New In-Game Slang Based On Your Games

[DarthQueeg]

I'm sure everyone's games have these, but I thought it would be fun to share (and solicit) new in-game slang terms for certain situations that have developed during the course of campaigns.

I can think of three in particular.

"Going to Coruscant" - When a PC who leaves the rest of party to pursue a meaningless task that takes up the entire adventuring session.

Origins: During a Star Wars campaign, our PCs' rebellion-esque organization was beseiged by an Imperial Strikeforce. As we rushed to our "Rebel Base" to defend it, one of our players decided instead to "go to Coruscant" and steal his family away from Imperial-controlled space. So basically the player spent the entire session (we were in the Outer Rim) travelling to Coruscant and back.


"A Talking Chair" - A PC (or NPC) that's so outrageous it borders on absurd, yet is allowed by the rules by some bizarro-world DM. For example, "What, a half-fiendish were-terrasque barbarian-rogue isn't allowed?"

Origins: The origins of this are twofold: I decided to run "City of the Spider Queen" as a module and allowed the players to create 10th level characters. What I didn't expect was the wacky assortment of characters that showed up (A walking suit of armor, a bickering dwarf couple played by the same player, a Forsaker using 2 Shields and refusing medical aid) I changed the term "Talking Pie" (from the Simpsons epsiode where Homer is a personal assistant to Kim Basinger and Alec Baldwin to) "Talking Chair" when addressing the introduction of new characters to the module.


"Grizzt Bo'Durden" - An obvious ripoff of a popular character that typically is played in a different setting; A lame "alternate dimension" version of a popular character.

Origins: In my initial review of Eberron, I noted how Eberron has an Underdark and has Drow. I then remarked "What, is Drizzt Do'Urden going to meet Grizzt Bo'Durden in some lame crossover?"

 

[RodneyThompson]

I've got one...

"Unobtainium" is used to refer to an object (or, more specifically, the material an object is made of) that is well beyond the reach and power level of the party.

Origins: During the few months where we were playtesting d20 Future before its release, one of the players was trying to use is Knowledge (technology) skill to determine the specifications of a mecha they had just pilfered from an enemy starship. While rattling off the list of weapons, defensive systems, etc. I suddenly forgot name of the metal used in its armor, so I just said, "It's a very tough metal, the likes of which you've never seen before, and something that would normally be unobtainable through normal commercial channels." I mentioned it ended in "anium" like all the metals in d20 Future (vanadium, megatanium, etc.) and so unobtainium was born. Nowadays, while running my Shackled City campaign, if an opponent displays a weapon or piece of armor that is significantly more powerful than that possessed by the party, the word is used; i.e. "the evil blackguard before you stands in his glistening unobtainium armor."

 

[Rackhir]

Hate to break it to you, but Unobtanium has been around for a long time with pretty much exactly that meaning. I know it dates to at least the late '80s because there was an extremely funny comic called "Program Error :BattleBot" or something reasonably close to that and the Bot of the title was made out of Unobtanium. It's perhaps not a common term, but hardly obscure for any substance which is (usually) indestructible and tends to have pretty much what ever characteristics that the plot requires.

 

[Torm]

I think most of ours are references to specific players/characters:

"Gone all Eric" - Eric used to be one of our regular players, before he moved far up north. He had a tendency to start playing very normally, but gradually his character would become more Chaotic as the evening progressed - not CG, CE, or even exactly CN, just.... Chaotic. Like someone in Call of Cthlulu whose sanity has slipped right on away. Anyone who starts trying solutions to game problems that obviously won't (or shouldn't anyway) work, just on the face of them, has "Gone all Eric."

"Pulling a Darboz" - I used to have a wizard character who, when things turned ugly in battle, would quickly assess the party's health, and then, if tactically appropriate (or if he believed so, anyway ) he would yell "Screw it" to warn the party what was coming, and then start casting area damage effects - with everyone including himself in range, if necessary, to hit the bads.

"Jawa Storage" - This has to do with where a Jawa character in one of our old WEG Star Wars campaigns kept a lightsaber he had found and some other things when not in use. Think "full body cavity search".

 

[Henry]

"Pulling a Darboz" - I used to have a wizard character who, when things turned ugly in battle, would quickly assess the party's health, and then, if tactically appropriate (or if he believed so, anyway ) he would yell "Screw it" to warn the party what was coming, and then start casting area damage effects - with everyone including himself in range, if necessary, to hit the bads.

Actually, I hear, "Aw, Screw it!" far more than "Pulling a Darboz." In either case, everybody knows to duck and cover.

"Jawa Storage" - This has to do with where a Jawa character in one of our old WEG Star Wars campaigns kept a lightsaber he had found and some other things when not in use. Think "full body cavity search".

Hey! Nobody knows what their anatomy is like! It could be - like - anything!

 

[Particle_Man]

I don't think it originated in my campaign, but I haven't heard it elsewhere.

If a character is fighting a monster and another character deals a fatal blow/spell/etc. to that monster, the second character is said to have "pimped the kill" of the first character.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

"Finsterer Streiter" For a character who's so incompetent he cannot even die if he wants to

Origin. Finsterer Streiter is the awful German name for Blackguard, which I never liked - it just sounds as evil and imposing as Blackguard. It sounds more like the archnemesis of the tele-tubbies or something (and I always thought it fit well to the old Blackguard painting from 3.0 DMG).
Now, in an all-evil campgaign, one character played a blackguard. And he was Incompetent - with a capital I. He should have been Lawful Incompetent or something. He tried to rob someone on the streets, and from 4 different possible targets (including an old lady) he chose the guy who promptly beat him up and left him lying there bleeding and without money (which he used to get a healing potion for the single hit he got). And that's just one example.
It was not like the character was badly designed or had lousy ability scores. The stats were decent. It was just that the player had abysmal luck rolling dice when he played it.
Of course, the player was growing to hate the character, and intended to let him die, but even that didn't work - the window he wanted to jump out of on a whim was too small and so on. Finally, the DM wanted to grant him his dying wish, and sent a Cosmic Bolt of Death down on him, telling him to roll reflex for half damage (which would "only" have been 500 points or so). Yeah, you guess it: he rolled a natural 20, which meant he survived it because he had evasion. He was finally just retired to make place for a Psychic Warrior.

And at one point I said "Usually I hate the term "Finsterer Streiter" as being a joke and use Blackguard, but I think this guy deserves it.

 

[Khayman]

"Frank" -- a unit of slaves equal to 14 adults or 28 children. While the term supposedly derives from the practice of franking (or marking) slaves, those of us in the know maintain it is due to the influence of our good ol' gaming buddy, Frank. He's a rotten little blighter, but at least he's ours.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Our signal for taking cover is "Your Mother".

Origin: There's that priestess with the spell "Blinding Beauty", which copies the nymph's effect to blind every humanoid to behold the caster. Of course, we needed a signal so the other characters would close their eyes at the right moment, and somehow pulled the usual "your mother" line in that moment. It has stuck ever since.

 

[Grunk]

Fnippin

In my shackled city campaign (PCs just started exploring Jzaidarune in Life's Bazaar) the gnomish wizard is Zook "The Fnipper" Turren. The Fnipper came from the PHB suggested gnome nicknames. We decided that Fnipping was the gnomish word for illusions and general magic use, thus The Fnipper. The PC uses Fnip often as a verb, expletive, noun and curse. i.e. I'm going to fnipp your fnippin face off. or what the fnipp is going on here? makes for some funny role playing sessions.