Games and Developers
RPG - Roleplaying game. It's commonly associated with video games, but is applied to any game in which the player assumes a role other than themselves and makes decisions for them.
Tabletop - a term for RPGs, generally on a table. Sometimes referred to within a group as dice or dicing.
Dice or dicing - slang for playing
D&D/DnD - Dungeons and Dragons, a fantasy setting game.
Battletech (BT) - a futuristic giant robot game.
Wizards of the Coast (WotC) - developers (but not inventors) of D&D
White Wolf (WW) - a development company that makes games such as Mage, Vampire: The Masquerade, and Exalted. Many of their games are set in a gothic 19th century to modern setting, while some like Exalted are fantasy.
#e - Edition of the game. D&D has 4.5 editions. 3.5ed is what our game is run as, but WotC implemented 4ed in 2008.
Core - Used to define classes and books, it means the originals and most basic required to play. Example: In D&D, the core books are the Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, and Monster Manual 1.
Supplement or splatbook - Books published to expand the game world past the core books.
Core - Used to define classes and books, it means the originals and most basic required to play. Example: In D&D, the core books are the Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, and Monster Manual 1.
Supplement or splatbook - Books published to expand the game world past the core books.
Campaign - A continuous game run by one or more GMs for several players. Basically, Campaign = Story/Game.
Session - One day of gaming for a particular campaign.
One-Off or Once-Off - A campaign designed to last a single session.
Characters
DM - Dungeon Master, the person who runs the game and tells the story.
GM - Game Master, see above
ST - Storyteller, see above above
GM - Game Master, see above
ST - Storyteller, see above above
PC - Player character, AKA you. Ravi and Indeah are player characters. You can consider PCs the main characters of the story
NPC - Non-player character, these are the people that the PCs interact with during the game. They're all controlled by the DM.
Encounter - Altercation, combat, brawl, duel, whatever you want to call it, it's a fight. Again, these are all controlled by the DM.
Class - The specialties a character can take. The cores are Fighter, Barbarian, Monk, Bard, Rogue, Ranger, Paladin, Cleric, Druid, Wizard, and Sorcerer. There are countless others in the many other books published to enhance the game.
Prestige class - Like a class, but more specific training. Not unlike an internship in college, where you get specific training related to the job you do.
Tools and Other
d# - A die. # is equal to the number of sides the die has. You're probably familiar with the d6, a normal 1-6 die used in board games and gambling. In tabletop gaming, the standard dice set is d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, and d20. There are also d30s and d100s, but they are less common. Pictured here are the common dice and a d100.
#d# - A roll of a certain number of dice. 2d6 is a normal roll in Monopoly of 2 6-sided dice.
TPK - Total Party Kill. Every member of the adventuring team is dead. AKA: Game Over.Classes
Factotum - From Dungeonscape, a jack-of-all-trades. Does some magic, some healing, some combat, and nothing particularly as well as another class.
Beast Heart Adept - From Dungeonscape, a prestige class that allows a ranger-type class to tame monsters to fight with them.
Malconvoker - A class that allows good-aligned users to summon evil creatures and bluff them into working for the good guys.
This page will be updated as new terms come up in the blog. If you notice anything we're missing or have any questions for the definition, send us an email and we'll add it here!
