RPG Buzzwords that have effectively lost their meaning due to poor over-use

[Desdichado]

Barring that, just RPG buzzwords that you're sick of seeing tossed around. Some of these are a little on the older side, and a few are still new and faddish, but they've already become useless, IMO.

Anyway, just a minor rant for amusement value. None of this should be taken too seriously. I mean, these buzzwords really are pet peeves of mine, but whatever. Pet peeves, by definition, aren't really important.

• OSR - OK, this first one is a little tongue in cheek. But given that nobody knows what the OSR really is anymore, and there are at least two overlapping yet also conflicting camps on what the definition really refers to, it's actually not a super useful label anymore.
• Cinematic - this one is another one that gets tossed around all the time, but I'm not very clear on what people mean by it. I'm not sure that they are either.
• -punk - this has been a pet peeve of mine for years. Unless it's related to a dystopian worldview and an anti-establishment youth street movement, it's not -punk. Steampunk gets a grudging pass because it's obviously a derivative evolution of cyberpunk, where -punk was actually used correctly. People who think that they're clever talking about hope-punk, or calling Eberron magi-punk do not.
• Liminal - I know that it's a pretty cool word, but c'mon. Horror in hallways and doorways? People use this all of the time to describe horror themes that are just... regular horror themes. It's either over-used now, or it's been under-used for decades. You could say that the original dungeon-crawling activity was liminal horror, and it'd be a mostly correct usage of the term. And yet for decades nobody felt the need to do so. There's really no need to do so now either; nine times out of ten, it's just a signal; "look at me; I use fancy vocabulary to describe regular things."
• Diagetic - what was wrong with in-game and meta, like we used for decades? Was the hobby over-run by a bunch of sound engineers from the movie business who brought their vocabulary with them to replace words that were already in use? More likely, as above, it's a "more intelligent sounding" word, so people like it because they feel like they sound more intelligent by using it.
• TTRPG - I feel like there's no need ninety-nine times out of a hundred to specify the context where an RPG is a TTRPG as opposed to a CRPG or ... I dunno, some other kind of RPG. (LARPG? Bedroom RPG? What other kinds even are there anyway?) Leave the TT off. It's superfluous. And a new, faddish addition to something that worked just fine for decades and still works fine. In fact, the more people play online, the less accurate rather than more accurate it becomes.

 

[payn]

 

[Sacrosanct]

Agency. I see that tossed round all the time.
Problematic. Another one I see used in just about every discussion ever. (and I'm just as guilty lol)

 

[Desdichado]

Agency. I see that tossed round all the time.
Problematic. Another one I see used in just about every discussion ever. (and I'm just as guilty lol)

That's interesting. I hadn't thought of agency, but I probably hang out in the wrong theory discussions. I can already see, even though I've never personally seen it, how that could almost immediately turn into a poorly used over-used buzzword.

Problematic I only didn't pick because it's over-used in many contexts, and I don't think of it as an RPG buzzword. But it's certainly true!

Good additions to the book of grudges!

 

[dragoner]

The suffix -ist is used too much.

 

[aco175]

Grognard- I mean spellcheck does not even pick it up and when I Googled it it dates back to the Napoleon era.
Min/Max- Can throw in with Optionizer and Jerk. Know it when you see it.
Abbreviator- anyone that assumes I know the shorthand slang of the newest book and does not use the title and then the abbreviation in the start of a thread. See Grognard.

 

[Theory of Games]

Railroad

Which runs into "player agency" (another spider-web). Which slams into "linear" and "sandbox" (two hornet nests).

My two copper

 

[MGibster]

• TTRPG - I feel like there's no need ninety-nine times out of a hundred to specify the context where an RPG is a TTRPG as opposed to a CRPG or ... I dunno, some other kind of RPG. (LARPG? Bedroom RPG? What other kinds even are there anyway?) Leave the TT off. It's superfluous. And a new, faddish addition to something that worked just fine for decades and still works fine. In fact, the more people play online, the less accurate rather than more accurate it becomes.

Sometimes on Reddit I see people post about a TTRPG in a thread that's about CRPG and vice versa. When it comes to Cyberpunk, since the release of the video game Cyberpunk 2077, in some threads there can be confusion over which version of the game is being discussed. Johnny's version of the events leading up to the destruction of the Arasaka building in the CRPG is different from the version in the TTRPG.

 

[Reynard]

So is this one of those threads where people hurl thinly veiled insults at other folks' preferences and playstyles, then cover with "It's just a joke"?

I love those.

 

[MGibster]

Problematic. Another one I see used in just about every discussion ever. (and I'm just as guilty lol)

This one used to rankle men whenever I'd hear something referred to as problematic without being told what exactly the problematic part was. It's as if I was supposed to magically know.