I was just curious as to what the consensus was on in-game slang and jargon. I for one loved the fantasy-cockney of Planescape and thought it lead miles of depth to the setting. I like slang, but I was wondering if other people did, or if they saw it as annoying (which I can see as well)
Not sure what kind of slang I use...
I typically try to avoid for-soothing and such...
In my games Dwarves and commoner Humans have a deep southern accent accent... Not sure how that one developed but I keep doing it... To the point where unless the Dwarf is an uber Dwarf stereotype, my players talk like southerners when they depict Dwarves...
I did something a while ago where i keyed aphorisms to my religions which I recieved a good deal of positive feedback on.
It does add something to have a few sayings or words or curses that are especially common in your setting. It's like renaming things; weekdays, or birthdays or technologies. It add a new layer of uniqueness. Many settings/stories do it: gorramn from serenity, green from the fifth element, abdead and elyctricity from Mieville and many, many more.
As long as you don't overdo it i don't think it's particularly annoying.
I use lots of it. A lot of long time readers know that Knights of the Armor or Trade use certain terms, and many other groups do as well. Slang and seting-specific verbage create versimilitude. Omwo~ for good night is Ho~io~iu (Hooeeooeeoo), and once my players stated using this in real life, I knew I had it made.
These are from earlier posts, to illustrate the point.
[ic=]'Chell, Amigal', is the battlecry and all around oath-word for the knights. It is Klaxik, meaning "The Scales, my Friends!" [/ic]
[ic=]"
Going east, they saw, by the light of Eodl's lantern, that the corridor stretched about twenty feet east, and then sort of continued for another fifteen feet, before opening. But the last fifteen the walls were covered in some fabric. As Kiko and George led down the corridor, they were carefully eying the curtains. The fabric was old, and grayish. It seemed to have no patterns, just an old raggedy curtain.
Of course, they were spending so much time watching the edges of the fabric up in front of them to notice the trip plate one the floor. Kiko got a half syllable of warning out as the huge metal bolt ripped down the corridor from the southern curtain, zipping over her head, ripping through Tusnus' tabard, before impacting messily into the north wall.
'Chell and balance, that was a close one!!' said the Squire of the TradeGod as he pulled his tabard from it's impinged location. The metal bolt was almost a yard long.
Kiko pointed to the place where the shot originated. 'That is one big Crossbow.'[/ic]
[ic]From behind the carnage, wafted up the sound of music. Pharren was buttressing their efforts, and as he did, the squire of the TradeGod planted himself in front of George and Cucino, as the point of the triangle. 'Chell, thou Foul beast, Chell, Amigal!!', he roared as he bounced the silvered head of his heavy flail off the shoulder of the creature.
The thing screamed, it's wings furiously pumping and it's claws gashing at the newly healed flesh behind Tusnus' damaged armor.[/ic]
I'm also fond of doing this, though players usually don't know what I'm talking about. :P
I've tried some, but often players found it too much work.
Generally I do not. There are two exceptions. In Hen Mut I use the word maltered (magically-altered) because I'm lazy.
In Prismatic I try and use slang or turns of phrase that fit in the setting. I think that is more because of the way it is presented then anything.
The problem is that slang can only come "naturally" to the DM, unless the players are willing to invest a ton of time getting familiar with things. So I find myself giving +1 to Phoenix.