RPG Lexica:STU
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.)
