Keep your WOW TALK out of my D&D

[Darrin Drader]

So...I have the misfortune to work next to two guys who play WOW. They have been playing WOW for over 2 years. They talk about WOW every day. I mean literally every day. Not just for a few minutes, but for hours.

I have had to buy an MP3 player just to keep myself from losing more sanity than I already have.

After being exposed to this I have learned to hate WOW. More specifically I have learned to hate WOW LINGO.

Sounds like more or less the same reason I can't stand Bob Marley. My freshman year in college, the guy who lived one door down from me was constantly blasting it.Day in, day out, night in, night out. I grew to HATE BOB MARLEY, and by the end of the year, I wasn't exactly unhappy that he was no longer alive to make more music. If my favorite radio station were to suddenly start playing a lot of Marley, I'd probably explode.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

As for terms I've only heard since WoW came out, Pally sticks out as one I've never heard abbreviated that way until it came out. In EQ, I saw most people just use Pal. Most of the above words became 10 times more common after WoW came up, mind you.

I never saw anyone write the term "pally" in regards to D&D. But I've heard the term spoken since about 1984. As in, "You playing your Pally?" "Yep, time to whip out Sir Edward the Glorious of Willip!"

 

[CleverNickName]

I think the first time I came across the terms "aggro," "mob," "pally," and "tank" was on Battle.Net, playing Diablo (and later, Diablo 2) in the mid-to-late 90's. And for all I know, the BNet gamers picked it up from somewhere else before that.

 

[Aus_Snow]

The first time I heard most of these terms was on a RPG forum somewhere. Might've been this one, but probably not.

I guess this might be partly due to the fact that I've never played a MMO (and never will), and I don't know anyone IRL who plays them, either.

The only exception is 'pally' - this one, I encountered back in the '90s some time. It's never been offensive to me, unlike most of that other jargon. Just to make that clear though, I would find them offensive in the TTRPG environment, were they to ever come up, and I would rather not hear them at other times, for that matter. But yeah, in particular, I also don't want MMO stuff - of any kind - in my TTRPGs, thanks.

 

[Kzach]

I have let the term "Aggro" slide because I am willing to compromise. It is, however, WOW LINGO.

lol failnoob. L2p. Wat u need iz 2 aggro dump dont go above tank's tps cuz ded dont dps lolz but u can go wit aoe tank cuz tey aggro awl an u be fyne unless ur heelz aggroz ten ur ded lolz

 

[Subumloc]

I've got these two guys who keep using the word "gold" for every treasure they find - the thing is, we are in Italy and play the game in Italian
They also insist on calling the minotaurs "Tauren"...

 

[ProfessorCirno]

The fun part about this is, most "lingo" used in MMOs came from MUDs, and the lingo from there came directly from tabletop games.

You're just hitting the back end of the circle.

 

[Aus_Snow]

The fun part about this is, most "lingo" used in MMOs came from MUDs, and the lingo from there came directly from tabletop games.

Examples for 'most' of them then, please? From TTRPG to MUD to MMO, step by step, I mean.

It's not that I'm unwilling to believe you, but that I don't necessarily, as it stands.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Examples for 'most' of them then, please? From TTRPG to MUD to MMO, step by step, I mean.

It's not that I'm unwilling to believe you, but that I don't necessarily, as it stands.

Usage of "tanks" to refer to heavily armored characters appeared far before Everquest popped up. As were "pallies." TPK? AoE? Rechan posted a nice list of several "MMO lingo words" that have been used in tabletop games pre-Everquest (And I use EQ because it was a staunchly different game from UO, and I never felt Asheron's Call reached EQ's popularity).

The thing to remember is that the vast majority - if not all - early MUD players were D&D gamers. The early computer games were, both gamer and developer, made of tabletop game players; Richard Garriott made the entire Ultima series and Ultima Online specifically in an attempt to re-create the feel of tabletop gaming, to give one example (In a fit of irony, his success in part caused much lower sales for D&D. And then id Software, fans of Garriott, made Wolfenstein 3d and Doom, which sucked away Ultima sales).

Which isn't to say ALL lingo is. "Buffing" and "nerfing" are terms I never heard in tabletop games until after the big MMORPG craze started (Though buffing might've and I was just in the wrong crowds). Same with "grinding." "Camping" obviously never appeared in any tabletop game I've heard of.

 

[Kzach]

Buffing has been around since at least 3.x