One of my fellow players is constantly swearing in-character in our home game. Now, normally, being an Aussie and the son of a tradie, I wouldn't bat an eye. However, it really detracts from the experience for me. Something about the f-bomb and "s%&%" are just... so boring and mundane. In a game of Don't Rest Your Head or Shadowrun, I'd dig it... But in Pathfinder, somewhere in Acheron, surrounded by tortured souls and horrific devils? A bit of atmosphere would be nice.
These also seem to be the character's response to every bad situation. (And lets face it, we're PCs. The s*!@ hits the fan on a regular basis). I've called him out on it, and he's convinced he'd be out of character if he did any different, and that they're -good words-, and that sometime the extra impact is needed. (We play over IM, so I'm certain ellipses or all-caps could do just as well.)
Now, fairs fair, it is his character, but I'd like to be able to suggest an alternative. How do your characters swear in-game? Your favourite fantasy books? Movies? I'll draw on anything, here.
How is this problem approached at your table? Am I over-thinking this? Share with me your wisdom!
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Well, so far the PCs haven't sworn all that much in my fantasy games... a bit more in Dark Heresy, but the s..t is a lot s..tier there :D . However, this reminds me of one anecdote I heard over the WotC boards, about a dwarf barbarian who got his party chased by half a drow city with a particularly timely application of the phrase "By Lloth's perky ****!"
For the record, I never learned just what the **** stood for :D .
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At my table, I pretty much let my players say whatever they want. If a character's swearing really crosses a line (like calling NPCs he dislikes "gay" or not-nice words for "gay,") I call them out on it and they stop. Because as their GM I have the final say.
Perhaps the proper solution is to take it up with your GM if it's bothering you. It's his table, and he wants to make sure all the players are happy, so he'll most likely ask the other player to tone it down so you're more comfortable.
My personal favorite way to swear in fantasy gaming is by using in-universe aphorisms and that sort of thing. "Nine Hells!" is a perfectly valid alternative to "F@*!" in Golarion, for example.
We've brought it up at the table, a few times. We haven't be able to satisfy him with an alternative. Likely never will, either. I'm just curious about some alternatives, and perhaps some Golarion specific oaths I can toss around in my own game.
Thanks for the input, folks.
We've brought it up at the table, a few times. We haven't be able to satisfy him with an alternative. Likely never will, either. I'm just curious about some alternatives, and perhaps some Golarion specific oaths I can toss around in my own game.
Thanks for the input, folks.
I don't really have any specific Golarion curses, but I do try to be inventive with my highly racist Chelaxian fighter and coming up with names for everyone, my personal favorite is one I stole from these boards, I call all the Varisian characters Moths.
Just try to get the guy to try coming up with his own
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Try the curses from the wheel of time...they are not as vile as regular ones.
My table has a strict policy against profanity that does not include feces or fornication. Only those two are allowed and only when the player really has the emotional need to say one of those words. However, players are welcome to invent their own curses, that i incorporate into the setting.
If a player is using profanity a lot, and says that "it is his roleplay", i tell him to reduce them, or make new ones that do not offend other players or leave the game. It usually works.
So, my advise would be, if that player's swearing bugs you, tell them to stop it, or face exclusion from the game. If he does not comply, don't invite him back to the game. He is clearly there to entertain himself and not to participate in a group activity.
As many common English curses are some of our most ancient vocabulary, I don't consider their use inappropriate. :)
However, if someone was just being DISTRACTING with excessive swearing, IC or OOC, I might ask them to tone it down. My tolerance for that is pretty high, as in the right mood I can swear like a sailor myself. If it seems like a matter of a player trying to get away with inappropriate behavior because it's "in-character" then they need to be sat down and talked to, because in that case, they're using the IC-ness as an excuse and trying to shock people for attention value.
If you want to go the route of "fantasy" swearing, some suggestions:
- Invoke gods' names in vain. Possibly with a raunchy undertone. "By Calistria's cavernous nethers!"
- Made up words as others suggest. My favorite source for that is the old early 90s cartoon, The Pirates of Dark Water. "Noyjitaat! Chungo lungo! You kreld-eater!"
