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Seth L. Blumberg wrote on the style of communication at the Forge in the "Railroading"-thread. I've commented on the use of terms here before, and did so again in that thread. This is a thread on communication and terminology.

Quote from: Seth L. BlumbergBecause the style of communication here at the Forge is influenced by the Western European academic tradition as represented by Ron Edwards, Forgers do that too. It sometimes seems strange to outsiders, but it's how we do things, and it's proven useful to us, too (albeit not over the course of centuries).

Hi Seth! I appreciate your effort in explaining this to me. However; I do know the academic traditions of Europe, and I believe to be aware of some of their limitations.

One reason for my seemingly obstinate insistence on the importance of terms, and the importance of always relating roleplaying terms to "leymen", is the special nature of roleplaying games. The amateur player is the very basis of this form, and as such new ideas on roleplaying games should (as far as possible) be presented in a way most players will understand.

I believe forgerites should look upon themselves as important members of the roleplaying community, with a special (not sole) responsibility for the development of this artform, including the development of practical terms. Critical analysis of terms, their common use, and their effect on play, is one way of doing this. To continually do so may seem tedious to most of you, but this work is of great importance.

I have great respect for the effort behind this forum, and it's members, but in this issue the Forge is adapting a set of academic attitudes not suitable for the very special and current needs of roleplaying games. The development of a strong "theoretical terminology" (removed from actual play, and from the language of actual players) is not a boon to roleplaying games. The thinking on roleplaying games is in it's infancy. Due to this infancy, this lack of broad experience with the form in action, an academic treatment of it is premature. It is premature in particular if you consider the lack of practical terms for game designers. Most designers of new games has to invent their own methodic tools, and they are left to grope for themselves in search of words to express their experiences.

It is not positive for roleplaying games as a form, that the forgerites develop a set of terms far removed from ordinary players, and lacking in viability for game designers. The Forge is on it's way to becoming a secluded elite, developing ways of speaking of their ideas which demand a degree in "forgespeak" to be understood. The language adopted here, is "academic" in the bad sense of the word. It is not very accurate. Is is not very practical. A lot of the terms developed here is not very beneficial to the understanding of roleplaying games.

The appliance of "academic language" on the Forge, is instrumental in creating a artificial division between theorists and "leymen". Such a division is contrary to a constructive development of roleplaying games, especially when considering that the amateur player is the basis of the game. He has to be in focus at every level, and any misconception of his has to be addressed at a deepest possible level, through the active and continuous work on a practical language of roleplaying games.

So; I do hold this forum to be one of great promise. That is the reason I  insist on taking a debate on this issue. If you miss any examples of academic language, please try to think of them by yourself, or be on your guard for them.

Please try to take the debate in a constructive manner. Thank you!

There is no accessible language for roleplaying theory.  The terms familiar to roleplayers at large are gibberish.  Sensitivity to them hobbles discussion.

I don't consider the theory language here to be for most roleplayers.  It's for designers - particularly, it's for us, here, us Forgerites, to communicate efficiently with one another.  We've worked it out from scratch and adoption because we've had to figure out how to be understood by our colleagues.  There aren't any academic standards here, premature or otherwise, just a bunch of words that've served pretty well so far.

And then - we DO present our ideas in a way most roleplayers will understand.  In our games, when we publish 'em.  What do you think we're doing here?

I'm sorry to be harsh.  But seriously, to go back to talking about rules-light and rules-heavy and immersive and Roleplaying vs Rollplaying, or whatever language actual players use, would suck suck suck.

I'm sensitive to the plight of the newcomer.  I was one once too.  But the solution is to help newcomers get up to speed, insofar as they're willing to work at it too, not to dumb the place down.

-Vincent

Greetings Tomas,

I've not posted here in ages, so take my comments with a grain of salt.

Quote from: Tomas HVMIt is not positive for roleplaying games as a form, that the forgerites develop a set of terms far removed from ordinary players, and lacking in viability for game designers. The Forge is on it's way to becoming a secluded elite, developing ways of speaking of their ideas which demand a degree in "forgespeak" to be understood. The language adopted here, is "academic" in the bad sense of the word. It is not very accurate. Is is not very practical. A lot of the terms developed here is not very beneficial to the understanding of roleplaying games.

While there is truth to what you say above note that "truths" are not always necessarily hard facts.

For instance if you are a witness to a crime, and say that the get away car was red with a blue door, but a person on the other side of the street says it was a blue car with a red door, who has the truth of it?

