New name for "gish"? (forked from Character Concepts: Gish and Teleporter Mage)

[Eldritch_Lord]

I would call it a Wray. Fay Wray was way hotter than Lillian Gish.

So an eladrin spellsword would be a fey Wray?

 

[jaerdaph]

So an eladrin spellsword would be a fey Wray?

Bingo!

 

[fba827]

I never liked the name gish and, frankly, never thought it very intuitive.

Until such a time that I see an abbreviated name that I think sounds good and is intuitive, then I will continue refering to them as fighter-wizard wizard-fighter fighter-warlock warlock-fighter swordmage (and so on by class/class combo...)

 

[Nifft]

I never liked the name gish and, frankly, never thought it very intuitive.

It's not intuitive: it's historical.

Cheers, -- N

 

[1Mac]

So what are people's problems with the word? From the threads here I can garner two.

"It's non-intuitive." I guess, but so is a lot of gamer jargon. AC, BAB, d%.

"It doesn't mean what you think it means." But words change meaning, and specific words tend to acquire more general meanings. Nothing wrong with language evolving for utilitarian reasons.

Are there any other reasons? Because I find these two unpersuasive.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

The problem with Gish is that many people INSIDE the hobby have no clue what it means. It's non-intuitive, and I don't think you can really compare it to AC (Armor Class? Makes sense) or BAB (Basic Attack Bonus? Makes sense) when they hear "gish" (warrior-mage? ...The hell?)

Irregardless, words that have no meaning pop up all the time and grow in popular use. See if you can spot the example I game!

 

[racoffin]

So what are people's problems with the word? From the threads here I can garner two.

"It's non-intuitive." I guess, but so is a lot of gamer jargon. AC, BAB, d%.

"It doesn't mean what you think it means." But words change meaning, and specific words tend to acquire more general meanings. Nothing wrong with language evolving for utilitarian reasons.

Are there any other reasons? Because I find these two unpersuasive.

I personally find it an unecessary abbreviation. "fighter-magic user" doesn't really take that long to say and seems to get the point across. To those players I run across that don't wander the internet web sites, they have universally given me a blank look when I ask them if they know what a gish is.

That, and my wife has offered to smack me every time I say it as I've told her about this thread.

 

[Merlin the Tuna]

It's non-intuitive, and I don't think you can really compare it to AC (Armor Class? Makes sense) or BAB (Basic Attack Bonus? Makes sense) when they hear "gish" (warrior-mage? ...The hell?

I don't get what's intuitive at all about the name Armor Class. There's nothing class-like about it.

I do have to say, I find it mildly amusing that this is an issue that people want to use compound words for, as opposed to, say, everything else being used in the game these days. Doubly so since "Fighter-Magic User" is based off of two terrible names for classes that I would never use to describe people in-setting.

 

[racoffin]

I don't get what's intuitive at all about the name Armor Class. There's nothing class-like about it.

I do have to say, I find it mildly amusing that this is an issue that people want to use compound words for, as opposed to, say, everything else being used in the game these days. Doubly so since "Fighter-Magic User" is based off of two terrible names for classes that I would never use to describe people in-setting.

As far as class goes, I've always considered it a shortened form of Armor Classification. Just a quick peek at dictionary.reference.com gives us some likely help as well:

11. any division of persons or things according to rank or grade
23. Statistics. a group of measurements that fall within a specified interval.

In any case, I'm all for using a compound word, at least in this case. Gish sounds so .. made up. That's the best word I can use to discribe it, sort of like the swear words in Shadowrun. It makes my skin crawl.

 

[Doug McCrae]

It's shorthand for a set of builds featuring a particularly wide variety of classes and PrCs - fighter, paladin, wizard, sorcerer, arcane knight, abjurant champion, spellsword, bladesinger and many more. So it's unwieldy to use the class names as fba827 suggests. Gish is a shorter term than suggested alternatives such as swordmage.

The fact that it sounds weird is a plus - WotC are unlikely to use it as a class name for at least 5 years, I'd say.