Slang and vernacular

[Aliquid]

I was thinking of Planescape: Torment and how great the game was. It is one of a very few games that I still think about years after playing it...

Anyway one of the things that added to the depth of the game was the great slang and vernacular that was used. The Cant. Berk, cutter, jink, the cage, etc.

Has anyone put the effort into adding that type of depth into their tabletop game? I’m thinking of adding that to my next game... but I think I will need to find the right balance. Too much would be annoying for the players.

[Steel Mirror]

I totally agree with you that slang, especially cursing, can really add to world and make it immersive. A lot of my favorite books and shows do that exact thing (all those rusting fake words really frak up my own speech patterns and make other froods look at me weird, sasa ke?).

Unfortunately, I've never had the courage to try it out in my own games. I could never get over thinking that it sounds silly the first time I try it out. I totally support you in giving it a whirl in your own games, though! I'll see if I can come up with any ideas on my own to share, but it's so much harder than it sounds!

[Honest Tiefling]

If you worry about it sounding silly, use that. Firstly, you could give the slang to people who are supposed to look a little silly. Maybe a cadre of sorcerers adopt draconic phrases to celebrate their own blood as they look down upon others...But are actually just magically gifted teenagers disgruntled with the political machinations of their parents or lack of opportunity they have and seek to rebel. It might be a good way to break into it to see what works and what doesn't.

Another idea is that it is purposefully obtuse, as many types of slang are used to identify belonging to a group or excluding others. Take planescape for an example, where the cant seems to be a tool to make the inhabitants of the city bolster their ego at the expense of the primes. They use it as a way to justify labeling primes as ignorant and beneath them because they aren't in the know, thus excluding them from their own group.

Yeah, sure, it might sound silly and confusing, but that's because you're an outsider therefore we must scoff at you. SCOFF I SAY. Also, the players aren't supposed to understand it as the NPCs are trying to stop others from understanding them, and what's the point of a slang if it's easily understood?

[Psikerlord]

I agree it's a good idea. i liked shadowrun's frag and drek for example, and the couple of throw away japanese lines. I also really liked planescape's slang too (berk, cutter, etc).

I tried to insert a bit of this into my Midlands book actually - scob is a dimwit, and slud is similar to sh*t.

[Guizonde]

following counsel of the guy that gave me his post-apocalyptic universe, i did just that. unfortunately, it's not in english, but here's how it breaks down with a rough approximation of the english pronunciation:

dige (deej): dude.
boulon (boo-lon): equivalent to a dollar, one unit of money (it's actually a common screw-nut)
m-32: a roomba equivalent, used as a slang for an idiot (con comme un '32 -> stupid as a broom)

those are the three examples that are easily translated but... it has stuck. friends who've never played in that campaign actually use those slang terms. and dige has even become a byword used by non-rpers, it's so easy and fast to pronounce. use slang with parcimony, but make sure it sticks. i'd advise you crash-test it on friends of yours, just to see how instinctive it is to comprehend and how it rolls off the tongue.

i don't know where you're from, op, but i've found that borrowing phrases from border countries and translating them as roughly as possible makes for great slang in a quick and dirty manner. i live near the pyrénées mountains and my dialect of french is naturally peppered with occitan and spanish loan-words. incomprehensible to a parisian, but completely fluid to a native toulousain. works like a charm. also, "blood of the virgin" makes for a great curse word in any language.

[Honest Tiefling]

i don't know where you're from, op, but i've found that borrowing phrases from border countries and translating them as roughly as possible makes for great slang in a quick and dirty manner.

You mean borrowing from border countries? HA! Our native language does this on a regular basis! And then it goes further afield because no language is safe!

Through if you are running a game from English, stealing borrowing words from other languages is a time honored tradition. I believe a Clockwork Orange borrowed words from Russian, Firefly from Chinese and Warhammer probably uses dog Latin. So steal from the thieves!

[Guizonde]

You mean borrowing from border countries? HA! Our native language does this on a regular basis! And then it goes further afield because no language is safe!

