Words Matter
The words we use are important. They are the way we convey our thoughts and feelings, what something does, what it's made out of, how someone makes you feel, and almost everything in-between. People say "words won't do it justice" when talking about how a piece of chocolate pie tastes or the depth of the colors in a Picasso painting. This may be true, but maybe it's because you don't know the right words to explain the sensation. I feel like I never have the right words, whether when I'm talking to my wife or writing another article for Dump Stat.
I spent my formative years reading everything from Roald Dahl to Lewis Carrol and then to Stephen King and Frank Miller. Alice in Wonderland opened my world to the mystical and strange. Stephen's King's Insomnia is still one of my favorite books of all time, another story about the bizarre but written in a common man's language. Frank Miller's The Dark Knight series translated what the art was saying through dialogue dripping with raw emotion. The words in these stories provided a script for the movie that played in my mind as I read them.
I used the vocabulary I learned from these books, and so many others, to describe the world of Greyhawk and its inhabitants as a young DM. They allowed me to explain in rich detail our fantasy world. What it looked, smelled, and sounded like and provided the fuel to describe and role-play the countless evil mages, liches, and other assorted bad guys that I threw at my players. Whether or not I knew it consciously, I finally understood the power that a good vocabulary could have.
On the flip side, reading and attempting to translate the 1st edition Dungeon Master's Guide was often an exercise in futility. The jumbled words of Gary Gygax and his system of rules could be a horror show of epic proportions. His swollen and grandiose prose was painful to read in parts. Here's part of the description of the Codex of Planes.
In the distant past, the High Wizard Priest of the Isles of Woe…discovered this work and used its arcane powers to dominate the neighboring states. Still, legend also shows that these same powers eventually brought doom to the mage-priest and his tyrannical domain. It must be that somehow the Codex survived the inundation, for the archmage Tzunk scribed the following fragment before his strange disappearance:
". . . and the two strong slaves lifted it [the Codex] from the back of the Beast. Thereupon I commanded the Brazen Portals to be brought low, and they were wrenched from their hinges and rang upon the stone. The Efreet howled in fear and fled when I caused the page to be read, and the Beast passed into the City of Brass. Now was I, Tzunk, Master of the Plane of Molten Skies. With the sure hand I closed Yagrax's Tome [the Codex], dreading to -"
From the foregoing it is evident that the item is very large and of exceptional power. Any person reading its 99 damned pages is 99% certain to meet a terrible fate (1% cumulative chance per page). The Codex's other pages have the keys to instant physical transference to any one of the other planes and alternates of any world or universe…
Dungeon Master's Guide, page 156 (1979)
Excellent description, but it feels as if Gygax was trying to cram in as many big words as he could into the artifact's description. This is just one example and by no means the worst. His imagination and creativity were outstanding. His words, not so much.
Even worse were the rules and how they were written. If words have power, then rule definitions wielded unlimited power. We poke fun at 1e saving throws constantly in our Deep Dive series. So many things in the 1st edition will kill you outright. Fail your saving throw against poison results in death is a common refrain through monster descriptions. Death was final unless you had a powerful wizard with a wish spell or cleric with a resurrection spell. The 5th edition is written to provide the player and DM with multiple avenues for your character to rise again, fully healed after a long rest. 1e was written so that you grabbed some d6's and started rolling your new character.
Rules were often confusing not for the words they contained but the words they were missing. One example is the ghoul. The ghoul's special attack was its ability to paralyze you, so it could scratch you to death with its claws, and you watching on in horror, unable to do a thing. Based on the creature's description in the Monster Manual, the length of the ghoul's paralyzation effect was infinite so you better not let one touch you. The DMs were left to figure it out independently without an answer, so hopefully, they were a benevolent soul.
