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

[Paul Farquhar]

I don’t think it is reasonable to expect people to just blindly accept that a person is terrible if no one is willing to explain why.

Fair enough, I'm not trying to persuade anyone to accept anything on blind faith, just indicating that some people are not inclined to trust this person. You can make up your own mind.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

In any case, seems like a storm in a teapot. This thread was literally the first time I encountered the term. I would have just called such a dungeon non-linear.

It seems that the world was mainly used just on Alexander’s blog, so of course he can choose to use some other word there. No one else is forced to adopt it.

 

[Bill Zebub]

To Jaquay(s)Xander is a verb. “Jaquay(s)edXandered” is its past tense form. A “Jaquay(s)edXandered dungeon” is a dungeon which has, in the past, had the act of “Jaquay(s)ingXandereing” performed upon it.

Sure, aaaaaand....

"Painted" is both a past tense verb and an adjective. In "I painted the barn" it is a verb. In "I failed to hit the broad side of the painted barn" it is an adjective. The adjectival form may be derived from the verb, but it's still an adjective.

(By the way, I am just engaging on this because it's fun to geek out...I don't mean for this to be at all confrontational or hostile.)

I haven’t attacked anyone.

No, not you. Somebody else did. That person apparently took my claim that I would switch to "non-linear" as an indication that I was not going to change my use of the J-word, simply because the linked post was so obnoxious. So I kind of had my hackles up, and responded badly when you chimed in about the inadequacy of non-verbs.

I’m simply trying to come up with an alternative to “Jaquay(s)” as a verb, because I found it useful, I don’t know whether or not Jennell Jaquays would be ok with the term if her name was simply spelled correctly, and I am not keen on “Xandering” as an alternative for a variety of reasons. People keep suggesting terms like “nonlinear” and “warren,” which do not serve that function, and now two people are giving me a bizarrely hard time over simply wanting to find a verb to replace a verb.

I get that! And purely because it's interesting to play with language, I am also wondering just how useful a verb really is. Let's say there's a verb, Xicksmorphing, which means to design a dungeon that wraps on itself 4-dimensionally, like a tesseract. I just can't imagine saying/writing, "I Xicksmorphed my dungeon" UNLESS I was trying to give Eugenia Xicksmorph credit for the idea. I would happily construct an awkward sentence for that purpose. But otherwise, if I were just trying to communicate clearly, I would write "I designed a 4-dimensional dungeon."

How many cases can you think of where a common verb has another form that means to do the general thing in a more specific way. I often fix/build/modify things with tools, and frequently I have to do it with the wrong tools. So a verb which means fix or build or modify with the wrong tools would actually see a lot of use. But....there isn't one? Usually (I think?) we use a different verb to mean doing a different thing.

Happy to be shown counterexamples. Again, I'm not highly vested in the outcome. I just think the topic is curious/interesting.

TL;DR: If we are not trying to honor somebody with an eponymous verb, do we really need a special verb?

 

[Charlaquin]

I don’t think it is reasonable to expect people to just blindly accept that a person is terrible if no one is willing to explain why.

I wouldn’t say he’s terrible. He just has a habit of flying off the handle, and of expressing his preferences in very abrasive ways, both of which have gotten him banned from a lot of D&D forums.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I certainly hope everyone who doesn't want 'Xandering' to catch on write a whole bunch of articles using whatever term they come up with... because the top handful of 'Jacquaying the Dungeon' google search results all seem to link to JA's newly-changed 'Xandering the Dungeon' articles. So you have a long road ahead of you to get that narrative changed if that's really that important.

And that I believe is evidence that nobody really uses the verb anyway, except in a meta way to discuss the existence of the verb.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Literally no one in this thread has disagreed with someone taking a stand on the use of their own name.

I think you might not be seeing a couple people's posts.

 

[DEFCON 1]

And that I believe is evidence that nobody really uses the verb anyway, except in a meta way to discuss the existence of the verb.

And that's why the term 'Xandering' is probably going to remain. Because when people want to discuss that style of dungeon, those that know about the style and want to pass on info will mostly have to continue to use 'Jacquaying' as the term of meta info since that's how they learned about it and where most discussions are found... which when other people then look it up, they will see those articles have changed the term to 'Xandering'. And that's how new people will begin to acknowledge the term on a meta level when talking about the phenomenon.

If other people want to use another term because they don't like JA or don't like that his "ego" allowed him to rename the term after himself, that's fine. But those terms will not actually ever enter the lexicon because there's nothing to redirect people's curiosity to any discussion about the meta idea to those other terms. As a personal choice, it's fine... but as a full change of the meta commentary? An uphill battle.

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

And that I believe is evidence that nobody really uses the verb anyway, except in a meta way to discuss the existence of the verb.

