RPG Jargon


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion


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Hey, folks. I've got a list of terminology I've been working on as part of my upcoming Cleric handbook. I figured it was necessary, since Mark Hall's list on GitP is a bit out-of-date, and of course the old WotC list isn't being updated/ easily found anymore. This thread is a repost of the original on GitP; feel free to comment here, itP, or on the doc itself.

If you folks can think of some terms or abbreviations that would be useful to add, particularly any in regards to PF, I'd appreciate it.


might be worth highlighting more what edition things are specific to - guessing TOB is tome of battle - vaguely recall a 3.5e book


Your should add a blank line between the A-entries, the B-entries, C-entries, etc. What you have is a serious wall of text. I agree with dharkus about adding a note to indicate what edition it might be from, because some of these references are now obsolete. Many entries are overly brief and would not do a good job of explaining the term to someone not already familiar with it.


My thought, as well, is that the list needs pruning. Many of the terms are edition-specific, many of them are obsolete, and many of them may be regional, but the list ends up almost like an unabridged dictionary of gaming jargon.

Much of it is also very much outside of the scope of a Cleric handbook. For example, the "Chuck E. Cheese" build is a bard build, so why does a cleric need to know about it? (and, for that matter, why would a bard need to know about it, it's so marginal?) The Dead Alewives comedy troupe is perhaps a useful source, but not itself terminology -- you might as well put "Wikipedia" on the terminology list, in case someone wants to look up what a "glaive" is.

I'd actually suggest going the opposite way -- if you want to make a useful handbook, you want to minimize the use of jargon so that the reader doesn't need to be a lexicographer to understand the advice in the handbook.


dharkus wrote:
might be worth highlighting more what edition things are specific to - guessing TOB is tome of battle - vaguely recall a 3.5e book

Wait I though the Tome of Battle was ABoWFM(Anime Book of Weaboo Fightin Magic)?


In the thread Forum Lingo many of Pathfinder's jargon is discussed. The thread is not focused on jargon, so not all of the content will apply, there is a lot of joking around and site specific entries as well, so you'll have to sift out the relevant information.


i noticed that it's set to suggesting by default - you could all suggest


My expertise is 3.5, so I've included primarily those references so far, since I'm not as familiar with PF jargon and acronyms.

You're right that many of the terms aren't related to Clerics specifically, but I figured that since all the other terminology lists available on the web weren't very comprehensive, I might as well open this one up. I have a separate FAQ doc (WIP) with things that are Cleric-specific.

When you say some terms are "obsolete", what do you mean?

Thank you for those two links; I'll comb through them, but I'd also appreciate any other specific term suggestions you could provide.


not in use anymore - mostly the 3.5e specific ones i think - anyone who starting playing RPGs in the last 5+yrs probably never did 3.5e


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Ah, I see. I think there's still plenty of folks who play older editions (even 4e, 2e, BECMI, oWoD, 2e shadowrun, etc, not just 3e), even if they don't frequent this particular forum. I'm also sharing this document across several forums, so the folks reading those probably appreciate the deprecated terms.

Anyway, I've made some huge updates to formatting and added a bunch of terms thanks to all your contributions. If you see some terms that are used on this forum that I've marked as GitP-only, let me know/ edit it into the document.

And, please feel free to continue to suggest more terms. I've gone through all the links you shared and added everything unique I found. I could also use a good, concise definition of the Golarion setting. My understanding is that it's a bit similar to Eberron, but I don't want to misrepresent it.


from what i understand of eberron (tech everywhere all the time) it's probably closer to forgotten realms from 4e - there's tech in a couple of countries but nowhere else really - most stuff happens in the inner region (continent of Avistan) - if you can get hold of the inner sea world guide there's a lot on the region there - then there's also the tien (far east analogue that some stuff happens in and some other places where stuff hardly ever happens


Does someone have a list of common PF book/ AP abbreviations? And, I could still use a concise definition for Golarion.


I don't think you can easily get a definition of a planet that's concise - how would you define earth? Golarion is possibly as diverse

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