As an observer our "truth" is relative.  Both observers could be right yet so, too, could both observers be wrong.

So what's the underlying fact in the above example?

That a crime was comitted and the criminal drove away in a car.  If you get hung up on arguing about what that car looked like, rather than the direction it went off in, then what good are your observations as a witness to the police?

Quote from: Tomas HVMThe appliance of "academic language" on the Forge, is instrumental in creating a artificial division between theorists and "leymen". Such a division is contrary to a constructive development of roleplaying games, especially when considering that the amateur player is the basis of the game.

Ask yourself what it is you expect of GNS, write the answer down.  Then ask the regulars here what it is that GNS is about.  If the answers don't mesh then GNS may not be for you.

There are alternatives.

If all you want is a quick way to create an RPG, without worrying about a lot of terms, there are other choices.  I think most here might suggest something like Fudge.  If that's too much to read then there is my own Any Book RPS, which I don't think is more than 13-pages.

For that matter I think an even shorter version of that is posted in these forums some where.  Probably turn up in a search for it.


Kind Regards,

Kester Pelagius


edited to correct obvious error

Bravo, Vincent.

Tomas, I write regular columns elsewhere. Sometimes I include current "jargon" as a way to describe things I think will be useful to my readers--I recently did an exposition of credibility, authority, the shared imaginary space, and the place of rules, which my readers found incredibly valuable. I did it by explaining how these words were being used and what they revealed about how we play. However, the bulk of my articles don't use such terms. The present ideas about games on the level of most of my readers. Those readers are in the main your amateur role players.

Vincent creates great games. He's one of many who do so. Legends of Alyria is coming out soon, and it's a fabulous new narrativist fantasy game--but I don't remember there being any jargon in the text.

We often refer to a narrativist player or a gamist game; we all know that this is shorthand for, respectively, a player who tends to make narrativist choices and a rules set which tends to encourage gamist play. It's an awful lot easier to say the former than the latter. It's also a lot easier to mention the Lumpley principle than to state it every time we need to reference it--just as physicists will refer to Newton's Third Law or Ohm's Law or Boyle's Law by name rather than writing out the entire concept every time. Sure, if you're writing a physics textbook, you either include the concept before you use it or you indicate that it is not a beginning text book.

If you come to the Forge, it is assumed that you are interested in game design, and willing to put in the effort to design good games. I know that you are. It is also assumed that you're willing to communicate about how to design those games with others who are involved in game design--and apparently that is also true of you as well. Why, then, should this enclave for professional game designers dumb down the vocabulary in its discussions so that amateurs can understand what we're saying and it takes the rest of us three times as long to read, or write, anything worth contributing?

Forge theory is intended to assist game designers in understanding the task and the options. It's not expected to be spread to all players everywhere, except to the degree that the concepts, in whatever language best communicates them to the target audience, will improve game play of specific games.

--M. J. Young

As a foil for Tomas' opinion, I'll lay down my own: there is IMO no relevance at all to worrying about how layman should understand my jargon. I'm simply not interested.

I play with all kinds of people in Helsinki. My games have attracted academical people, as well as borderline autistics. I can assure you that we can play quite nicely without any Forge terminology at all. It's not needed for play.

When and if my fellow hobbyists wish to discuss theory we start with whatever natural words my good fellow might bring on - I speak Finnish, they speak Finnish, we have no problems at all. If it should be that the words are not enough for the matter at hand I introduce some special termonology - Robin's Laws, Turku school, Meilahti school, GNS, whatever is needed at the time. If someone wants to speak theory he presumably has plenty of intelligence to learn some new words and concepts, and use them or lose them if they wish.

The point is, however, not that this is natural ('though this should be noted); rather more important is that in every case I speak with actual, real roleplayers the terminology they use is different. One player likes to speak about plot, another about freedom. Third is all about gratification and fun, while fourth intends immersion. There is no "commonly used" terminology of roleplaying as far as I see. Many actual roleplayers aren't that interested in reading even rulebooks, not to talk about learning any special terminology. It's a losing proposition to try to ground Forge terminology in a way that would make it simpler to understand - the only way is to let it disseminate and be patient.

Forge terminology is quite sufficient and sensible to me. I understand what 'illusionism' is, wasn't even hard. And I have to say that the word has been as simple to understand for all my fellows who should hear it, whether they have heard of railroading or not. The same holds true for other terms, as most of them are simply new words and new concepts.