Yep. 'Fetch' never happened, so there is no point trying to decide what 'Fetch 2: Fetch Harder' should look like.

 

[Charlaquin]

I get that! And purely because it's interesting to play with language, I am also wondering just how useful a verb really is. Let's say there's a verb, Xicksmorphing, which means to design a dungeon that wraps on itself 4-dimensionally, like a tesseract. I just can't imagine saying/writing, "I Xicksmorphed my dungeon" UNLESS I was trying to give Eugenia Xicksmorph credit for the idea. I would happily construct an awkward sentence for that purpose. But otherwise, if I were just trying to communicate clearly, I would write "I designed a 4-dimensional dungeon."

If all you were using “Xicksmorphed” to express was a 4-dimensional dungeon, then yeah, 4-dimensional would be perfectly sufficient. If, however, “Xicksmorphing” also referred to taking a 3-dimensional dungeon and making it 4-dimensional, “Xicksmorphing” would be a useful way to express that. Furthermore, if “Xicksmorphing” referred not only to making a dungeon 4-dimensional, but to a plethora of design techniques commonly used in 4-dimensional dungeons, it would have utility that “(making) 4-dimensional” on its own lacked.

How many cases can you think of where a common verb has another form that means to do the general thing in a more specific way. I often fix/build/modify things with tools, and frequently I have to do it with the wrong tools. So a verb which means fix or build or modify with the wrong tools would actually see a lot of use. But....there isn't one? Usually (I think?) we use a different verb to mean doing a different thing.

I mean, that would be a useful term to have though. Sure, we don’t need it because we can construct sentences without it. But if such a word did exist, the language wouldn’t be improved by its elimination. There are lots of words in English we don’t need - we could get by just fine without most words beyond like a 4th grade reading level. But we’re not trying to be minimalist about our vocabulary here; a word doesn’t have to be necessary to be useful.

TL;DR: If we are not trying to honor somebody with an eponymous verb, do we really need a special verb?

We don’t need a special verb. Some of us like having a special verb. If you don’t care, that’s fine, but your protestations of “but we don’t need it!” aren’t helping anyone. I would like to have one, and that’s reason enough to come up with one. If you don’t find it useful, you don’t have to use it.

 

[Bill Zebub]

If all you were using “Xicksmorphed” to express was a 4-dimensional dungeon, then yeah, 4-dimensional would be perfectly sufficient. If, however, “Xicksmorphing” also referred to taking a 3-dimensional dungeon and making it 4-dimensional, “Xicksmorphing” would be a useful way to express that. Furthermore, if “Xicksmorphing” referred not only to making a dungeon 4-dimensional, but to a plethora of design techniques commonly used in 4-dimensional dungeons, it would have utility that “(making) 4-dimensional” on its own lacked.

Points conceded!

• When used in the context of taking an existing, linear dungeon and changing it into a non-linear dungeon, then yes I see the usefulness of the verb. (I still wonder about how often that actually happens, however.)
• Similarly, if taken to mean using a whole toolbox of techniques...that is, if the whole approach to creation is substantively different...then I can see that.

I mean, that would be a useful term to have though. Sure, we don’t need it because we can construct sentences without it. But if such a word did exist, the language wouldn’t be improved by its elimination. There are lots of words in English we don’t need - we could get by just fine without most words beyond like a 4th grade reading level. But we’re not trying to be minimalist about our vocabulary here; a word doesn’t have to be necessary to be useful.

We don’t need a special verb. Some of us like having a special verb. If you don’t care, that’s fine, but your protestations of “but we don’t need it!” aren’t helping anyone. I would like to have one, and that’s reason enough to come up with one. If you don’t find it useful, you don’t have to use it.

Sorry if I'm yucking your yum. It is of course perfectly valid to simply want a new, cool word. And at the same time I'm curious about why our language (I don't know the extent to which this applies to other languages) in some cases differentiates through verbs, and in some cases by describing different outcomes.

Take painting, drawing, and sketching. Each describes using different tools and techniques, but not the resulting subject. We say "sketching a portrait" or "painting a portrait" but we don't do "portraiting". And that's true even though drawing/painting/sketching a portrait share techniques which are distinct (although overlap with) drawing/sketching/painting a landscape.

And I think that's a general pattern in our language. At least, when I root around in my brain for examples, they match that pattern.

Is the difference between the verb we are looking for and "designing" like the difference between painting and sketching? Or is it more like the difference between painting a portrait and painting a landscape?

And, if the latter, is it pushing on string to try to invent a verb? Will it always feel awkward to try to use such a verb, because it's not how we use language? (Which would explain why J----- only seems to appear in meta discussions about its origin/meaning, but not actually used.)