Swearing the the Grim, Dark future

[Nabterayl]

Yeah, but that's only blasphemy for peculiar religious reasons. God damn is just a plain old prayer, asking God to smite your enemies in a particular way; it's only blasphemy because of the god in question. I bet Imperials say god damn all the time and hardly even consider it profane. The Emperor is not shy about damning people after all.

[Denzark]

Whatabout Judge Dredd as resource?

I give you drokk/drekk.

[Psychosplodge]

If you're stealing them, take frikk* from scrubs...



*spellings may vary

[Gotthammer]

Most made up swearing sound ridiculous and for me breaks immersion as it is devoid of context. For instance calling someone a grox turd or saying "by the Emperor's great golden balls" makes sense in universe as an analogue of real world swearing. Things like frak and so on just sound twee - I mean is coal seam gas mining particularly offensive in the future or something?

The TV series Deadwood shot a few scenes with period accurate cursing and they scrapped it as it sounded out of place and more humorous than threatening or offensive, so they went with contemporary swearing. If you want to say ****, say **** and get it over with - we all know what you mean anyway - or if that's too rude for your group don't swear at all.

[eldargal]

Agreed. Also if they are speaking Gothic (or eldar or Tau or whatever) then treat the text like a translation. They won't actually be saying f*** but that is the direct translation.

[Nabterayl]

Most made up swearing sound ridiculous and for me breaks immersion as it is devoid of context. For instance calling someone a grox turd or saying "by the Emperor's great golden balls" makes sense in universe as an analogue of real world swearing. Things like frak and so on just sound twee - I mean is coal seam gas mining particularly offensive in the future or something?

The TV series Deadwood shot a few scenes with period accurate cursing and they scrapped it as it sounded out of place and more humorous than threatening or offensive, so they went with contemporary swearing. If you want to say ****, say **** and get it over with - we all know what you mean anyway - or if that's too rude for your group don't swear at all.

I generally agree with this. My default practice is to have the characters' culture(s) use vernacular swearing, and only use foreign or made-up swearing from cultures that the PCs themselves would find foreign or made-up sounding.