In the 5th edition, the rules are much clearer. Sure there are confusing rules, but the game is in the best shape of its long life. Actions are much different than bonus actions. If you create homebrew, there is a set of unwritten rules on what abilities should be an action and what is permissible as a bonus action. There's a reason spell/magic items/subclasses use the words can use when you're attempting to do something. The player is not forced into an action but instead is given a choice to. On the flip side, you must make a saving throw when that evil beholder fires an eye beam at you. At least a failure won't seemingly always result in your immediate death.
When I graduated college, I disappointed my parents and embarked on a career in the restaurant industry. I began my career working out in the dining room, wearing my suit, and having dozens of 2-minute conversations every evening as I did my table touches. I was good at it but found myself drawn to the kitchen and transitioned to working in the back of the house. Before, I used statements like "earthy with a hint of raspberries," Now, I was told to "get my head out of my ass and fire the fucking entrees."
The TV show Kitchen Nightmares is made to shock its viewers when Gordon Ramsey screams profanities at some hapless line cook. You could never get away with such behavior in today's world (let alone keep any employees). Back in the 1990s, the show was a reasonably accurate portrayal of life in a restaurant kitchen. I learned that an amuse-bouche was not just a free little appetizer but a French term that means a little bit of food served before the meal to stimulate the appetite. I was taught that searing a piece of meat was not just slapping it on a hot pan and flipping it before it burned. It was a method to cook meat at high temperatures to develop a dark brown, caramelized crust on the outside. Words I thought I knew took on an entirely new meaning. It was like learning a new language and unlike French and Latin, one I could actually understand.
Of course, with the good came the bad. I found my conversational language deteriorating, consisting of blunt terms and four-letter words. In the kitchen, every other sentence contained the word fuck, and it was used as a noun, verb, and adjective, sometimes as all three in one sentence. Given the time and the place, the language was commonplace and, in many ways, expected. Times change, and it is totally inappropriate in today's world. Before you judge and say how it should never have been tolerated in the workplace, just know that the words used conveyed a meaning that we understood and their importance. The urgency of a task could be given with one word and the right tone. How important a job was clearly stated with a simple sentence. Sure, in a kitchen today, you'd hear, "I need you to take care of this immediately," and that works. Back then, it wouldn't have. "Right fucking now" meant the exact same thing, but using words I understood. Whether it was right or wrong is not for me to judge. It just was. The problem is, I find myself still using the same language even today, and especially at home.
Not the best idea when you have kids.
I've gotten better and continue to do so, and I'm lucky the children rarely swear. When they do, it's usually directed at me. I have told them from a young age that words reflect the kind of person you are and that using bad language makes you sound unintelligent and ignorant. Being excellent children - thank god they have so many of the good traits my wife has - they primarily respond that I use foul language and I'm not dumb. The jury is still out on that one, but at least they understand the words matter.
Swearing at our table is ok. Some tables it isn't allowed, and that's ok too. But the words used when playing D&D can tell you a lot about a player. The difference between using I and us is a clear signal of a player's priorities in a campaign. Someone saying "I want to" more than "we should" can tell you a lot. Sure, wanting to do something once and a while is perfectly fine, but all the time? To me, this means they are playing the game as if it's all about them. They are missing the point of playing. Dungeons and Dragons is a team game, almost like one extended team-building exercise. When one person focuses solely upon themselves, it's hard to build the camaraderie that will hopefully blossom throughout a campaign.
One final note. The importance of pronouns is front and center in today’s society. For the generation growing up with the new model for how we use pronouns it comes naturally. Older individuals, such as myself, were taught to default to "he." I have done my best to use they/them when I am unsure in my writing, but I'll be the first to admit I am still learning. I am a curious person by nature, so I ask questions when I'm not sure. I’m sorry if you are offended or think I'm ignorant when answering my inquiry. In that case, that's fine, and at least I won't unwittingly insult the next person. If nothing else, rest assured, dear readers, that we at Dump Stat respect your pronoun choices, know they carry great weight, and are doing our best to use them correctly.
Because words matter.
