RPG Lexica:JKL

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J

Juicer Problem
Any time a game gives PCs an option for significant power with drawbacks that would be horrific to a real person, but, since the PC is not a real person, the drawback is nonentity.
Usage: "He said he's going to kill my character's wife if I don't give him back the superweapon? She's not a PC, it's not like I care. Man, this is just a Juicer Problem."
The term is a reference to Juicers in Rifts whose awesome combat power was balanced by a significantly shortened lifespan. This would be horrific to any real person, but unlikely to faze any players since it's rare that enough time passes in-game for it to be an issue. Coined by tk421 on the RPOpen board.

K

Katana
Long, curved oriental sword. Katana are the subject of numerous myths related to the quality of their construction and their sharpness, such as the claim that a katana was considered a poor blade unless it was capable of cutting through four condemned men in a single stroke. This, in turn, has led to stories of gamers seriously overestimating the abilities of a character armed with a katana: the most famous example being a story in which a player allegedly attempted to have a katana-wielding PC use his sword to cut through the armor of a modern tank. Thus, the term is also sometimes used to mean an unrealistically powerful weapon, or a weapon which is sought-after for "coolness" value regardless of its relevance or usefulness to a campaign or setting. A katana is, of course, the favoured weapon of a ninja.
An in-depth article about katanas can be found at Wikipedia.


Kewl Powerz
Generic name for the abilities possessed by PCs in a game that are above and beyond those of normal men. Depending on the game, this can mean superpowers, magical ability, or whatever else the game will allow. The "l33tspeak" spelling of the term was initially meant to be dismissive of the kind of game where a character's abilities are more important than who the character is, but over time it's come to be used to specify that what the speaker refers to is the kind of ability that could be dismissed as silly overpowered chrome in certain genres. Like "roleplaying vs rollplaying", "Kewl powerz" as a term has become so cliche that it's next to impossible to use it without irony.


Kill them and take their stuff
A humorous description of the method which winds up being used by most RPG characters to solve problems they are having with other individuals or groups. It is the essence of the dungeon crawl. Sometimes abreviated to simply KTATTS on message boards, such as RPG.net


King Rat
The male equivalent of a Queen Bee. Exceptionally rare in RPGing due to the gender imbalance of the hobby.

L

Lasersharking
  1. The (theoretical) improvement of an item or being already powerful, competent, efficient and/or deadly by combining it with another item of similar perceived deadliness. In gaming, said additional element is most often either SF-grade high tech or some other sort of fantastic item.
  2. The combination of two disparate genres whose conventions normally preclude their union. RPG examples include Deadlands: The Weird West, Pinnacle Entertainment (now Great White Games)’s Wild West/Steampunk/Magic game, or Gear Krieg, Dream Pod 9’s World War II/Mecha game.
The term's origin can be traced to the comedy spoof movie Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. The gaming analogy was first used by Jack Spencer Jr on the forge in this thread.


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