In craps, yeah it's gonna be one of those posts, the speed of the game goes right down to the lingo. It's gotta be daunting for new craps players or the casual observers to that game: aside from the rules of the game, there's the rapid banter back and forth between the players and the folks controlling the game; players just throw down their chips and spit out terms that the house translates. The game has rapids. It talks fast.

I'm always looked for lingo speedage in WEGS. One thing that unofficially crept into the game is the "attack of opportunity" or "opportunity attack" from other games systems. Either way you say it, it's a lot of syllables. Opportunity attacks are taken whenever an opponent breaks from combat (without using a skill to do so); the term has been under my skin for a while.

While writing Pirates Of Penzantium rules, I messed around with various names for this rule and have settled on "swipe". It's a one-shot word that pretty much sums up the action. Swipe isn't really an attack. It's a reaction that the player takes that they weren't counting on doing. It's meant to be a no-thought reaction from the player (and that's why it's skill free, too).

Swipes shouldn't slow down the game.

Just roll all your dice and get on with it!

And they were never meant to be as glorious as an almighty Attack of Opportunity anyhow! Let's leave that term for the fancier games...

Swipe!