These are the terms we’ll be having people pick up starting in early 2027 and ongoing through the following five fiscal years, to accommodate the need for rhetorical conflict and animus in the RPG scene.
Friendplay: long-form RPG play in which PC-NPC relationships are a focus of play, either through roleplayed scenes which accrue “Finity Points” or a procedure that partially elides actual interactions. Born of an unholy alliance of character-forward 5e players and grognards who decided that it was unbalanced for players to call on friends and allies without diligently maintaining those connections. There will be broad disagreement about whether you’re a better person for liking friendplay or hating it.
Exodus: term describing the work or play culture of the influencers and designers (and their fans) who stopped playing WotC D&D after it was revealed in 2028 that Hasbro has been paying off-duty FBI agents to discourage people writing fantasy heartbreakers. Play culture for this loud-but-small group largely coalesces around Fireburn, a close clone of 5e, but with a core catperson ethnicity and the Critical Role classes more closely integrated.
Boardguys: fighter classes which are neither knights nor evocative of naked women with big swords.
Lowife/Hiwife (LW/HW): variations on the newly ascendant “wandering midwives” campaigns style, either one that ramps up the potential horror inherent in the genre or totally excises it. Lowife play will have a small core of fierce advocates that call mainstream midwife RPGs silly, while Hiwife players will mostly be reduced to convincing the DM of their dungeon game to include a Witch-Sister class. Almost everyone will agree that arguing about points of taste here is folly, but everyone with a bluesky or blog will be forced to have annoying arguments about it anyway.
Stray Dog: an indie RPG publisher or developer, but not one of the “big” ones. A claim to authenticity as being True Indie.
Illiterature: pejorative for material deemed too interested in readability and ease of use.
GSR: “Good Sword Roleplaying”. Another term for being OSR but not bad. After tepid adoption by a few folks on bluesky, it becomes the hobbyhorse term of abuse on villain blogs no one reads.
Frithic Underworld/Watershipcrawl: dungeoneering or other forms of classic D&D play, but with no procedure for the PCs to use violence. Originally an attempt to deproblematize D&D, the early attempts accidentally found a form of play fun on its own merits, inspiring creative works in various RPG genres.
Fedder: pejorative for people who “still” play WotC D&D, imputing that they must like how Hasbro hired those FBI agents. Most fedders have never heard the term.
Alto: style of play born from a well-written but at points vague or facetious blogpost, allegedly one in which inventory management and timekeeping are emphasized. Unclear to many how this differs from “normal OSR” play, its advocates will give ephemeral or mysterious answers. It won’t even be a grotty grognard thing, but the production of cool people who go to parties and know how to cook good food. The modules they publish won’t seem irregular, though they will be artfully done. Sometimes a blogger will publish an adventure they’ve been working on and a stranger will just comment “sooo alto :~)”.
Toxico: self-label for those who don’t like safety tools/conversational tools, the idea that there are games with different ways to divvy up DM/player responsibilities, or explicit norms about “respecting others” in discussion forums, and feel that their preferences are called “toxic” too much, leading to them performatively claiming to loooove being toxic and enjoying toxic things. With only a hazy mental model of their enemies, they’ll say things like “I love this game because I’m so toxico” about seemingly random works.
DNR: “Do not review”. Initially an instruction by some game publishers that only certain kinds of people are “allowed” to publicly discuss the game, in analogy to DNI lists on social media sites like tumblr. Later a term adopted by those who polemically believe it’s impossible to critically review an RPG rulebook or adventure “even if you’ve run it many times.”
Jamboree: a discord PRG layout and forum, and thereafter a term for the hallmarks of their style: sidebars and wide margins, opposition to “representational images of monsters that fix them in the GM’s mind”, and frequent asides with advise on how to run situations to a GM. Despised by a small clique on social media.
Session Three: the practice of a DM checking in with their players after the third session of play to see if tweaks should be made to subject matter, PC builds/party composition, or campaign structure. Debate fails to conclude whether this is sensitive and obligatory or infantilizing and forbidden.
Terra Somnia/TS/Som: OSR/GSR decolonization theodicy in which rather than a mythic underworld or monstrous frontier, dungeoneering occurs in a shared dreamworld shaped by the collective unconscious. It is hoped that by reducing orcs to mental figments reflective of the PCs and making the adventure spaces truly insubstantial, the common D&D parallels to the wild west and imperialism are lessened.
Angax: an attempt to excise Gygax from D&D, reconstructing the early game but eschewing components that can be traced to Gary Gygax specifically. Initially a thought experiment, first played by anti-Gygax types, and by 2030 unironically enjoyed as a different yet familiar “retrocousin”.
SWORDREAM: It’s back!
Aftermath poster: pejorative term for people who publicly explain social dramas or lay out sensitive histories of social scenes. Successfully stigmatized to the point that old arguments are frequently reheated out of s newcomer’s ignorance.
Bonneted: angry about or disturbed by drama, instead of coldly matter-of-fact. Pejorative
Hannalike: imitating the style of blogger Hannalogue Hacka, who emerges in 2028 with creative dungeons and adventures all shared in photographs of handwritten work on lined paper. Hanna never uses a word processor, instead using prolific pictures of handwritten notes. Quickly growing her fanbase despite an odious personal habit of being very insulting to everyone she interacts with and expecting it to be taken as charming, her downfall comes in late 2031 for one of the usual reasons.
Sorkerer: out-of-nowhere pejorative for people who play sorcerers. They’re now imagined as having bad politics and interrupting others.
Brainhead: out-of-nowhere pejorative for people who play classless fantasy games. They’re now imagined as thinking they’re smarter and edgier than everyone else and talking for too long at a time.
Bowler: finally, we’ll do an out-of-nowhere pejorative for people who play solo RPGs. They’re now imagined as “invading actual RPG spaces” and being picky eaters.
This post is so alto it's insane
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