs” in my games out in the community before MMOs became big. I can see I am in the minority on this issue, and I accept that. I also understand there is a lot of bleeding of the sub culture language back and forth, and that English as a living language very prone to this. I concede that point to those of you who made it.

I suppose though, that I was largely referring to in-character talk. Even with the pre-MMO “meatshield” allowance- not every fighter was referred to as a meat shield- or built up as such with high strength, constitution, and armor. Nor did every party have a sassy character that referred to the heavily armored fighter as a “tank”. Yet now as I listen to other games going on around me at my local game store, I hear “Fred can tank that Hobgoblin”, and “Jarvick, use some AoE on those goblins!”. In character. I suppose to be fair I must also point out my own bias in that the in games I play and DM we all largely stay in character and try to create a sustained mood. I do appreciate a player who says “Jarvick- can you show those ragtag goblins on our flank a thing or two about fire?” rather than “Jarvick- AoE those goblins”. I can think of fifteen different ways for a character to ask or command Jarvick to cast a fireball based on various personalities, but my recent observations tell me that people are becoming more content and comfortable with always using the “AoE the goblins statement”. I find it hard to believe every character used by this player would say “wizard, AoE the goblins!”. It reflects a shift from role-playing character and situation based dialogue to non-character based mechanical acronyms and slang.

I feel that this rather detracts from a role-playing game, the vehicle of which is the art of language.

However, I’ll also concede not everyone plays D&D as an RPG anymore, and to many it is simply like playing D&D miniatures. To some people their games behave as miniatures games or a board game, pieces and rules and hack and slash, and I understand why they really wouldn’t care who says what using which terms. I suppose I’ll just admit me and my role-playing mood-sustaining players don’t reflect popular opinion on the issue.

oriong
2007-01-29, 11:44 AM
However, I’ll also concede not everyone plays D&D as an RPG anymore, and to many it is simply like playing D&D miniatures. To some people their games behave as miniatures games or a board game, pieces and rules and hack and slash, and I understand why they really wouldn’t care who says what using which terms. I suppose I’ll just admit me and my role-playing mood-sustaining players don’t reflect popular opinion on the issue.

...

What?

I'm sorry but this is just not right. Tell me, what is this mythical time when people were so much more serious about role-playing and being in character and using appropraite langauge? Because I'm telling you it never existed. D+D first was created as a table-top wargame, and ultimately it has always stayed true to those roots. I'm sorry if your particular game group is straying from the way it traditionally plays it's games but if you think any of these attitudes come from recent developements you're very much mistaken. power, war, and battle gaming have been a part, and a major part, of D+D since before it was born.

Were-Sandwich
2007-01-29, 11:50 AM
Reminds me of the warforged language section in RoE. They have phrases like "points south", a caste, "points north", a leader, "dis", any kind of dispelling magic, "rush", attack etc. So they have their own terminology. Kinda makes sense people who fight for a living would have short hand terminology, so maybe some MMO terms are appropriate?

Thomas
2007-01-29, 12:14 PM
Ah, thanks for inadvertently helping me out. I can see I'm in the minority here, but I HAVE heard the term "mob" used at my local gaming hutch, and no one here had better pretend they've heard "mob" before MMOs or MUDs.

... what?

It's English.


1. a disorderly or riotous crowd of people.
2. a crowd bent on or engaged in lawless violence.
3. any group or collection of persons or things.
4. the common people; the masses; populace or multitude.
5. a criminal gang, esp. one involved in drug trafficking, extortion, etc.

Gee, do you think some of us might've heard it before? And do you think "a mob of orcs" might make perfect sense?


I won't even get into the matter of separation (or lack thereof) between speaking IC and OOC (some of us, for instance, don't "speak verbatim," i.e. actually recite our characters' lines), and how it has nothing to do with whether someone's "really roleplaying" or not.

Indon
2007-01-29, 01:08 PM
You know, inventing your own IC combat shorthand would be most interesting.