About the only exception are the names of the Agendas. It's nigh impossible to count the number of people who have utterly misunderstood the theory simply because they recognize the words game, simulation and narrative, and think through them instead of taking in the definitions. I'm somewhat of an intellectual elitist, however, so I don't think it'd be worth the hassle to institute any alternative names. If one wanted to, though, it'd be a simple matter to go through the essays and replace all mentions of agendas with A, B and C. This'd probably kill quite much misunderstanding with one stone. The beauty of the resolution is that nothing forces us to use these alternative names...

Anyway; I agree with the main argument of the centrality of laymen to roleplaying, but don't see that as a reason for theory being routed through them. What we're seeing in Forge is largely special tools, not something for people who just want to have fun. If this theory were truly something common roleplayers needed to know, I'm sure it'd have started to pop up in rulebooks long before now.

I have however a degree of sympathy for Tomas' views, for it's true that some theoretical concepts are well worth the understanding for the common player. When this is the case, however, I don't see how one set of terminology should be better than another for expressing the case.

If you would, Tomas, give us an example. What kind of termonology you would prefer, so that we should be easily understandable to our peers? Translate for us concepts like illusionism/participationism, the agendas, high/low points of contact, the stances, karma, drama, fortune, Exploration, Ephemera and such. And do it in a way that actually makes understanding easier for the newbie, all the while keeping the theoretical meaning intact. If you have concrete ideas, I'm sure they'll be listened to.

I for one deem modern understanding about the relativity of language one of our most powerful tools of thinking. We are not bound to existing words or concepts like many of our forefathers were, but to the contrary are ready to invent new synthetic terminology with defined meaning. This is a great boon to exact thinking and ensures that we avoid a multitude of misunderstandings. Take "railroading". The word became useful for me exactly at the moment when it was defined as "unacceptable illusionism". Before that it was only a high ideal of certain kind of play, hard to classify or understand. I for one have rarely had any real trouble with railroading, so it's simply not relevant for me without a good definition.

You have stated good points, as expected, to my little provocative rant. I am of course not doing this for the pleasure of provocation, but I admit to formulate the initial text in a somewhat piqued manner, in order to provoce the debate. I will refrain myself to answering one material point, made by M.J.Young.

Quote from: M. J. YoungWhy, then, should this enclave for professional game designers dumb down the vocabulary in its discussions so that amateurs can understand what we're saying and it takes the rest of us three times as long to read, or write, anything worth contributing?

I am not proposing for anyone to "dumb down". I am proposing for you all to use your creative, intellectual and argumentative power to sharpen up the common language of roleplaying games. I also propose for you all to use these powers to create new terms of a higher standard than the present set. The terms invented at the Forge, certainly have some merit of use, but they are not met with sufficient critical treatment to be really superb. As a consequence many of these terms are both unclear and impractical. Moreover; the gamers inventing terms at the Forge, is by far too occupied with melting their terms into "forgespeak", doing themselves a disservice by accepting a relatively restrictive framework for discussion of a creative process too complicated for one such set of terms to effectively express it.

I expect forgerites could do far better in this respect.

Quote from: M. J. YoungForge theory is intended to assist game designers in understanding the task and the options.

And as such, it should be an aim for forgerites to develop terms directly viable by game designers. The question of how you communicate your insights to players, as a game designer, is one angle I expect to colour much more of the discussions here. The communication of the game vision, it's tools and it's options, to the players, is a challenge to any gamesmith. It may be considered the great challenge of game design. So I expect forgerites to focus a lot more of their efforts in making several sets of clear terms, and to relate these to players.

Players! Players! Players! If you don't care to discuss how players understand roleplaying games, how their misconceptions may restrain their gaming, and how common misconceptions may be reformed, you are not up the challenge of developing roleplaying games toward it's true potential, as the narrative art of ordinary people.

I do know that my comments could be said to be unfair, as the forgerites certainly do their best to investigate and understand roleplaying games, and none of them may be hold responsible for the general level of debate. The point is; I expect more of them.

I expect forgerites to put more effort into the terms they invent and discuss (or "dissect"),  to maintain critical vigilance towards the viability and limitations of definitions, and to behave with more critical responsibility on the general subject of language. I expect forgerites to apply more of their intellectual properties on terms, language and definitions, securing a continual and far more dynamic development.

That's me then; being a writer and lecturer and storyteller and all...

Hi Tomas,

I'm absolutely for simplicity in communication.  