Through if you are running a game from English, stealing borrowing words from other languages is a time honored tradition. I believe a Clockwork Orange borrowed words from Russian, Firefly from Chinese and Warhammer probably uses dog Latin. So steal from the thieves!

ain't you scandinavian, thiefling? that'd be damn near mandatory! i have trouble being understood in 5 countries, but i'm still understood speaking my native tongue! and despite not speaking properly those 5 different dialects, i understand them too*. and i'm only a good hour's drive away from spain.

*that said, why the hell is portuguese so bloody complicated?! it's like they don't speak latin!!

[Honest Tiefling]

ain't you scandinavian, thiefling?

1) American, actually, which only has two bordering languages to steal from. And neither of which is an hour away, lemme tell you. I mean, I guess I could instead go to China Town or the Indian strip, but lazy.

2) Even so, stole the name. See, stealing is fun!

3) I'm not a linguist, but English seems to lack very distinct dialects, with the possible exception of whatever the hell the Scottish are doing. I'm assuming English, given that the whole posting in English-speaking forums thing.

4) I haven't heard a definite source for the word tiefling, but it might be a horrible mispronunciation of German instead of a Scandinavian language.

[Guizonde]

1) American, actually, which only has two bordering languages to steal from. And neither of which is an hour away, lemme tell you. I mean, I guess I could instead go to China Town or the Indian strip, but lazy.

2) Even so, stole the name. See, stealing is fun!

3) I'm not a linguist, but English seems to lack very distinct dialects, with the possible exception of whatever the hell the Scottish are doing. I'm assuming English, given that the whole posting in English-speaking forums thing.

4) I haven't heard a definite source for the word tiefling, but it might be a horrible mispronunciation of German instead of a Scandinavian language.

could have me fooled! also, i can guess spanish, but which one's the other? russian?

2) no questions there. i steal puns, comebacks, putdowns, and phrases like i breathe.

3) to an outlander like me, i can pretty much pinpoint where on the globe you come from just from your accent. that said, i am of english descent, and my baseline is yorkshire english. i play on easy mode regarding that, since everyone sounds like they've got either an accent, a drawl, a slur, or none of the above.

4) your guess is as good as mine, èstrangès. i'm clearly lacking in my mythology in that aspect, although seeing the fluff of that race, "daemon-born" is a pretty common trope.

(èstrangès simply means "foreigner" or more closely "not of this land" in occitan. it's not an insult, just a statement, much how like morrowind played it with their use of "outlander", which is the ancestor of the common "foreigner" nowadays, still used in yorkshire and south africa).

[Honest Tiefling]

could have me fooled! also, i can guess spanish, but which one's the other? russian?

French. Remember Canada, that place you people have a monument to and used to own? How little you honor them, tsk tsk. And I don't think American accents quite work like that, since we have an accent that encompasses quite a bit of territory...Good luck pinpointing that one.

Through this conversation HAS given me an idea to help the OP: Introduce things slowly. Traders or people from a culturally mixed family or neighborhood or others might use a few words sparingly, but not go overboard. Sprinkle them in and see the reaction you get from the players. See if the words are too foreign for them to grasp, or if they are having troubles remembering them for other reasons. Use it to get feedback!

Also consider WHAT words were stolen into English, which are usually words we didn't already have, like schadenfreude. What concepts would your world have that might not translate so well into English to begin with? And can you make the term plot relevant to help the words stick into people's heads?

[Aliquid]

French. Remember Canada, that place you people have a monument to and used to own? How little you honor them, tsk tsk. To do it properly, you would have to honour them, not honor them.... ;)

----edit----

Actually, Canadian spelling jokes aside, there is a fair bit of slang that is unique to Canada, even if you are using English. Not overly useful for gaming though. "Bunnyhug" for a hoodie, "parkade" for a multi-level car-park, "Serviette" for napkin, "Sh*t disturber" for a trouble maker...


My preference is for full culture shock when introducing the players to the new world (like entering Sigil), so I don't think I would go for gradual.

But looking at comments above, I think I should narrow down what type of words are used as slang (like curse words), and have the slang be associated with a certain social group, rather than everyone.

[Berenger]

4) I haven't heard a definite source for the word tiefling, but it might be a horrible mispronunciation of German instead of a Scandinavian language.

