Surely Parts of Speech Don’t Matter, Right?

A non-designer probably would look at the task of designing a game and say that it’s all about math. While math does usually loom large in the endeavor, it’s hard to imagine a TTRPG that doesn’t feature words even more prominently. Coming up with the ways to describe the rules, as well as the terminology your game uses within those rules, is vital.

This isn’t just a necessary evil. It might well be the most important part—it is almost certainly what distinguishes a great game from an average one.

But don’t despair. Words are your friend.

Think back to your school’s English classes and remember your teacher’s lessons on the importance of grammar and clear writing. In fact, today, focus on the part you very likely hated—diagramming sentences and parts of speech. 

Why on Oerth would that matter?

Well, consider an RPG’s stats describing a character’s strengths and weaknesses relative to other characters. In many games, you have stats or ability score names that are nouns: Strength, Intelligence, Dexterity, etc. Making them a noun implies that these are qualities that everyone has. Why? Because it enables everyone to easily compare these stats. “What is your Strength,” you can ask, and you know there is an answer. Everyone has a Strength rating.

In other games, however, characters are described with adjectives. Your character might be Strong, and that likely has a specific meaning, implying that you’re stronger than most people. Not everyone has a “Strong” rating, and you know this because it doesn’t even sound right when you say that. “What’s your Strong?” doesn’t work. “I’m Strong” does work, and it does so in a way that “I’m Strength” obviously doesn’t.

The role that stats and abilities play in the game should be reflected in their names, and that in turn should tie into how the words are actually used at the table.

A game, of course, can adopt both approaches. It might include abilities that everyone has, and those that are applied individually. Here it might be even more important to distinguish them by parts of speech. I’d absolutely argue for using the noun/adjective dichotomy in this regard.

Skills are another matter. Since games use terms like “abilities” and “skills” differently, let me just say that by skills, I mean the things that a character actively does. This could be a rating that everyone has, like “fighting,” or it could be something one character knows that another does not, like “cooking” or “climbing.” You can already see where this is going. I’m using gerund verbs even in my examples. Verbs, I think, are the obvious choice for things like this, because it’s what characters are doing rather than who or what they are. 

Even if a designer ignores all this advice, I would still urge them to do one thing at the very least and that’s always be consistent. Don’t make some of your abilities nouns and others adjectives or verbs. Don’t make the players constantly trip over whether the skill is “swim” or “swimming.” Remember, you’re creating the language that people will be using throughout gameplay, and words are your friend.