Why Jargon is Bad, and Some Modern Resources for RPG Theory

[overgeeked]

Could you maybe ask out a motivation of genuine curiosity instead of a clear motive to insult a niche game for not being popular?

I am genuinely curious.

It’s more than a bit disingenuous to pretend that terms from wildly popular games are just as obscure as terms from niche indie games.

 

[Lanefan]

Terms from indie games or some indie designers blog that maybe a hundred people have ever even read compared to terms used fairly consistently for the last 50 years by the single most popular RPG franchise in history. It’s a wildly safer assumption that people here know what a saving throw is than a bang. Still no clue what that one means.

Hmmmm...how to define bang without running afoul of the old Eric's Grandma rule...


(and yes, "Eric's Grandma" is a jargon term specific, I think, to ENWorld)

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I don't think that jargon common to D&D should be in any way privileged, except in the context of posting on the D&D section of the message board!
In such a context some familiarity with D&D jargon may reasonably be assumed, whilst familiarity with some other type of jargon not so much.

 

[Aldarc]

Personally, I don’t know what any of those terms mean. If you were to have a lengthy discussion about them, I would be left out unless someone explained them to me. Now, that might not be a problem. If the discussion is about, like, a game that uses them, it makes perfect sense to use that game’s terms in that discussion (and I probably wouldn’t care about being out of the loop because clearly I’ve never played the game in question). If it’s in a discussion about D&D, I’m probably not the only one who’s unfamiliar with the terms, and the discussion would probably be better served by more layman-accessible language.

Most of these terms are on a similar level of complexity as terms like fudging, fail forward, metagaming, theater of the mind, etc. I don't think it would be all that difficult to explain what some of these terms mean, even with the usual pages of contention about specifics, and I suspect that you would have some pretty good guesses about some (e.g., scene framing, fiction first, shared fiction, etc.). These are terms that I view as far more accessible and easier to grasp because they describe some fairly basic ideas.

For starters, this bit is from the 5e PHB. If you replaced "set the scene" with "frame the scene," could you guess what the basic concept of 'scene framing' entails?

Often the action of an adventure takes place in the imagination of the players and DM, relying on the DM's verbal descriptions to set the scene.

There are a wide variety of games that either use "scene framing" or "set the scene" to describe a GM's duties.

"Kickers" is a harder nut to crack, but it was a term that was first used in Edwards's Sorcerer. The basic gist behind the name and concept is that a kicker answers "What kicked your character out of bed, complicated their lives, and motivates them to do stuff in this game."

 

[niklinna]

Hmmmm...how to define bang without running afoul of the old Eric's Grandma rule...


(and yes, "Eric's Grandma" is a jargon term specific, I think, to ENWorld)

Being relatively new to active participation here, I had to look that up.

I could have asked, too, of course (or if I hadn't found it on my own).

 

[niklinna]

I am genuinely curious.

Then how about simply, "I don't know what a kicker is, could you tell me?"

It’s more than a bit disingenuous to pretend that terms from wildly popular games are just as obscure as terms from niche indie games.

Popularity wasn't my point. My point was that everything has its context.

 

[overgeeked]

Why does it matter?

You’re basically saying that one set of jargon is okay because it’s from D&D and another is bad because it’s from a game you don’t know.

And yet you’re concerned about gatekeeping? Come on, man.

I’m acknowledging that on a website practically, if not literally, dedicated to D&D that terms from D&D can more easily be assumed to have wider usage. Not sure why that is controversial or bother you.

 

[Campbell]

Let’s see if we can find the substantive diiference between say “bang” and “saving throw”. Oh, right. One is explicitly defined in the single most popular RPG franchise of all time while the other is…from where? Defined how?

Kickers and bangs come from Sorcerer, one of the most influential indie games. They form the basis of its play structures.

Kickers are a precipitating event, like a player designed hook for their character that propels them to do stuff. Resolving a kicker should change how we view the character. When a kicker is resolved a player either creates a new character or comes up with a new kicker.

Bangs are events that force players to make a dramatic decision for their character. They are moments of crisis where players have to choose who their characters really are as people through the choices they make.

In Sorcerer players are responsible for trying to resolve their kickers. GMs are responsible for creating bangs that make that difficult.

Of course we should explain terminology that people are unfamiliar with and respond to clarifying questions, but the idea that we should have to explain it through the prism of a structure of play that presumes a fundamentally different play structure is baffling. It actively causes confusion when in the middle of explaining things we have to contend with all sorts of assumptions about play structure. Explaining this stuff to my next door neighbor would be way easier.

I fail to see what popularity has to do with it other than virtue signaling.

 

[overgeeked]

"Kickers" is a harder nut to crack, but it was a term that was first used in Edwards's Sorcerer. The basic gist behind the name and concept is that a kicker answers "What kicked your character out of bed, complicated their lives, and motivates them to do stuff in this game."

Ah. No wonder it’s confusing. It’s a bad mixing of inciting incident, complication, and motivation. Those are the actual terms. For those things. Note how of those only inciting incident is even marginally not obvious from the term used. That show it’s a good word to use as it describes itself.

 

[niklinna]

Kickers and bangs come from Sorcerer, one of the most influential indie games. They form the basis of its play structures.

Kickers are a precipitating event, like a player designed hook for their character that propels them to do stuff. Resolving a kicker should change how we view the character. When a kicker is resolved a player either creates a new character or comes up with a new kicker.

I haven't played Sorcerer so these are new to me. Could you give an example? Like, would waking up to the house on fire be a kicker? Are there stats or descriptive phrases (like bonds or ideals in 5e) involved in what makes a good kicker?

Bangs are events that force players to make a dramatic decision for their character. They are moments of crisis where players have to choose who their characters really are as people through the choices they make.

What constitutes a dramatic decision, and how does that relate to the choices a character makes? Again an example would be great.

In Sorcerer players are responsible for trying to resolve their kickers. GMs are responsible for creating bangs that make that difficult.

Oh the two interact somehow! So is a bang created specifically in response to a kicker?