Depends. If the root word is Teufel (devil) then it is indeed horribly mispronounced. If the root word is Tiefe (deepness, depth - alluding to the Abyss) then spelling and pronounciation are alright. -ling is just a suffix that is added to a noun or adjective to indicate a creature or person. E.g. Sträfling (convict) = Strafe (punishment) + -ling / Schönling (pretty-boy) = schön (beautiful) + -ling.

[Darth Ultron]

Has anyone put the effort into adding that type of depth into their tabletop game? I’m thinking of adding that to my next game... but I think I will need to find the right balance. Too much would be annoying for the players.

I've done this forever.

First off, I do add the bulk ton of Real World Slang and vernacular to the game.

Then on top of that I add in all the fiction.

For example, broadly, elves see and say things related to nature..though more of a ''mythical temperate forest'' by default. So the average elf will say things like ''that is a tall tree to climb'' to mean something hard to do, or say fast paced living is a ''rabbit race''.

But then elves from other places then ''a forest'' will use other nature. Swamp elves say ''bog bundle'' and desert elves say ''sand sight''. But, in general, that is only for elves from such an area. And elf from Threshold will just about never say things other then the ''mythical temperate forest'' ones.

And on top of that, you have each region in general. Northern elves just about never say ''animals'' and will allays be specific to the type of animal...often very specific. While southern elves are vague and lump everything as ''animal'' and often mislabel things like saying a dog is a rodent.

And then I add ''profession'' and ''life style'' ones. Like wizards by default like big, long words to sound impressive. Rangers use simple words.

In all, a player in one of my games can tell a LOT about a NPC just by what they say and how they talk.

[oxybe]

Words I find are interesting things. There is usually a story behind a word, and this story is usually told alongside the people who use it.

I say this as someone who grew up in a small french community and learned english by watching TV and reading videogame manuals in the late 80's and early 90's. Doubly so as I have a very thick accent when speaking in my particular regional dialect, which caused me no end of problems in high school as my everyday french and it's archaic and horrible regional words (and constant borrowing of some english didn't help!) were of no use in high school & university courses that used the Parisian standard.

Going back on topic, I find slang is ok as long as you can kinda make the link as to why the slang is what it is.

To use a few real life examples:

The Canadian $1 and $2 coins are called the Loonie and the Twoonie: the $1 coin came out first, with the picture of a loon on it and the $2 coin, while it has a bear on it's face, is worth two loonies, thus is the twoonie. A double-double is standard canadian shorthand for two milks/cream, two sugars in your coffee. Go to any coffee shop and they'll know what you mean. I can't imagine going to a Tim's and ordering a medium coffee with two creams and two sugars: it's a medium double-double. The other way sounds just weird.

a lot Video Gamer slang follows similar ideology: a piece of a player's mangled corps is usually called a gib, or giblet, as the word traces back to offal. Thus if you were "gibbed", all that's left is basically the offal. Calling someone the party Tank is pretty obvious, as it refers to the tough military vehicle of the same name that is able to withstand a lot of punishment.

Even esoteric slang, like TTRPG term "splatbook" to mean a sourcebook, comes from how people would refer to stuff like the various whitewolf clan books as the *book, where the *, or splat, is a programming variable: specifically in that it's a wildcard search operator so a search for "Vampire * clanbook" would return "Vampire Ventrue clanbook", "Vampire Gangrel clanbook", "Vampire Malkavian clanbook", "Vampire Brujah clanbook", etc... so when talking about the sourcebooks in general the shorthand used online, which involved an operator, when said out loud would be splatbook. Note that this is a term with decades of history that started on old usenets and whatnot where many people needed some knowledge of the tech to get to it, so stuff like operators weren't really esoteric at the time... It's just grown as part of the common dialect of the hobby.

Others can be a bit more esoteric, but as long as a good sit and a think can usually allow you to find out what the source of the word is and why it came into use, then the slang is fine.

Slang for the sake of slang is more annoying then anything as it doesn't serve the initial purpose that slang did, to quickly express information to a group of people.

Even in some games like shadowrun you can see some of the etymology and where it comes from.

Drek is a german word for refuse/waste, so I can see it being initially imported from the runners familiar with the dealings of european megacorps, who instead of using the word **** would use their everyday word: drek.

