D&D 5E Content Warning Labels? Yeah or Nay?

[bedir than]

The same one who wants trident and padded armour?

Oh. That's me. But I make 'bad' builds regularly.

Hmm. I might make an arming sword as a simple weapon (the lack of riders might be balanced) or at least have rogues and bards have access

 

[Yaarel]

Current edition actually uses longsword more or less correctly. It is, well, a longish sword, that can be used either by one or two hands. The issue (if you consider it to be such) is that there is no separate arming sword. But I guess in D&D terms it would simply be a longsword without 'versatile' property.

I consider the normal arming "sword" to be something like: martial finesse d8 with a choice of piercing or slashing.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

The 5e longsword killed the bastard sword & took its stuff.

5e Longswords are more accurately described as Hand-and-a-Half Swords, IMO.

 

[S'mon]

Rather easy to have a d8 slashing sword with no finesse or versatile. What PC would want it?

When I include them I make them cheaper, ca 8 gp.

 

[Yaarel]

5e Longswords are more accurately described as Hand-and-a-Half Swords, IMO.

Long sword and great sword (and the equivalent) are the historical terms. For example, the Scottish claymore (claidheamh mòr) is literally a "great sword", and while it can be wielded effectively one-handed, it is typically with a two-hand grip and wielded two-handed.

The term "hand-and-half" is modern jargon from archeology, that specifically refers to the grip type, where the end of the grip might have a knob that can be held by the offhand.

The same bladelength of a medieval longsword might have a grip that is one-handed, two-handed, or hand-and-half. The grip depends on wielder preference. Presumably a wielder who uses the sword exclusively one-handed is remarkably strong.

D&D 5e returned to the correct meaning of a longsword, whence its versatile property. But now missing from 5e, is the normal "sword" (arming sword, knightly sword, viking sword, spatha, etcetera).

 

[Hussar]

All this hand wringing about the dictionary aside, this is a book for D&D. D&D has spelled it "fey" since at least 3e - Fey type and I imagine longer than that. So, no, there's no particularly compelling reason to use "fay". Heck, even in your own definitions @Yaarel, you note that it means "otherworldly". So, right off the bat, it fits fine.

And, just as an added thought, there are some rather unfortunate connotations between fay and derogative slang which get avoided when we use fey. At the end of the day, it's a very complicated issue and it's certainly not wrong (for a given value of wrong) to simply use the accepted terms like "longsword" and "fey". Are they technically wrong? Yeah, probably, but, that never stopped anyone before.

This is a really, really weird hill to die on.

 

[MGibster]

This is a really, really weird hill to die on.

That's what resurrection spells are for.

 

[Yaarel]

All this hand wringing about the dictionary aside, this is a book for D&D. D&D has spelled it "fey" since at least 3e - Fey type and I imagine longer than that. So, no, there's no particularly compelling reason to use "fay". Heck, even in your own definitions @Yaarel, you note that it means "otherworldly". So, right off the bat, it fits fine.

This is a really, really weird hill to die on.

The book by @Sacrosanct is more than, "I made stuff up".

Its purpose is for 5e gameplay. But it seeks to introduce players to reallife folkbelief. Some of this folkbelief includes tropes that are psychologically or socially troubling. Besides the possibility of psychological triggers (reminding me of legally required allergy warnings), terms like "fairy" and "fey" can also relate to cultural appropriation if employed to misrepresent a Nonbritish culture. In any case, the reference to reallife folkbelief includes the reallife academic study of it.

The book is serious, even if only it only states such considerations briefly.

Sacrosanct asked for feedback. I personally find the discussions in this thread valuable.

I dont think the book needs to use the spelling "fay". But it should mention it as a book that is informed about reallife folkbelief.



Maybe say:

The term "Fey" comes from the D&D 5e creature type, whose origin is an otherworldly plane called the Feywild. The D&D term relates both to the adjective "fey", otherworldly, and to the noun "fay", a fairy. Generally, this type is a creature of magic from a magical realm.

This book uses the D&D term Fey in the sense of a magical creature. It includes creatures that British cultures consider kinds of "fairy" (magical spirit), such as elf and leprechaun, as well as comparable creatures in other cultures, including those that medieval Norse cultures consider kinds of "vættr" (nature being), such as alfr and dvergr, and that modern folkbelief considers kinds of "troll" (magical being), such as hulder and tuss.

And so on.

 

[Hussar]

@Yaarel - Yeah, I'd buy that. Nothing wrong with a nice healthy sidebar somewhere that talks about this. I'm always a fan of these sort of "editorial interjections" in books like this.

 

[Lanefan]

This is a really, really weird hill to die on.

And it's crawling with fey.....er, fay.....uh, faigh.....feigh.....hell, whatever they are there's a lot of 'em and they're about to swarm us!