- Name natural disasters (I had a great grandfather who never swore and at his most angry would shout, "Thunder and lightning!"). Can also combine that with the above suggestions, translate words into other languages or combine them with references to the divine.
If you want to go the route of "fantasy" swearing, some suggestions:
- Invoke gods' names in vain. Possibly with a raunchy undertone. "By Calistria's cavernous nethers!"
O.o They're...cavernous?
- Made up words as others suggest. My favorite source for that is the old early 90s cartoon, The Pirates of Dark Water. "Noyjitaat! Chungo lungo! You kreld-eater!"
I still use Noyjitaat!!!! Stravag from Mechwarrior is another good one. I curse in Shadowspeak on a regular basis.
O.o They're...cavernous?If you want to go the route of "fantasy" swearing, some suggestions:
- Invoke gods' names in vain. Possibly with a raunchy undertone. "By Calistria's cavernous nethers!"
You know, I'd try to explain where my logic was with that, but I think it would veer this conversation into the definitely inappropriate. Think on it a bit and use your imagination, is all I can say. ;)
- Made up words as others suggest. My favorite source for that is the old early 90s cartoon, The Pirates of Dark Water. "Noyjitaat! Chungo lungo! You kreld-eater!"
I still use Noyjitaat!!!! Stravag from Mechwarrior is another good one. I curse in Shadowspeak on a regular basis.
Yay! PODW fans represent!
Oh, also Sigil cant and general Planescape insults are always good. "Yeh son of a hag! Yeh blex-spewing thing of no bowels!"
One of my fellow players is constantly swearing in-character in our home game. Now, normally, being an Aussie and the son of a tradie, I wouldn't bat an eye. However, it really detracts from the experience for me.
Could just be that your players like it more Song of Ice and Fire or The Witcher style. No "high fantasy" in the sense that everyone is as courteous as you read in old stories or see in old films (where peasants have perfect teeth), knights behave very honourably and all but. More a grim and gritty, world, where people, especially base-born warriors or others with a military background will swear if they feel like it, where whores follow around armies and soldiers often rape and kill peasants for the heck of it.
Doesn't make it any less fantasy-like.
In the end, just talk to people and ask them how they feel about it, and try to get a solution everyone's happy with.
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I once had a gnome who would regularly say things like "Garl, what was that?" or "Gnoshallfrobbit!" or "Just hand me the frobbin' wrench!"
However, if you're talking about swearing in general, bodily-function swearing is more ancient than our language (as DeathQuaker pointed out), and still in line (heh, I almost typo'd "loin") with fantasy tropes.
It's when you come across the holy-speak that credibility is strained. Some words like "holy," "damned," and "hell" translate well, but there's a bunch that don't. So that's when you make it up, based on the in-game culture. Have fun.
Let's see...
"Gremlin" might work... "What a gremlin disaster!"
Something for a stabbing or a screwing... Gank? "Heh, they're ganked now!"
Something base and scumlike... Spew. "You can't make this spew up!"
Haven't even touched on the gods, or on insults for orcs and the like.
I imagine "Lamashtu" would be used for anything disgustingly raunchy or coyote ugly. "Gob" could describe any number of undesirables. Maybe the best way to use these is to come up with them yourself, and pepper your own character's speech with them, and let them get caught up by the party.
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I'd suggest you just get over it. I think we (gamers) have a tendency to think that people didn't say s*** and f*** in the past because almost everything we know of the past we know from schoolbooks, TV and movies. Three things that tend to be sanitized for children and delicate audiences.
But here's some things to consider. The f-bomb is at least seven centuries old, and has been used in pretty much the same context its used now to mean the same things (to destroy, to bring to ruin, and to have sex with) since Normans were fighting Saxons. So its not anarchonistic, if that's what's bugging you.
The s-word, on the other hand, has been used in some form since the dawn of time. This is how innate to human understanding of the world the s-word is: Chimpanzees can be taught sign language, but they do not tend to develop their own words. They never really take that giant step from having words to creating a language with those words. But they do occasionally form new words. The first documented sign word ever invented by a chimpanzees was "s***head." The chimpanzees developed the sign amongst themselves to refer to the doctor who administered all of their shots. Which they clearly did not like.
