Whatever happened to the made-up profanity? Options

['Sconnie]

Whatever happened to the cool made-up profanity like drek, slot, and hoop that was commonly found the the SR3 books? All you see in the SR4 books are Mr. Carlin's seven dirty words that we all love and enjoy.

[Alexand]

To be honest, I'm not sure.

But when I heard Battlestar Galactica use 'Frag' every third word, I knew things would not be the same in Sci-Fi land. I kinna miss it tho, the fake lingo helped the world seem like a different place.

['Sconnie]

To be honest, I'm not sure.

But when I heard Battlestar Galactica use 'Frag' every third word, I knew things would not be the same in Sci-Fi land. I kinna miss it tho, the fake lingo helped the world seem like a different place.

Best made-up swear word?

Smeg.

[Draco18s]

It was removed from SR4 due to fan complaints.

From wikipedia under "Fourth Edition Changes":

There were also other changes to Shadowrun society at large, as illustrated in the flavor text. For example, up to this point, cursing had been illustrated with a variety of colorful made-up words, such as "drek", "frag", and "slot". FanPro eschewed these in SR4 (to some player complaint, as many fans believed this added social color to the game) and decided to use their contemporary, real-world counterparts.

[Kingboy]

Count me in the "glad that silliness is mostly gone" crowd. I can sort of deal with omae (although for strange reasons not entirely explainable it makes me hungry for egg sushi when I hear it), I don't laugh uproariously at chummer anymore (even if I do still mentally picture someone feeding fish chunks to sharks), but the ridiculous kiddie friendly cursing always annoyed me.

Drek was always the one that annoyed me most, mostly because it's already a word, and because bulldrek is both patently obvious as a stand-in for bullshit as well as being completely non-lyrical.

Runners and shadowtalkers don't need to swear like sailors, but when they do I'd rather them not sound like repressed church ladies trying to stifle a hearty fuck with oh fudge.

[toolbox]

To be honest, I'm not sure.

But when I heard Battlestar Galactica use 'Frag' every third word, I knew things would not be the same in Sci-Fi land.

Aaaaactually, they were saying "frak" on BSG. A tiny difference, but it's there. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Count me as well in the camp that's happy Shadowrun now represents profanity with, well, profanity.

[BlueMax]

It was removed from SR4 due to fan complaints.

From wikipedia under "Fourth Edition Changes":

There were also other changes to Shadowrun society at large, as illustrated in the flavor text. For example, up to this point, cursing had been illustrated with a variety of colorful made-up words, such as "drek", "frag", and "slot". FanPro eschewed these in SR4 (to some player complaint, as many fans believed this added social color to the game) and decided to use their contemporary, real-world counterparts.

I wonder what sort of sampling was taken.

/wavy lines and harps strumming
"Hey Josci, I hate the fake swear words."
"Ya, me too"

"The playtester totally agrees, we should be more like Cyberpunk ™"

/end wavy lines

Yeah, thats about what I imagine. I run a Fourth Ed game locally, play in another and know two other 3rd ed groups. Out of the whole lot, not one person hated the slang and we all still use it.

BlueMax
/fans my ass.
//"The events depicted in this movie are fictitious. Any similarity to any person living or dead is merely coincidental."

[paws2sky]

I miss the old slang. (Not that my SR club ever used it in game, back in the day, but it was entertaining to read.)

-paws

[Eleint]

Myself as well. I use it whenever I play. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) I don't find it silly at all.

[Adarael]

You know, I never used any of the fake swearing in any of my Shadowrun games even when it WAS in the books. Other slang, yes, but people have been saying fuck for several hundred years. I expect they will continue to do so for at least 70 more.

[Cray74]

Runners and shadowtalkers don't need to swear like sailors, but when they do I'd rather them not sound like repressed church ladies trying to stifle a hearty fuck with oh fudge.

Seconded. The pretend words annoyed me from the moment I first cracked open a SR1 book 20 years ago. I'm glad to see the change and bemused there's complaints that players' complaints were addressed.

[tete]

I don't miss chummer

[DireRadiant]

I blame the vut dandelion eaters.

[tsuyoshikentsu]

Drek was always the one that annoyed me most, mostly because it's already a word, and because bulldrek is both patently obvious as a stand-in for bullshit as well as being completely non-lyrical.

I feel I should mention?

"Drek" is indeed a real word, taken from Yiddish. In Yiddish... it means "shit." So it was actually the only one that never bothered me, because it was being used completely accurately.

Also because it'd offend the Haredim, and no one likes the Haredim.

[Jackstand]

I have a friend, who back in our high school Shadowrunning days was our usual GM, and who uses Frag and Drek in his regular vocabulary in place of their more traditional counterparts. I have never once heard him say Fuck or Shit in the twelve years that I've known him.

[Ancient History]

Some of us are actually worse with swearing in the new books than others. None of us have, to my knowledge, been asked to tone it down yet but it has been commented on that some of us have very potty mouths when writing.

[Kerrang]

It was removed from SR4 due to fan complaints.

From wikipedia under "Fourth Edition Changes":

There were also other changes to Shadowrun society at large, as illustrated in the flavor text. For example, up to this point, cursing had been illustrated with a variety of colorful made-up words, such as "drek", "frag", and "slot". FanPro eschewed these in SR4 (to some player complaint, as many fans believed this added social color to the game) and decided to use their contemporary, real-world counterparts.

I would like to point out that the Wikipedia article is, in fact, stating the exact opposite of your conclusion. The parenthetical comment "to some player complaint" is made in reference to the statement that "FanPro eschewed these [made up slang words] in SR4". What they are saying is that there has been some player complaint that the SR slang was removed, and this is borne out by the rest of the parenthetical comment noting that fans felt the SR slang added color to the game.

