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

[Bedrockgames]

Seems to me that the real easy answer, the one that addresses Jennell Jaquays' actual complaint, is to spell Jaquays' name right.

That seems to be the fix to me too. It also won't make it terribly hard because it will be clear it isn't a new concept, and that Jaquaysing is the same term as Jaquaying. It also gives her credit since that was the inspiration and it comes from her approaches to design

 

[Umbran]

Seems to me that the real easy answer, the one that addresses Jennell Jaquays' actual complaint, is to spell Jaquays' name right.

We didn't see the actual communication between Jaquays and Alexander. He says the name spelling was one of the issues, but it sounded like there were others.

In the end, she requested her name be taken off of it. The right answer, easy or not, is then to take her name off it.

 

[This Effin’ GM]

We didn't see the actual communication between Jaquays and Alexander. He says the name spelling was one of the issues, but it sounded like there were others.

In the end, she requested her name be taken off of it. The right answer, easy or not, is then to take her name off it.

Yeah and I feel it kind of gets buried in the article, but he very clearly states that they came to the conclusion together that it should be changed.

He then offers more reasons right afterwards.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

We didn't see the actual communication between Jaquays and Alexander. He says the name spelling was one of the issues, but it sounded like there were others.

In the end, she requested her name be taken off of it. The right answer, easy or not, is then to take her name off it.

I agree with this completely.

That said, I have re-read the original post several times. And ... it's not clear, at all, what exactly happened. It's very vague at certain points.

We do know that Jennell Jaquays wanted a change because she didn't like that the "s" was dropped from the term. Here-

In 2023, for better or for worse, this term was changed to xandering. I want to offer a brief explanation for why this happened.

First, Jennell Jaquays wanted a change. She didn’t like that the term dropped the “s” from her name. Her name is very important to her.

And then it gets a little vague for a while. And then there is this-

The final factor here is that I had also been working on So You Want to Be a Game Master, a book in which I discussed non-linear dungeon design that had originally used the term “jaquaying.” So I contacted the publisher and said, “We need to make sure we change this term.”

Long story short, this created a legal question. Not an arduous or terrible one. But one that resulted in the conclusion, “There is some risk in using a word based on someone else’s name. Let’s not do that.”

It's never actually stated anywhere explicitly, but it does seem a lot like Jaquays wanted the name to accurately reflect her own name, and that they had a conversation to do so, and then there was a conversation later with the publisher, and Alexander went a different direction.

Is this what happened? I don't know. The language in the post is very imprecise.

Is it possible it is unintentionally imprecise? Sure!
Is it possible it is intentionally vague in order that people might misunderstand it? Sure!

But unless and until I actually get more explicit confirmation from Jennell Jaquays, I'm going to hold off on making favorable inferences when it comes to this particular blog post.

 

[Velderan]

If you’re not certain whether you have consent then you don’t have consent.

Just call it non-linear.

Agreed. I had never heard of the term jaquaying. When I explain what an adventure (dungeon or otherwise) is like I always have used the terms railroad or non-linear. No one has ever asked me what I meant by those terms. I get the intent to wanting to honor a trailblazer, but if she doesn’t want the honor just drop the whole thing and use terms everyone understands without having to refer people to some article. This hobby has an amazing way of making everything harder than it needs to be. Just my opinion.

Btw if anyone really wants to honor her contributions, the GoFundMe to help with her current on-going medical issues is over here.

 

[the Jester]

Yeah and I feel it kind of gets buried in the article, but he very clearly states that they came to the conclusion together that it should be changed.

He then offers more reasons right afterwards.

First, Jennell Jaquays wanted a change. She didn’t like that the term dropped the “s” from her name. Her name is very important to her. This wasn’t a problem. In fact, Jennell had previously requested some sweeping changes to the article for similar reasons, and I’d made those changes. Based on that experience, though, I knew that making this change would not be a quick or easy process: It took weeks of effort, followed by months of extra work to make sure all the metadata had been properly scrubbed on the site. Making this change would be even more substantive, because I’d been using the term for over a decade and I’d need to track it down in every single article. (As I’m writing this, in fact, I’m still in the middle of that work.)

It sounds to me very much like she wants her name spelled right and Justin decided to do what he wanted instead. It is possible that my reading of this is colored by my general opinion of him, so I could be misinterpreting him.

There's also this bit:

Second, Jennell’s preference for a change in the term had been mentioned in some interviews.

This might shed more light. I'd like to see/hear the referenced interviews; I agree that if she does want her name removed from the term, we should honor that, but I don't think Justin's post establishes that; it really looks like she wants her name spelled right and he decided that it's just better to rename the term for himself.

 

[Willie the Duck]

You skipped "I am asking why, if the theme of this thread is, "what's appropriate behavior" people are promoting someone known for bad behavior"

I mean, are you seriously saying I shouldn't question "guy known for inappropriate behavior" when he calls for a change due to what he perceives to be inappropriate behavior?

