Didier Monin's Blog - What the heck is...

[Aloïsius]

Er... what?

"Malus" for speakers of Latin-languages (Portuguese, Spanish, French) means "evil" much more than it means "penalty". The word for "penalty" is much more commonly "penalidade", which shares the root "pena" (as in "punishment") with "penalty" and "penance".

In Portuguese, maybe, but not in French
"Mal" (both a name, an adverb and an adjective) translate as well as "evil" or "bad", but "malus" has only one meaning : arithmetical penalty. It is used by both insurance compagny and roleplaying games (among other).

 

[Nikosandros]

Er... what?

"Malus" for speakers of Latin-languages (Portuguese, Spanish, French) means "evil" much more than it means "penalty". The word for "penalty" is much more commonly "penalidade", which shares the root "pena" (as in "punishment") with "penalty" and "penance".

Actually, malus is also used in Italian for "penalty". The Italian insurance system for cars is called the bonus/malus system, because if you don't have accidents for a year your category improves and you pay less for insurance, while the converse happens each time you have an accident which was your fault.

Interestingly though, the Italian version of "red box" BD&D used "penalità" instead of malus.

 

[Oldtimer]

Er... what?

I think that came from practical observations, though those observations would primarily be of french and german gamers. I haven't seen its use among many other non-english gamers. (It's not used among scandinavians, for example.)

 

[Glyfair]

I'm assuming Didier is ESL.

And given he started in the French subsidiary of WotC (and worked in France for a long time before that), I assume he's French.

 

[Sammael]

In Serbian, "malus" is used in insurance to denote a penalty to your premium (like Nikosandros noted above). In RPG, the terms "penal" (Serbian translation of "penalty") or "minus" are often used.

 

[Andor]

Cool. Malus = penalty and molemen are useful ammunition against hobgoblins. I learned two things today.

 

[Perun]

In Serbian, "malus" is used in insurance to denote a penalty to your premium (like Nikosandros noted above). In RPG, the terms "penal" (Serbian translation of "penalty") or "minus" are often used.

Similar in Croatian, except we don't use penal (too footballey ). At our gaming table we use either minus or penalty (since we play in Engletian -- or is it Cronglish )

Regards.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Similar in Croatian, except we don't use penal (too footballey ). At our gaming table we use either minus or penalty (since we play in Engletian -- or is it Cronglish )

Regards.

My group always plays in Denglish, since only one of us actually has the German Core Rulebooks for D&D (and even he has the english ones, too, he's just a collector). You can't really rely on translations coming out if you want the good stuff, and you want it now (the same applies to movie DVDs and TV shows.. )

 

[Aloïsius]

Similar in Croatian, except we don't use penal (too footballey ). At our gaming table we use either minus or penalty

For me, penalty sounds more footballey than penal

 

[Li Shenron]

Er... what?

"Malus" for speakers of Latin-languages (Portuguese, Spanish, French) means "evil" much more than it means "penalty". The word for "penalty" is much more commonly "penalidade", which shares the root "pena" (as in "punishment") with "penalty" and "penance".

Well, "bonus" in Latin means "good" more than anything else, doesn't it? So why worrying if the latin meaning of mauls is evil?