Difference between revisions of "RPG Lexica:STU"

Revision as of 07:28, 17 May 2005

social skills problem: A problem arising in many RPGs where social skills are modelled as part of the rules system. The typical problem is that resolving the results of these skills via a simple dice roll, as usually mandated by the rules, will leave the players and GM with no idea of what was actually said or done by the character - highly unsatisfactory. On the other hand, if the player is required to speak in-character and to play out the social situation, then the situation will be determined by the player's social skills, not the character's.

splatbook: Any of a series of books going into extensive detail of a small subgroup of characters in a RPG, especially a group that player characters are expected to belong to. The implication is that the series of books are similar enough that their titles are interchangeable except for one word. White Wolf makes several of these, such as the various "Clanbook: ______" books for Vampire, each of which details one specific Clan.; Origin: From "splat" as a name for the asterisk (*) character (which itself is because of the squashed-bug appearance of the asterisk on early dot-matrix printers), and the fact that the asterisk usually means "Match with anything" when used in searches in computer documents or on the command-line. (For example, the above books could be found by searching for "Clanbook: *" in some editor programs.)

Total Party Kill: Any course of action in a RPG that results in the entire party of player characters winding up either dead or incapacitated. May be the result of bad tactics (the party biting off more than it can chew), bad luck (rotten rolls for PCs combined with excellent rolls for the opposition), or bad GMing (say, the GM cheating because he's annoyed at the players).

TPK: Abbreviation for Total Party Kill. Sometimes verbed: "Man, I'm never playing with Ernie again... he had an argument with his girlfriend and retaliated by TPKing the entire group!"

"Use the force, Luke!": (movie quote) usu. spoken to someone about to try something extremely difficult or that cannot be done under normal conditions.; Addendum: From George Lucas' 1977 magnum opus Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope. Spoken by the recently deceased Obi-Wan Kenobi (Sir Alec Guinness) to the young Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill).

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+;social skills problem:  A problem arising in many RPGs where social skills are modelled as part of the rules system.  The typical problem is that resolving the results of these skills via a simple dice roll, as usually mandated by the rules, will leave the players and GM with no idea of what was actually said or done by the character - highly unsatisfactory.  On the other hand, if the player is required to speak in-character and to play out the social situation, then the situation will be determined by the player's social skills, not the character's.
 ;splatbook: Any of a series of books going into extensive detail of a small subgroup of characters in a RPG, especially a group that player characters are expected to belong to.  The implication is that the series of books are similar enough that their titles are interchangeable except for one word.  White Wolf makes several of these, such as the various "Clanbook: ______" books for Vampire, each of which details one specific Clan.
 :Origin: From "splat" as a name for the asterisk (*) character (which itself is because of the squashed-bug appearance of the asterisk on early dot-matrix printers), and the fact that the asterisk usually means "Match with anything" when used in searches in computer documents or on the command-line. (For example, the above books could be found by searching for "Clanbook: *" in some editor programs.)
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