However, the only time I would let my players get away with saying "I tank the mob" IC would be if they were the chinese army in Tiennamen (sp) square.

SpiderBrigade
2007-01-29, 01:11 PM
It is also english, yes. It depends on how the speaker uses it. "Look out for all of those goblins, we've got a mob to deal with!" is normal. The MMORPG usage is if you say "Wow, that balor sure is a tough mob." Which I personally have never heard.

Yeah, I have to agree that I don't get how saying "use your AoE nuke" or "I was thinking of doing a medbot cleric build next game" is any worse for immersion than "Oh, no, I bombed my Fort save" or "Were you thinking of going gish?"

D&D is a game with lots of mechanics. It's not inconcievable that sometime during a session you might have to talk about those mechanics. If you do it a lot, you're going to end up using some kind of slang. It's nearly inevitable. Deciding that slang term A is appropriate, but slang term B is somehow "destroying D&D" is, IMO, unjustifiable.

Edit: Somebody needs to develop an old-school MUD-style game called Ankh-Mmorpg. I'd totally play it.

Thomas
2007-01-29, 01:15 PM
Wherefore art thou not speaking the King's English at mine table, knave? Have at thee!

mikeejimbo
2007-01-29, 01:33 PM
Edit: Somebody needs to develop an old-school MUD-style game called Ankh-Mmorpg. I'd totally play it.

I believe there is a Discworld MUD, but yes, that would be an awesome name for it.

Now, I don't see how saying "Area of Effect" is out of character. "Nuke" I could agree with, but if you have a spell that affects an area, what else are you going to call it?

Well, personally I'd probably call it my "spell-that-affects-more-than-one-target-at-a-given-time-as-long-as-they-
are-within-a-close-distance-to-a-central-location-on-which-I-cast-the-spell" but that's just me.

Arlanthe
2007-01-29, 03:48 PM
I lose.

And this sentence is to satisfy the ten character limit.

pestilenceawaits
2007-01-29, 03:56 PM
It doesn't bother me at all the guys I play with have never played Mmorpgs. and Buff, meatshield etc have been used for a very long time in our games I like new lingo and jargon though.

Dervag
2007-01-29, 08:41 PM
Plus I always thought the term "buffs" just sounded stupid outside of an MMO. We have these terms in a chat buffer because as instant messaging has shown, via typing it is easier to use abbreviations and acronyms for things rather than always spell them out- especially in the heat of battle. I don't see any excuse for this when everyone is around a table- supposedly role playing.'Buff' is actually a useful term, because there wasn't a convenient word for 'performance enhancing magic cast on you by an ally' before. But 'aggro' is certainly not appropriate.


Distracting from what? When discussing mechanics, they're quick and to the point. It'd be rather odd for the rogue to yell over that the enemy mage is buffing IC, but I'd imagine most everyone realizes that already (and if they don't...well, they have other D&D issues that need worked on).Actually, in a world where casters routinely use magic to strengthen their allies, there probably would be a convenient word for magic used to strengthen an ally. So if the rogue sees something the wizard doesn't, he might very well tell the wizard that the enemy mage is 'buffing', or whatever the equivalent of the verb 'to buff' is in the common tongue.


It's kind of funny but... I've been using the terms Meat Sheild, Meat Puppet, Tank to describe characters for a long time... Sometimes in-character (My wizard referred to the paladin as a divine meat puppet). A few slang terms, OOC, are fine by me... though I dread the day that leet-speak takes over gaming circles and everyone starts "pwning teh boss" and then "T-P to base for wench-80085 celebrate woot!" (or whatever)Leet-speak has the disadvantage of being nearly unpronounceable; it will never take over any large community of people who speak to each other.


I can tolerate some of them, as long as they are used in an OOC context. I'll slap any player who says "tank" or "buff" IC with a nice XP penalty. Although that's never really happened before.So how do your players express the concept that an enemy caster is using magic to enhance the performance of his allies?

