I like color terminology (like my motes, caern, hand, etc.) but I wonder if there's any theory or ideas on when it's gone too far. Particularly, does anyone have good guidelines that help answer the question of whether there's too much jargon?

Aidan

When folks on the fringes of your desired audience complain a lot, it's too much. That's about all there is to say, in general terms.

Broadly speaking, I think it's best to use plain English terms when they're readily available and save invented or specialized ones for invented and/or specialized concepts.

I think the big determiner for me is "is it contributary or gratuitous"

For example I think motes et.al. for your game is VERY contributary. From what you've described I couldn't imagine using something mundane like "points" and "pool".

Then there are games that rename things for the sake of renaming things. The concepts themselves are everybit as mundane as "Points" and "Pools" but their given some high falootin' sounding name.

Then there cases that are a bit harder to judge because they clearly are contributary...but they go a bit too far. For me Nobilis goes too far with the individual names for each level of attribute...not only a name per level, but a different set of names for each attribute.

When writing Universalis, the first few versions were very heavy on color terms drawn from economics and finance. Many of the rules we tried out were motivated by economic theory, a sort of "invisible hand" effect applied to story telling. In the end, most of those terms were cut, and the terms I kept I tried to make sure had a good reason. There's a good reason why its called a Complication, instead of a Skill Check; or Component instead of NPC.

I think if you can take each term and explain to yourself why this term is a better choice than "X" and there's some reason more than "it sounds cool"...you're off to a good start.

Hello,

The key issue, I think, is that there is no Known Answer to this question, or to any other "how much" question (e.g. illustration, examples, etc).

I have found the only really functional way to address such things is to consider oneself as a consumer, and decide what you like best on that basis. Then transmogrify back to a designer and do that.

Guarantee of success? No. The hope is that whatever aesthetic or plan you go with, based on your preferences, actually works well with those people who'd most enjoy your game.

Best,
Ron

Certainly a happy author makes a lot of difference. And since the rewards of this kind of thing are primarily aesthetic, there's seldom a reason to make a choice that you the cretaor an unhappy with.

Hey Taalyn:

I think one thing to consider is that if you want the players to think a little differently about the game, then different terminology will help. If the way hit points in your game work is drastically different from how they work in, say, D&D, then using a different name might be useful.