Your Gaming Group's Jargon

[winterhawk]

Nightmask's "Characters that didn't make the cut" thread got me thinking...my gaming group has some interesting slang that has developed over the years, mainly from characters or people from its history. Does anyone else have a similar argot with their own groups? If you do, please share some. Some examples of our gamespeak:

 

"Succeptability to Cheeze Whiz" - A lame Disad, from an actual submitted character.

 

"EC-High Stats" - a lame/Munchkinish power build, from an actual submitted character.

 

"Barry-Dice" (pronounced like paradise) - a long stretch of good die rolls, based off a player making the most consecutive 'doubles' re-rolls I've ever seen or heard of in a DC Heroes game, named Barry natch.

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Your Gaming Group's Jargon

 

Brown - any poor die roll, especially initiative rolls in d20 ("I go on brown.") From an old Star Wars d6 game where an Imperial Techie we told to send an 'everything is okay' message sent 'Code Brown' (referring to the color of, well, you know).

[austenandrews]

Re: Your Gaming Group's Jargon

 

"Vernal" - When a character's STUN is so far negative that he only gets a Recovery every Vernal Equinox. "If he hits me with that attack, I'll be vernal."

 

-AA

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Your Gaming Group's Jargon

 

Ah, that reminds me ... how could I forget ...

 

"Radland" -- Having negative-triple-digits-STUN.

 

In one old Champions game, a character named Rad (skateboarding kid with radiation powers) got knocked into a lava pit. He was only at -6 (or so) at the time, and the team's flying brick had an action coming up and could have fished him out. Instead, said flying brick used his body like a snowplow blade to try to 'scoop' lava up onto the evil wizard we were fighting!

 

The player, now with nothing else to do (but in no fear of dying due to high Resistant Def), kept rolling the damage against himself every segment and doing the math, eventually winding up near -700 STUN by the time the fight was over.

[keithcurtis]

Re: Your Gaming Group's Jargon

 

"Cody MacTavish Syndrome"

This refers to any character who has such a compelling accent or distinctive manner of spech that everyone in the room finds themselves unconsciously adopting it.

Named after a space opera character I had with a thick Scottish accent.

 

related:

"Gone English"

Turned evil or revealed himself to be evil. It's funny how often a person who does this suddenly begins using a cultured English accent. Start watching for this carefully in television and movies (cf Farscape Peacekeepers). We started using this after a character was trying to convince the bad guys he was on their side and suddenly started sounded like Peter Cushing.

 

"I got a rock"/"Kicked it"

fumble/crit

 

Keith "I got more" Curtis

[Theron]

Re: Your Gaming Group's Jargon

 

"Hush, you fellows" (delivered in as Ben Stein deadpan a manner as possible): Used when a character or player manages to be especially unimpressive. Comes from a long-ago pulp one-shot where the GM managed to completely hose a scene by saying "Hush! You...fellows...", when he should have said something like "Silence, dogs!"

[Son of Fire]

Re: Your Gaming Group's Jargon

 

Here are a few of the top of my head from my group.

 

15 = Really good, referring to a scale of 1 to 10, so 15 must be really good.

35 years Chrysler = Excessive bragging, or baseless claims of knowledge or expertise; coined by my stepfather who equates all worldly knowledge for working…35 years in Chrysler.

Arnold or Arn = Good, cool, or Tough.

Cheese = Silly, bad, or stupid.

Cheese bagger = See cheese.

Cheese monger = See cheese.

Cliff-jumper = a bad character.

Flarballed = Broken or bad.

Golden = Good or working smoothly.

Mint = Good.

Narp = No.

Punched = Broken or bad.

Weez = Sneaky or silly.

Yearp = Yes.

 

That’s it for now, I will add more when I think of them.

[Lord Mhoram]

Re: Your Gaming Group's Jargon

 

We use the "Cruelty Knob" and "Recap Button" taken from Aaron Allston's website.

The recap button is used when one character has information, but all the players were there to hear the information being given to the player of said character- so that character comes back to the rest of the group and pushes the recap button.

Cruelty knob is just how nasty the GM is feeling that day. We actually have a little paper plate numbered one to ten with a below "1" labelled easy and an above 10 labeled "excessive". This is tacked to the wall and a little arrow is tacked there as well, and when the GM comes into the room he dials the knob to let everyone know what is in store for them.

"Brick a roll" - to really fail the roll, based on bricks not usually having low skill rolls or CVs.

 

"Go Bizzare" from the old champions minus article. Usually applied to a player when he does something really strange.

