FoG Euphemism & Acronym Shortage
Posted: Fri Feb 13, 2009 6:09 pm
Recently I've become quite concerned over the lack of development of a comprehensive set of acronyms and/or euphemistic phraseology building up around FoG.
Other rulesets enjoy a healthy ecosystem of linguistic creativity surrounding the core rules, with slang and alternative ways of describing core rule components, tactics, strategems and army compositions.
But with FoG having been out for I guess a year or so now, we have developed the paltry additional vocabulary of just 2 phrases - the "Dom Rom Swarm", "Shooty Cavalry", and (arguably) "The Santa, Herm and Doo-dah Thingy".
I'm rather dissappointed with this, and worry thats its a sign of lack of vibrancy in the FoG community - maybe we are all at risk of becoming a slavish cult accepting everything the rules and list authors spoon feed us unquestioningly... and we all know where that leads to in gaming terms, don't we...?
Personally I'd like to think we, working together in an international brotherhood of solidarity, creativity and alcohol fuelled irreverence, could fight back against this looming dark and threatening monoculture, and start creating, sharing, and actively encouraging (firstly in our own small local groups, then onto competitions, and hey, maybe some day, at international competitions as well..) a grass roots movement to make up new silly ways of expressing concepts, tactics and army names in FoG.
To lead this charge towards a more expansive vocabulary I'd like to offer my starting point. This developed quite organically this weekend at the Badcon doubles in Burton when our Classical Greek Spartan army was engaged in many, many combats, and quite accidentally we started to refer to the POA for "spearmen" as being
"+1, men with sticks"
This did start to spread, and several of our opponents started saying (of their POA for 4 ranks of pikemen)
"+1 for men with bigger sticks, and +1 for more men with bigger sticks"
Now, its not much, its not big, and its not clever. But it was an addition to the linguistic tapestry of FoG.
And I for one do not want to see it wither and die for want of care and encouragement.
So, I encourage you all to take this up, take it to your clubs and competitions, and spread the word.
And if you have any more words to spread - please add them to this thread and we can all start the good work !
Other rulesets enjoy a healthy ecosystem of linguistic creativity surrounding the core rules, with slang and alternative ways of describing core rule components, tactics, strategems and army compositions.
But with FoG having been out for I guess a year or so now, we have developed the paltry additional vocabulary of just 2 phrases - the "Dom Rom Swarm", "Shooty Cavalry", and (arguably) "The Santa, Herm and Doo-dah Thingy".
I'm rather dissappointed with this, and worry thats its a sign of lack of vibrancy in the FoG community - maybe we are all at risk of becoming a slavish cult accepting everything the rules and list authors spoon feed us unquestioningly... and we all know where that leads to in gaming terms, don't we...?
Personally I'd like to think we, working together in an international brotherhood of solidarity, creativity and alcohol fuelled irreverence, could fight back against this looming dark and threatening monoculture, and start creating, sharing, and actively encouraging (firstly in our own small local groups, then onto competitions, and hey, maybe some day, at international competitions as well..) a grass roots movement to make up new silly ways of expressing concepts, tactics and army names in FoG.
To lead this charge towards a more expansive vocabulary I'd like to offer my starting point. This developed quite organically this weekend at the Badcon doubles in Burton when our Classical Greek Spartan army was engaged in many, many combats, and quite accidentally we started to refer to the POA for "spearmen" as being
"+1, men with sticks"
This did start to spread, and several of our opponents started saying (of their POA for 4 ranks of pikemen)
"+1 for men with bigger sticks, and +1 for more men with bigger sticks"
Now, its not much, its not big, and its not clever. But it was an addition to the linguistic tapestry of FoG.
And I for one do not want to see it wither and die for want of care and encouragement.
So, I encourage you all to take this up, take it to your clubs and competitions, and spread the word.
And if you have any more words to spread - please add them to this thread and we can all start the good work !
