Who is this person, and why do they not know what a gish is?

[Umbran]

But I'm certain that its usage will only increase with time.

Ehg. I hope not. It is an arbitrary jargon with limited mnemonic character.

Honestly, I think anyone who feels "gish" is a good jargon choice ought to tread very lightly near the "WotC stinks at naming things" threads, lest they become pots calling kettles black.

 

[Hairfoot]

Honestly, I think anyone who feels "gish" is a good jargon choice ought to tread very lightly near the "WotC stinks at naming things" threads, lest they become pots calling kettles black.

Yes, but they also think Jargon was a Greyhawk god who didn't make into 3E, so advice may be futile.

 

[sjmiller]

You know, I am one of those folks who have been playing D&D well over 20 years, and until recently I had never heard the word "gish" and had no idea what it meant. I really had to dig around my old gaming stuff when someone mentioned its origins, and even then I could not find it. As for the current usage, well, I don't like it. I don't use it. To me, it doesn't make any sense. Of course, a lot of the slang terms used here have me confused. Maybe I am just getting old.

 

[wingsandsword]

Aside from one person I know in real life who uses the term (and then only fairly recently, after spending a lot of time on WotC's boards), and knowing the term very vaguely as a githyanki thing that never came up in any game I have played in, I only hear "gish" used online.

It's a fairly obscure piece of gaming jargon used mostly by the "character optimization" (a.k.a. Min-maxers) subset of D&D gamers, so it's pretty specialized and pretty obscure jargon among gamers as a whole, and very obscure among the general population.

 

[Rabelais]

Why is my name in that quote??

Besides, when I think of Gish, I think of...

I've crushed on her for years. I, for one, welcome our new Gish overlords.

 

[F5]

To me, "Gish" is the sound a goblin makes when stepped on by an ogre. And I've been playing since 1e, and used Githyanki fighter/mages. I just don't like the term. It doesn't sound like a dangerous soldier who has mastered the martial and arcane arts. It sounds like an industrial accident. Diff'rent strokes for diff'rent folks, I guess.

Although, this is a usage of the term I can get behind...

 

[Arnwyn]

We're only recently (within the last few years) seeing the term gish used in its generic form, so its use is likewise fairly uncommon, at this point. But I'm certain that its usage will only increase with time.

I certainly hope not.

As already pointed out, it's a very obscure jargon used by a tiny subset of a tiny subset - and misused at that.

Gish = githyanki fighter/mage. Any other use is simply misuse.

 

[Scurvy_Platypus]

Wow. I feel so old and out of the loop.

"Gish" has been around for years?

Somehow I've managed to miss it for the last 20 years of rpgs.

I've seen it a couple of times around here but then again I don't read every post, tend to avoid the Rules (but not the houserules) forum, and avoid any kind of 4E post.

I just figured it was some deragatory term (like everyone seems to love to get their hate on for "furries"), and I've got no reason to bother with learning whatever the latest fad is to denigrate someone's fun.

I never really learned any of the Planescape stuff, so maybe that's why I missed it.

I still don't see much of a point to the term. Seems like pointless elitism and an ability to laugh at anyone that's not a part of the "cool kids" and in the know.

Guess that just makes me old, or "unimpressive", or something. *shrug*

 

[VirgilCaine]

You're right, you're not very impressive. Expecting others to somehow magically know the meaning of a monosyllabic word which has zero resemblance to any common word and only a single indefinate similarity with a fictitious word used by a small number of hobbyists of an unusual hobby. I don't often say this about my fellow gamers, but wow, that's pathetically nerdy!

It's not like it's some brand-new usage of the word. I could swear I've heard it used for, oh, two years now at least. That's a long time on the Internet.

I never imagined my post would bring out such vitriol against the term!

And man, some of you guys are really proud of being out of touch on this particular issue!

Quite so. I hope the OP is shortly going to acknowledge that this thread was started in good humour.

No. I don't know why everyone thinks this is supposed to be a funny thread.
There was no name attached to the comments, and it's not like it's a new, weird term.

 

[Piratecat]

No. I don't know why everyone thinks this is supposed to be a funny thread.
There was no name attached to the comments, and it's not like it's a new, weird term.

No name attached to the comments? You mean, other than explicitly being posted by Morrus? What with his name and photo right to the left of the post?

As such, your question "who is this person?" came off as very, very odd.

EDIT: I bet you read it on the front news page instead of the link at the top of the forum. That would explain it.