 

"Spang" sound effect of a character's defences completely absorbing the attack, quoted by the player of said character. Also used in other situations describing an attack that doesn't work "That attack just spanged off of me".

 

"These dice are out of charges" Used after a group of dice have rolled badly a few times in succession.

 

"Liberate the Bar" - to go off on a really strange tangent instead of following the plot. We had a short run SF Bug wars kind of game, and the three of us that played got into a really off the wall goofy kind of playstyle (when the GM originally intended something somewhat serious). The characters drank to excess and when they were dropped somewhere to deal with the bugs the first thing in the town they would do would be to go liberate the bar from the dirty bugs.

 

" hit in the 13/aim for the 13" reference to the hit location tables. This has become the standard way to describe a groin shot, even in games where hit locations are not used.

 

"That's reformed powergamer" Usually said by me, after I build something fairly munchkin. Early in my Champions career I was a really bad minmaxer, but grew out of it; but I still have a habit of squeezing every last point out of a character.

 

"Shut up Wesley" Usually said to a character/player who just restating the blindingly obvious.

 

"Rolled a 3/rolled an 18/made or failed a roll" Said by or about a player who does something really good or really bad. A player comes up with the perfect way to defeat the bad guy so someone tells the player (not the character), "you rolled a three there" or someone does something very stupid "You bricked your int roll didn't you". Used this one outside gaming. My wife and I walking down an icy sidewalk and I start to slip, slide my feet and catch myself and look at her and say "I made my Dex roll"

[austenandrews]

Re: Your Gaming Group's Jargon

 

Of course some of my players use the term "CON Stunned" though it's a peeve of mine. Last I checked the rules are clear, and have always been clear since the early 80's: If your STUN goes below 0, you're Unconscious. If you take more STUN damage than your CON, you're Stunned. Somehow people confuse "Stunned" with "Unconscious" (though they sound nothing alike to me) and so "CON Stunned" appeared. (Me: "The bad guy looks Stunned." Player: "You mean he looks CON Stunned." Me: "I meant what I said, you git.")

 

 

"Blah" - A term used to sum up information already explained in detail. Example:

 

GM: "Captain Witness, you see three red dogs and a grey striped cat. The cat is juggling fiery batons while the dogs play poker. The animals scatter as Captain Newcomer drives up in his Newc-mobile."

Captain Newcomer: "What was just going on here?"

Captain Witness: "Blah."

 

-AA

[lemming]

Re: Your Gaming Group's Jargon

 

It's hard for me to just come up with what we use for jargon.

Previous examples that I can think of:

"Brain Dump" - Same as the "Blah" from austenandrews

 

For delays, most of the players wouldn't say "I delay" it was always "I strech", "I tie my shoes", "read a paper"

 

"I give him the critical eye" - Find Weakness (a bunch of variations on this as well)

 

Heat Vision = IR vision

 

I'm familiar with the "I got a rock" Charlie Brown reference. We used it too.

 

"I try to get out of the way" - Usually an abort to dodge when you know you'll get clobbered anyway and usually GMd.

[etherio]

Re: Your Gaming Group's Jargon

 

Here's one I suspect most of us encounter in one form or another, but makes no sense nonetheless:

 

"That roll wasn't on the table"...

 

In the various groups to which I've belonged over 20+ years of gaming, there seems to be the common belief that a roll has been invalidated by the fact of the die making its way off some arbitrarily-defined surface. Sometimes that's the table, or a book, or whatever. If it rolls onto something flat, it's a roll, for Crissakes. On the other hand, it is sometimes a good excuse for letting a player reroll when dramatic sense or his life are risked by a dumb roll.

 

"OK...the blue one was off...but keep the other dice."

[DocMan]

Re: Your Gaming Group's Jargon

 

I can only think of two bits of jargon right this moment... both borrowed from different groups where the incidents happened before I started gaming with them.

 

"The Pen of Glen" - "magical" item that allows any useful item to inexplicably appear in one's inventory, as long as the GM's not looking.

 

"Saving it for an Emergency" - Used to describe any particular item/ability that should be used NOW, but the character has decided NOT to use. Originally from a Vampire game where the party was in combat with a 4th Gen vampire. A character was trying to stake the vampire and the rest of the players asked her why she wasn't spending her Willpower to get sucesses. She replied that she was Saving it for an Emergency.

 

Doc

[etherio]

Re: Your Gaming Group's Jargon

 

An unofficial jargon unique to our group is the use of some variation of the term "Stewied." It refers to the unfortunate soiling of game-related materials.

