New In-Game Slang Based On Your Games

[Starglim]

Hijinks Hour: From about 10.30pm onwards, when tired players make bad decisions and obsess about inane details.

Griffin: Any gratuitous and unexplained game element used by the DM to manipulate the game to his preferred plotline, derived from an incident where the party was wandering around on a moor for an inordinately long time, and had one of the horses carried off by a griffin, forcing us to return to town. We've since had references to Griffin Castle (a castle where the local lord resides, that we never seem to be able to visit) and new player characters being delivered by griffin.

 

[Pbartender]

We've got quite a few. here's the ones I can think of off the top of my head...

OCHRE: Any non-descript color. "You find an Ochre potion." From the Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, Ochre is a heavily used color in the adventure and is variously described as 'reddish-brown', 'yellowish-green', 'purplish-gray' or 'reddish-brownish-yellowish-greenish-purplish-gray'.

OCHRE ROBES: Any member of an Evil Cult. "Looks like we get to fight some Ochre Robes tonight, guys." From the Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, all the bad guy cannon fodder wear ochre robes.

HOBGOBLIN KIDS: Any NPC tag-a-long meant to be a burden on the PCs. "Let me guess; there's a bunch of Hobgoblin Kids locked in that prison cell." From the Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, when the party Paladin was forced to adopt a bunch of hobgoblin children as an 'atonement', after the party slaughtered all the hostile hobgoblin adults.

FIZBIN (OF MISFORTUNE): Any magical or pseudo-scientific device of Pure Evil, Total Destruction or Inconvenient Curses. "We've got to stop that Ochre Robe before he gets hold of the Fizbin of Misfortune!" From the Might & Magic computer game series.

 

[D+1]

T-Shirt Character. An extremely two-dimensional, shallow secondary character created only to shower a primary character with resources.

Origins: In our earliest 1E days we very often all ran two characters, either because the party was too small/weak or because everyone always seemed to have one character that was busy doing level-training, research, or otherwise occupied with personal endeavors. My younger brother, however, fell rather easily into having his human cleric simply "loan" money, equipment, provide spells to his dwarven fighter. He himself came to realize this tendency of his and agreed when it was pointed out that his cleric may just as well be wearing a T-shirt that says "Cleric" because he was otherwise just an empty shell of a character with no personality.

"Wait for range Zero". To bring about ones own demise by blindly attempting to maximize damage.

Origins: A Star Fleet Battles game where one player wanted to do maximum damage with his weapons (closer range = more damage) and so declared that he was waiting until his ship reached range zero - point blank range - before firing. However, he had failed to account for his ships actual movement rate and could not slow down sufficient to reach range zero, instead being forced to move 1 hex beyond the enemy and unable to turn. That is, that he ended up ramming the enemy ship and doing so much damage to his own in the process that it was destroyed.

Beggar Ron. An NPC who seems utterly inconsequential to the ongoing game (and actually is) but who turns out to be invincible.

Origins: We were running a little low-level scenario where our characters needed to help a small village repel an invasion by directiong the building of defenses and coordinating the volunteer troops in battle. The players were given several NPC's each to roll dice for as they defended their personal section of the impromptu wall of overturned wagons and hay bales. One of the NPC's still controlled by the DM was a beggar named Ron (after Foul Ol' Ron from the Discworld novels). Ron never missed an attack roll throughout the battle, did exceptionally well on damage rolls and was only hit a few times for just a single point of damage on any hit. Rapidly the entire defense of the town hinged on Beggar Ron who had stacks of bodies of the enemies before him and the attacking goblinoids bounced off him ineffectually like water off a ducks back. It was simple random dice rolls but Ron became an INSTANTLY indispensible NPC though he was originally fated to be a red shirt like all the other commoners defending the town.

The [Muad'dib] Memorial Fund. The party fund.

Origins: A one-time player created a monk character [named Muad'dib] who died after only one or two battles in a new campaign and was then immediately replaced by another character that the player rolled up. Naturally, what little money and useful equipment Muad'dib had was taken by the surviving party before his burial. One player, the one keeping track of the party fund remarked how callous it seemed to be looting his corpse when the characters hadn't even known him for more than a day or two. "If you feel so bad about it build him a memorial or start a college fund in his memory," was the reply. Instead, the party fund was given a formal name - the Muad'dib Memorial Fund. Ever since then, the tradition at our games has been to name the party fund after the first character to permenantly die in the game.

