“Hack and Slash.” To me this term is wholly indebted to RPGs and D&D, in general. I am not familiar with it from other walks of life; I’ve not seen the term used to describe other violent mediums aside from games . . . Wikipedia seems to back me up here.
However, yesterday I heard someone, whom I assumed most definitely was not a gamer, use the term to describe something about Star Wars (I believe video games).
Is “Hack & Slash” in the lexicon of Gamer’s Cant? Does his usage of this term indicate he has a familiarity with Dungeons & Dragons? Or is the use of this term wider than I am giving it credit for? I am no Star Wars nut, but I do not believe the term usually applies to discussions revolving around the franchise.
My real pondering here is the means by which to see someone and think “Gamer!” Perhaps, “Hack & Slash,” despite its roots, has become too co-opted – perhaps it is seeping into popular vernacular.
But surely there are some tell-tale words lie wholly and completely within the language of Gamer’s Cant:
If someone says:
Thac0, TSR, WotC – these are clear-cut signals they’ve immersed themselves in gaming.
Critical! – to describe something done well, you can rest assured of their gaming prowess.
But I am sure I missing some more common uses of D&D-specific language that may seep into the Common tongue; what do people say, that while not overt, tags them as gamers?
Like you, I’ve never heard the term used outside of table-top gaming, but it seems to be a universal term there. The attribution of it to Star Wars makes me wonder if he just heard the term and used it without really knowing what it means. But if he’s talking about a computer game, the game may, indeed, be hack-n-slash.
I just asked my son, who’s a computer gamer (I’m not) and he said that it’s rarely used in computer game. And when it is used, it’s usually an action (hack and slash your way through this army of orcs, for example), rather than as a description for a type of game.
Jade
RPG GM
http://www.rpggm.com/blog/
I know hack and slash is sometimes used in references to brainless yesmen in some computer circles, refering to the show “Reboot’ and the character’s ‘Hack’ and ‘Slash’ on it.
The few times I’ve been able to pick a gamer out of a crowd is by them saying something like “I just failed a spot check” for not seeing something right in front of their face, or a dex check for tripping – things like that.
Hack and slash I thought was pretty clearly in reference to a gaming style in rpg’s, but maybe it is in other circles. Zzarchov makes a good point – it could easily translate to computers.
Hey thanks for checking in guys . . . Storyteller, I do that same thing with my friends pretty often, actually (re: failed skill check).
I think I am going to start dropping Gamer’s Cant into my conversations and see what happens.