 

It's named after our player who seems to have the magical talent to do just that to any paperwork, character sheet or other gaming accessory he gets his hands on. Doubt me not...I don't exaggerate when I say "magical." Stew has managed to get orange Dorito stains on his brand new character sheet when there were no Doritos within miles.

[Trebuchet]

Re: Your Gaming Group's Jargon

 

Two from our El Paso circle:

 

Wombat: A borderline-legal character who pushes the envelope in as many dimmensions as possible in order to be the most combat effective PC. Equivalent to munchin but generally applied to the character rather than the player.

 

Pretty Darn: Outstandingly, amazingly, unbelievably. Classic midwest understatement. ("Kathy Ireland is pretty darn attractive.")

[austenandrews]

Re: Your Gaming Group's Jargon

 

"The candle was lit" - Used to rib someone who made a dumb or silly comment and wants to make sure it didn't actually happen in the game. Taken from a GM's legendary practice of giving each player a candle; when the candle was lit, everything you said aloud, your character said aloud. You had to blow out the candle to say something OOC.

 

-AA

[BlackCobra]

Re: Your Gaming Group's Jargon

 

We have a variety of short-hand, used to sum up what might otherwise be long and annoying topics. For instance, our group has a tendency to ramble off-game (OOC), and sometimes when it appears the thread of the conversation is going to a Bad Place (Family Guy style), we use a phrase that sums up an entire pun-filled horribly morbid discussion we once had (and which I won't repeat here, and you don't want me to) ---- much like a Conversational Nuke.

 

"Break out the tea", "I had a Big Gulp" -- phrases used to describe a fairly commonly used tactic in our group normally referred to as "kick in the door, p*ss on the floor". Even that might be our own jargon. It means stomping on the NPCs harshly and making sure they know it. It has had varying levels of success.

 

"Are you satisfied with your job?" -- one of our more people-person characters/players convinced a summoned elemental to tell her how to dismiss it from their mystic binding, because it really really hated hanging around for thousands of years and attacking unwary travelers through it's "trap". Ever since, when it looks like we can't get past someone who is obviously someone's lacky, we talk to them about how satisfied they are.

[Vondy]

Re: Your Gaming Group's Jargon

 

"It was Ramses!"

 

Anytime anything mildly curious or conspiratorial happens someone invariably utters this. It was started by one of my players who became obsessed with my campaigns richest man (and an epic philanthropist) named Ramses Abakar. His corporation is Ramses Corp. The thing is, the player was right, the guy is insidiously evil, and many of the suits at RC are described as being "creepy bald egyptian dudes," but the player played it in such a way that it became a running joke.

 

"Pulled A Gear"

 

Went nutso and became a bad-guy. Gear was a PC who inexplicably underwent meltdown and turned on the team (we're still pondering what the player was thinking...)

 

"Swag City"

 

Any high-profile exhibit or cache of valuables villians are likely to try for.

 

"The Undertaker"

 

A reference for me, the GM, though my game has never been very deadly...

 

"I'm giving him a Truckload " (Of Dice)

 

Used for the old fashioned pushed haymakers at X1.5 damage (we had one

 

"I Abort To Die"

 

A sign of respect for an uber villian...

[austenandrews]

Re: Your Gaming Group's Jargon

 

"Packed in oregano" - An old phrase from when Justice Inc. first came out. If one of the players didn't show up, his character would still be with the group but was referred to as "packed in oregano" since he didn't participate. I really don't know where it came from.

[RavensPath]

Re: Your Gaming Group's Jargon

 

I can think of 2 from my old D&D group.

 

The first was "Silver" from the movie "From Dusk till Dawn" (though we shortened it). It is used to pull the group back onto topic after a major tangent.

 

The other is "(Your character name) kills (someone else's character name)". This was used when either the player or the character had just done something incredibly stupid and it had to be acknowledged.

[lemming]

Re: Your Gaming Group's Jargon

 

"Packed in oregano" - An old phrase from when Justice Inc. first came out. If one of the players didn't show up' date=' his character would still be with the group but was referred to as "packed in oregano" since he didn't participate. I really don't know where it came from.[/quote']

You're reminding me of some of the old jargon.

 

We used "Cardboard cutouts" for the same. "He's just a cardboard cutout today"

[Guest Kolava]

Re: Your Gaming Group's Jargon

 

"Fumble"/"You dropped the ball" -- Vague football references for bad die rolls.

