ON USE OF COARSE LANGUAGE (SWEAR WORDS)...

If it enhances the character and/or situation, use it. If it's there just for the sake of having swearing, delete it.

As someone who swears a lot in real life, it can be hard to write characters that don't swear as much, especially in games. (Hence why a lot of my characters are the goody-goody type - so I don't over-do the swearing and get myself into trouble.) That said, if it fits, use it. It's juvenile if used too often by all characters, but if, say, a war veteran cusses, then it's more realistic than if they don't. They've seen some hard shit.

Also keep in mind the kind of swearing. More often than not people stick to certain words when they swear. A woman usually swears differently to a man - they use slut/whore/etc towards other women more often but (in my experience) tend to stay away from calling them cunts, while men (especially *hard* men) are more often to use it.

Nationality is also an aspect. As an Australian, certain words are ingrained in our language (bloody, hell, crap, bugger) that aren't seen as swearing so much as expressions of anger, annoyance or even friendly teasing (bastard, asshole, dick head), whilst in other countries they are seen as much harsher - and therefore, more insulting - words.

Work and environment also change a persons' vocabulary. A wharf or prostitute worker is more likely to swear using a more colourful, harsh vernacular than a scientist or scholar. (In the prostitutes case, usually at the start to seem stronger and less victim-like towards others in their profession so they don't get preyed apon.) On the other hand, said intellectuals will usually use sentences with wit and insults than straight out swearing. "Spoony bard" vs "Fucker".

Age is another issue - not in who swears, but in what words are used. As with words like 'cool' and 'radical' vs 'swag' and 'twerkacious'*, there are certain swear words that aren't used by older or younger generations. Most older generations tend to lean away from the harsh swearing unless something is really bad, while teens tend to swear a lot as a form of rebellion.

As with any language, setting, character, background, intelligence/schooling, environment and gender dictate a lot of the vernacular that is used.


Keep in mind, though, that there are always exceptions to the rules, and an interesting character can be made by subverting the usual roles - for instance, a scholar who swears like a wharfie. Just make sure to give that character a reasonable background for doing so - perhaps said scholar worked on a ship to save up for college and picked up their language there. Or their parents were wharfies. Or their best friend who they've lived with for the past 6 years is... reason over shock value.

Hope that helped a bit.


(*Yes, I have seen someone use that word. Yes, I did want to punt them from the side of a bridge.)

If you don't use profanity, just don't swap offensive words with censored versions, or it'll sound like poop.

I don't think you should use profanity.

Frankly, if the character gets mad (and I mean super pissed), I'd find it acceptable from them to use "damn" or "damn it" like in the following ways.

1. "Damn it, now isn't the time to get antsy!"
2. "I don't give a damn who you are!"
3. "I'll do whatever I damn well please!"

If the situation ever comes down to "Well shit... I guess I fucked up.", there's bound to be better ways to go about it. I mean, I've seen in movies where a character honestly walks up to another and asks them "Hey man, how the fuck are you?" or in another instance going on about some sexual nonsense and throwing every word (including c-notevengonnatypeit) into the mix. When these things come up, I ask myself how a script so terrible could possibly be deemed worthy of a feature-length movie.

Also keep in mind your setting - if you're writing an RPG set in the middle ages (or traditional RPG timelines) then you should use the language that fits that era - shit, perhaps; whore/wench, yes; fuck, no, unless talking about the actual act itself. Certain words fit certain eras a lot more than others (another point I meant to address in my long-ass post above.)

However, if your game is set in a gritty modernistic era or one that deals with the realities of war, then consider using said words to enhance your characters and the setting.

Another thing to consider - Gods and religion. If your world has a religion with different Gods to our world, consider creating curses that fit in with the lore of that world - By the Tits of Amar!, or Curse the Thirds' Eye! You can also use historical characters in that way. Say an Empress who was considered a whore, cursing by her name would work or using her name as an insult to others. Lore plays a lot into the vernacular of a world.

Consider also the races in your world. As terrible as it is in our world to be racist, in the past many insults were used that had real race relevance - calling someone a Gyp or Slant-eye, for (terrible) example. Such insults can work better than just calling someone a bastard because they're aimed to hurt and draw allusions to the insulted character and 'deficiencies' in their breeding (sad to say).

Are your characters racist? Religious? Bigots in any way? Misogynists? Think about this as well when creating characters and the way they talk. Swearing itself isn't the only way to show the language of your character.

Again, hope that helps a bit.

Just...man, I'm not sure how to put it, really. If you integrate swearing properly, nobody complains, at least in my experience. You just need to back it up with proper grammar, decent gameplay, etc, etc. If it fits your setting (which it seems to) shit, damn, they fit where it's situation appropriate. The example you're thinking of is usually seen in first-game RM titles where there's nothing redeemable about the game at all, and the dialogue just becomes the tipping point.