"Maximizing Your Lethality Index". Powergaming, min/maxing.

Origins: One of the players in an old 1E game had a penchant for crunching numbers related to the game. He even went through the Monster Manual and calculated what were the best monsters to fight for the highest profit and lowest risk (human cavemen it turned out as I recall). He did the same for what weapon did the best average damage (settling on the morningstar) which all of his characters then used. At some point he declared this to be simply a logical maximization of his characters lethality index rather than a questionable or bad thing. I think he may have actually gotten the term Lethality Index from an early issue of White Dwarf that IIRC was regularly calculating monster attack/defense capabilities and assigning them a Lethality Index. What we today might simply call CR but with all a monsters abilities reduced to strictly numerical values in an effort to reliably predict the level of danger to a given level and class of character.

Durnwe's Folly. 1) Quite literally killing yourself in trying to gain treasure that ultimately isn't worth the effort. 2) The very such treasure that is being sought.

A magic-user character named Nomelin had a REALLY nice pair of Bracers of AC 0 (IIRC) in another 1E game. Nomelin was out looking to obtain a griffon mount for himself by stealing a few eggs out of a nest on a cliff above a river. Griffon parents came home and killed Nomelin in the nest. Nomelin is brought back to life (by now forgotten means) but declined to get killed again attempting to retrieve the lost equipment still on his corpse. Durnwe, a dwarf fighter in the party was REALLY keen to get those bracers that were now free to anyone who retrieved them. Durnwe arrived in the vicinity of the nest and was himself grabbed by the griffons to be fed to the new hatchlings. With a dagger Durnwe attacks the griffon holding him in its talons. It lets go of course and Durnwe drops into the river taking much damage but alive. He then start to drown because he's in plate mail armor and sinking like a rock. He cuts away his magical armor with the same dagger and reaches the surface - where he again starts to drown because he can't swim. Durnwe's corpse is lost but he is brought back to life (by now forgotten means) and not only doesn't have the bracers but has lost magical armor and other equipment to the riverbed and is all but dead broke. Nomelin's Bracers are renamed Durnwe's Folly and become objects of legend.

 

[skippy_the_witch]

"Do you speak Italian?" -- the question asked an opponent before the PCs try and take him out, usually in a very sudden and very dramatic way.

ORIGIN: In a Stalking the Night Fantastic game, I was playing a ex-mafia hitman with ties to the Vatican. I knew that one of the evil masterminds behind a series of occult killings was in his house, and, being bored while the rest of the party was trying to figure out how to be sneaky and get the info they needed, I got bored and decided on the direct approach. I knew where he lived, but needed to find out if he was home. So I called the cultist, and when he answered the phone, drew a complete blank on what to say. The GM was getting impatient, and I knew if I just hung up, the GM would have the guy rabbit. First thing to come out of my mouth was "Do you speak Italian?" Then I rambled on as a telemarketer of language lesson tapes. Guy hung up and I went over to his house and beat the info out of him. Then got shot and layed out for the rest of the game (but not killed) by another cultist. Another player liked the phrase so much that he translated it into ancient sandscit, and "tagged" some overpasses near where the cultists dumped the body (yes, they left occult messages in sancrit) that said "Do you speak Italian". Also started leaving flyers on suspected cultists windows that asked the same thing, left an add in the college paper that started with that question and left the number of the suspected head cultist. From that point on, asking that question was a warning to the rest of the group that one of us was about to go off on somebody. It even became the vernacular in our real life, when we would mutter to ourselves that some jerk needed to be taught Italian.

"Shooting the Psychomachia" -- attacking some really powerful monster in some blatantly obvious way, and regardless of whether you hit or not, having little or no effect on said monster except pissing it off and leading to TPK or near TPK.

ORIGIN: This started on a werewolf game where I was playing this combat monster, especially with his fancy guns. After having killed a psychomachia (a powerful psychotic ghost/spirit) that had manifested in the real world, where they lose a bunch of power, we later faced another one in the spirit world (where they are extremely deadly). It was completely ignoring us, and the party had a plan and ability to sneak by it and get what we needed to complete this mission (which we had just spent the last game session planning out). Not fully understanding the rules of the spirit world, turned and said those fateful words "I shoot the psychomachia", and rolled some dice. After the GM and other players recovered from their surprise (remember, this was supposed to be a stealth mission), the psychomachia attacked and KOed me, destroying my cool gun and armor, and nearly killed the party. This GM, being a kindly soul and not believing in TPK, had a powerful NPC come by and save everybody. But I never did get back my neat armor or gun.

skippy
GM of the Cursed Earth Campaign

 

[Imperialus]

Dwelf (noun): used when someone comes up with a rediculous (either munched out or just plain silly) character concept. Refers to a dwarven mage we had in the party who was absolutly convinced (down to the point of gluing spock ears on) that he was actually an elf.

