Help with terminology?

[Umbran]

I'm not sure if it was first coined in World of Warcraft...

Well, Who Framed Roger Rabbit certainly predates WoW, and uses the term.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Charop predates computer games too. Any game system in which characters are built rather than randomly generated will inevitably produce charop discussions of some sort.

 

[Aberzanzorax]

I can tell you that I've played D&D for 10-15 years, and world of warcraft for about 6 months.

The rest of my group also plays WoW.


And since I've been playing, I've begun to cross pollinate my language (and we play 3e...this is not a 4e=WoW statement).


It's a vocabulary (slang?) that makes plenty of sense to carry over.


Here are some terms we began using:

DoT: Damage over time. E.G. Melf's Acid Arrow

Aggro: explained well by posts above mine. But used when a monster pulls away from a fighter, taking an attack of opportunity, because a mage has just hurt it so badly it wants to take on the mage instead.

Tank: The guy whose job it is to take the hits.

DPS: (Damage per second): In games that are not turn based, it's not just how much damage you do, but how fast you do it as well. So, I have a rogue/mage. Some days I'm about battlefield control. Some days "my spells are pure dps"

MoB: Not actually sure what the acronym is, but it means enemy. M probably stands for monster. Basically any foe.

Adds: when you're in a battle and more foes enter for some reason. "Oh, no, adds." As when monsters from the next room hear your battle and come running.

and I'm sure we use more than these few examples.


I will say, I don't know where these terms were first coined, but that likely all of them were used in the MMORPGS prior to warcraft (e.g. Everquest)

 

[ExploderWizard]

MoB: Not actually sure what the acronym is, but it means enemy. M probably stands for monster. Basically any foe.

I believe MoB is short for mobile.

 

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

I believe MoB is short for mobile.

You are correct, mob = Mobile. This is from the old text based MUDs that some of us used to play. It's just another word for NPC.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

You are correct, mob = Mobile. This is from the old text based MUDs that some of us used to play. It's just another word for NPC.

I think it was not just mobile, but Mobile Object. Or Moving Object?

 

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

Yes it was short for mobile object and the only mobile objects in the old MUDs were NPCs that were programmed into the world. They could stay in a single room, move around an area, or even cross into other areas. Old coders and builders (like myself) used to have fun screwing with the players by controlling the Mobs.

 

[dogoftheunderworld]

...No attempt at trolling here, I'm dead serious. I keep hearing the terms bandied about by certain players, and when I flat-out ask them what the hell they're talking about, they usually either laugh or just shrug and smile....

I find it funny that people make fun of you for not knowing what a sherrop is, when clearly they don't either. (Well, they may know in general what it means, but clearly don't know/care where the term came from it they pronounce it that way.)

 

[Merkuri]

Well, Who Framed Roger Rabbit certainly predates WoW, and uses the term.

I was referring to using "cartoon" or "toon" to refer to one's avatar or character. I'm aware that "cartoon" has been abreviated as "toon" for a very long time. That probably even pre-dates Roger Rabbit.

And I have heard the term "aggro" (along with these other terms) when referring to D&D. It usually comes from people who have played MMORPGs, obviously, since this is where most of these terms came from (or that's what made the terms popular).

Some of them don't make literal sense in a pen-and-paper game, like "aggro" but people use them nonetheless, usually as a metaphor. For example, if a defender marks a monster and that monster turns to attack the defender the players may describe that as "drawing aggro", even though the DM uses no such mechanic to decide who the monster is going to attack.

These terms are often useful to describe the game to PnP novices who've played MMORPGs before. For example, one might describe the use of marks to a novice as "a way for a tank to draw aggro." You could also say, "a way for the defender to make sure the bad guys attack him and not the squishier PCs" but that's more wordy. The term "aggro" is a metaphor in a language they understand.

And nowadays I think that "mob" is usually used to describe specifically monsters, or NPCs you are supposed to be able to kill. Very rarely do I hear it referred to shopkeepers or patrolling allied guards or the like. Of course, it's been a few years since my WoW days, so I may be misremembering or it may have changed.

I don't object to these terms (and have even used them myself a few times) but I have to say that it's rude of your players to use the terms in front of you and not explain them to you when you ask. It seems very juvenile of them.

 

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

Yeah, well I played WoW for 5 years and just stopped. Aggro, toon, adds, etc are all part of that game. But if we think about it MMORPGS, MUDs and everything of the genre has their beginnings in D&D. It's all just slang.