Glossary of Terms

Adventure Hook

A plot point or scenario designed to draw players into a campaign or adventure. Examples include a stolen artifact, a mysterious map, or a town under siege.

Alignment

A character or creature’s moral and ethical perspective, often represented on a spectrum like Lawful-Good or Chaotic-Evil.

Campaign

A series of interconnected adventures within a shared world or storyline, played over multiple sessions.

Challenge Rating (CR)

A measure of a creature’s difficulty in combat, used to balance encounters. A higher CR indicates a tougher foe.

Critical Hit

A particularly successful attack roll that deals extra damage, often achieved by rolling the maximum value on a dice.

Dungeon

An enclosed area (e.g., cave, castle, crypt) filled with traps, monsters, and treasures, often the focal point of exploration.

Dungeon Master (DM)

The individual responsible for narrating the story, controlling non-player characters, and managing the game world.

Encounter

A scenario where players interact with the environment, NPCs, or creatures, often involving combat, puzzles, or negotiations.

Environment

The setting where the adventure takes place, such as forests, deserts, caves, or underwater ruins.

Exploration

A core aspect of RPGs, focusing on navigating and discovering new locations, treasures, and secrets.

Grid

A representation of the game environment divided into squares or hexes, used for tactical movement and combat.

Hit Points (HP)

A measure of a creature’s health. When reduced to zero, the creature is incapacitated or dead.

Initiative

A mechanic used to determine the order of actions during combat.

Loot

Items, treasures, or currency acquired by players, often found in dungeons or taken from defeated enemies.

Map

A visual representation of a dungeon, city, or world, used for navigation and tactical planning.

Monster

A non-player creature, often hostile, encountered by players. Monsters range from simple animals to powerful dragons.

Non-Player Character (NPC)

A character controlled by the Dungeon Master, including merchants, quest-givers, and enemies.

Party

A group of player characters working together to achieve shared goals in a campaign.

RNG (Random Number Generator)

A system used to introduce chance and unpredictability into a game, often implemented with dice rolls.

Role-Playing Game (RPG)

A game where players assume the roles of characters, making decisions to advance a story or achieve objectives.

Trap

A hidden danger designed to challenge or harm players. Examples include pit traps, poison darts, or collapsing ceilings.

Treasure

Rewards such as gold, gems, magical items, or artifacts found during adventures.

TTRPG (Tabletop Role-Playing Game)

A role-playing game played with physical materials such as maps, miniatures, and dice, often around a table.

World-Building

The process of creating a fictional universe, including geography, history, cultures, and lore.

XP (Experience Points)

A system for tracking a character’s progress and growth, awarded for completing objectives, defeating foes, or creative roleplay.

Dungeon Tile

A unit of space within a dungeon, typically used in grid-based mapping. Tiles represent walls, floors, doors, or obstacles.

Fog of War

A mechanic that hides unexplored areas of a map, requiring players to uncover them during gameplay.

Key

A tool or item required to unlock a door, chest, or other secure area within the game.

Legendary Action

Special abilities unique to powerful creatures, allowing them to act outside of their normal turn in combat.

Miniatures

Small figurines used to represent characters, monsters, or objects on a grid map.

One-Shot

A standalone RPG adventure designed to be completed in a single session.

Puzzle

A challenge requiring players to solve riddles, manipulate objects, or decipher codes to proceed.

Random Encounter

An unplanned event or battle that occurs during exploration, often determined by dice rolls or RNG.

Room

A defined area within a dungeon, often containing traps, monsters, or treasure.

Stat Block

A summary of a creature’s abilities, stats, and combat mechanics.

Table

A structured list used to determine random outcomes, such as treasure or encounters, based on a dice roll.

Turn Order

The sequence in which players and NPCs act during combat, determined by initiative rolls.

Action Economy

The concept of managing available actions, such as moves, attacks, or spells, during a player’s or creature’s turn.

Advantage

A mechanic where the player rolls two dice and takes the higher result, often granted by favorable circumstances.

AoE (Area of Effect)

A term for abilities or spells that affect multiple targets within a defined area, such as a fireball.

Crit (Critical Hit)

An attack roll that exceeds a predefined threshold (e.g., rolling a natural 20) and deals extra damage.

Crit Fail

A roll that critically fails, often rolling the lowest possible result (e.g., natural 1), leading to unintended consequences.

Dungeon Crawl

An adventure focused on exploring a dungeon, defeating monsters, and collecting treasure.

Fumble

A humorous or catastrophic failure, often tied to a roll of 1 on a d20.

Healer

A character specialized in restoring hit points, curing conditions, or reviving fallen allies.

Initiative Roll

A roll to determine the order of turns in combat.

Long Rest

A period of downtime, usually 8 hours, allowing characters to recover health, spells, and abilities.

Metagaming

When a player uses knowledge their character wouldn’t realistically have to make in-game decisions.

Mini-Boss

A powerful enemy, weaker than the main villain, encountered partway through a campaign or dungeon.

Nat 1

Short for “Natural 1,” this refers to rolling a 1 on a 20-sided die, often representing a critical failure.

Nat 20

Short for “Natural 20,” this refers to rolling a 20 on a 20-sided die, often resulting in a critical success.

PC (Player Character)

A character controlled by a player, often the protagonist in an RPG story.

Skill Check

A roll made to determine success or failure when attempting a task, such as picking a lock or persuading an NPC.

Session Zero

A pre-campaign meeting where players and the DM set expectations, create characters, and establish world rules.

Short Rest

A brief period of downtime, usually an hour, allowing for limited recovery of abilities and health.

Spell Slot

A resource used to cast spells, often limited in number and replenished during rests.

Stat Dump

A character creation choice where certain stats are intentionally lowered to boost others.

Tank

A character focused on absorbing damage and protecting allies, often with high hit points and defensive abilities.

Theater of the Mind

A style of play that relies on verbal descriptions rather than visual aids like maps or miniatures.

TPK (Total Party Kill)

When all characters in the party are defeated or killed, often ending a campaign or forcing a restart.

XP Farm

A strategy or location designed to gain large amounts of experience points efficiently.

Zoning

A combat or exploration strategy where players control the movement of enemies or characters using spells, abilities, or terrain.