That said, the only responsibility anyone has, ever, in clarity of communication is making sure that the ideas discussed are clear to the intended audience.

If you feel that the ideas presented are not clear enough, the best thing to do is to start working on ways of representing them in a fashion that has more clarity.

Chris

Hi Chris; I do work on presenting them (my ideas, at least) in more clarity. It's slow progress though.

Eero: I'll have to come back to you. It's sunny here in Oslo, and my footballers are awaiting my insightful quest for the leather ball.

Hi, Tomas.
I have three challenges for you.

You state that you "[formulated] the initial text in a somewhat piqued manner in order to provoce[sic] the debate." Do you feel that posting in a deliberately inflammatory manner is appropriate behavior at this forum, or for that manner any forum at all? I do not, and I request that in the future you formulate your posts in order to express a point, rather than manipulate the responses with an adversarial tone.

You repeat and repeat and repeat that the terminology that has come into use here is unclear and impractical; I fail to see how this is the case, and I would like to know exactly what grounds you have for claiming such a thing.

Finally, my third challenge to you is that I would like you to develop and present a terminology that you feel would better serve the goals that you profess, rather than simply complaining about what is existing and in use. I would not complain about the colour of the sky unless I could change it, which I simply cannot do. It seems to me like you are asking that the colour of the sky be changed.

Just a couple points here from the academic peanut gallery.

First of all, let's just stop this business about what is and is not an academic use of terminology or jargon.  That's a meaningless discussion, and goes nowhere.  Eventually, that's just going to lead to "We're academic, so that's good" and "We're not academic jargon-users, so that's good," and so on.  Pointless.  Forge discourse is not particularly akin to any academic discourse I know of, but so what?  Does that make it better or worse?  Neither.  It's a meaningless comparison unless it's clear why we're making it, and I haven't seen anyone formulate that clearly, and I don't see the point in doing so either.  So let's just stop with this "academic" business.

Second, the use of precise terminology has nothing whatever to do with accessibility.  The more precise one's terms, the steeper the learning curve.  That's axiomatic.  And we can't use words "for what they really mean" or anything of the kind, because there aren't any words in ordinary language that mean exactly what we need them to mean for a specifically RPG purpose.  So we can coin new terms, or we can add by analogy or extension to old terms.  What's the difference?  Either way, you end up with specialized usage, with "terms of art."  That's going to happen necessarily.  Anyone ever noticed that "RPG" is specialized usage?  What makes that "the right term"?  The fact that lots of people use it, that's what.  Of course there are more and less felicitous terms, but unless someone has beautiful terms to suggest that exactly replace current terms, and furthermore gets significant approval that yes, these are better terms, I don't see the point in arguing about terms -- only definitions.

Remember, these terms do not point to things; they point to intellectual and formal categories.  "Narrativism" does not exist in a strong sense; behaviors and so forth exist that we may choose to classify as narrativism.  But there is no "right" term for this "thing" -- there isn't a thing there, and there isn't an absolute necessity for there even to be a term to classify in this fashion, but now that we have the category we need some term, and "narrativism" is the one we've currently got.

Tomas, you have a habit of using your own terminology that is parallel to but different from others'.  It seems to me that this puts you in a particularly weak position to criticize what has become established terminology within the Forge.  Why "forgerite"?  Why insist upon "gamesmith"?  And so on.  Do these words have special meanings for you?  If so, why are they preferable to other terms more commonly used here, such as "game designer"?  I can't see that we can come to terms on terms, if you will, without you showing your hand; as it stands, we have to guess what you're thinking about your special terms, while you stand back and snipe at ours.

To what terms, exactly, do you object?  Why, exactly?  Which would you prefer?  Why, exactly?  Bearing in mind that as soon as we adopt a new term to replace an old one, we have just radically limited the range of people who will understand the discourse, why would changing terms now be a good thing?  All this burden rests with you, the one who wants to uproot terms.

QuoteI am proposing for you all to use your creative, intellectual and argumentative power to sharpen up the common language of roleplaying games. I also propose for you all to use these powers to create new terms of a higher standard than the present set.

On the contrary, Tomas, you are proposing that we confuse matters.  We like these terms; why should we change them?  The burden rests with you: you must prove to us that we should change our terms, and furthermore you need to demonstrate to us that something is gained by new terms, terms which, probably, you would have to propose.  Until you do so, there is nothing here to which to respond.  We needn't defend terms; you must prosecute an attack.

