Below are a list of common terms associated with RPGs. For Video Games see our Glossary - Video Games, and for Board Games, see our Glossary - Board Games. Thanks to Board Game Geek for many of these definitions.
Adventure - A single challenge, often short enough to be completed in one session. Often makes up one smaller piece of larger story with a beginning and an end, but may be stand alone. Contrast with Campaign.
BoardGameGeek.com - A website devoted to gaming of all kinds, including board and card games. The BoardGameGeek Glossary is the source for many of the definitions in this lexicon. You can view the (much longer) glossary here.
Adventure Seed - a short description of a setup for an adventure, intended as a jumping off point for a GM to expand into an adventure.
Attack of Opportunity - Special attacks that a character can make as a reaction to some game event or Character / NPC action.
Battle mat - A piece of paper, vinyl, cardboard, lucite, or other substance marked off in a grid (hexagons, squares, offset squares, triangles) for use in simulating combat. Often they are designed to be drawn on with an erasable marker of some kind. Usually used with miniatures to determine precise position information during play.
Boffer LARP - Boffer LARP is a subset of LARPing usually ran around combat reenactment. Players dress up as combatants and fight using foam weaponry or tickets to represent various skills, spells or effects. It may range from small group and skirmish to full reenactments among hundreds of people. So called for the common term for the type of weapon simulator most commonly used.
Broad Skills - Skills that cover a wide range of activities, such as "Wheeled Vehicles," "Medical," "Melee," or "Artisan." Systems with broad skills tend to have short lists, often 30-60 skills. Usually seen in design discussions.
Called Shot - An attack made by a character which targets a particular area on an opponent or object. Depending on the system a called shot will trade off increased difficulty for increased damage and/or an additional effect. See Hit Location.
Campaign - A longer story told by chaining or linking a number of adventures together. Sometimes, one single very long adventure can be called a "campaign". Whereas an adventure may only encompass one to three levels of character improvement, a campaign will allow Player Characters to achieve much more levels of character improvement. Also, the story and overall goals tend to be much more epic than an adventure. Campaigns almost always require more than two or three gaming sessions to complete.
Campaign Setting - The (fictitious) world where a specific adventure or campaign takes place. Lord of the Rings stories are set in the campaign setting of Middle Earth.
Canon - Original material, or referring to "official source material", which is created or accepted by an RPG’s designer(s). Canon is often used to ensure continuity within a RPG or fantasy setting. May refer to mechanics or fluff material.
Character - The persona being played by a player within the context of a game.
Character Points - A pool of points used to advance a character's abilities / level / skills / etc. Players often begin with a large pool to design a character, and then earn more as they adventure with the character.
Character Sheet - The document containing a character's basic traits, skills, carried equipment, background, etc. Historically a single sheet of paper, but is more commonly becoming an electronic document or spreadsheet and/or may be made up of multiple sheets.
Class - The "main area of expertise", “role”, or "job" for a player character. Typical classes in role-playing games with a fantasy setting are fighter, cleric, thief, or wizard. The chosen class typically affects what skills / abilities the player character can learn / use. Classes usually incorporate fixed set of abilities appropriate to the fiction the class represents.
Class-Based - An RPG using character classes to define player character job or role within a group, commonly limiting a player character to one or two areas of expertise. For example, a Fighter class is generally best at melee combat, a Magic User class is generally best at spells and their use in a game.
Core Rules - The subset of rules that is basic and core to the game. The rules are commonly shared between different games published by the same publisher, (often culled out into a separate book to save duplicate information in each book published). In most cases the core rules are the only rules needed to play an RPG.
Critical - A "critical hit". Generally speaking, a successful attack that causes greater than normal damage to the target. Depending on the RPG may also inflict negative a status or effect onto the target hit.
Cross-Class - 1) Often used to reference a skill, or ability that may be used by more than one class. 2) Used to mean a skill, or ability generally reserved for a specific class which a different class may pick up, often at a reduced level of effectiveness.
Damage - Any harm that comes to characters is usually expressed as damage. It comes in many flavours, not the least of which are: Normal damage (in some systems with multiple damage types, a type of damage with potentially lethal side effects, but mostly likely to stun or injure. Also called half-lethal damage. In several other games, used as a merely as a contrast to Lethal or Aggrivated Damage), Stun Damage (in some systems with multiple types of damage, Stun may be a type of damage resulting only in unconsciousness or impairment of function), Aggravated Damage (a synonym for Lethal Damage). Damage types may be distinguished by the particular kind of hit point that is reduced, as with Composure Damage.
Difficulty Check or Difficulty Class - The player must meet or exceed this, (often a number of a die roll + modifiers), to succeed in an action resolution.
Disadvantage - Skills or traits the character has that deter him in the course of game play. Often set at time of character creation and used to enhance / encourage role-playing.
Dungeon Crawl - A role-playing game scenario or adventure in which the main focus is exploration of the environment, engaging and fighting any monsters, and collecting treasure. Commonly set in a dungeon made up of hallway and rooms with little to no story line.
Experience Points - A system for improving characters in role-playing games. Typically, a character will be awarded experience points for succeeding at challenges, like defeating a monster or completing a mission. After a certain amount of collected experience points, the player character will improve, usually either by increased stats or by achieving new skills.
Game Master - Term referring to the person runs the adventure, tells the story, determines what action resolutions mean, etc. for their players. This person, (or persons), runs also all of the NPCs.
Game Master Player Character - Term for character that is part of the party, and played by the GM as if the GM were "just another player." Though it is entirely a personal choice for the game group, it may be perceived as bad form by the community.