Raum
2007-01-29, 10:04 PM
Thomas has it right...if language is that big a requirement for role playing, it's probably best to stick to old english. Or whatever the medieval version of your preferred language was. :)

mikeejimbo
2007-01-29, 10:05 PM
Thomas has it right...if language is that big a requirement for role playing, it's probably best to stick to old english. Or whatever the medieval version of your preferred language was. :)

My group won't roleplay in Latin, though.

JadedDM
2007-01-29, 10:37 PM
So how do your players express the concept that an enemy caster is using magic to enhance the performance of his allies?

It actually doesn't come up much. I mean, most protection spells don't have a visible effect anyway. I mean, if the enemy casts Protection from Good on himself, it's not like the party fighter is really going to notice he's getting a -2 to hit suddenly. "Oh, no! Guys, watch out! He is now marginally more difficult to hit!"

If they needed to express this, though, I imagine they would use the terms 'enhanced', 'enchanted', 'abjured', 'magicked', or 'protected,' among others.

Wehrkind
2007-01-29, 11:05 PM
Thomas wins.

Unless you are going to enforce proper grammar, use language purified of all slang and anachronisms, you are really just sitting on your front porch with your arthritic hunting dog complaining to your friend about "Kids these days, with their adding machines and their rap music and irrelevant words. When I was their age, we respected IC and OOC strictures, and we liked it!"

Hallavast
2007-01-30, 12:19 AM
It doesn't bother me what terms people use in the game. They can play however they want. I do laugh at people who compare WoW to dungeons and dragons, though.

Arlanthe
2007-01-30, 05:25 AM
Thomas wins.

Unless you are going to enforce proper grammar, use language purified of all slang and anachronisms, you are really just sitting on your front porch with your arthritic hunting dog complaining to your friend about "Kids these days, with their adding machines and their rap music and irrelevant words. When I was their age, we respected IC and OOC strictures, and we liked it!"

I lose- but Thomas doesn't win. He still thinks we were talking about the non-slang form of mob, not the computer specific term that represents a coded "mobile" icon moving on a computer monitor.

Wehrkind
2007-01-30, 05:29 AM
I don't know what he thinks, but the "King's English" was a point perfectly made and executed.

And "mob" predates graphical online RPGs. I remember playing MUDs where they were referred to as such.

Ethdred
2007-01-30, 05:43 AM
I'm with the majority who really don't care about these things - jeez, if we get too heavy on this I'll no longer be able to suggest that we take off and nuke the planet from orbit as it's the only way to be sure.

But what is this about 'aggro'? That is a long standing British slang/abbreviation for 'aggravation' and is usually used to mean an argument or a fight, as in 'there was a bit of aggro in the pub last night but nothing we couldn't handle'. What is the MMORPG usage of it that is so objectionable?

Thomas
2007-01-30, 06:06 AM
Thomas has it right...if language is that big a requirement for role playing, it's probably best to stick to old english. Or whatever the medieval version of your preferred language was. :)

Middle English, actually. Old English is a lot trickier. "Fæder ure þu þe eart on heofonum, Si þin nama gehalgod."

I can fake passable Middle English (although I'd need to dig into my notes to fake more than a sentence), but Old English is beyond me.

I've also heard British friends use "aggro" as a regular word, unrelated to MMORPGs (it means "aggression" or something; triggering a monster's attack scripts or whatever).

CharPixie
2007-01-30, 06:31 AM
The words I don't like are tank, aggro and mob. Tank because there's no way for a fighter to redirect enemy attacks to them. They can stand in front of casters, do battlefield control, and more, but there's no magic skill to make them the one that's attacked, and hence they can't tank in THAT sense of the word. As for aggro, enemies in D&D act according to their own will, which, in practice, is according to however the DM wants them to act. They don't need to do the obvious thing, and if they have a high INT score, they likely won't, so there's no Aggro value to manipulate. There might not even be that much aggression in the confrontation. It's, again, imprecise. Finally, a mob (plural: mobs) is an odd word; in my experience, it further reduces an NPC to something that the PCs kill. There are many words that describe an unknown: monster, thing, guy. We don't need a word that implies that an NPC is simply there to be killed. It's sloppy thinking and in my game will get PCs killed.