OK, Tomas' critique doesn't seem terribly coherent to me, but I think he brings up a good topic.  First of all, let's be clear about how terminology works currently at the Forge.  As far as I see, there is no official Forge FAQ.  There are various terms which develop in discussion, which are coined variously.   However, the closest way that there is to becoming "official" is for a term to be defined in Ron's essays.  But there are terms which do not appear in the essays, like "Beeeg Horseshoe" and others.  

The weak link, as I see it, is that those essays are at once expressions of Ron's personal grand unified theory -- but simultaneously serve as the closest thing to an official glossary for the discussion group.  I would say that these should be two separate functions.  In particular, I think that a glossary for the discussion group should reflect multiple, possibly-contradictory theories about RPGs; and possibly conflicting usage of terms.  The Forge has many diverse viewpoints, and I think that any "official" glossary should reflect multiple points of view.  

The question is whether such a FAQ is a good idea.  If so, how should it be organized?  Someone would have to volunteer to maintain it, of course, but perhaps there should be a voting procedure to determine whether changes should happen to it.  I'd be willing to give it a shot -- although I'm perhaps non-ideal since I've only been around for one year.

John,

I think a lot of your concerns should be resolved by the Glossary that's I believe undergoing final revisions as we speak.  As I've said over on the Site Discussion forum, once that is available there should be further discussion about making the Forge more newcomer-friendly, as well as putting together a really good FAQ.

My hope is that Ron will consent to write the FAQ, once the Glossary is done, and will take suggestions for this.

But you make a good point about the division of GNS terminology from other Forge terminology.  I don't think there's any way to do this rigidly, given that the Big Model tends to absorb terms as they become useful, but I would like to see somewhat less use of GNS terms in the RPG Theory forum for example.  At the same time, some of those GNS terms are very useful even isolated from their home framework.  Seems to me that an important project has still to be done in clarifying which terms are fully embedded in GNS presuppositions and which can stand on their own as simply useful designations for categories and concepts.  Of course, there's no ultimate way to cut these apart, leading to all sorts of genealogical fun a la Nietzsche, but the effort is worth it nonetheless.

Still, I think a lot of this has to wait on the Glossary and the ensuing discussions.

Quote from: Shreyas SampatI have three challenges for you.

Accepted!

Quote from: Shreyas SampatDo you feel that posting in a deliberately inflammatory manner is appropriate behavior at this forum, or for that manner any forum at all?

"Inflammatory" is your word for it. I've used sharp language, but nothing for you to go up in flames over, and I have stated my true meaning.

Quote from: Shreyas SampatYou repeat and repeat and repeat that the terminology that has come into use here is unclear and impractical; I fail to see how this is the case, and I would like to know exactly what grounds you have for claiming such a thing.

Some of it is, yes. I have many examples, but will quote this term only:

"Illusionist techniques"
- it is meant to be techniques used to limit or direct the players choice. The "illusion" of it is hard to see, other than in relation to the way nervous game masters practise railroading, by making their players believe in the illusion of their choices influencing the drama. This is no sound basis for such a term. I'd rather see the attitudes towards railroading change, following a new understanding of what "railroading" is all about. The term "railroading" is much better, in my view, both in relation to the issue at hand, in relation to what constitutes effective language (concrete terms serve us far better than the academic "latin"), and in relation to the effect on common attitude towards these techniques. The negative connotations of the "railroading" term, is but a symptom of a negative attitude that have been allowed to develop, contrary to the evident effectiveness and benign effect of the tools in question. These connotations may best be worked upon by installing the term "railroading" with it's proper positive content.

I find it very probable that if left as is, the negative use of "railroading" will stand in the way of a sound exploitation of the proper railroading tools. It certainly is a problem for many of todays game masters, them ducking themselves each time some player accuse them of railroading, due to some perfectly acceptable tool used by the GM, but vaguely reminding the player of some negative experience he once had (or some heated discussion on the topic, serving to fix a deep resentment in him towards the whole concept). I have no such problems myself, being both autoritative and confident in my GMing, but I know scores of GMS who is battered into submission by this "dogmatic" attitude; their GM-technique suffering for it, their gameplay struggling, and their players loosing out on lots of serious fun.

This is some of my concerns relating to roleplaying terms, presented through the arguments pertaining to this specific term. I fully understand that not everyone shares my concern, or even cares about such a sentiment. However; I'm completely in earnest when stating it, and I would find it very sound if some forgerites (perhaps) were to sharpen their critical thinking upon forgespeak, trying harder to forge it with terms used by other gamers, when possible.

