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Dungeons and Dragons Lingo & Vocabulary Guide
DIR By: Penny
Date: July 8, 2022, 3:59 am
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HTML https://sordbord.com/dungeons-and-dragons-lingo-vocabulary-guide/
HOW TO PLAY
Dungeons and Dragons Lingo & Vocabulary Guide
When you are learning to play Dungeons & Dragons, there is a lot
of common lingo and vocabulary used by players that arent in
any official rulebooks or are acronyms of the rules that you may
not associate with a specific rule. This can make it difficult
for new players to understand what is being said during a game,
or if they are reading forums about D&D.
This page will assist you in learning the most commonly used
terms as well as a few others.
Dungeons and Dragons Lingo
This is a list of common terms used when playing D&D. It
includes common lingo or slang, as well as words that are
commonly used in the D&D community but arent part of the rules.
3rd party content from an unofficial publisher that is not
Wizards of the Coast.
Beer & pretzel game a casual game style where the focus is
more on fun than rules.
Botch to botch a dice roll is to roll really poorly, usually a
1.
Broken when a game mechanic doesnt work well or is
overpowered or underpowered.
Buff Or buffing, when you do something (eg. cast a spell or
drink a potion) to add benefits to someone.
Character interaction the interactions between characters when
playing.
Core rules content from the core rulebooks, that is the
Players Hand Book, the Dungeon Masters Guide, and the Monster
Manual.
Crit critical hit (see Critical Hit definition below in
vocabulary).
Dungeon crawl a style of play where you are generally romping
through a dungeon and fighting monsters rather than focusing on
a storyline and roleplaying.
Fluff used to describe backstory or story descriptions that
have no impact on the game.
Homebrew content or rule sets the DM has made up.
House rule a rule created by the DM for only your game.
Metagaming a character unfairly using the knowledge they have
acquired out of the game within the game.
Min-maxing when a player creates their character with the
intent of making their stats as powerful as possible.
Murderhobo a player who always chooses to fight and murder
people rather than social interaction and trying to work things
out in a different way.
Nat20 rolling a natural 20, i.e. rolling a 20 on a 20-sided
dice, which generally is an instant success or critical hit.
Nerf Or nerfing, is the opposite of buffing, that is when you
make a player weaker in some way.
Number crunching how much you refer to the rules of the game
and how much you are looking at stats rather than role-playing.
One-shot a single stand-alone game session.
Railroading when the DM leads the characters down a specific
path on their adventure.
Reskin changing the flavor or description of a monster or item
to something else in order to make it fit the storyline better.
Rule of Cool when the DM allows something because its fun.
Rules lawyer a player who wants to stick to the rules exactly
as written and will always call them out if misplayed, often at
the expense of the fun of the game.
Sandbox a style of campaign that is a very open world and lets
the players do and explore whatever they want.
Slog/Grind when something feels boring or a drag, often refers
to a fight, but can refer to adventuring and traveling too.
Tank the toughest character who goes in front during battles
to absorb all the damage for the team.
Vanilla a game without homebrew content, played according to
the rules.
Dungeons and Dragons Acronyms
An acronym is a word formed from the initial letters of another
word, for example, D&D. D&D players love to use acronyms to
shorten words because lets face it, we are way too lazy to say
The Players Handbook when we could say The PHB. Here is a
list of commonly used acronyms:
2d6 a way of showing dice in the game, 2d6 means you should
roll two 6-sided dice.
5e 5th edition of the game.
AC Armor class (how good your armor is at protecting you from
being hit).
AoE area of effect, that is the area a spell affects.
AD&D Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, a very old-school version of
D&D rules.
BBEG big bad evil guy.
CR challenge rating (how difficult a monster is).
d20 a twenty-sided dice.
DM dungeon master.
DC difficulty class, which means how difficult something is to
do. Its a score you need to roll above in order to
successfully be able to accomplish the task.
EP, GP, SP, CP electrum, gold, silver, and copper pieces, the
currency in the game.
FLGS friendly local gaming store.
HD hit dice (the number of dice rolls to determine the health
of a character or monster).
HP hit points (the health of a character or monster).
LFG looking for a group, used online when posting that you are
looking to join a gaming group.
NPC non-player character, a character that is played by the
DM.
OP overpowered, when a character or monster stat is not
balanced and makes them too powerful.
PHB, DMG, MM the Players Handbook, Dungeon Masters Guide, and
Monster Manual, the 3 core rulebooks for D&D.
RAW rules as written, anything official.
RAI rules as intended, it might not be official but it makes
sense.
Str, Dex, Con, Int, Wis, Chr Strength, Dexterity,
Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma, the 6 key
attributes of a character.
TPK total party kill.
TTRPG a tabletop roleplaying game which is the type of game
that D&D is.
WotC Wizards of the Coast who are the company that makes D&D
Dungeons and Dragons Vocabulary
Im not going to go through the definition of everything in the
rule books, if you are going to play D&D you should at least
read the basic rules and have an understanding of the game. But
even after reading the rule books, there are still a bunch of
terms that are commonly used that you may not have fully picked
up on. So here are a few of these terms, along with examples of
how theyre used in the game.
Ability scores The six attributes of your character, Strength,
Dexterity, Constitution, etc. that say how good your character
is at something.
Ability check a check where you roll a d20 and add the
relevant ability to see if you are successful at an action.
Ability modifier the number you add to your dice as a result
of your ability score.
Attack roll A roll made to determine if your attack is
successful, generally, you roll a d20 and add one of your stats,
such as strength, to determine your final roll.
Advantage a rule in the game that lets you roll two d20 dice
and take the highest roll.
Alignment The alignment of a creature is its moral code.
Armor class Armor protects your character from attacks, it
works by requiring the attacker to roll a higher number than
your armor class in order to hit you.
Backstory the history of your character or an NPC.
Battle map a gridded map used to represent combat with
miniatures.
Campaign a series of interlinked adventures telling a larger
overarching story over numerous sessions.
Critical hit when you roll a natural 20, your hit does extra
damage.
Disadvantage a rule in the game that makes you roll two d20
dice and take the lower roll.
Downtime the period between adventures where you are doing
other activities.
Encounter when players go through a situation, which can be a
social encounter, an exploration encounter, or a combat
encounter. Because combat is the most common type of encounter,
an encounter is often used to refer to a fight.
Forgotten Realms a very popular setting that a lot of the D&D
lore and official campaigns take place in.
Modifier the number of additional points you add to your dice
roll because of a skill or ability you have.
Module a pre-published adventure book.
Movement speed how fast you move, generally translated to how
many squares in the grid you can move at once.
Natural 20 when you roll a 20 (as opposed to getting a 20 with
modifiers).
Roll for initiative roll to determine the order of turns in
combat.
Ruling when the DM decides on a certain outcome.
Saving throw when you roll and save against an effect.
Session zero a pre-session to a new campaign where
expectations and whats allowed in the game are generally
discussed.
Spell slots the number of spells you know and can cast per
day.
Spell level how powerful a spell is, the level of spells a
character can cast is determined by their character level.
Conclusion
D&D is a complex game with lots of rules and terminology. As the
game has evolved, the community has developed its own
terminology and ways of describing things.
Hopefully, weve helped you decipher some of the D&D lingo so
you can better understand whats going on and get more enjoyment
out of this fantastic game!
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