Editing RPG Lexica:GHI (section)

==I==

;"I'm going to get medieval on his ass"
:A quote from the movie ''Pulp Fiction'' that basically means the PCs are about to do something very violent, probably fatal, and definitely painful to whoever is referenced by 'his'.  Often followed by another ''Pulp Fiction'' line: "Zed's dead, baby."


;Impossible Thing Before Breakfast:  For the GM to maintain complete authorial control of the story while the players at the same time retain complete protagonist control of their characters.  That is, for both the players and GM to simultaneously run the game as exclusively "their" story. Although this paradox is often unintentionally presented as the ideal model for running RPGs, it is quite possibly impossible and attempts to achieve this unattainable situation have been responsible for a lot of failed role-playing. It's coinage as a term in RPG theory is by [[Ron Edwards]] - the phrase itself originated in ''Alice in Wonderland'', where the Queen tells Alice that "sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." It's also possible that it entered the lexicon via Douglas Adams' ''Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' series, where the advertising campaign for Milliways, a restaurant that exists at the end of the universe, is "If you've done six impossible things this morning, why not round it off with breakfast at Milliways, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe?" 


;Intelligence problem
:The difficulty encountered in enabling Intelligence stats to work correctly in games which have them.  The problem arises from the fact that Intelligence will affect the character's ability to choose what to do next.  Since making these choices for their characters is the key means by which players are involved in the RPG, these choices must be left to the player; but if they are left to the player, the choice will be made based on the ''player's'' level of intelligence, not the character's.  


;Inverse Ninja Law
:A paradox in games (usually with strong martial art themes) where a sole ninja can often be a dangerous show-stopping foe, but a group of ninjas can be mowed through with ease by a group of players.  Thus, the Inverse Ninja Law:  Sum Ninja Effectiveness = 1/Ninjas.


;IST''x''KO
:Typically used in forum thread titles, an abbreviation for "I seek the ''x'' knowledge of", properly followed by the subject of inquiry. The variable ''x'' is the name of the forum, implying a request for the aid of the forum community as a whole. It seems to have originated on the RPGnet Tangency forum as "I summon the Tangency knowledge of" (later abbreviated "ISTTKO"), used by those seeking information on an obscure topic, often before even trying to Google for it. Replacing "Tangency" with a variable forum name came later; widely used on the RPGnet Open forum is ISTOKO (where ''x'' = Open, obviously). While this terminology originated on RPGnet, it is unknown to this contributor if its use has spread to other fora.


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[[Category:Terminology]]