I've never received complaints regarding swearing in my games, and I'm pretty liberal with it, even if in some examples I tone it down via having the foul-mouthed character speak another language. But in Cosplay Crisis, for example, no one has ever really complained or pointed out that the characters swear, and they do. A lot. I'm Australian, we swear more often than the English.

But I'm a poor judge for how sensitive people can be. Like I said, I'm Australian, I hear the f-bomb every second word, and sometimes in the middle of words. Un fucking believable, right? But in general, if its backed up well, isn't used for shock value and fits the character and setting, nobody gives two shits.

author=eplipswich
If you are creative enough, you don't really need vulgarities to create a dystopian setting. Actions speak louder than words, for instance.

For that matter, if you are creative enough, you don't really need dialogue at all.

I made that sound kind of facetious but it's actually not terrible advice. If you can't think of a thing your characters would say that wouldn't involve cursing, maybe just don't have them talk? You can say "fuck" as many times as you want, but it'll never compare to holding your tongue and punching a wall so hard your fist breaks.

Look at other reactions besides just using different words. Some people seethe instead of cursing. Some people cry. Some people direct their anger with cutting language instead of just releasing it in exclamations. Some people solve problems instead of getting upset by them.

A lot of people would probably curse in a given situation, but it might be much more dramatic to have them stay relatively calm instead, focusing their anger instead of unleashing it. Cursing is more than just a dialect, after all. It's also an indication that the person has lost control. If they start cursing, the situation has started slipping out of their grasp, and they can feel it, and it's causing them to go into just a little bit of a rage. The more they curse, the stronger their rage gets. If they curse all the time over minor things, they probably have poor self-control in general - this is part of why teenagers and young adults curse more than older generations.



Also, just since I don't think anyone mentioned this option yet: if you want a PG rating, and your game isn't set in modern day earth, you can make up your own curse words. Then all those flarking wikkets at the network can eat their own pfoodoo, and the shems in your game can cuss as much as they hweming want to.

author=Aegix_Drakan
I'm in a situation where I'm not sure where the razor thin line I'm walking along lies.

See, my current project is a modern day dystopian RPG, so it's a given that the characters are gonna swear. That's just what you'd expect from a game set in the modern day when everything's gone to hell.

But I'm not sure just how much is appropriate, or how strong I should make the language. On one hand I want it to feel true to life (as much as an RPGmaker game can be, anyway), but on the other hand I'm afraid of people immediately going "oh, a character said *foul word for poop here*, this game was obviously made by a 13 year old dumbass who thinks he's being mature. I'm done here. *close game*"

So far, the only hard line I've drawn is that I'm not using the F-bomb anywhere, since that's guaranteed to either piss people off, or make most people just write off my game as juvenile >_>.

Anyone have any hard and fast rules they use, or other suggestions?

Swears can be use to show anger sometimes or hate.Don't use the all over the game or people will hate to read the text and just play the game for action and give it a bad score.Just because it a dystopian, People don't have to use swears.You could make them more depressed or frightened by this "dystopian". A good time to use a
Swear is when Somebody die.

author=Backwards_Cowboy
I don't think anybody has mentioned the Fallout series yet. Those games have virtually non-stop swearing, yet it never bothers anybody. It just works with the setting. The world is destroyed, any crime imaginable can be committed freely and there's nothing you can do short of butchering somebody to prevent it. There's one point in Fallout 3: The Pitt where there's a paragraph of dialogue along the lines of "Fuck this shit. Fuck the cure, fuck the slaves, and fuck you fucker." When taken into context with why the NPC says it, it works. You have to consider the emotional tensions, current situation, and environment when using absurd amounts of swearing. Compare Fallout to Bethesda's other trademark series, The Elder Scrolls, and you're going to see things more like whore and bastard as opposed to fuck and shit.

Another thing to consider is the age of the speaker. I'm in college and have two professors who say fuck and shit several times per class. One is a Rock & Roll professor and the other is an economics one. They feel comfortable doing it because all of their students are between 18 and 24 years old, and it works. You'd never hear it coming from somebody who teaches 5-12 year olds. Teenage characters in your game would probably throw out asshole, bitch, whore, slut, crap, and bastard. They might occasionally throw out shit and fuck, but not every line, unless that's their thing, or it's situational. Adults and the elderly wouldn't be calling people sluts or any homosexual derogatory term, but they would be throwing out damn, shit, bastard, or fuck every so often.

I was going to mention Fallout as well, because its an excellent example. Swearing works in that setting more or less because it fits right in with the other horrible shit that goes on in the games.

I could not take Fallout seriously if there wasn't cursing. Fallout: New Vegas has a minor villian who delights in raping people, and then roasting them alive and feeding them to his buddies, which might sound ridiculous on paper but is actually portrayed in the game as pretty terrifying and only one example of how a nuclear holocaust has completely degenerated large swaths of humanity. How seriously could you take that if the dialogue was limited to 'darn' and 'crap'?

Use vocabulary that fits in with the spirit of the game.