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

[Lanefan]

Why the emphasis on verbs, anyway? I mean, who designs a linear dungeon and then goes back and nonlinearificationizes it?

Nobody designs one, but I've been in the position of having bought what turned out to be linear-designed dungeon adventures and then having to go in and thrace them up a bit before running them.

A2 Slavers Stockade is a prime example. The upper level looks, on first glance at the map, to have various choice points in a dendritic sort of way; until a closer look shows there's no choice points at all - it's a long but well-disguised straight line (which in hindsight I should have expected, given its origins as a tournament module). I added in a bunch of doors (some secret, some not) and that was all it took to at least give some options.

I'd like to have added in another vertical connection or two between the levels, but never got to that.

 

[Lanefan]

Ok, I may be conflating separate threads of the overall discussion. If people are having fun trying to come up with a new word, that's cool. I had just been attacked, I think (although it's hard to tell) because I said I would use "non-linear", which apparently is, to some, an insufficient reaction to Jannell's request.

Thing is, non-linear is already in use; and doesn't mean the same thing as Jaquaysed/Xandered/Thraced.

Any dungeon with choice points or branches is non-linear; but not every such dungeon counts as J/X/T'ed. Similar to saying that any car on the road is a supercar just because it has 4 wheels and a motor, ignoring everything else that differentiates a supercar from the basic Hyundai I drive around.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Nobody designs one, but I've been in the position of having bought what turned out to be linear-designed dungeon adventures and then having to go in and thrace them up a bit before running them.

Nice verbing.

 

[Lanefan]

To forestall something that's almost certainly not going to happen anyway: if anyone's even thinking about naming this after me, I decline the honour.

Why?

Because round here my name has already long since been put to a lengthy SOP for field-testing found magic items, as in "We'll do a Lanefan over it"; this because I wrote (in-character while he was laid up for a year or so) a treatise and guide on item testing in the field, and it caught on. If my name's to stick to anything, I'd like it to be that.

 

[Charlaquin]

As I've said... if people want a new term to stick, you all better start writing a whole bunch of articles about that style of dungeon so that you have a location people can be directed to that has that term. Because random people just using whatever word they want will not accomplish anything other than that specific person being happier with their word usage.

That’s all it needs to accomplish.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

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.

I'm not sure it's important beyond rolling your eyes that JA is that kind of arrogant. Beyond that, it's probably a "shrug". Move on. IMO, naturally!

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

I propose the use of a classic name that would be a nod to the Greek elements of J.J's Cavern of Thracia.

I'd use Centimani/ng (ok, its latin, not greek, but Hecatoncheiresing is a little heavy).

Or named after one of the many-handed creatures, Aegaeon (Aegaeoning, Aegaegoned) being the most popular one.

So a dungeon with many limbs.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I'm not sure it's important beyond rolling your eyes that JA is that kind of arrogant. Beyond that, it's probably a "shrug". Move on. IMO, naturally!

I agree, it's not important. Which is why I found it funny so many people were so adamant about not using the term 'Xandering' and trying so hard to find another word or phrase to use in its place.

Now of course this being EN World, people are always much more strident in their writings here than they are in "real life", so I agree with you wholeheartedly that once this thread falls off the front page almost no one is going to care, remember or fight about it later on. Which is why that stridency to me seems out of place and unnecessary and thus so amusing.

That same separation of EN World to "real life" is what allows people here to so easily call the D&D designers lazy and lacking passion, when they would never DARE to actually say that to any of them to their faces. It's a lot of fake bluster.

 

[aco175]

Which is why I think it would be hilariously funny if the community could hijack "Xandering" a dungeon to mean "Clearing a dungeon of its inhabitants, claiming it as your own, and renaming it after yourself."

Xanderaize also now means something close to plagiarize. Making up words is fun. It is the part about making fetch happen that is hard.

Nobody designs one, but I've been in the position of having bought what turned out to be linear-designed dungeon adventures and then having to go in and thrace them up a bit before running them.

I wonder how long it will take to get rid of the 'formerly know as Jaquaying' part when people ask what is meant by thracing them. I like thracing as a term to use out of all the ones suggested. It is getting people to use one over the long run before we can get rid of having to write out the (formerly know as Jaquaying) part.

 

[Bill Zebub]

but Hecatoncheiresing is a little heavy).

Yeah but it would separate the people who really need a verb from those who just want to sound cool.