A scurrilous guide to language in Eberron
After episode 0 of Bryan's Eldeen Reaches campaign, some people were talking about swearing in DnD, and how most of the four letter words that we toss around detract from the setting. If other people are interested, I think it'd be really cool to make a small compendium of bad langauge for Eberron on this blog. We could do just words (i.e. Clank is a racial slur for Warforged), or words along with etymology (i.e. Swap is a racial slur for changlings. There used to be a practice in Sharn's brothels that if a client came looking for "something extra" that the manager couldn't provide, they would send in a Changling, refered to as a "swap" to sate the client's yearning. The practice isn't that widespread any more, but because of how many people go through Sharn every day, the term quickly picked up in other places.)
If we do do this though, what sort of vulgarities would we need? Racial slurs would probably be good. Where do we draw the line? Damn or curses is probably still fine. And what about words that are actually still connected with their meaning (for example, would we need an equivelant for shit?).
What do you guys think? Is this a bad idea to start with? Is it interesting but not worth the effort? Is it great? Comment on it, now!
If we do do this though, what sort of vulgarities would we need? Racial slurs would probably be good. Where do we draw the line? Damn or curses is probably still fine. And what about words that are actually still connected with their meaning (for example, would we need an equivelant for shit?).
What do you guys think? Is this a bad idea to start with? Is it interesting but not worth the effort? Is it great? Comment on it, now!
posted by Mercutio at 4:18 PM
6 Comments:
Well, I really don't see the problem, I mean, what swears are you making a reference to? I see what you're saying about racial phrases and stuff, but that just can complicate things by making you have to be like "Lets, see, I'm in Richard's campaign, so I'll say flibbidyjow, instead of ranktslplasmum like it is in Peter's campaign." Also, on that note. I just remembered the word "hugjob" Oh man, good times.
Certainly slurs that have a direct reference to modern life, and slurs towards specific ethnicities or religions/ideologies detract from the realism of it, but I don't think that we need to get rid of, say, "fuck." To use an example of some ridiculously immersive fantasy, the book Perdido Street Station uses preexisting profanity to pretty good effect. Besides, invented fantasy words don't carry the same weight. They're useful in some situations, but in others I'd just kind of feel like an idiot.
My rule for the upcoming campaign of mine is that you can use whatever words you want, as long as it's not something like "Jesus Christ" or something.
On that note, in the excellent game "Beyond Good and Evil" I totally lost respect for it when one of the main characters (who was a pig like humanoid) kept shouting "JESUS CHRIST" whenever anything dangerous happened.
fuck fuck fuck fuck shit shit shit shit
...but seriously, a word like fuck has a strong meaning and feel to it, I know we are trying to RP and all, but changing substituting something like fuck with some made up word won't have the same magnitude. It's like the word farg, sorry but IMHO that word did not work. What the farg just does not mean the same thing as what the fuck. Hearing fuck or shit, triggers soemthing in my brain letting me know that someone is serious or pissed or whatever. Maybe make up some lesser profanity, but you can't replace fuck.
fuck....FUCK YEAH!!!
You're gonna need a montage!
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