Hit Location - In detailed systems the actual location of a particular hit made be rolled after a successful attack. Damage and effect of the attack may the attack may be modified based on where the strike lands. Some systems don't always randomize location, but allow players to make a "called shot" to target a particular area.
Hit Points - A number which is used to track how much punishment a character can take in combat before collapsing. (Possible dying.) Often subtracting from the total until a character reaches zero or lower.
House Rule - A new or altered version of current rule used by a given group. This rule is not part of the published material for the game.
Karma - A method of deciding the outcome of the event where the GM chooses the result based on a static attribute of the acting character (your Strength, Dexterity, etc). Originates with Ron Edward's design essay, System Matters.
LARP - Live Action Role Playing. Role-playing as a theater, without the use of character skills, die rolling or cards. Instead, players assume set roles, and then act them out in an improvised theater play. In fantasy LARPs, combat is usually resolved using latex (rubber) swords. Huge scale LARPS are held outside and can involve hundreds or thousands of players.
Lethal Damage - Also called Killing damage. In systems with multiple damage types, lethal damage has more debilitating effects, require longer healing time, be affected by armor differently and/or may kill the target. See Subdual Damage.
Level - A seriously overloaded word in the RPG world, usually used to refer to a clump of related changes that happen at once when a character advances, though often put to more vigorous duty. In AD&D the term was used to refer to Character Level, Spell Level, Dungeon Level and Monster Level. Context usually was enough to resolve, so a sentence such as "My 3rd level fighter fought 4th level monsters on the 5th level and with hit with a 6th level fireball" could be understood.
Line of Effect - The term used to describe if an effect, (spell, attack, trap, moving object, etc), may affect something, (Another creature, object, location, etc.). Most often used to determine if something targeted may be affected by an effect.
Line of Sight - The term used to describe the ability of one creature to perceive something, (another creature, object, location, etc.), at any distance. Most often used to determine if something may be targeted.
Metagame - 1) Things discussed about the rules by the GM and players as opposed to things happening in-game (by the characters). 2) To calculate success/failure of an action by reviewing character stats and game mechanics, as opposed to acting based on character personality and what the ‘character’ knows.
Metaplot - Figuratively, "the plot about the plot", where the second plot is what develops at the gaming table. Usually an ongoing storyline written by the setting publishers which changes or moves forward the setting over the course the supplements. Sometimes called metastory.
Miniature - a small model representing a person, persons, a vehicle, or other pawn or actor to be manipulated during the combat simulation portion of the game. Sometimes these can be very elaborate (highly detailed metal sculptures, hand painted). Strictly speaking, only those that are three-dimensional representations are considered miniatures, but in some circles the term has been broadened to encompass any token used for representation.
Multi-Class - Combining or using aspects from more than once class / role in a single character. Similar to Gestalt, but frequently done with a sacrifice. (Halting all progression on one of the classes and only advancing the other one, or notably higher costs to advance either class).
Narrow Skills - Skills that cover a fairly small rage of closely related activities, such as "Drive Passenger Auto", "First Aid", "Broadsword", or "Painter". Systems with narrow skills tend to have long skill lists, often 100-200 skills. Usually seen in design discussions.
Non-Player Character - Any creature in a game that is not controlled exclusively by a player. Most often run by the GM, in certain cases a player may determine actions of a Non-Player Character.
Old-School or Old-School Revival or Old School Renaissance - 1) A style of game that harkens back to the early days of role-playing and seeks to capture what was best about those games. 2) Often used by older gamers to refer to the time when they first started playing RPGs.
Party Charter - 1) In-character document establishing the adventuring company, its shares, inheritance and dissolution procedures. 2) Out-of-character document which may include the elements of definition 1, as well as other aspects of play and evironment, including roles in party, snack schedules, and attendance policy. It is a form of Social Contract.
Point-Based - Having characters that are 'constructed' with a budget of points for attributes, skills, abilities, etc; generally as opposed to being determined randomly at character creation.
Role-play - The act of taking on the role of a character. May be done in any of several modes, including 1st-person dialog, 3rd person narration of action, or even 1st person improvisational acting.
Rules Lawyer - 1) A person known for arguing GM rules calls by recourse to quoting the rules from the rulebooks. 2) A person who disrupts play by excessive references to rules in play. 3) A player who misrepresents the rules for their own advantage in play.
Skills - Area of proficiency. In a typical role playing game, a character will have a number of ‘skills’, namely things they are especially good (or especially not good) at. For example “hide”, “discover hidden things”, “hit with a sword”, etc. Skills are often trainable so they may improve during the course of the game. For more information see Broad Skills, Narrow Skills.
Subdual Damage - Also called Non-Lethal or Bashing damage. In systems with multiple damage types, subdual damage can generally be healed more quickly. It may be affected differently by armor and usually results in unconsciousness rather than death. See Lethal Damage.
System - 1) The big-picture of a game's mechanical choices, including not just rules but also design philosophy etc. Or from a story point of view: the method in a game by which new facts are added to the fictional setting. 2) Geekdo defines this as a set of base rules used by more than one RPG.
Trait(s) - A distinguishing characteristic of a character. This could be the ability for a character to size up a fight better than most or perhaps the person has exceptional leadership skills. It doesn't have to be positive - a bad trait could be a phobia or uncontrollable greed. Some games give advantages/disadvantages for traits. Traits can be further defined by being assigned a numeric or textual value to indicate the competency of the ability being described by the name of the Trait. When numerical, this is normally called an Ability (Typically Strength, Agility, Dexterity, Intelligence, Spirit).
Virtual Tabletop - A computer program or website/web application that enables live play online. Usually involves a randomizer for live die rolls and may also include maps, counters, character sheets and even rules references. VTs enable play through Voice over Internet, often on a global scale.