Bothered About Bad Acronyms: It's not too late!

[WanderingMonster]

Okay, the suffering must stop. I propose Bothered About Bad Acronyms (BABA) as a watchdog body for those who insist on making "organizations" with clever names.

BABA will evaluate acronyms for cleverness, and subject them to rigorous testing such as: mockability, number-of-words-left-out-of-the-acronym-so-that-you-could-use-a-cool-word-for-the-acronym-ability, integrity of purpose, scope of focus, pretentiousness, and...and...the last thing.

Join now. The pain must end.

(Yes, I'm getting plenty of irony in my diet, thank you).

 

[A2Z]

THGTF

 

[Wolfspider]

I will take this opportunity to apologize if my creation of B.A.D.D. offended anyone's linguistic sensibilities.

I've always been a proponent of dragons being portrayed as powerful and intelligent creatures in RPGs. Middle Earth and Earthdawn have done much to shape my attitudes in this way.

As far as the acronym goes, I created it on a lark. I thought that "disposable" seemed to represent (in an exaggerated sense) many people's attitudes toward dragons. Of course, it was a no-brainer to tie this into the infamous anti-D&D organization from the 80s.

Again, I apologize if I have created a monster.

 

[Barendd Nobeard]

Don't be such a BABA!

 

[Henry@home]

Do not apologize, Wolfspider! Fight the power! The rise of B.A.D.D. cannot ve stopped!

 

[Barendd Nobeard]

I will take this opportunity to apologize if my creation of B.A.D.D. offended anyone's linguistic sensibilities.

I've always been a proponent of dragons being portrayed as powerful and intelligent creatures in RPGs. Middle Earth and Earthdawn have done much to shape my attitudes in this way.

As far as the acronym goes, I created it on a lark. I thought that "disposable" seemed to represent (in an exaggerated sense) many people's attitudes toward dragons. Of course, it was a no-brainer to tie this into the infamous anti-D&D organization from the 80s.

Again, I apologize if I have created a monster.

Don't apologize. Based on the original thread and member sign-up, B.A.D.D. has obviously struck a chord with many people.

Beside, no acronym will ever be as bad as the one Buffy's mother created once: Mothers Opposed to the Occult. Intentionally silly, yes, but hard to beat!

 

[Piratecat]

To me, B.A.D.D. isn't the problem. No, brothers and sisters, the truly egregious offender is "B.A.N.E.", or "Bothered About Necromancers always being Evil." The name clearly should be "B.A.N.A.B.E." And that's just silly. And banal.

 

[Victim]

My beef with BADD is that it seems that its memebers often ignore fundamental differences between dragons. Certainly, GW and Ancient dragons are powerful and terrifying beasts, fully capable of much devious strategy and contingency planning. Certainly, the beasts of fiction fall into this class.

However, not all dragons are very old. Sometimes their mental stats suck, especially when compared to brains of the adventuring party that's attacking them. In all probability, the wizard of the group will be smarter tha the dragon, and the priest wiser - even when dealing with the pinnacles of dragondom. You don't see wizard players being ragged on at message boards for not being the greatest geniuses ever, but, for reason, DMs running dragons have to put up with it. If there's no way the dragon wouldn't know, or have a perfect contingency plan and be able to perfectly predict every possible attack, then what about the 26 Int elven wizard? He should have many of the same advantages. I think it's rather inconsistent for DMs to give dragons a god-like level of knowledge, even weak, crappy dragons, but then not allow players to run super high int or wis characters the same way.

Of course, I agree that most dragons are underplayed - mostly because they have as varied abilities as an entire adventuring party but far fewer actions. I think it's pretty hard as a player to always make the best choice in a situation when acting with extremely limited info. For a DM running a dragon, the problem is even worse, as you essentially have to make choices equal to those of an entire adventuring group, but only has one action. Imagine if you were handed 4 diverse characters of levels and types that you usually don't play, then had to fight in a tough battle with them, but each round you could only use one character. Even when running characters take you know well, that one action per round constraint that a dragon operates under is murderous.

Now fiends seem to be another underplayed monster. They live longer than dragons, have lots of abilities, and little durability. They're like dragons made of glass or balsa wood.

Angry about Incompetent Demons? AAID.

Frazzled by Foolish Fiends? FbFF. FFF

 

[WanderingMonster]

Wolfspider:

Now if BANE had just used BANABE, then they would gain points on number-of-words-left-out-of-the-acronym-so-that-you-could-use-a-cool-word-for-the-acronym-ability, but lost points on cleverness. I suggest they start using WANABE (Worried About....) since it is has the appropriate letter-per-word ratio, it's clever, self-effacing, and makes a humorous nod to BADD, the organization which inspired it.

*As a side-note, no hard feelings are intended towards anyone. This is satire, spoofing, etc...Let's try for lampooning without mean-spiritedness.

 

[Wolfspider]

I can't really disagree with what you posted, Victim. Mainly I see B.A.D.D. as dealing with the older and more powerful dragons. You have to remember, however, that even a juvenile dragon can have 50 years of experience, equal to that of a human elder, even if it doesn't have a high intelligence.

Oh, Wandering Monster, no hard feelings at all. Please continue.