Arlanthe
2007-01-30, 06:37 AM
What is the MMORPG usage of it that is so objectionable?

It isn't really objectionable- in fact, nothing really is as long as the gaming group all feel the terms suit the style and mood of the game, I concede that point. Not all groups try to sustain the role-playng element as much as mine, and that's valid. Using MMO terms in PnP isn't "right" or "wrong", I was never trying to label it with an absolute or some kind of ultimate judgement. I was just stating a role-playing preference, and seeing if anyone shared it. I should have started this thread differently.

But "aggro" is being the target of a monsters attacks and attention, calculated by an invisible number that computer games calculate to determine which creatures/monsters/npcs ("mobs") attack what characters. Basically, the game tabulates the "threat" each character has toward each creature. Generally the more you damage a creature, the more "threat" you generate, and the more likely it is you will have "aggro".

It isn't as simple as that, because some taunting abilities (i.e. "taunt" in World of Warcraft) is an ability that instantly forces the aggro of a nearby creature on to you, regardless of who else is doing whatever to it (generally performed by a warrior to "take the aggro" off of a "crunchy" such as a mage). There are all sorts of abilities that increase threat more or less. It's really just an invisible number that determines who gets attacked.

To say "I have aggro from this Troll" is to say "the Troll is attacking me" or "the Troll is focused on me".

My personal preference (not the "right" way- just my preference in games that involve me) is that an in-character wizard who is being attacked say "this Troll is out to get me! Help!" or "lads, the Troll is on me!" or some other role-played statement. I'd just prefer players in my game not say "I've got aggro from X" every... single.... time...

Dausuul
2007-01-30, 08:27 AM
I feel that the intrusion of MMO lexicon into tabeltop RPG's actually represents a disturbing trend; unfortunately it's a trend that Wizards promoted with the release of D&D 3.0. More and more of the new players I meat think that D&D is just a computer game without the computer. Their first consideration for how "good" their character is is how effective they are in combat, they have no idea what I mean when I talk about metagame logic (the fact that we even NEED such a term is disturbing; it represents an even more dismaying trend), and the absolute limit to their roleplaying is coming up with their character's name.

Oh, come on. The term "munchkin" predates MMORPGs by many many years (since 1984, if you believe Wikipedia), and for good reason. There have always been a lot of players whose idea of role-playing began and ended with "I waste it with my crossbow!" And since D&D evolved from a tactical wargame, it's always been heavy on the combat mechanics and light on the RP, which only encourages them.

I'm not sure how long the specific term "metagame logic" has been around, but the underlying concept is also quite a bit older than MMORPGs. The ability to separate character thinking from player thinking is an inevitable problem in any role-playing game.

Obviously some of these terms shouldn't be used in character... but you know, as others have pointed out, it's not entirely unrealistic for many of them to be used IC as well as OOC. "Tank" is inappropriate because tanks (the big metal kind with the treads) don't exist in the D&D world. But in a world where adventurers regularly get spells cast on them that boost their abilities, it kind of makes sense that they'd come up with a word for it, and "buff" is as good a word as any--people buffed silver in the Middle Ages. And when some party members can take a hit from a charging rhino without flinching, while others are walking artillery pieces, the concept of "tank" would surely exist even if the exact word did not.


There's an entire school of linguistics that believes that our culture is determined by the evolution of our language, rather than our language by our culture. If it can be true of a parent culture, it surely could be true of subcultures within it, and if that's the case, PnP is already dying.

There's a word for that too. I think it's "hyperbole."

