Tabletop RPG Glossary

Greetings, adventurer! This page is a collection of terms used in the TTRPG hobby, industry, community, and beyond. While it may be a tad light-weight at this moment, it is being populated as time goes on. New terms will show up in the Dungeon Delve weekly newsletter. Consider subscribing to receive tabletop RPG news, free resources, quirky finds, RPG deals and discounts, and more!

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Advantage: A dice mechanic providing a player the benefit of an increased chance of success by rolling two dice instead of one, and using the higher roll.

Alignment: A designation of a characters ethical or philosophical stance in relation to the society and environment of the game setting. The most common representation is the “nine alignment” system, a matrix between law and chaos, good and evil. Various TTRPGs either include alignment, devise their own system, or do not include it in lieu of other personality indicators.

Area of Effect (AoE): An area or shape of physical space which a spell or attacks effects take place, used to determine the number of creatures or objects affected.

Armor Class (AC): The difficulty to hit an opponent during an attack or targeted spell, represented as a numerical value.

Badwrongfun: Characterized as enjoyment derived from an RPG in an incorrect, improper, or even immoral way. Its uses are varied and subjective, and can include criticism of a style of play, an embrace of chaotic and unstructured play, a shortform for ideas like “murderhobo-ism”, or as a deliberate bridge between rules which are undefined or poorly integrated.

BBEG: A term standing for “Big Bad Evil Guy/Gal”, representing an overarching antagonist pulling the strings and creating conflict within a setting and against the protagonists.

Beer & Pretzels: Not always in-person, but with camaraderie and entertainment as the cornerstone. A relaxed style of gameplay where high stakes, and deep levels of setting engagement are not necessary.

Black Curtain: A metaphorical barrier which blocks out all sight, and hides knowledge from the players in order to preserve the power, mystery, and machinations of a game master and the adventure itself. A GMs screen is a physical example of this.

Called Shot: An attack action which aims for a specific body part in attempt to gain a bonus or special effect, such as tripping, disarming, subduing, or causing greater damage. This often comes with a higher risk of failure.

Cozy-Chaotic: A newly emergent term describing games or playstyles which are an unlikely balance of quaint and warm, yet playful in a way that is mischievous or disruptive within the game world. This chaotic element is often approached in a shared and consensual way performed in good faith between players.

Crawl: A scenario in RPGs where characters move across a geographic area divided into small segments. Segments represent paths, points, or POIs, and can be either revealed, or hidden until discovered. Crawls can be a useful mechanism for open exploration in RPGs.

Critical Hit/Miss: An action or attack with a powerful outcome, often as the rare result of a dice roll, such as with a d20. A hit means great success (20), while a miss spells utter disaster (1)

Crowd Control: Attacks, spells, and effects designed to manipulate the actions, placement, or movement of enemies in order to better control the terms of the encounter. (pushing enemies away, pulling them close, stunning a group, etc)

Crunch: The mechanical complexity of a tabletop RPG, usually determined by the amount of rules, interacting systems, dice rolls, mathematics, and more. High crunch games have many variables, but are difficult to learn. Low crunch games are easy to pick up and play, but might lack a deeper experience for some players.

Dice Bell Curve: In TTRPGs, referring the probability of obtaining any specific end value when rolling multiple dice, often demonstrated with a numerical line graph.

Drama (Threefold Model): Style which values in-game actions creating a satisfying storyline, whether it be delivering on genre tropes or story beats, or creating meaningful dramatic arc in character interactions. (“dramaism”, “dramatist”)

Dump Stat: A low-value character attribute accepted in order to allow for better values in other attributes. For example, placing an Intelligence stat at a very low number so a player can afford to max out their Strength stat.

Dungeon Crawl: A crawl in which heroes navigate a labyrinth of monsters, traps, puzzles, and treasure. Most often, the setting is a dungeon with a square grid, but can include any other dense environment that’s an arrangement of interior rooms and passages.

Encounter: Any moment on a characters journey where they stop to interact with their environment. This can include a confrontation with monsters, crossing paths with another NPC, discovering an object to investigate, a dangerous trap, a clever puzzle, and more.

