New In-Game Slang Based On Your Games

[Doug McCrae]

"Flange" - Powergaming, overpowered, etc.

Example of usage: Are you allowing those really flangy spells from Complete Arcane in this game?

 

[Wombat]

We have a few.

"Gruumsh's Lapdance" -- a plan so inane that it will obviously kill you and most of your party. (Came from a player who knew he had The Plan to deal with a half-orc berserker and instead nearly resulted in TPK.)

"Giant Freakish Man-Ran-Things" -- an strange creature the group has not encountered before

"Roleplaying Point!" -- called out by other PCs whenever another character comes up with a truly fun (as opposed to necessarily useful) idea and/or purposefully stays in character to his/her detriment. At that point the character is automatically gifted 1 free XP (and quite possibly more).

"Pull/Do/Be a Zimbastian" -- to be whining, pathetic, or useless. Coined from the name of The Single Most Annoying NPC EVER ! (or so sayeth my gaming group)

 

[Salad Shooter]

Tomba Roll: An awesome idea/plan that goes horribly wrong.

Origin: From a player (who's character was named Tomba), who would come up with great looking ideas to accomplish something, but then end up botching the roll miserably.

 

[Breakstone]

Die of Extremities: A die or set of dice that roll only high or low numbers, and nothing in between. Then again, it could also mean a die or set of dice that has a bunch of arms and legs, but we leave that one up to interpretation.

Being the Dan: Named after a friend of ours (Dan), who, for whatever reason, winds up being the butt of all jokes. When he's absent from the game, another player inevitably winds up "being the Dan" for the session.

Diplomacizing: The paladin in our group had such a high Diplomacy modifier, he basically NEVER failed. It was quite frustrating when he'd try and solve every single situation through "diplomacizing."

And a terrific phrase:

"It tastes like... Cure Light Wounds." From a late-night game in which we, the players, were trying to figure out what the treasure we found was without copping out the gold for and Identify spell. There was a mysterious potion, which we looked at, smelled, and, lastly, tasted. The DM was extremely tired of all this, so finally groaned, "It tastes like... Cure Light Wounds."

 

[BaldHero]

"What the hell are you doin' Frank?"
A question that is asked when players in my group have just done something that at first glance seems to be really poorly planned.
Origin: I was running V:TM game, and one of my players felt like he needed to be armed. Instead of trying to find some sort of kindred contact, or a black market piece, he just sauntered off to Walmart at about two in the morning. While he was trying to discreetly open the knife case in the sporting goods section, he was approached by two store security guards.
One of them demanded he stand and be taken into custody, but the other fell victim to a dark vampire power and said "Go right ahead sir, and have a good night."
The first guard turned to his partner and asked him "What the hell are you doing Frank, he's a nutcase with an eight inch knife, and two inch teeth?"
I made it up on the spot, but for some reason it stood out in their memory, and next thing you know it starts showing up all the time.

 

[Chimera]

"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."

I may have to use that, with slight variation.

The Eric I used to game with would just seem to lose interest or brain fart over important things. Two examples;

His 8th level Ranger is patrolling around in a swamp near where the rest of the party is holed up. They're investigating the Trolls that have suddenly appeared in the region. He spots a lone troll. Does he attack it? Does he go back and get the rest of the party? Does he track it? No to any of the above. He decides to ignore it and tells no one about it.

Same Ranger. Following a Monk (fellow PC), while (for all intents and purposes) Invisible. Monk vanishes before his eyes. Does he use his Ranger skills to investigate? Nope. Just goes back to the rest of the party and tells them that the Monk is dead, gone and unrecoverable. (Actually, the Monk was still there, simply paralyzed and invisible.)

So "Going all Eric" will be a term for an "I can't be bothered" attitude.

 

[Teflon Billy]

"Halified"-Named after MEG Hal. It's the inexplicable way that he seems to roll poorly all the time. Used when you roll poorly.

DM: Give me a Spot check.
PC1: :rolls d20: A 3.
PC2: That roll is "Halified".

We have something very similar. It refers to my effect on Dice, not my inability to roll them.

Any dice I've owned for any length of time become "Ranger"-ed.

Has nothing to do with the Character Class, Ranger. It's my last name.

Example: "Don't touch my dice, you'll Ranger them"

 

[Three_Haligonians]

A blue pillow,

My group has "Blue Pillows" : In which a player takes two totally coincedental pieces of information and creates a convoluted conspiracy theory.

It came from one of my first serious campaigns, the party had just defeated some minions of the BBEG and started to loot the area, which was an abandoned nobles house. I described the treasure they found including a few gems resting on what I had said was a "blue satin pillow". A couple of sessions later, after they had defeated the BBEG and were in the next adventure, they defeated some more enemies and without thinking about it (It was weeks later) I said that part of the treasure (I think it was a magic item) was sitting on a blue pillow.
One player (it's actually T of Three Haligonians if you want to mock her later) picked up on this and became convinced that it was all part of a conspiracy and that the original BBEG had returned as she started to look for more ways to connect what they were doing with what they had done until the other players talked her down. However, the "Blue Pillow" stuck and now whenever a player starts to make far-fetched connections, another will use it to get them to step back and try again.

