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


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For years, lots of out in public. I saw plenty of it on Facebook and Twitter, when we had mutual friends whose posts we’d both reply to. Utterly, boringly, typical misogyny, homophobia, and transphobia.
I wasn't doubting that a trans woman was getting harassed by gamers. I was wondering if it was tied to the term as used.
 


If Janelle Jaquays doesn't want me to use the term, then I won't. No-brainer.
This.

As for 'xandering', I very much doubt that term will gain traction. I guess we'll see what term eventually wins out. (Frankly, my best guess to the answer to that one is the very term we've been asked not to use. I think the genie is probably out of the bottle on that one, despite the wishes of JJ.)
 

What's the point of trying to come up with a new name here?

It doesn't matter what gets voted on... you would need that word to be incorporated across hundreds of different articles, blogs, and stories that reference the terminology for it to ever hope of sticking. And least Justin HAS multiple dozens of articles and such that reference the technique and anyone who goes searching for it (using either 'Jacquaying' or 'Xandering') are going to get pointed to his work... all of which will now use the 'Xandering the Dungeon' phrase.

But even more to the point... who gives a rat's ass what term is used? Or who it's "named" after? If the term becomes ubiquitous, most people who end up using it will have absolutely zero idea where it came from. I mean heck... I see the words "face" and "heel" used as descriptors over every possible thing being discussed nowadays, and I guarantee you most of the writers who use those words only do so because they've been added to the English lexicon and they no idea that they were originally professional wrestling terms. And how many people know when they say "going to 11" that that is actually a reference to Spinal Tap? Sure, a lot of us Olds know that... but everybody else just use it because it's a standard descriptive phrase now. And eventually 'Xandering the Dungeon' could reach that status and no one will know where it was originally from. So why care so much about it that you want to somehow try and force a change?
 


Yeah, what the heck? The actual OG designer who invented that style of dungeon design wants the name changed, so Justin Alexander decided to declare that it's now named after him? What the heck?

Justin Alexander is the one who coined the name, in articles Justin Alexander wrote, about a style of dungeon design that Justin Alexander codified, inspired by the work of Jenell Jacquays. He apparently was trying to honor her past work, and the fact that she inspired the ideas.

Ms. Jacquays asked for her name to be removed from it.

If he'd have named it after himself in the first place, we would have rolled our eyes but had no issue. So, we can roll our eyes now.
 

Yeah, I can't blame the person who coined the term and codified its meaning for feeling like he has enough "ownership" of it (as it were) to use a derivative of his own name when renaming the term.

That stated, I'm inclined to agree that a verb that isn't based on someone's name at all is a better choice. Bonus points if it can remove a layer of confusion by being more directly related to the concept it points to.

E.g. if "Hays dungeon" was the term normally used to refer to "megadungeon", it'd be better to just call megadungeons "megadungeons" since there's less translation required.
 

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