Matthew
2007-01-30, 12:54 PM
I've also heard British friends use "aggro" as a regular word, unrelated to MMORPGs (it means "aggression" or something; triggering a monster's attack scripts or whatever).

It's short for 'aggravation' usually.

nivek1234
2007-01-31, 06:22 PM
My group tends to make lots of jokes OOC using such terms, but rarely use them in context. The only one we use occasionally is mob to refer to a large group of people who are attacking. The closest we've ever come to using AoE was "I fireball the room!".

But I think that if any of us tried to use leet (even powned or adding xor to a word) would get the offender smacked.

felblood
2007-02-01, 05:56 AM
So, we're all agreed the the real problem is that unfamiliar vernacular is irritating until you get used to it, and Arlanthe has an irrational fear that MMOs will destroy PnP which causes him to project his frustrations onto them? Cool.

There are worse cultural influences to blame for your fear of change-- Like black musicians or France (actually you might be right about France). MMOs are a massive waste of everyone's time.

For my own part, I've come to the conclusion that in the end MMOs will never replace the tabletop or the local gameshop, but products that evolve from tools like GMbuddy someday could, if the fogeys could be persuaded to trade their dice for a compact RNG. Naturally, you'd still want actual paper maps and a table to sit around, but with the right utilities a laptop makes a deep awesome GM screen. No note shuffling, no lost NPC Charsheets, no losing track of initative. Trade your old broom for a vaccum and purchace a microwave, but don't let the idustrial revolution fool tou into believing that sofas and doors are obsolete.

Arlanthe
2007-02-01, 07:09 AM
So, we're all agreed the the real problem is that unfamiliar vernacular is irritating until you get used to it, and Arlanthe has an irrational fear that MMOs will destroy PnP which causes him to project his frustrations onto them? Cool.

(actually you might be right about France). MMOs are a massive waste of everyone's time.



I'm familiar with the vernacular- familiarity isn't the issue.

I'm also not afraid MMOs will destroy PnP, just as computer games have not repalced it over the past 20 years. After the original post, I clarified my point, and narrowed the area to which I applied my personal opinion on how feel.

And watch what you say about France. Note where I live- I have a lot of family and friends in France, and am partially of French descent.

Scorpina
2007-02-01, 07:27 AM
Plus France is awesome...

Roderick_BR
2007-02-01, 08:59 AM
No. My friends and I were the ones that used D&D slangs in *everything*we talked about :p

Note: In NeverWinter Nights, a D&D based game, people talk about buffs too. In some servers, even the NPCs are programmed with those slangs.

DM Kiirnodel
2007-02-01, 09:25 AM
I've found it both annoying and useful, so it varies. I haven't read the whole thread, but I have read the first page.

If a player OOCs 'I'm gonna tank when we attack the warforged, um.. Liu, you support from afar and only melee them if they charge you'

That's fine by me, but stuff like 'You just be a healmonkey' is annoying, because more often than not, the person doesn't just want to 'heal' they may want some action too.

Blaster, also, doesn't bother me. When OOCing a few ideas, tank and blaster etc... are quick and easy words that get the point across relatively quickly :D

Indoril
2007-02-01, 10:13 AM
The only one I can even see being a problem is the one about "aggro," and if that's an issue, it only takes a few battles to demonstrate to the players that D&D doesn't work on an aggro system.

I've incorporated an aggro system because it makes sense. The more damage you've dealt to something, the more of a threat it's going to see you as and therefore the more likely it is to go for you first. The same goes for healing. If a gnoll is attacking a fighter, and the fighter keeps getting healed by his cleric buddy one square over, eventually the gnoll is going to go for the cleric instead.

As for other terms that I've carried over from my days in World of Warcraft, I'll call monsters mobs sometimes. A fighter with 26 strength 20 constitution wearing full plate and wielding a greatsword using power attack on the big scary monster is tanking, regardless of what he calls it. I've even slipped and called Rangers "Hunters" and Fighters "Warriors" before, though I'm usually quick to correct myself.

