Glossary

Board games come with lots of new terminology:

Modern game: Games made since 2000, huge variety but generally more skill and less luck dependant than a classic game

Classic game: Older game, widely known, often reliant on luck

Euro game: A style of modern game which is less luck dependant and is lower in conflict

Amerithrash / Ameritrash: See Thematic Game

Thematic game: A game with a strong theme, often with miniatures/ models,   involving more conflict and luck than a Euro  game

Hybrid game: A lot of modern games are blurring the lines between euro and thematic with elements of both, i.e. a deep theme but low luck or some conflict.

Theme: This is the setting or the story of the game, for example Vikings, The Cold War, or even a TV show like Firefly or Sons of Anarchy

Deck builder: A common mechanic of modern games, where you start with 10 or so action cards of which 5 or 6 random cards will be available to you each turn, and during the game you ‘buy’ more cards to increase your deck, allow you to specialise in a strategy

Sprue: The cardboard sheet the tokens for a game come in, hopefully recycled afterwards.

Rush crashing:  Trying to trigger the end game condition, normally you are in the lead but you can see over players over taking you. For example placing the sixth star in Scythe.  Rush crashing can be used to oppose a strategy where a slow build up allows lots of victory points at the end of the game.

Victory points (Veeps /VPs): A common way of judging a winner of a game, these might be called something thematic like Glory Points in Blood Rage, many games give multiple ways to score victory points to support different strategies.

Box Fart: The interesting noise a box makes when opened,  normally more pronounced the first time.

New games smell: The lovely heady smell of a new game, glue, paints and fresh paper, similar enjoying the smell of a new book

Cult of the new: With lots of new games coming out the new shiny titles can push older favourites out of play. Some players love learning new games other can feel burnt out by it.

‘Doing a Griff’:

a) Wanting to undo your turn because you made a mistake, normally allowed once per player per game as long as no hidden information is revealed

b): Playing so badly at a traitor game everyone thinks you are the traitor- see Cylon in Battlestar Galactica.

Meeple: A board game token shaped like a person often used in game to represent a person for example a farmer or a Viking and placed onto the board to trigger an action or event.

Shelfie: A picture of a game collection, normally nearly arranged on a shelf or shelves.

Tabletop game: A collective term for card, board games, i.e. games you play on a table rather than a screen. (Role play and wargames are often covered by this too)

Worker placement: An action in a board game where you place a worker (often a meeple) on a space to trigger an action, normally there is only space for one worker so there can be competition for access.

RPG oneshot / one off: A short Role play game, normally played over one to three sessions to tell a short story, the characters don’t usually level up. One shots can be slightly more deadly or extreme and can offer slightly less freedom of choice than a traditional campaign.

RPG Glossary:

*Story teller / Games Master (GM) / Dungeon Master (DM) :
The person running the game, providing the overall story and the people and monsters you meet (Non player characters NPC).
Some systems will call them thematic names like game mother (Alien) or keeper (Chtulhu). I prefer Story teller it is a non gendered term and it also sets the scene of a joined up story and removes confrontation / dominance from the name.

** Dice:
Randomiser cubes and shapes! Traditionally these are 6 sided cubes as found in monopoly, but also come with other amounts of sides to allow you roll a number between 1 and 4 and 1 and 20. Some systems may use other randomisers for example drawing cards, pulling jenga cubes, or spending points from a limited pool. A few RPGs include no randomess.

Player:
You, the human sat on the chair or behind the computer screen, you will mostly like control a single characters

Character:
The thing / actor you control during the story. It could be a human fighter, an alien named xorb, a colonial marine named Hicks. You make the decisions and act like your characters, their abilities are more important than yours. Xorb may have more arms than you and Hicks may be a much better shot.

The most important thing about RPGs is remembering what your character know is key act like they will. YOU the player may know the next room is a trap as other players have already seen it. Your character doesn’t yet.
You may have heard ‘private’ conversations and know Alphonse is a traitor your character doesn’t.. yet.

Setting:
Where the story takes part? Middle Earch, LV2146 colonial moon, Altdorf or down town chicago in the 1920s.

System:
The rules how stuff is decided, for example Dungeons and Dragons fifth edition, you will use 20 sided dice and these rule books.

***Attributes / Characteristics / Statistics:
The mental and physical abilities of your characters. Are they weak, strong, smart or dumb? These will affect the success of varies challenges giving you better / more dice to roll or bonuses to add.

Skills:
How good is your character at stuff, are they are great engineer, a terrible shot, do they have a bronze swimming certificate? These will affect the success of varies challenges giving you better / more dice to roll or bonuses to add.

Traits / Talents / Personality / Qwirks / Edges:
Things which round out your character, brave, asthmatic, a noble, secrets. Sometimes these will add to the dice rolls other times just to guide you on how your character should act.

**** Cooperative
Generally Role play games are cooperative the characters are a team working together and fighting or stealing from each other is banned.
Some games support secrets, personal missions and attacking enough but those tend to be very specific to certain settings and systems.

Do you have any terms to add?

Another great glossary over at the Great Indoors website https://great-indoors.co.uk/blog/board-game-terminology-a-reference-guide