 

Pulling a Daedalus -- Teleporting instantly to where the action is, regardless of where the character actually was when the action started. Named after a character notorious for doing so.

 

"Come on, let me RP!" -- An excuse used by a player whose character was, by all measures of the rules, rightfully dead because of a lack of critical decision making. Somehow, it worked not once, but several times; eventually we noticed the trend and the saying became legend.

 

"Then you wake up" -- A legendary last ditch method a GM employed to get out of a haywire situation; afterwards it became a running joke.

 

Demolition Gnomes -- When an adventure is aborted because of lack of interest or loss of GM inspiration, it is said that the Demolition Gnomes arrive and blow it up. The gnomes had suicide tactics, including riding a bomb down into the dungeon where the adventure had taken place, but were always alive for the next time.

 

Coma Spider -- When a player was unable to make it to a session, their character was often said to have bitten by the coma spider, an extremely fast and invincible bug whose poison knocks you out for the duration of one session. It began as a hasty explanation, but became a running joke.

[Mentor]

Re: Your Gaming Group's Jargon

 

One of my favorites is when some villain has the hero in a spot where the bad guy is gonna put a real hurt on him, the final maneuver before rolling the damage is to "abort to a Martial Cringe"

[lemming]

Re: Your Gaming Group's Jargon

 

Coma Spider -- When a player was unable to make it to a session, their character was often said to have bitten by the coma spider, an extremely fast and invincible bug whose poison knocks you out for the duration of one session. It began as a hasty explanation, but became a running joke.

Oh yeah, we borrowed from DESTROY!! and said the character was "Hit by a pathethically small piece of debris"

[Agemegos]

Re: Your Gaming Group's Jargon

 

"My extreme range is like a shield of steel" = I'm going to run away now.

 

"Clunk" = a combat build in a modern 'heroic' setting, especially a James Bond 007 character with ST 14-15, Speed 3, Fire Combat and Hand-to-hand Combet PCSs of 25+, and maximised fame points, armed with a Ruger T-512 .22 LR target pistol.

 

"Driver" a character build in a modern setting who specialised in vehicle combat (especially rewarding in James Bond 007 campaign).

 

"Face-man"/"Face-woman" a character build expert in interpersonal interactions (especially rewarding in James Bond 007 campaign).

 

"Cracker" a character build in a modern setting expert at breaking & entering, defeating security systems, opening safes, and usually surveillance and countersurveillance.

 

"Standard Party" a team consisting of two clunks, one of whom is a faceman and the other a face-woman, one being a cracker and the other a driver. Especially rewarding in James Bond 007 adventures.

 

"The Mike Hammer Gambit" if you have no real leads to go on, pick an NPC who seems to me connected to the plot and rough him or her up until her or she gives you a name. Then go to the person named and rough him or her up until her of she gives you a name. Lather, rinse, repeat.

 

"The Quiller Gambit" if yo uhave no leads to go on, wander round doing conspicuously mysterious things, making cryptic references to the things you do know about, and generally acting like a player. Hope that the villains will reveal themselves by trying to kill or capture you, and rely on being more of a clunk than any NPC could possibly believe.

 

"The James Bond Gambit" if you have no real leads to go on, allow yourself to be captured by the villains so that they will reveal their plans/secret base.

 

"The Columbo Gambit" having no idea what is gong on, pick an NPC you don't like the look of and start needling them. If necessary, frame them.

 

"Show [him/her] the paper trick" distract [an NPC] with conversation so that another PC can attack from surprise and from behind.

 

"From behind, in the legs, after the day was done" Faced with an opponent who is too tough to take out in a fair fight, fight unfair. (This one is from the Mahabharata.)

[Wildcat]

Re: Your Gaming Group's Jargon

 

We have a few in my gaming group, but suddenly all but one had fled from my mind.

 

Pitbull - It's used by the GM (me) in times where the Players have latched on to some erroneous factoid, as if it's the most crucial element of the entire plot, but in reality is nothing. We all know the dilemma, As GM you try to gently steer them away, so that the rest of the night isn't lost on a tangent... You try not to break character, you attempt to steer them away from the dead end, but the more you try the more the PCs BELIEVE they have found the Key to unraveling your entire universe... So after a few lost gaming sessions, I invented PITBULL!

 

And now oddly enough it's never been used for it's intended purpose... Now it's used rather as a side joke. Said when one of the Players brings up a plot thread they haven’t learned the details of. IE.. "But How did he escape... he should have died in that Wreck?"

"PITBULL!" Said un unison by 2 or more other PCs