The Gamer: Battle Of The Ten Kings

Guide for Non-Gamers and Character Art - Dan

Hello dear readers, I guess many people who don't play as many games as I do would not understand the terms used in my story so here is a summary especially for you. You can skip directly to the end if you already play games and know the terms.

I hope you like this rather large bit of information. As a Bonus I have added character art for Dan Smith, Ravi's best friend. Its drawn by the awesome 'lzfrusnckop' whom you can check out at deviantart here: http://lzfrusnckop.deviantart.com/ . Click on the image in the media section to view the character art. Or you can visit the original link here: http://lzfrusnckop.deviantart.com/art/too-cold-498278791.

FPS - First Person Shooter. Examples - Call of Duty, Counter Strike.

RPG - Role Playing Game. Examples - Skyrim, Mass Effect 3.

Strength (Str) A measure of how physically strong a character is. Strength often controls the maximum weight the character can carry, melee attack and/or damage, and sometimes hit points. Armor and weapons might also have a Strength requirement.

Stamina (Sta) A measure of how sturdy a character is. Constitution often influences hit points, resistances for special types of damage (poisons, illness, heat etc.) and fatigue.

Intelligence (Int) A measure of a character's problem-solving ability. Intelligence often controls a character's ability to comprehend foreign languages and their skill in magic. In some cases, intelligence controls how many skill points the character gets at "level up". In some games, it controls the rate at which 'Skill Points' are earned, or the amount needed to level up. This is sometimes combined with wisdom and/or willpower.

Charisma (Cha) A measure of a character's social skills, and sometimes their physical appearance. Charisma generally influences prices while trading, and NPC (Non-Playing Characters) reactions.

Wisdom (Wis) A measure of a character's common sense and/or spirituality. Wisdom often controls a character's ability to cast certain spells, communicate to mystical entities, or discern other characters' motives or feelings.

Luck (Luc) A measure of a character's luck. Luck might influence anything, but mostly random items, encounters and outstanding successes/failures (such as critical hits).

Indicator bar A graphical indicator of the in-game avatar's current state of health, shielding or other analogue for general vitality.

Clipping error An in-game glitch which results in erroneous collision detection between two objects, perhaps causing a character to walk through a wall or fall through a platform.

Head-shot A shot fired from an in-game gun or other projectile weapon which precisely strikes the cranium of an enemy or opposing player, more often than not resulting in an instant kill.

Spawn point A designated location within a multiplayer map at which eliminated players return to the game.

Escort mission A stock mission type, particularly prevalent in shooters, in which the player must ensure the safety of an NPC throughout a gauntlet of potentially fatal dangers.

Re-spec The process of removing and reassigning an RPG character's manually-allocated experience points in order to unlock a different skillset.

Cloud storage The ability to upload game saves and other important data to a central server, as back-up against any potential malfunction of a local hard-drive.

Level grinding Repeated execution of lower-level side-quests or combat in an RPG in order to attritionally increase an avatar's experience level and abilities.

Super combo An unblockable string of attacks in a fighting game, comprising or culminating in the execution of a special powered-up attack which is earned by charging a dedicated power bar.

Combo breaker A special retaliatory move in a fighting game, designed specifically to allow a player on the receiving end of a combo to interrupt the incoming string of hits with careful timing.

Tank In gaming, a tank is a character that draws attackers away from other players.

Camping For many of us the word camping conjures s'mores and singalongs, but in gaming, camping can hold a negative connotation. The term refers to a tactic involving hiding in a safe area for extended periods of time in order to get easy kills without risking death.

Boss An uncommonly strong enemy. They are often used to advance the story. There are also super bosses. These are often hidden and/or can only be accessed after defeating the final boss of the game, and are far more difficult than regular bosses.

CS
Stands for CutScene. It is a non-interactive portion of games where you watch the story unfold. Final Fantasies often use pre-rendered cutscenes for the most important story bits. Pre-rendered cutscenes have better graphics compared to the game otherwise.

Dungeon
A non-field and non-town area. Can refer to caves, forests and buildings among other things. In online games they refer to a dungeon that can be entered by a certain group of people only and have a string of boss battles to fight, often within a time limit. Online dungeons are usually instanced, those that aren't are referred to as public dungeons. Anyone can enter them.

Farming
The act of repeatedly fighting enemies for the items they drop. More commonly used in online games.

NPC
Non-Player Character. This refers to all the characters in a game that you don't play as. In online games, they're all the characters that aren't controlled by people.

Party
The group of characters you control in battle and otherwise. In online games this refers to the players you form a group with. In both cases, you're able to see the HP and MP of your party among other things.

Stat
A character's numeric values of Strength, Vitality, Intelligence, Mind, Attack, Defense, Evasion and other such things.

Status
Also status effect. How well a character is feeling. Includes such things as Poison, Petrify, Stun, Blind, KO and others.

Thanks for reading, Do comment and vote if you liked it. Add the book to your library, that way you get notified of my regular updates. :) - Phenil