Experience Points (XP): Metric to determine the amount of experience a player character has from their past adventures, usually calculated from individual actions, battles, and accomplishments each represented with a numerical value. Upon reaching a specific sum of XP, a character may gain a level.

Exploding Die: A dice-rolling mechanic in some TTRPGs where rolling the highest number on the die prompts the user to roll that die again, and add the amounts together. This can be continued and accrue a larger and larger end value as long as the highest number is rolled on each resulting die.

Fail-Forward: A concept in gaming where failure progresses the events in-game, rather than halting them. The party stumbles, but the adventure moves forward. This can also be reframed as “success, but with a cost”.

Fudging: The act of reporting the end results of a dice roll, most often rolled in secret, to be something other than what it truly is. This is an act by the GM specifically. Depending on the situation and game style, fudging is at best an editorial action to nudge the flow of the game in a specific direction, and at worst is redundant and deceitful to the players.

Game (Threefold Model): Style which values fair challenge to the players of an RPG, whether it be through tactical combat, intellectual puzzle-solving, intriguing social dynamics, or other in-game means. (“gamism”, “gamist”)

GM Screen: A gamemasters screen (GM screen) is an accessory made out of cardboard or other light-but-rugged material used by the game master to hide notes, physical items, and dice from the players in order to preserve the mystery of the game.

Grognard: French term for “Old Soldier / Grumbler”, it represents a hobby gamer who prefers older systems, games, and ways of playing, often begrudging the new. Usually referred in context of OSR vs Modern, the Edition Wars, or as far back as wargamings transition to TTRPGs.

Hex Crawl: A crawl that utilizes a hex-grid which lends to more organic movement. This is often appropriate for larger geographic areas, or those not as well suited by square-or-rectangular segments. (Example: outer space, wilderness areas, exotic construction)

Hit Points (HP): A representation of a characters health, resistance to harm, or closeness to death, often times represented by a number, slots, or tally compared against a maximum value.

House Rule: A rule, or set of rules, practiced at a TTRPG gaming table or campaign that either appends or counters certain rules-as-written in order to better fit the preference or playstyle of the game master and/or the players.

Initiative: Score determining the readiness of a character. In most games, this determines the order which character perform their turns during action sequences (combat, encounters, chases, puzzles, etc)

Lasersharking: The act of combining two or more ‘cool’ elements in one setting, character, or game, based on the erroneous assumption that combining two cool things will result in something twice as cool. This term originated on RPGGeek.com.

LBEG: The minor villain equivalent of the BBEG. While not responsible for the main conflict, the LBEG can be essential for furthering it, or obstructing the heroes ability to overcome it. Often times, a LBEG serves as the villain of a single story arc, a recurring character obstructing the hero separate from the BBEG, or an elite and proactive minion whose impact is enough to stand out independently.

Megadungeon: A massive, sprawling complex of rooms and mazes large enough to be its own campaign setting, with countless dangers and treasures. A megadungeon may be treated as an ever deep location to consistently revisit over the campaign, or one to be lost in across multiple sessions.

Metagaming: A players use of real-life knowledge concerning the state of the game to determine their next action. Often seen as exploiting the game by ignoring the necessary boundary between player and character.

Modern RPG: Referring to RPGs and systems that de-emphasize the dangerous and high stakes randomized elements in favor of balance, character optimization, and formulaic adventures, designed to be approachable, accessible, and consistent.

Murderhobo: A player (or group of players) whose character wanders from place to place within the campaign world, killing things and moving on. This play-style of often at the expense of more social or roleplay centric play.

Narrative Control: The degree of influence which players or the GM have over the direction and development of an RPGs overall story. Some systems (such as FATE, Powered by the Apocalypse, Blades in the Dark, etc) distribute narrative control among the players, while others embrace GM-led, pre-determined story paths, or random chance.

Open Game License (OGL): A public copyright license that may be used by game developers to grant permission to copy, modify, and redistribute content and mechanics. This license allows for third party publishers to release unique compatible content legally.