Chummer is obviously slang derived from "Chum", which if google is to be believed itself is slang: late 17th century (originally Oxford University slang, denoting a roommate): probably short for chamber-fellow. Compare with comrade and crony. This is basically just language evolving.

Other words I'm not really sure where it would have come from, like how they use the word "geek" as an adjective to mean "to kill", since the word, like drek, has german origins as "a fool" (or at least eccentric), and eventually morphed into someone who's an expert, or at least knowledgeable in a field or hobby (since their enthusiasm tends to look a bit eccentric to those outside looking in). I'm just kinda at a loss for this one so it sounds like slang for the sake of slang. I guess geeks are usually seen as weak and as such the first to die in a firefight? I dunno.

I like words.

[Vinyadan]

About cant, you don't need to use words from foreign languages.

So you can call a car a pipe, and stealing smoking. Tobacco can be a collective name for the tools needed for thievery. You can use tobacco types or brands as names for the single tools -- so Pueblo can be a name for lock picks, and Stuyvesant for broken razor blades to cut pockets and bags. If you find the names too long or difficult, just use a shortened form: the lock pick becomes a "peb", the blade becomes a Steve Saints. From these names, you can build verbs: so "pebbing" is "lockpicking", and "steve-sainting" someone means cutting him up.

After you smoke you're left with the filter, so that could be the name for the stolen goods. Or you could, once again, use the name for a brand, or type. So the stolen goods can be called the "slims". And then turn into the "slums" for obscuring purposes.

It's a pretty funny game in itself, actually.

[JeenLeen]

In the games I've played, the slang we use is generally shorthand that speeds up conversation. The main one that comes to mind is stuff about Paradox from Mage.
Paradox --> dox
Getting hit by a backlash -- dox'ed
and probably others, but that game was years ago I don't remember the rest. We started it as OOC terminology, but eventually used it as IC as well.

I think we used some low-level cant so our characters could talk on the telephone without the Technocracy pinging us talking about magic, Traditions, or Technocracy.
There was one interesting time we as the players used cant to describe things OOC, since we were communicating in part by e-mail and what we were doing in game was so outrageously illegal we didn't want to risk typing about it on anything that could be monitored. So instead of assassinating a prominent public figure, we were 'getting a football'.

[Jay R]

The closest I've come to using slang was inventing the goblin word "prosdt" in my session write-up, in the character of my gnome, of the first game in a new campaign. [I do this fairly regularly, and try to really push the character's persona.]

I was playing with the fact that names are idiosyncratic for a gnome, and I assumed that he didn't really believe in using the name they came with, and would eventually give them their "real" name (real for him, anyway). So instead of saying "a half-Aasimar druid named Mycroft", he said "a half-Aas. druid who calls himself Mycroft".


He described another character as follows.

"A healer who calls himself Prost. I’m guessing he doesn’t know what “prosdt” means in Goblin."

[Vinyadan]

"A healer who calls himself Prost. I’m guessing he doesn’t know what “prosdt” means in Goblin."

Does it mean Coulthard?

[mikeejimbo]

The one piece of slang I introduced in a homebrew setting was calling giants "lenny". I didn't have a good in-universe explanation, but it got the point about how giants were viewed by society across OOC.

[Max_Killjoy]

I'll have to dig up the files from my (far-ish future space-spanning) science fiction setting.

One I do remember is that common slang for credits / money was "quid".

[hymer]

4) I haven't heard a definite source for the word tiefling, but it might be a horrible mispronunciation of German instead of a Scandinavian language.


4) your guess is as good as mine, èstrangès.

I seem to recall a Dragon Magazine article, where someone said he came up with the name for the race by asking a guy next to him for a word in German for someone born in the Abyss (or something like that). 'Tief' in German means 'deep', and the -ling suffix can pull the same weight it can in English.

[Honest Tiefling]

One I do remember is that common slang for credits / money was "quid".

Oh! Good example. Sure would be a shame if someone where to steal it...

Personally, I think names for hated groups of people is a good place to start. It could establish an NPC as a horrible person who is a fair target for stealing, and it establishes any racial or ethnic friction that might be a problem in the region. Such as calling elves 'Swordears' from Dragonage or calling anyone non-Greek a Barbarian because they talk like sheep and all non-greek sounds the same.