Quote from: Shreyas SampatFinally, my third challenge to you is that I would like you to develop and present a terminology that you feel would better serve the goals that you profess, rather than simply complaining about what is existing and in use.

It is difficult for me to show how my thinking on and design of roleplaying games, is full of practical and clarifying terms, without presenting some theoretical framework of my own. It should not be a requisite to do so, in order to criticise current practice.

However; I am indeed in the process of making my own body of work on roleplaying games, their basics and principles, and several set of terms to clarify thinking on them. I've been doing it for the last half year, but progress is slow (my energy goes mainly into a new roleplaying game of mine, a new module for another RPG, and a fantasy novel). I look forward to be able to produce my work for you, thus answering your third challenge :)

Shreyas Sampat (is that your real name?); I post this in the hope that you will be satisfied, your challenges being met.

Tomas,

The term you're looking for (that is, the term whose meaning you are trying to approximate by redefining "railroading") is GM Force or sometimes simply Force (since apart from Star Wars games, it's the only kind of Force we talk about here).

In some old discussion threads, the term GM Oomph was also used. A search on "oomph" should turn up some interesting threads from between one and two years ago.

Here's the whole panoply of related terms, as I currently understand them.

GM Authoring is the parent concept. What is being authored is the plot of the outcome of play, the broad outlines of the sequence of events that happen in the shared imagined space. "Authoring" means decision-making on the basis of making the outcome a more asethetically pleasing story, potentially overriding other decision-making concerns such as what players might want to happen, what game mechanics might suggest should happen, or what most plausibly follows from in-game causality. Not all games have outcomes that are GM authored; some have shared authorship between all participants, are authored by the players only, or are not authored at all and instead permitted to evolve by happenstance results of game mechanics and/or plausible causality.

GM Force is reducing the extent of players' ability to affect the outcome in order to put GM authoring decisions into effect. Not all GM Authoring necessarily involves GM Force. When the GM makes authoring decisons about events that have already occurred in play after they've happened, it's called Retroactive Continuity. When the GM makes authoring decisions during play and puts them into effect by adjusting facts about the setting prior to establishing those facts in the shared imagined space, it's called No-Myth Technique. When the GM puts authoring decisions into effect by manipulating game mechanics elements in unanticipated ways, it's sometimes called fudging or cheating.

Railroading is the use of GM Force in a manner or to an extent that violates the Social Contract.

Participationism is the use of GM Force sanctioned by the Social Contract.

Trailblazing is a Technique of Participationism, in which players accept that part of the challenge of the game is to find the course of action that conforms to the GM's pre-planned plot. Individual player choices aren't constrained a priori in any particular unusual way, but only choices that lead along the planned "path" yield rewards.

Illusionist Technique is concealed GM Authorship of any kind.

Illusionism is concealed use of GM Force.

Note, therefore, that Illusionism can also be Railroading but it doesn't have to be. You can have Illusionism without Railroading, and Railroading without Illusionism. Fudging can be Illusionism with or without being Railroading. No-myth and RetCon are often concealed, making them Illusionist Techniques but not necessarily Illusionism.

If you want to talk about Techniques for GM Authoring, this elaborate and carefully wrought framework gives us many different reference points for that discussion. Let's have that conversation. If you have practical Techniques in mind that are overlooked in the framwork (like I did when Fang and I started the ball rolling on no-myth play), let's fix those gaps. But if you want to throw the whole framework out the window so that "Railroading" can be defined in a way that you like better, I'm not interested in the slightest.

- Walt

Quote from: clehrich
Second, the use of precise terminology has nothing whatever to do with accessibility.  The more precise one's terms, the steeper the learning curve.  That's axiomatic.  

Regardless of whether it's an axiom, it's not actually true. Precise use of language makes it easier for readers to understand what you are talking about, because the same word is always used in the same context, and different words are used in different contexts. It's when you introduce a lot of distinctions that the learning curve becomes steeper -- firstly, there's just more stuff to remember, and secondly, there's more explanatory text, which most readers just skip.

Really, I think much Forge jargon is best understood as simply a social gatekeeping device: members and nonmembers can be distinguished by their command of the particular slang.  But regardless of whether or not one finds this desirable, it's an inevitable social dynamic; one may as well command the tide not to come in, Canute-like.