Is modern profanity allowed/appropriate for characters on this forum? I've been listening to Joe Abercrombie lately and I really like the feel of his characters.
If not, what type of language do characters use that could be considered profane/offensive if I wanted to portray a vulgar character?
Paizo autocorrects profanity.
You might type in the words you're considering using and submit the post right here as a reply.
As long as you do it within an hour, you can then delete the post.
F~%& S&&#
Okay, so that might actually work well enough for storytelling. Hmm... I'll have to think on it.
We don't know nearly as much as we'd like about the etymology and history of swear words, mostly because people in the past didn't want to write down things about them.
However, I can tell you that, broadly speaking, there are three categories.
1) Scatological Words - most of the swear words we use today are in this category. They mostly have to do with poop and sex.
2) Slurs - these are generally considered much stronger than scatological words, because they're more targeted and hateful.
3) Profanity - these are generally considered much weaker than scatological words. They are religious in nature.
Throughout history, the relative intensities of these groups have changed dramatically. Chaucer, for instance, used a four letter word we generally consider to be the most intense of the scatological variety quite casually. When Shakespeare has a character say 'slid (god's eyelid), for example, it's a bit like someone today making an exclamation with a scatological word.
Obviously the relationship of an individual on Golarion with the divine is quite different from the relationship of an earth individual with the divine, but there is historical precedent for profanity having high intensity.
Unfortunately, it's unlikely that profanity has been used throughout history the way it is today. It is very unlikely that profanity was ever as versatile as some scatological words are today. The F word can be used multiple times as an exclamation, adjective, noun, adverb, and verb in the same sentence, and I do not think this was the case for profanity.
So there is historical precedent for people to use profanity, which is generally considered more acceptable in a PbP, with the intensity we today ascribe to other more taboo words. If you explain that to the other people in your game, you can portray a vulgar character without saying things we today find offensive. Of course, this creates other issues.
Consider, for example, the fact that people have at various times throughout history killed cats for sport. Today, we mostly interact with cats as pets, and have more abundant food to give them. But in the past, some people did things which we today would consider sociopathic, and it was accepted as normal behavior. Much like issues of profanity, this creates a problem where what means one thing to a character in a historical setting probably means something different to someone today.
I don't know how to resolve that problem.
While I am not opposed to using profanity as a character quirk in a game where you know the other players (and they do not mind) I suggest that you are careful with using it in PBP.
You probably do not know who the other players at your table are, how old they are and what they have been through in life. It is very likely that you are playing with people from other countries who might have other standards. In my opinion it is better to err on the side of caution in these cases.
1) You could use more general terms, like "Ninefingers swore a bitter oath." You can also do other vulgar things, like scratching, spitting, and burping.
2) If the DM has chosen other languages for the game world, you could swear in that other language. Bonus points if you look up legitimate curse words in that language. For instance, Ifrits in my PbP speak Italian, so "cazzo" is something that a vulgar character might say (with no filters)
3) You can also think about setting-specific curse words that would only have meaning in that particular setting. For instance, my same PbP setting has a god called "Volcano" in Common, so "volc" is a curse word that many Ifrits use.