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

[zdashamber.livejournal.com]

But you can't be a primadonna... You're the humblest man on the net!

Anyway, I like endless discussions of the same stuff, because I see changes in attitudes over time. And some definitions have use; the whole "munchkin/power gamer" thing was fun, at least. Because it was defined, dagnabbit! [/crochety mountain man]