PSA: Go easy on the acronyms

[DRD1812]

If you've ever started a new job at a large organization, and especially if that organization is military, you know how easy it is to fall into the habit of acronym-speak. I've found myself running with new players for the first time in a long time, and I realized that I had somehow *become* the military.

In other words, please go easy on the acronyms, especially around new players! It creates a barrier to to entry, and it's one that's largely invisible to long-time players. Of course "combat maneuver defense" is a mouthful, but it's worth saying the whole thing for the first few months. The newbies of the world will thank you for your service.

Comic for illustrative purposes.

[LordKailas]

DRD1812 wrote:

If you've ever started a new job at a large organization, and especially if that organization is military, you know how easy it is to fall into the habit of acronym-speak. I've found myself running with new players for the first time in a long time, and I realized that I had somehow *become* the military.

In other words, please go easy on the acronyms, especially around new players! It creates a barrier to to entry, and it's one that's largely invisible to long-time players. Of course "combat maneuver defense" is a mouthful, but it's worth saying the whole thing for the first few months. The newbies of the world will thank you for your service.

Comic for illustrative purposes.

QFT, IIRC newbs aren't 1337 til j00 L2P m8.

Edit: TLDR: Word

[Derklord]

DRD1812 wrote:

Of course "combat maneuver defense" is a mouthful, but it's worth saying the whole thing for the first few months. The newbies of the world will thank you for your service.

Well, "CMD" is what they have to look for on their character sheet. AC, BAB, CMB, CMD, DC, DR, XP, GM, HD, HP, NPC, PC, and SR are acronyms used throughout the CRB, and thus need to be learned to understand the game.

I'd say talk like the one in the comic shouldn't be done during gameplay at all. Of course, forum speak and other text based meta talk uses plenty of abreviations, because I sure as hell won't type out "Variant Multiclassing" or "Use Magic Device" all the time.

[Meirril]

Academically, the convention to use acronyms is to use the full length version of the phrase and then follow it up with the acronym in apprentices.

So if you wanted to have a long discussion about Variant Multiclassing (VM) you say it once this way and then just keep using VM to refer to the subject later. Within the context of this discussion people should understand what VM is and hopefully won't try to use VM to refer to something else.