D&D General Jaquaying the dungeon - a term to avoid

[pukunui]

I've never actually heard her name spoken aloud and I don't actually know if Jaquays is pronounced with a hard J, like jacket, or with a Zh sound (Js are tricky that way), but either way, I don't think it would sound all that much different from j'accuse, which is a word/phrase we all know and have probably said more than once in our lives.

Edit: I listened to a video linked here so now I know how to pronounce her name. "Jay-kway-zing" is not an awkward sound, while "Jay-kway-ing" still sounds awkward to me.

Yeah, TIL that her surname is not pronounced like 'jockeys'.

 

[Dire Bare]

Another thing that came up in the interviews I watched is that Jennell Jaquays preferred the term "referee" to Game/Dungeon "Master" because that term has some negative connotations.
What are your thoughts on that?

Heh, there is a reason why most not-D&D games avoid the term Dungeon Master or Game Master. I never really put much thought into it until I started running an afterschool D&D club. With all of the societal negativity aimed at educators in the US these days, I felt nervous suddenly using the term Dungeon Master. The kids don't care, but they're kids.

Out of all the various terms used in place of DM/GM I can remember, my favorite is "storyteller". Referee works, but is uninspiring (IMO).

 

[Gradine]

Meh. That's a whole lot of (metaphorical) ink spilled over the difference between transphobic actions and being a tranphobe as if that's a meaningful difference. It's not. It might be better for your optics if you're trying to change behavior by making one approach over another, but it's not even a semantic difference, it's a tactical difference. And since he's not in this thread to worry about how he reacts and which approach is likely to change his behavior, I couldn't possibly care less about which tactic feels more effective. It doesn't matter how much he's on the right side of other naughty word, he's on the wrong side of this one.

At best, it's the difference between being stupid and acting stupid. Sure, if you did something stupid once, maybe you aren't stupid. Maybe you just made an honest mistake and we shouldn't keep calling you stupid. But if you do something stupid, then insist on continuing to do it for years, then defend it later and claim it wasn't stupid... yeah, I've got no problem calling you stupid about it. So yeah, I've got no problem calling Alexander a transphobe about this.

Here's the thing: you can be not transphobic, and still be an naughty word. A man plastering his name over something that a woman created is basically the patriarchy in a nutshell. I don't see any evidence that he's motivated by a particular animus towards trans people, and in fact there has been plenty of evidence in the opposite direction. As terrible and ill-informed as his "On Deadnaming" article ultimately was, it was still at least predicated on the idea that deadnaming a person is bad, which is a far sight better of a perspective on the issue than you'd find in a lot of OSR internet spaces in 2016.

If it's all the same to all y'all, I'll reserve "transphobe" for the people who are pretty clear about wanting to eradicate us.

 

[cbwjm]

I prefer the term Dungeon Master, there aren't really any negative connotations associated with the word here in NZ and besides, the DM is literally the master of the dungeon that the players explore.

 

[Gradine]

We used to pronounce it THAC-oh, rhymes with Wacko

I don't pronounce it anything, but I never have any reason to say it out loud ever

 

[pukunui]

I prefer the term Dungeon Master, there aren't really any negative connotations associated with the word here in NZ and besides, the DM is literally the master of the dungeon that the players explore.

I dunno. I've had a few 'dungeon master sounds kinky' reactions here in NZ.

 

[cbwjm]

I dunno. I've had a few 'dungeon master sounds kinky' reactions here in NZ.

But is that a negative...

 

[Gradine]

I dunno. I've had a few 'dungeon master sounds kinky' reactions here in NZ.

There's always Dungeons & Daddies (not a BDSM podcast)

 

[Rystefn]

Here's the thing: you can be not transphobic, and still be an naughty word. A man plastering his name over something that a woman created is basically the patriarchy in a nutshell. I don't see any evidence that he's motivated by a particular animus towards trans people, and in fact there has been plenty of evidence in the opposite direction. As terrible and ill-informed as his "On Deadnaming" article ultimately was, it was still at least predicated on the idea that deadnaming a person is bad, which is a far sight better of a perspective on the issue than you'd find in a lot of OSR internet spaces in 2016.

If it's all the same to all y'all, I'll reserve "transphobe" for the people who are pretty clear about wanting to eradicate us.

"This is bad, but here's a whole entire essay on why I'm going to keep doing it" is pretty terrible, in my book. But hey, I'm not here to have an argument about how stupid a person has be before it's okay to call them stupid instead of saying "they did and continue to do a bunch of stupid things" and pretending there's a meaningful difference between the two.

 

[pukunui]

But is that a negative...

What negative connotations were you thinking of?