I'm guessing poo was one of the first things humans ever invented a word for, and I suspect that we invented the tradition of "hurling" the word for poo at people we didn't like as a substitute for actually flinging poo. Because I think people were stubbing their toes and saying "****!" before they invented clothes. And fire. So, really, as long as your players and characters are speaking English, the s-word is not anachronistic. Really, if you have a species that makes poo and talks, it probably uses the word for poo as an all-purpose word for things that it dislikes. Because "poo is bad" is a metaphor that the dumbest person on Earth still gets.
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"Gob" could describe any number of undesirables. Maybe the best way to use these is to come up with them yourself, and pepper your own character's speech with them, and let them get caught up by the party.
That's brilliant. That's exactly how people would talk in a fantasy world with goblins. They would totally use "goblin" or some variant as a all-purpose pejorative like "sucks."
Commoner 1: "We should go down to that new pub that just opened up."
Commoner 2: "Nah, I went there last night, its goblin."
Also,I love using Thieves World curses. Froggin' porksuckin' bints.
Also,I love using Thieves World curses. Froggin' porksuckin' bints.
Hmm, wasn't "bint" offensive on its own? Although I think it was a slur only in British English.
So do any of the NPC`s swear? Developing a world-specific swear vocabulary (not necessarily made-up, perhaps just more far-off real world references than you`re used to, i.e. recognizable as swearing outside of a RPG/fantasy/SciFi context) could provoke the player to key into that reference point as well as what he`s used to. I feel like I`ve seen different dictionaries that translate swear words or `dirty talk` from different languages to English... that could be a start.
I think there's two threads running concurrently (see the one I'm already in).
Any chance they can be merged?
A mistake on my part. I tend to forget that most people don't act on Oceanic time. This is my first time on the "Gamer Talk" boards, and I was wondering if I'd posted in the wrong place...
Consider this a formal request.
Thanks for all the input, guys. It seems people are pretty divided on this.
To be honest, we'd never really thought about it before until the other night. I called him out on having him swear for every one of his lines (which in themselves were few and far between) and voiced something like the above. It's not so much the use of the words (you get used to it if you've spent any time in construction work), it's more the overuse of them, and a lack of variety. That's really interesting about the origins of f*!%, Gailbraithe. I knew it stretched back to Henrician times. Or at least, I assumed, from watching the Tudors.
This game is set in a homebrew world (though we're currently in hell, as per one of the Planescape books) and I've suggested the DM come up with some curses of his own, because he goes to great lengths to flesh out his world.
I'm running Rise of the Runelords, and would like to come up with something beyond the old "DEITY'S ADJECTIVE PRIVATE PARTS" schtick...
I'm thinking something Goblin related like above, and I'll scrounge up more about these Thieves World books. They seem right up my alley.
Great thread, guys. Here's a toast to it's long life.
I played a real heartless NE drug lord character last year with a real foul mouth, and here's a list of some of the group's favorite curses
Oh and this was in 3.5 using those deities.
These are vulgar, and in the spirit of my character I offer no apologies.
"Son of Succubus!"
"Holy Hextor's seventh testicle!"
"Night hag's t%@& dirt!"
"Steaming dragon s#*@!"
"Poor disgusted mother of a half-troll"
"Lich's Prick!"
"Dwarven piss water!"
How is this problem approached at your table? Am I over-thinking this? Share with me your wisdom!
I don't see it as a problem. F!&$ and s+@& are old, old words that should always be acceptable at the table. One person's profanity is another's daily vocabulary.
Personally, I never restrict my players' choice of words until they start using American slang. Nothing kills immersion like 'playa' and 'bling' used in character; if this happens twice and they don't immediately correct themselves, they're gone. Obviously for modern settings, this policy doesn't really apply, but I don't invite players back that cannot or choose not to speak proper English out of character.
For me, roleplaying is a way to escape the present dull, miserable reality we live in. So when that is invaded by an uneducated vernacular and nonsense terms, I get unnecessarily angry and the escapism is ruined.