Canon:RPG Terminology

Beer n' Pretzels Game

1. Game style whereby rules are arbitrated looser to accommodate casual game play and game flow. Often accompanied by drinks and snacks.

BBEG

1. Big Bad Evil Guy
2. Big Bad Enemy Guy

BDF

1. Big Dumb Fighter
   • The name says it all. Stereotypically a character with very little depth who uses their brawn to solve as many problems as possible. They often do not scale well in part to their lack of depth. Although are often fun to play in low level campaigns and/or for beginners to the hobby.

Closet Troll

1. "Typically" a melee specialist who does massive damage when s/he/it can catch a target at close range.
   • A troll out in the open is a reasonable challenge for a party of appropriate level(CR/etc) because they can move around and not be full attacked. But a troll in a tightly enclosed space (like a closet) is a nightmare.

CoDzilla (dnd-wiki explanation)

1. A very powerful Cleric or Druid build; typically game breaking as levels accumulate.
   • Named for how they can wield considerable magic power as well as having better combat skills and abilities than their pure "reality twisting" rivals. Better Base Attack Bonus and armor opportunities as well as shapeshifting and Natural Spell for druids.
   • 1d4chan explains it pretty well
2. Clericzilla
3. Druidzilla

DM (Dungeon Master)

1. The judge, referee, story-teller, rules arbitrator.

ECL

• Effective Character Level

Gentlemen's Agreement

1. "A player may allow his character to do whatever he wants so long as that action doesn't decrease the fun had by anyone else at the table."
2. Agreement under which it is understood that everyone around the game table is gathered to have fun and actions must be carried out "in character" that maintain fun for all participants.

Glass Cannon

1. A Player Character build that emphasizes high damage output at the expense of survivability. Such builds usually involve ranged attacks rather than melee to offset their vulnerability.

GM (Game Master)

• See 'DM'

Judge (RPG)

• See 'DM'

LWQW

1. Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards
   • A phrase coined to quickly explain the problem between magic users and melee players.
   • "Melee classes gain power at a linear rate as they level up. Magic users gain power quadratically as they level up."
   • TVTropes.com explains with charts!

MC (Mister Cavern)

• See 'DM'
• history of the term coming soon(tm)...

Metagaming

1. An action or actions made by the Player Character based on out-of-character knowledge.
   • For example, a Player's Character uses fire to fight a troll even though the Character is ignorant of trolls, because the Player has knowledge of the troll's weakness to fire from previous gaming experience.
   • While it is very difficult to not metagame to at least some small degree while playing an RPG, the act of metagaming is usually frowned upon.

Nova

1. A Player Character build or style of play that focuses on dealing as much damage as possible in a single attack or round of attacks, often by using tricks to gain additional actions (known as 'breaking the action economy'). The act of doing so is referred to as "going nova."

NPC

1. Non-player Character
   • Characters played and controlled by an RPG campaign/game's DM.

One-Off

1. A game designed to be played as a single adventure to completion in one game session rather than as a multi-session campaign. (Also referred to as a "One-Shot.")

PC

1. Player Character
   • The character, or characters, controlled directly by the players in an RPG campaign/game.

Powergaming

1. Also referred to as Character Optimization, this refers to the practice of using a Player's extensive knowledge of an RPG system's rules in the most advantageous way possible to the Player, resulting in a more powerful than average Player Character. While not inherently good or bad, this can lead to friction between powergamers and more casual players due to the resulting disparity in power levels between PCs.
   • When taken to extremes, powergaming is often referred to as 'Munchkining,' which carries a more negative connotation with most gamers.

RNG

1. Random Number Generator. In Dungeons & Dragons, this most often refers to the range numbers fall within for dice rolls.

Rule Zero

1. The DM is the final arbiter in ruling mechanics decisions.

Session

1. A gameplay session.

Story Teller (RPG)

• See 'DM'

TBT

• The Bullet Test
• Whether or not characters in a TTRPG are assumed to regularly survive, or be immune to, bullet wounds. Essentially being super-heroic in nature.

TTRPG

1. Tabletop RPG
   • It all started with pencil and paper...

WFM

1. Weaboo Fightan Majick
   • I'll add a description later