Glossary
The roguelike community uses a big amount of abbreviations and other terms that may be confusing to newcomers. Here is a list.
Roguelike games:
ADOM: Ancient Domains of Mystery. (One of the roguelike classics, do not confuse with UADOM which was quite badly received.)
BAM: Beneath Apple Manor, a rather obscure roguelike predating Rogue.
CDDA: Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead, a popular open-world zombie survival roguelike.
COTW: Castle of the Winds, a popular, very old roguelike.
DCSS: Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup. (The most popular variant of LDC, considered the best roguelike by many people.)
DF: Dwarf Fortress. (The adventure mode is a roguelike.)
IVAN: IVAN (a violent road to death), a graphical hacklike from ~2010.
LDC: Linley's Dungeon Crawl, the original game that DCSS was based on. (Also referred to as Crawl in older sources, but then DCSS got popular and a somewhat popular roguelite named Crawl appeared, so it became confusing.)
PMD: Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, a popular Japanese roguelike.
PRIME: PRIME originally stood for Pesky Reticulans, Improvements, More Everything. A hacklike, variant of Zap'M.
SotS: Sword of the Stars: The Pit.
TGGW: The Ground Gives Way.
ToME: Tales of May'Eyal. One of the most popular roguelikes. The developer has actually created a series of games with the same abbreviation, so sometimes also referred as ToME4 (see the article for more history).
UADOM: Ultimate ADOM. (A badly received sequel to ADOM.)
URW: UnReal World, a popular open-world zombie survival roguelike.
SPD: Shattered Pixel Dungeon, a popular variant of the mobile roguelike Pixel Dungeon. Sometimes also abbreviated as ShatteredPD.
Abbreviations:
ASCII: American Standard Code for Information Interchange, a set of basic characters such as letters, digits and interpunction that most computers and console terminals can handle. In the roguelike context, it usually refers to the display style of classic roguelikes, which could be played through console terminals; sometimes such roguelike do not really use ASCII but its extensions such as ANSI or Unicode, featuring international, mathematical, and graphical symbols.
BI: Berlin Interpretation, a popular treatise on roguelike philosophy.
DYWYPI: Do You Want Your Possessions Identified. The first prompt NetHack shows after the player character dies.
HP: Hitpoint, an abstraction of the physical state of your character, usually you lose HP when successfully attacked and die when HP reaches 0.
IRDC: International Roguelike Development Conference (IRDC), an in-person event of roguelike developers held between 2008 and 2017.
RGRD: rec.games.roguelike.development, a Usenet newsgroup that was used by the roguelike development community around 2000.
RGRM: rec.games.roguelike.misc, a Usenet newsgroup that was used for discussing miscellanous roguelikes since 1993. There were also specific newsgroup for Rogue, ADOM, Moria, Angband, and NetHack.
RNG: Random Number Generator. An important part of almost all roguelikes.
RPG: Role Playing Game. Originally used for pen and paper narrative games (early roguelikes derive from D&D); in video games, RPG (also CRPG for Computer RPG) usually refers to adventure games with stat-based character growth (the definition is disputed).
7DRL: Seven Day Roguelike Challenge, or one of thousands (?) of games that have been created during such a challenge (or out-of-challenge but also during 7 days). See 7DRL.
SP: Spellpoint, an abstraction of spellcasting being exhausting, usually you lose SP when casting spells and can no longer cast when SP is low.
TDTTOE: The DevTeam Thought Of Everything. Refers to the high simulationism of roguelikes such as NetHack; the developers of these games are known for predicting the players doing very unique things and reacting to them in interesting ways.
YASD: Yet Another Stupid Death. Hs some variants like YASC (Yet Another Stupid Checkmate, HyperRogue) or Yet Another Sad/Annoying Death.
YAVP: Yet Another Victory Post. Winning a permadeath roguelike is a big and very satisfying event, so successful achievers often post their victories in communities built around the given roguelike. Has some variants like YAAP (Yet Another Ascension Post, NetHack).
Other terms:
artifact: Usually refers to special items, typically extraordinarily powerful, indestructible and appear only once in the run (if you are lucky), either found randomly or given as a reward for challenges. Although some roguelikes define artifacts differently.
auto-explore: A feature where you please a single key and the game will automatically explore the map, usually until a dangerous event happens. Somewhat controversial, although most modern popular roguelikes feature it. Some related concepts include auto-travel (automatically go to important map features such as staircases, possibly across multiple levels) and auto-play (automatically handle easier combat instances).
broughlike: a subgenre of roguelike, inspired by the development philosophy of Michael Brough. Relatively small levels, glitch graphics, focus on positioning, four-way movement, and zugzwang (no key to pass turn). Examples: 868-HACK, Imbroglio, Cinco Paus (by Brough), Seven Scrolls, Magpie (by other developers).
engine building: a big focus on synergizing upgrades. Common in games very loosely inspired by roguelikes, rare in roguelikes, which typically focus more on procedurally generated maps than upgrades.
hacklike: a subgenre of roguelike, inspired by NetHack. See hacklike.
metaprogression: the game is getting easier the more you play them by providing upgrades for future runs ('meta' refers to beyond run). By far more common in roguelites than roguelikes, although roguelikes also commonly feature some forms of interaction between runs.
non-modality: exploration and combat take place in the same map and mode. This is a visible difference from many other turn-based RPGs in which you are moved to a separate "combat mode" when you find enemies (classic jRPGs, roguelites such as FTL or Slay the Spire or Isaac, etc.) See also spatial consistency.
permadeath: refers to the idea that, when your character dies, you cannot restore them, e.g., by reloading a saved game or some revival mechanics. Hardcore roguelike players think that this is the only correct way to play roguelikes, although many roguelikes make it optional.
procgen: procedural generation, refers to the roguelike maps being generated by an algorithm rather than manually designed. In roguelikes, it is usually assumed that new maps and encounters are generated every time you play.
randart: A randomly generated artifact, with randomly assigned special powers. In DCSS also unrandart is used for non-randomly generated artifacts.
roguelike: what it is, everyone knows. More seriously, the only way to understand is to play one.
roguelite: in the roguelike communities, roguelite usually refers to games which are not roguelikes in the traditional sense, but are somehow inspired by their philosophy. They usually feature procgen and some light form of permadeath. But probably better to clearly name the element (e.g., permadeath, metaprogression, procgen, engine-building).
unique [monster]: a monster that can appear only once in the run, basically an analog of boss monster in a more procedurally generated experience. They are usually extraordinarily powerful.
variant: a modification of the game, essentially the same thing as "mod", but variants were a big thing in roguelikes before modding became mainstream. Most roguelikes are open source, leading to (relatively) easy creation of variants, and many of such community-developed variants surpassing the originals in popularity, such as Angband surpassing Moria and having hundreds of variants of its own, NetHack surpassing Hack, DCSS surpassing Linley's Dungeon Crawl, and Shattered Pixel Dungeon surpassing Pixel Dungeon.
Other games (somehwat relevant but not considered roguelike in the roguelike communities):
D&D: Dungeons and Dragons. A pen-and-paper RPG that has inspired early roguelikes.
EtG: Roguelite. Enter the Gungeon. An Isaac-like game.
FTL: Roguelite. Faster than Light, a space opera game with a bit similar gameplay to roguelikes or Oregon Trail.
StS: Roguelite. Slay the Spire. A deckbuilder with dungeon crawling elements.
TBOI: Roguelite. The Binding of Isaac. A zelda-like game with heavy roguelike inspirations.