[Tanarii]

I was thinking of Planescape: Torment and how great the game was. It is one of a very few games that I still think about years after playing it...

Anyway one of the things that added to the depth of the game was the great slang and vernacular that was used. The Cant. Berk, cutter, jink, the cage, etc. This is exactly what stopped me from ever getting into Planescape, have any interest in playing in or running a Planescape game. The idea that the infinite planes all used Theives Cant? It makes them feel small and colloquial.

Which is exactly why they did it, of course. Most people can't handle conceptualizing infinite vastness and variety, it overwhelms them and turns them off. So they needed a way to make it approachable for those people, to tie it all together and make it comfortable and familiar.

[Aliquid]

This is exactly what stopped me from ever getting into Planescape, have any interest in playing in or running a Planescape game. The idea that the infinite planes all used Theives Cant? It makes them feel small and colloquial.

Which is exactly why they did it, of course. Most people can't handle conceptualizing infinite vastness and variety, it overwhelms them and turns them off. So they needed a way to make it approachable for those people, to tie it all together and make it comfortable and familiar.Well in Planescape: Torment, that wasn't the case at all. Typically it was just people in the Hive, and those of lower social status that spoke The Cant. There was even a specific situation where someone in another Ward was trying to pretend they were from the Hive, but gave themselves away by using the jargon wrong.

[Honest Tiefling]

This is exactly what stopped me from ever getting into Planescape, have any interest in playing in or running a Planescape game. The idea that the infinite planes all used Theives Cant? It makes them feel small and colloquial.

I don't think those were the same. The Cant is planar slang in Sigil. Thieve's Cant is just plain bad design and I hate it and I wish I could set it on fire.

[Jay R]

"A healer who calls himself Prost. I’m guessing he doesn’t know what “prosdt” means in Goblin."

Does it mean Coulthard?

I thought it would be funnier if I never identified its actual meaning. It is Schrödinger's slang.

[Guizonde]

I thought it would be funnier if I never identified its actual meaning. It is Schrödinger's slang.

shrödinger's slang: you never know if you've been called a barnyard animal's intestinal lining or a gentleman until you ask.

[Lord Torath]

Custom slang can really help build the world for you. Here's one of my favorites:

"A "blink" is a dollar, and has been since the <crash> when the average paycheck disappeared in the blink of an eye."
- Sunshine by Robin McKinley

I really like the 1-2E Shadowrun slang: drek, frag, slotter, chummer, etc. They had some great slang. I understand it's disappeared in later versions. :smallfrown:

Um... there was something else, but apparently it fled my mind while I was typing the Shadowrun line...I'm thinking video game... Oh Right! StarSiege by Sierra. On Venus, "Boys and Girls" and/or "Ladies and Gents" became "Kurls and Derns". No idea which gender applied to with word. Teddies = Terran Defense Force members. Duster = someone from Mars.

[Darth Ultron]

Custom slang can really help build the world for you. Here's one of my favorites:

While it is not all that popular, fiction that uses words and slang has always been my favorites.

It's so dull for a guy in the year 3000, a guy in the year 1000, a demon from the Time before Time, and a Troll from a mystical land to all say ''lets work on this 24/7'' like someone from 2018 would say.

[HowNowBrownCow]

Oddly, I've mostly used slang as racial epitaphs in games. The party is entirely non-human, so whenever they go abroad it's the quickest way to get their dander up. Meanwhile, in their home kingdom, a lot of random events have resulted in elves doing 'bad' things (i.e. trying to assassinate the queen, burning down a warehouse) so the random peasants and city members in their capital tossing off a 'knife-ears' here and there hints at simmering problems. Easy button to push.

[lightningcat]

It is not only the actual words, but how they are said too.
For example, throughout a good chunk of the US southeast, they don't ask people to do things. Instead they say something needs to be done or something similar. If a mother wanted her daughter to bring tea for everyone, she would say that there was tea in the fridge, instead of actually asking.
While were I grew up, they would ask if you would mind doing something, instead of asking you to do it.
In both cases, they are being polite, but in odd ways.