CharPixie
2007-02-01, 02:44 PM
I think Kiirnodel has a good point. If you call someone a 'Healmonkey', you task them with healing. And that's all. In WoW, for what little I did play, it seems that each of the classes was built from the ground up to specialize in one of the few MMORPG roles. The Warrior took aggro, the mage did damage and a bit of crowd control, the priest healed. There wasn't a lot of variation in what COULD be done. Certainly you couldn't distract a 'mob', or otherwise be inventive with how you engage them. Now, if you take that paradigm and impose it on D&D, which I admit can be tempting if you have a lot of understanding of how a MMORPG runs, you limit the game. Not just in terms of what you do, but what others can do, especially if you are giving them roles (tank, healmonkey, puller) and advice.

Well, that and suspension of disbelief can hit the fan once someone starts using MMORPG terms. I know that personally I don't see WoW as anything other than pretty graphics; the story's kinda thin, and that person on the road is most certainly another player, not a character.

Thomas
2007-02-01, 02:49 PM
That's got nothing to do with anything else, though. Any "healmonkey" issue is an issue of player attitudes and playing style rather than of language.

CharPixie
2007-02-01, 03:23 PM
In my experience language has indicated attitude.

For example, another name for a computer is a 'box'. From my experience, that's a term used almost exclusively by techies who share a common attitude; that a computer isn't special, personal, and that it can readily be reduced to its parts. A lot of that attitude comes from working with computers on a regular basis. That language doesn't form the opinion, but rather indicates it. Now, if that hypothetical techie was giving computer advice, she might be using that jargon. And having her attitudes come across in the jargon; remember, for someone who doesn't use these terms, they are HER terms. For anyone who hasn't been on the other end of a jargonite, there's a struggle that you have, to first understand what the terms mean, and to engage the person with those terms. (And, in my experience, the jargonite always seems MORE intelligent because of the jargon; the arcane impresses) i.e. her attitude is part of the meaning.

I don't mean that it's all-encompassing or anything. A group can adjust or even just get used to the terms -- a lot of them are wrong, though. And the thinking associated with them is wrong-thinking. And, if, you get a group that's a majority of WoWers, then they find they can converse in their WoW jargon, and the solutions they can name easily are the typical (wrong in my opinion) WoW ones. The two games are built on different assumptions, therefore solutions don't transfer easily or well. Some of the assumptions are obvious (no taunts), some are more subtle (the DM tries to simulate monster's thoughts).

Of course, if your group hasn't any problems with the language, them that's fine. The working unit of RPing is the group.

Vance_Nevada
2007-02-01, 04:25 PM
I really don't see the problem. Suppose I use the term "Warrior Defender" instead of Meatshield, "Skilled Personage" instead of Skill Monkey, and "Destructive Energy Manipulator" instead of Blaster.

What have I actually achieved here? The game is now more complicated until the group can adapt to the new language, and once they do, the game is exactly the same, only with different words.

Red Sky Knight
2007-02-01, 04:29 PM
I think that a very few posters on this topic need to seriously lighten up, especially on the first page!

Personally, I think it's heaps better if the group all talk IC most of the time, communicating in a way that makes sense, but it doesn't always happen, and what are you going to do about it. Just go with it, and remember your just there coz what you are doing is fun!

Matthew
2007-02-01, 04:57 PM
See, the thing for me is that these terms just don't come up in any of the games I have played. The only times I really encounter them is in the context of the internet. I had been Role Playing for about six years before I first heard the phrase 'Tank' in conversation with another gamer (and I knew a fair few gamers). I didn't have a clue what he was talking about and I have rarely heard the phrase in conversation since (even now, I'm not all that clear on what it means. To 'tank' in slang usually means to fail, as far as I know). So, for me, these terms are a disconnect from the game, rather than an easy handle for describing a particular character type.