Mark's ever-full ass (noun): Pretty simple actually... Mark was cheating by pulling scrolls out of his backpack and flinging them off left and right. He got called on it. Started joking that he'd really just bought one magic item which was an ass that always had whatever scroll he needed ready to be pulled out. Since then whenever we've been in trouble we'll ask Mark if he would mind reaching around in there to see if he had anything usefull.

"Go look for tracks": refers to this one session where one of the players was playing a druid and had charmed a couple of wolves. She wanted to befreind them and have them come with us but one of the other players decided that would ba a very bad idea. He told her to go look for tracks and when she left the wolves behind he bashed them. It actually made the druid's player cry a little bit. Now we use it any time someone gives advice with an obviously ulterior motive.

"You get a special star" Used whenever someone does something increadibly stupid. They get a star that has to be stuck on their character sheet by their name. Everyone usually has one or two... some have ammased conciderable collections.

 

[Ellie_the_Elf]

A few we've come up with:

Magicate (verb): Meaning to enchant, via spells such as magic weapon or item creation feats. First used by my elven wizard in my first ever D&D game because I'd forgotten the proper word. Example: 'I'm going to use this downtime to get my sword magicated'

Look-at-me-I'm-the-pope (Adjective): Used to describe very ornate dress or armour. Orignally used by the party's rogue, when my boyfriend's wizard/cleric went to buy new clothing and asked to purchase really, really nice robes. The nicest available in Waterdeep in fact. When asked whether he wanted the type of robes worn by church heads and similar, he replied yes. The halfling rogue, none too impressed, muttered 'Oh, look at me, I'm the pope'. Example: (Me, as DM, describing an NPC) 'He's wearing look-at-me-I'm-the-pope armour and carrying a greatsword'

Moving silently (verb) Used, confusingly enough, to describe an activity which makes a great deal of noise. This came from the rogue announcing he was going to attempt to move silently, and knocking an entire tin of dice on the floor as he reached for his d20. Example: PC1: 'Where's all that noise coming from?' PC2 'Oh don't worry about it, it's probably just someone moving silently'

 

[demiurge1138]

"Are you made of poison"-- Any really inane question asked during interrogation.

Origin: Once, my players were attacked by aerial demons, and managed to capture one. The only problem was that the demon only spoke Abyssal, no-one in the party spoke Abyssal, and since it wasn't tanar'ri, it had no telepathy. Bowen (see pulling a Bowen), playing a ravenous lizardman, first tried to communicate with it in "the universal language of mathematics", then decided that the only thing he wanted to know was whether or not the demon was edible. This consisted of him asking, repeatedly, loudly and slowly, "Are you made of poison?" Which soon stuck.

Fingertip semaphore -- Any obvious cheat, usually made to circumvent DM whims.

Origin: Same campaign, a few months later. The party, traveling through the desert, came upon a cursed city, filled with the undead, that was permanently affected by a silence spell. While they were exploring the silent city, two of the players start talking to each other, conveying information in-game. I ask how, exactly, they're talking in a silent city, and one of them responds that they both know "fingertip semaphore". So, from that day, any cheats can be explained away by, "oh, he knows fingertip semaphore".

Demiurge out.

 

[RSKennan]

Some old ones:

"They're cool though." used after describing creatures that no one would want to tussle with.

"Oh those- those are the mind worms- they're cool though."- A stoned mystic in a D&D game. The PCs asked what the strange skull-faced serpents that swam around in large tanks were.

"Esther?!?"- said in an old man's voice. This is used whenever things veer off into the absurdly dangerous; like when a character crests a hill to see a dragon council going on in the valley below.


From a pair of recurring characters. Esther was one member of a randy elderly couple that always seemed to be getting into really bad situations in either World of Darkness or In Nomine games I ran. They were possessed, vampirised, blown up, robbed... at first the name would come up accidentally but after a few times it became a running gag.