Personally, I always felt that the 'kid-friendly' SR slang detracted from an otherwise dark and gritty setting, and would quite often replace the SR slang with modern cursing when GMing.

[Ancient History]

No, that's pretty accurate. Many fans disliked the fictional offensives as kiddy or cartoonish, particularly since drek is essentially German for the word it was supposed to be replacing; when we brought the real swear words back in, many fans pined for the older lingo of their lost childho-er, early fandoms.

Personally, I like to think about the novel Shadowplay, with its own memorable take on the subject.

[knasser]

I liked the original slang because it added extra detail to the world and made it a little more real and different. I never had a problem with it being kiddified or afraid of real swearing because I never realised that it was. Maybe it's growing up in Britain, but I just assumed that the words were introduced purely for flavour and it never occured to any of us years ago as far as I'm aware that it might have been an attempt to avoid swearing. I just assumed that if the writers had wanted to write "fuck" then they would have done it. If I had thought that was the reason, I probably would have hated the slang with a passion because I loathe censorship (and still do).

As it is, I still pepper in-character dialogue with "drek" and "chummer" and other phrases. It helps establish we're in a different setting when we're playing in my brightly lit living room sitting on fat sofas. I need every drop of immersion I can get, quite frankly.

K.

[Larme]

As usual, the crotchety grandpas of Shadowrun's early days feel that, if they didn't want a change, there's no way it was based on fan feedback. After all, as the oldest, most crotchety fans, only their opinion counts, right? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sleepy.gif) I seriously feel like some of you geezers are hostile to every change, no matter what. If everything went your way, the game would never change, and therefore would never grow or improve.

I for one think that real profanity adds to the grittiness of the game. Words like fuck and shit are hundreds of years old, and have done very well in withdstanding the test of time. It shatters credulity to think that intense social upheaval and the steady downward slide into dystopia would actually cause people to clean up their speech. If anything, there should be cusswords in Shadowrun too filthy to be uttered today, like pisscunt and pusfart (irony intended (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) ). It's one thing to introduce foreign words into the vernacular, because those signify shifts in cultural dominance. If there were swearwords based on Japanese or Amerind words, those would be worth saving because it really is part of the world. Frag and drek are not sensible outgrowths of a sane time progression however, they're toned-down language written for the censors and concerned parents. Unless someone's got a fluff based reason why time-honored words like fuck and shit were actually phased out of use in the Sixth World, I call bullshit on claiming that they were sensible, valuable aspects of the game world.

I will give a nod to knasser's idea that they help with immersion. That might be a reason to keep them. But I don't think they're necessary for immersion, and as they reduce grittiness, we're better off without them.

[maglaurus]

It's a mixed bag in my current game. I have one old-school SR player who uses the 1st-3rd edition vocabulary, and I give him credit for it in the form of role-playing karma. He always wins the award for "staying in character". However, recently as things have gone gritty and we've been dealing with themes of kidnapping, drug abuse, and cold blooded murder, traditional profanity has reemerged--even with this old-school player. I also think that my players who are new to Shadowrun are more comfortable with traditional profanity as a means of expression.

At the same time, we're also playing a game set in Los Angeles and Las Vegas, so I've been slowly introducing Spanish slang and profanity. This in itself is a unique experience because we're living in Atlantic Canada. What's really funny is when slang from this region creeps into the Los Angeles setting by accident.

[BlueMax]

Larme,
How dare you attack my families breeding rate! So what if I am already a grandfather?
Not really.
As for the more important claim, can you point the assertion out for me? Really, I just want to see the type of sampling and weighting used due to my lack of exposure to shadowslang haters. At least here on the Left Coast.

Shadowslang was something unique to Shadowrun, and it kept Shadowrun unique. When you grew up playing Shadowrun one night and Cyberpunk the next, it was good to have differentiation. Now that there is only one thriving game, it can probably do well by cannibalizing the other games crowd. This however, comes at a cost.

In the brewing world, we call this "Least to object to". That is to say the beer with the least flavor, has the smallest market segment who will object. Beer with flavor, strong flavors, unique flavors, will have limited distribution as someone at the event can object. And this doesn't apply to the initial recipe alone, Budweiser from 30 years ago will contain noticeably more unique flavor (being generous). Each unique flavor removed after discovery in the market.

The more you know...

BlueMax

[MaxwellHouse]

I never actually saw the flavor words like drek and frag as nessissarily being complete replacements for their more longstanding relatives. I had all ways viewed them as if they were just another peice of popular slang. i.e: badonkadonk will never replace fucking huge wobbling ass, or grill will never replace a shit ton of messed up dental work. They were sort of childish sounding but so are a lot of popular terms and phrases. I just thought they were suplimentary.

[Grinder]

As usual, the crotchety grandpas of Shadowrun's early days feel that, if they didn't want a change, there's no way it was based on fan feedback. After all, as the oldest, most crotchety fans, only their opinion counts, right? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sleepy.gif) I seriously feel like some of you geezers are hostile to every change, no matter what. If everything went your way, the game would never change, and therefore would never grow or improve.

This is the internet - we're here to bitch and moan. And especially we do son on dumpshock.com, as you may have noticed. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

And of course do I dislike that frag and all the other nice words seem to be gone, despite the fact that I like SR4A with all its changes very much.

[Blade]

I play in French. The few times I've tried to use English SR-slang it felt as ridiculous out of place, so I've never used them much.