Two last comments on Sean's rant
- Thread starter seankreynolds
- Start date
Henry@home
First Post
Sean,
For good reasons or bad, I'm glad to see you around here!
For good reasons or bad, I'm glad to see you around here!
Darkness
Hand and Eye of Piratecat [Moderator]
I agree. Also, Sean's appearance has cleared up a point that many people originally misunderstood and some behaved rudely about. So it is very cool that this is clarified now.Henry@home said:Sean,
For good reasons or bad, I'm glad to see you around here!
dcollins
Explorer
Well. I guess that I'll have to chime in and say that even revised, and directed specifically to publishers, that this rant is ill-conceived (particularly in the mini-rants at the end).
Yes, D&D has technical terms defined, and a writer should not be sloppy or mistakenly abuse those terms. However, to assert that the D&D game forbids any alternate use of those terms is incorrect as well, especially in the cases of descriptive text and narrative passages. I would certainly not want to see writers banned from 90% of the linguistic repertoire used in fantasy novels, legends, and myths, just because the D&D game is forced to use some of them in a technical manner.
Here are a couple other considerations:
- For d20 published materials, is it not the case that the "open gaming" content must be clearly separated from the "product identity" content? Then it should be harmless to use the technical terms in the identified OGL statistic blocks, but for the writer to be free to any usage they wish in the rest of the piece.
- Is it not the case that certain established game worlds and licensed properties will have word usage at odds with those in the technical D&D lexicon? Then in those d20 materials, one would have no choice but to use the terms in a multitude of senses, or else SKR would be arguing that such licensed properties should be barred from the d20 mark. The most obvious example: if someone, one day, combines Lord of the Rings content with the d20 license, it would be ridiculous to argue that they need to change all the Tolkienesque usages for "elvish", "enchantments", and so forth. I'm sure there are other, more subtle examples in other published properties and campaign settings.
Yes, D&D has technical terms defined, and a writer should not be sloppy or mistakenly abuse those terms. However, to assert that the D&D game forbids any alternate use of those terms is incorrect as well, especially in the cases of descriptive text and narrative passages. I would certainly not want to see writers banned from 90% of the linguistic repertoire used in fantasy novels, legends, and myths, just because the D&D game is forced to use some of them in a technical manner.
Here are a couple other considerations:
- For d20 published materials, is it not the case that the "open gaming" content must be clearly separated from the "product identity" content? Then it should be harmless to use the technical terms in the identified OGL statistic blocks, but for the writer to be free to any usage they wish in the rest of the piece.
- Is it not the case that certain established game worlds and licensed properties will have word usage at odds with those in the technical D&D lexicon? Then in those d20 materials, one would have no choice but to use the terms in a multitude of senses, or else SKR would be arguing that such licensed properties should be barred from the d20 mark. The most obvious example: if someone, one day, combines Lord of the Rings content with the d20 license, it would be ridiculous to argue that they need to change all the Tolkienesque usages for "elvish", "enchantments", and so forth. I'm sure there are other, more subtle examples in other published properties and campaign settings.
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Rashak Mani
First Post
Hail the dog with a switchblade !! Hate those Iconics...
Green Knight
First Post
Which is all well and good. Just don't flip out at me when I refer to Julia Roberts as an actress and call my older female sibling my sister.
Then again, if what the above posters are saying is correct, the rant was directed at game designers and not the players. So my point is moot. Tea and crumpets, anyone?
CRGreathouse
Community Supporter
sotmh said:
http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=crumpet&r=67
And Sean, thanks for that rant... it's those little details that people misuse that drives me crazy!
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