"Jimmy's Discount Donuts"- any sort of front for illegal activities.

In the In Nomine game where Esther and her husband guest-starred, this was the name of the front for a chop shop. Jimmy had ads on late night TV- complete with flat reading of the script in his New Jersey accent and uncomfortable gesticulating. Think replacing natural inflection with emphasis- "Come on DOWN to Jimmy's DISCOUNT DONUTS- off route NINE in the Secaucus Industrial Park*. We got KRULLERS, we got DONUT HOLES...Don't like the holes? NO PROBLEM because at Jimmy's Discount donuts we specialize in Donut repair and refurbishing... All colors and styles- REAL CHEAP. "

*Keep in mind the game took place in a fictional city- the geography wasn't based on the real world as much as what sounded good.

There are more but I'll stop for now.

 

[PerryParker]

We've got a few in our Gaming Group as Khayman (aka Finch) can attest to - we discussed a few of these over a few pints yesterday and he's letting me post 'em. (and a big Hello! to everyone here! I finally made the leap and joined ENworld!)

Anyways, here's a few:

"The Robot..." <DM's face then suddenly goes blank, and hangs head in shame>
- Term used to describe a DM verbal slip-up (i.e. accidently giving away plot, secrets, etc intricate to the current Adventure/Campaign).

Origin: Our good buddy Dylan was running a Traveller game - it was quite intense, and very mysterious at one point. We enter a control room, and sitting behind a consol is an Ancient One - a Droyne! "Holy Cow!" everyone says. "This is amazing!" "What should we ask it?" someone asks, and similar gasps of awe. Dylan had us in the palm of his little DM hand. So, after giving us all a minute to catch our breaths, and all of our attentions are back on him, he starts by saying, "Okay, you enter the room, and the robot..." and then he realized what he had just said, and hung his head in shame. It was quite the event, let me tell you, and no one will let this die (not even Dylan!). So, now we use it everytime a DM screws up somewhere!

"Shopping for Cinnamin Buns" or "Roleplaying Breakfast"
- Term used to describe someone taking a ghastly amount of roleplaying time to do something very trivial.

Origin: I once played a halfling merchant who spent 30 minutes of game time shopping for cinnamin buns. It was quite fun, I must say, and very entertaining. But only for me (and Brett won't let me ever live it down, with such curses in game now as "If you're going to be buying cinnimin buns on my time, I'll kill you!")
And Khayman once spent almost an hour in my Amber campaign roleplaying and chatting with various NPC's over breakfast. Quite fun, again, but only for those immediately involved.

"Can I just enjoy my TURN!?!"
- Term is quite self-explanatory, really.

Origin: WAAAAAY back in the day, a bunch of us were playing GREYHAWK WARS, the boardgame, and if you've played it, you know that after two or three turns the turns become very long; basically, you would take your turn and come back in an hour as the other five players took their turns. Well, my poor brother Richard was the last player in the turns, and of course by that time everyone was slavering to get going to the beginning of the round where we could collect gold/armies/items/etc. Well, needless to say, after a few of us (quite innocently, really) asked if Richard was finished his then current turn, he turned (and pounded his fist into his palm, I believe), and with much conviction bellowed the above phrase. Quite funny. And it has lasted this many, many years.

Keep this thread going! I love reading everyone's In-Game slang! There's some good ones here that Khayman and I may have to adopt (heh-heh).

 

[Emperor Valerian]

"Subtle, but pretty." - Used in reference to any act of subtlety, stealthiness, etc. that is also sufficiently dirty to be fun.

Came from a combination of events. In one session the party bard wasn't paying attention to the man wooing her, and ended up getting poisoned with Modrayn, (BoVD) which has among its symptoms everything in the world becoming exceedingly brilliant and bright. Playing in character, the bard started calling everyone "pretty." The phrase remained this for some time, in reference to things underhanded and dirty. Later, when the party was planning to break into a castle, one of the plans was finally accepted as being, "subtle, but pretty." The phrase stuck.



"I'm from here!" - Used to refer to locals.

In a later campaign I run based on ancient China, I tried to describe the strange looks and dress of foreigners that the party encountered. The party sorcerer finally began mocking my attempts by repeatedly asking, "Is he from here?" Eventually, an NPC of some kind asked him where he was from, and he scoffed, "I'm from here!"

Now, if they see someone, the first question asked is, "Is he from here?"