OSR (Old School Renaissance): Referring to RPGs and systems that embrace the older days which were grounded in “tough but fair” play, including more fatal challenges, wild odds, and experiences unrestricted by newer, imposed formulas in favor of greater freedom.

Point Crawl: A crawl that leverages sequential points connected by lines rather than a grid. This provides exclusive focus on POIs while eliminating empty space. Pathways can be linear or branching.

Point Of Interest (POI): A location within geographic space in an RPG world that is relevant to the world, character, plot, or encounter.

Quantum Ogre: An obstacle which the game master causes to happen regardless of the path (or choices) of the players. While it can be employed to save on GM planning, it often invalidates player actions by creating an “illusion of choice” which the players can easily see through.

Railroading: When a game master forces the story in a particular direction against the will of the players, or imposes actions or behaviors upon a player character without their consent.

Retroclone: A modern RPG which evokes the style of a classic RPG. Often this is done by emulating art, atmosphere, and rules commonly found in games of the time in order present a vintage or nostalgic experience.

Rule 0: A stand-in for a common rule at most tables, where “the GM has the last say”, regardless what rules-as-written dictates. Its a rule that requires the GM and players to agree upon a social contract and trust-level at the table.

Rulings, not Rules: A slogan popular within RPG circles, especially OSR. When a situation encounters a lack of rules, rules which don’t fit the situation, or desire for a specific course of action, it is up to the table to determine the best outcome. (I.E. a player describes what they are looking to do without restricting themselves to the character sheet, and the DM/table uses common sense to determine the roll, risk, and result.)

This can emphasize momentary solutions to unconventional situations, and help with the flow of the game, but can sometimes come into conflict with “Rules as Written”.

Safety Valve: Turning it releases built up pressure. These are incidents built into a module, or moments put into a live game, designed to ease the atmosphere and tension at a table. Usually a humorous event or background intrusion used to lighten the mood after a high pressure circumstance in-world.

Sandbox: A campaign type which players are empowered to choose their path within the setting. This often takes the form of an open world free to explore and discover.

Scene Framing: As a GM, this is the art of not just setting a scene, but determining how it is presented to players, what their paths are, how they can approach it, and how they might complete it.

Simulation (Threefold Model): Style which values resolving in-game events based on game-world considerations, and discouraging story interventions, instead opting to keep the game consistent to the consequences/“realism” of the setting. (“simulationism”, “simulationist”)

Splat Book: A supplement for a particular RPG that is not necessary for play, but devoted to a particular facet, such as a class, faction, location, or other piece of lore, aimed at providing new rule options and scenarios to the game. This term originated in the 1990s to describe White Wolf Studios (Word of Darkness) supplements of various labels which were summarized with an asterisk/splat.

System Reference Document (SRD): A reference of roleplaying game mechanics released under an open license to allow third party creators to legally build and publish compatible content. These SRDs are often free and available for download from the publishers website.

Threefold Model: An early 1997 model of RPG design theory which analyzes individual styles of play, and the outcomes of play at a table. The model includes Game, Drama, and Simulation. These values are not exclusive, but help illustrate an individuals game preferences.

Total Party Kill (TPK): When an entire adventuring party is defeated and killed during a session. This situation often occurs as the result of a no-win scenario, a deadly encounter, a series of terrible consecutive rolls, or exceedingly bad decisions made by player characters

Urban Crawl: A crawl in which characters must navigate a city or urban center filled with streets, buildings, neighborhoods, and more. Segments can be gridded or point-based.

Variant Rules: Optional guidelines that modify or replace standard rules in a system, often to customize the experience, adjust difficulty, or introduce unique mechanics.

Virtual Tabletop (VTT): A digital platform for running pen-and-paper RPGs and board games online. Provides visual assets, basic dice rolling, quick reference to the rules, and even a means for voice or text chat between players. … Some common examples: Roll20, Foundry, Owlbear Rodeo, Fantasy Grounds, etc.

West Marches: A style of campaign and play for tabletop RPGs that is centered on a shared sandbox setting, a large group of players with irregular schedules, and no regular plot with an emphasis on exploration and player choice.

ALSO, you can suggest your favorite terms in the comments below!