RPGPundit is "influential" but would you be objecting to someone raising this same topic about what he views as inappropriate behavior? This sure seems to come down to "But I like him so it's OK."

What does "more banned than RPGPundit" mean? It means that he's banned at more message boards than RPGPundit - who is known to be banned a lot. Are you saying you don't know who RPGPundit is? If so, he's an old school RPG creator who was a consultant on 5e, who is very outspoken and controversial.

Okay, I'm pretty firmly in the 'this is not about Justin per se/let's not make this about Justin' camp. That said, let's level-set.
I was not here for Justin's departure from Enworld, but I was there for his departure from the RPGPub, and for Pundey's departure from rpg.net*. The two are not comparable. Justin is/can be a typical hot-head, prone to misunderstanding what people are trying to say and taking umbrage too readily (and unfortunately post before reassessing/thinking better of it). As I said before, I think he does best when forced by the nature of blogging to sit down and construct a thoughtful, probably revised and edited, essay. That's a far cry from levelling threats and, rather than apologizing, creating an entire forum as an attempted middle finger at the board that banned him for said threats.
Justin also is influential in a straightforward, if not especially large, way. He's a blogger with something of a following. This is a far cry from the elaborate shell game of being (as you put it) 'influential' that Pundey has been doing all these years*. It's okay to be a big fish in a small pond, especially if you are straightforward about it.
*I was also on TheRPGsite back when Pundey was complaining about how none of his suggestions for 5e ended up in the final product, before he realized he had to attach himself to it like a lamprey to have a claim of influence.

Seems to me that the real easy answer, the one that addresses Jennell Jaquays' actual complaint, is to spell Jaquays' name right.

I would agree, excepting that we heard that as the initial complaint, and then the decision to move (by Justin) away from using her name at all in the term. We have no indication of what might have been said after the initial complaint. For that reason, my initial instinct is to (ask one of you still on social media to) go ask her what she would prefer (for those of us not inclined to call it Xandering). Barring that (being done or being successful), my instinct is to leave well enough alone/leave her out of this.

Agreed. I had never heard of the term jaquaying. When I explain what an adventure (dungeon or otherwise) is like I always have used the terms railroad or non-linear.

I like non-linear because I find it easier to add modifiers. 'Slightly/partially/very/excessively non-linear' all work fine. To do the same with jaquaying/jaquaysing would require the awkward 'jaquaysing to excess' or the like.

Btw if anyone really wants to honor her contributions, the GoFundMe to help with her current on-going medical issues is over here.

Did so a while ago. Unclear if there will be additional costs, but probably willing to help again when she gets the hospital bill and sees just how far $50-60k goes in the US medical system (I'm part of the machine, and so sorry about it. Went in thinking I could effect positive change, not sure what happened along the way).

 

[DEFCON 1]

At the end of the day... when are any of us ever going to actually describe the thing that Justin's term was referencing where it actually matters how we describe it? How often does it get brought up that we need to argue whether to called it 'Jacquaying', 'Jacquaysing', 'Xandering', 'Non-Linear', 'Warren', or any other term?

Once this thread finally dies out... none of us are going to remember or care what the discussion was about. And if the time comes to when we need to explain a dungeon with multiple entrances, multiple paths, stairs/slides to different levels etc. etc. etc... we'll either just describe what we're talking about, or use one of whatever number of names that are now going to be thrown about, none of which will stick.

 

[the Jester]

At the end of the day... when are any of us ever going to actually describe the thing that Justin's term was referencing where it actually matters how we describe it? How often does it get brought up that we need to argue whether to called it 'Jacquaying', 'Jacquaysing', 'Xandering', 'Non-Linear', 'Warren', or any other term?

Once this thread finally dies out... none of us are going to remember or care what the discussion was about. And if the time comes to when we need to explain a dungeon with multiple entrances, multiple paths, stairs/slides to different levels etc. etc. etc... we'll either just describe what we're talking about, or use one of whatever number of names that are now going to be thrown about, none of which will stick.

I have used the term in conversation with other DMs who came to me for advice in dungeon design, so it does actually come up sometimes.

 

[Umbran]

Is this what happened? I don't know. The language in the post is very imprecise.

Is it possible it is unintentionally imprecise? Sure!
Is it possible it is intentionally vague in order that people might misunderstand it? Sure!

Is it possible it is intentionally vague because being specific is a long story the author doesn't want to get into? Definitely!

In the end, so long as Alexander makes it clear that it is aligned with her wishes, the exact reasons(s) are unimportant. The pieces in question are his work, he in in full rights to change them. The name is hers, and she should have veto on its use. They agreed on a path forward.

From there, I am not certain why anyone has issue with it.