wording of the Pathfinder Playtest


General Discussion


I have English as a second language, and though I am fairly competent, there were some words in the Playtest that I did not know. The best example of this is "Anathema" when describing the deities on 288-289. This was the first time i had to google what a word meant, the other times I've just skipped over them. It if worth considering what kind of words are used in the text, so the meaning is clear for everyone.

The Exchange

Well, to be fair, Anathema is an old word from Ancient Greek that has found its way in most of the big languages in Europe. It is used in German, French, Italian and Spanish as well as in English, so the biggest part of the audience won't have a problem with it. Not sure if the author of that part was aware of it, and I agree that just because something is clear to you, it doesn't need to be clear for anyone else.

On a general note, I'm not in agreement with you on this. English isn't my first language either, but while I sometimes struggle with certain sentences' wording, I like it when they make me look things up (and in the case of Anathema, there's some interesting stuff to discover that you might get use out of for your own games).


I admit 'Anathema' is a bit unfriendly for non-europeans. It does have the advantage of being quite flavourful, in my opinion. And it is still in use in English today, though it's 'Uncommon'.

I think they should swap 'Somatic' which means absolutlely nothing to anyone outside of D&D for 'Gesture', which is instantly self-explanatory.


graeme mcdougall wrote:

I admit 'Anathema' is a bit unfriendly for non-europeans. It does have the advantage of being quite flavourful, in my opinion. And it is still in use in English today, though it's 'Uncommon'.

I think they should swap 'Somatic' which means absolutlely nothing to anyone outside of D&D for 'Gesture', which is instantly self-explanatory.

Yes, I would love to see Incantation and Gesture replace Vocal and Somatic components/actions

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I've learned English by reading RPGs (and Transformers).


Seems like "Taboo" would be a friendlier term, but eh. "Anathema" is a single, distinct word. Not quite like the massive word salad of feat types.

The Exchange

Gorbacz wrote:
I've learned English by reading RPGs (and Transformers).

Same here (replace Transformers with WWF though).

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