RPG theory jargon is a cancer on the hobby

[zdashamber]

jhkimrpg posted this evening about dealing with character death, and in the post he referenced an article he'd previously mentioned by Meg. She suggests two possible social contracts for handling players who have lines of discomfort with some type of game event: "Nobody Gets Hurt" and "I Will Not Abandon You." Midway through the comments of that and another thread I was writing a steel-eyed "'INWAY' is fucking bullshit" post, but then 30-some comments along timfire and Joshua Kronengold and Charles finally began to point that out for me. Meg seemed to agree with them and disagree with the entire thrust of the previous INWAY-defining comments when she then wrote "Don't push when you know it's not ok."

This is the trouble with theory jargon. A concept like "Don't be a dick and then abandon the person you were a dick to" makes perfect sense. A bit of jargon like INWAY, on the other hand, has everyone leaping to attach cool meanings to it, meanings which are related to whatever the developer meant, but which are often contradictory, inflammatory, or non-sequitur. If I see someone using the term INWAY, I won't necessarily know if they a. read to the end of the thread, or if b. they did and like their own idea of the term better than Meg's anyway, or if c. they are actually using it the way Meg seems to have clarified it.

The only way to know what someone is thinking when they use a bit of jargon is to have them clarify it right there in the thread. This wastes everyone's time and though sheer weight of words makes jargon seem important. "Everyone's always talking about it... It must be worth talking about!" The other option is to go with whatever view you've absorbed of the jargon, which can easily result in "John is quoting a., a. is bullshit, your post is bullshit, John," "My post is totally not bullshit!" which leads either to 1. a participant dropping what might have been a useful discussion were it not for the distracting jargon, or 2. a clarification of the jargon (q.v. beginning of this paragraph).

Jargon, like cancer, is energy wasted for no benefit. I'm a gamer. I quote. Allow me to quote Samuel L. Jackson: ENGLISH, MOTHERFUCKER! DO-YOU-SPEAK-IT?

Comments

[jamused.livejournal.com]

How about IWNUYIYWIRI? I Will Not Understand You If You Write In Ridiculous Initialisms? I don't know why RPG theorists are so enamored of jargon, initialisms and Excessive Capitalization Syndrome, though I have some unflattering guesses, but it makes my eyes glaze over. I agree with pjack that clear, unambiguous language helps, and that at least to some extent every field will have its specialized terms, but I don't know if they have to amount to jargon. RPGs have plenty of specialized terms that are clear and unambiguous: PC, NPC, d6, GM, HP, XP, to-hit roll, and so on. But at least those are obviously special terms, and can be defined quickly and clearly to a new reader. It's the layering on of terms that people can't agree on a definition of (like push/pull, narrativism, high-performance, dysfunctional, etc.) that I think is a problem.

[zdashamber.livejournal.com]

Good point about the necessary explainable jargon that comes naturally with the hobby!

My suspicions about the causes of the rest of it are also unflattering.

[jhkimrpg.livejournal.com]

Yeah. It's a bad tendency that gets worse in a semi-closed group. I think spreading out from the Forge to blogs, which are more open to the world, is improving a number of people (possibly including myself).

My rant in particular would be against shifting and vague definitions; losing the references to the original; and defining jargon with other jargon. While Meg's post might remind you of other bad stuff, she doesn't use any terms in her post that she doesn't define in the same article. So unlike some, her post doesn't require you to know prior jargon to understand. It's a little vague and touchy-feely, but that's not a jargon thing.

[zdashamber.livejournal.com]

Meg's post creates a bit of jargon, but not until nearly 40 comments in does she clarify that IWNAY includes "Don't push when you know it's not ok." Vincent's thread I linked in my post certainly didn't find that in Meg's original post, nor did any of the first 30-some comments. Thus, the definition of IWNAY shifted, or it was vague to begin with.

And that doesn't even begin to address the utter uselessness of a made-up word that confuses and excludes where a sentence or two of English could start a good discussion.

Meg's post "reminds me of other bad stuff," and it is bad in its own right. Interesting idea, craptastic method.

[jhkimrpg.livejournal.com]

?!?

I missed that in the comments, buried 40 deep. (Who knew?) OK, fair point then.