J from Three Haligonians

 

[Rabelais]

Wall of Dwarf- To put oneself out of the direct line of fire by standing behind other PC's.
Use: Summon Wall of Dwarf!

Origin: Early in our game our Rogue Amity came up with a plan for the Dwarves Ulfgar and Dunbar to step in front of her after she had finished clearing the trap and unlocking the door. She succeeded, lept out of the way, and yelled "Summon: Wall of Dwarf". It's stuck. We're near epic now, and it's still in use.
*****
Orate- To deliver formal, ceremonial speech.
Use: I begin my oration, I orate

Origin: My 17th level bard's perform skill is maxed out, but it's not precisely musically based. Rabelais' perform skill is in Oration. So whenever I'm trying to use Inspire Courage or whatnot, I'm delivering the State of the Union.
*****
Selkie Army: To get innocent bystanders killed in spectacular fashion.
Use:I'll use my Selkie Army to clear that guard tower

Origin: Our paladin thought that the Selkies we had freed in the previous room would be willing to help us clear a corridor of traps by walking ahead of us. This brought the game to a complete halt, dumbfounded. We took a moment to explain to the new player that... well, it might not be within the Paladin's code of conduct to run the Selkies through the mine field. She still plays, but she's now a Rogue... much happier with the less stringent Ethical requirements.

Tangent: A sudden digression or change of course (Exclamation)
Use: Tangent!

Origin: Our group is pretty chatty during game, but it tends to break the narrative thread, not to mention the fourth wall. Our GM has a sign on her screen of the Tangent symbol with a circle and a line going through it. NO TANGENTS!
*****

Wandering Damage: To deliver however many dice in damage to a player for transgressions against the GM.
Use: Shut up dude! She's gonna call out the Wandering Damage.

Origin: Our GM has done away with Wandering Monsters, cutting out the middleman alltogether, she drops however many dice she has in front of her, delivering X damage, If somebody is messing with her. So far she's only threatened it...
*****

Glaremistress: GM
Use: Yes Glaremistress

Origin: Our GM has a pretty lethal glower when she levels her stare, narrowing her eyes. It's usually enough to kill tangents in their tracks.
*****
Z: To pass time uneventfully
Use: Ok, we've finished shopping and talking to the bartenders gathering information... Can we "Z" to the next day?

Us: Can we "Z" through the night?
GM: The night passes uneventfully
Us" Yay!

Origin: In the original Zork game, Z was the command to wait.
*****

 

[Herpes Cineplex]

"So, how about the brick?" - What you say when the PCs are trying to come up with a plan for more than ten minutes, and haven't managed to find a single one that someone hasn't shot down for one reason or another.
Origin: a GURPS time-jumpers game, where the two superspy types and a Soviet professor were trying to figure out if a particular office was being run by the evil time-jumping organization. Professor suggests throwing a brick through the window and seeing what kind of security response ensues, and gets mocked into silence; the superspies consider and reject a handful of other plans, and are clearly getting nowhere. The professor pipes up with "So, how about the brick?" Repeat a few times, with progressively angrier and more obscenity-laced responses about what he can do with his stupid brick idea.


"That gets a Brick" or "You win the Brick Award" - The inevitable variant of the above, named after the prize given to the person whose plan or action is so goofy or inexplicable that it deserves official recognition in addition to the usual laughter and pointing. These are real bricks, with the offender's name written on them along with a quote describing their Bad Idea and the date on which it occurred.

We've given out three Bricks so far. Two of them are mine.


"I'm really not very good at this." (makes passionate piano-playing gesture) - Used whenever someone rolls ridiculously well and succeeds wildly at a skill check that they are in fact really bad at.
Origin: a CP2020 game where a PC with a +1 at playing the piano managed to get a final result in the low 40's thanks to rolling a lot of exploding 10s; basically, he told the girl he was with that he wasn't really very good at playing the piano, and then put on a bravura performance that rivaled the work of the greatest pianists in the world.


"Banik patch" - any tranquilizer used by a PC to knock out another PC.
Origin: a long-running Farscape d20 game, where one of the characters was a Banik mystic with an unfortunate combination of singlemindedness and poor impulse control. The other PCs found it easier to simply keep her sedated when she got fixated on doing something particularly stupid.


"I sit in my dinghy." - An announcement that you're holding your action.
Origin: Someone on USENET once posted a funny Champions story about a big underwater combat where only one character could not breathe underwater. That character, a gunslinging Texan hero, announced on every turn "Ah sit in mah dinghy, and ah hold mah action." We couldn't resist borrowing it.


"Damn cheap guards." (or ninjas, or robots, or orcs, or whatever) - A swarm of opponents who turn out to not be even a marginally credible threat to the PCs.
Origin: One of those endlessly forwarded long and involved e-mail jokes about a guy who buys a hundred monkeys because they're so cheap (tragedy ensues, naturally).

--
and then there are about a hundred other in-jokes from other sources
ryan