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Not all acronyms are equally bad. Some are so commonly used that it would be extremely pedantic to write them out. For example, government agencies like NASA and the FBI are always referred to by their acronyms. I suppose there's a sliding scale where acronyms go from commonly used to not-immediately obvious to jargon or slang.
"SMG" is, I guess near the "jargon" end - if you're not interested in weapons or military matters you may not recognize it.
I think you could ask yourself "Would this acronym be acceptable in a newspaper arcticle"?
Edited by GnomeTitanThe X++ is basically universal around the tabletop fandom, but a non-fan would not be familiar with it. The official term is "invulnerable save", so we should probably use that term instead.
Incorrect: Terminators are very resilient. They have a 2+/5++.
Correct: Terminators are very resilient. They have a 2+ save and a 5+ invulnerable save.
Edit: Removed the word armor from the 2+ part of correct example. Armor saves and cover saves are combined in 8th edition.
Edited by bitemytailThanks everyone, I will make some edits when I come across these things again.
@bitemytail: I have been playing tabletop games (Games Workshop games & D&D mostly) for the past 24 years and never came across X++ until I came to this site so it isn't too universal (although I will admit I tend to avoid online fan communities after some bad experiences with them when I first got onto the internet).

It says on the How to Write an Example page to avoid internet acronyms and using acronyms for work titles but what about other forms of acronyms?
One example I have seen recently uses the acronym SMG and it took me quite a while to work out from context that it means sub-machine gun. I don’t believe this falls under the above mentioned acronyms but is it still right to use it?
On a related note, every so often Warhammer 40,000 examples will use the X++ for a saving throw that is unmodifiable, something that the game itself doesn’t use and I have only seen on a few fan sites. Should this be edited for violation of the Simplify For Non Fans rule? (Hell I am a big fan of the work and it still took me a little time to work out what it meant)