In one game the Jesus Christ thing came up so often that the DM just put an ancient long dead dragon in the backstory named Djezuskraizt, and it's now canon in that world that people exclaim Djezuskraizt in exasperation or surprise because of the dragon's historical love of incredibly annoying practical jokes and pranks, so much so that it became a kind of tradition to blame him for all the little things that go wrong, like some kind of demigod of misfortune. So now players can stop saying 'who?' any time someone says it out of habit
"Roll to turn the doorknob." "Hammering a piton counts as an attack." "Let me explain how Half-Orcs are made." "Your magic items are destroyed." "The Beholder rolls to seduce you."
"Make X great again" in any setting, even as a joke, just immediately makes me groan. I know making fun of political figures (especially really bad ones) is funny, but to me it's both really low-hanging fruit, and just uncreative that the best way you can characterize your villain is just "he's donald trump but an elf." Like, there's a million ways to characterize a bad guy. And a million more if you want to paint some political figure as ignorant or corrupt in your setting, implicitly or explicitly. Invoking the literal Trump card is just lazy, and tends to make people really uncomfortable no matter which side of the 21st century culture war they're on.
That's how I'm playing Dagult Neverember in my Storm Kings Thunder. Not overtly, but I think he makes quite a compelling villain. I'm waiting to drop the Make Neverwinter Great Again slogan until the city is absolutely overrun with gnome refugees from the Fire Giants' Shenanigans though.
I tend to use "finesmith", if there's a need to distinguish the metalworker responsible for fine detail and finishing from the one who casts or forges the rough structure of a metal item.
Brownsmith is actually bronzesmith, or at least that's what modern-ish terminology defines it as. Coppersmith was called redsmith or brazier if it's alloyed with zinc, usually to make brass for bells.
@@lyudmilapavlichenko7551 Or you could use that video game mechanic where you need to split up into teams to solve puzzles where you need to be in different areas at once, or one member of the team can access a part of the dungeon others can't.
Bugbear is another word that I have issues with. It has nothing to do with bears or bear like goblins. The term refers to goblins who played annoying tricks on people, which is why it's used as a term for an annoyance today.
You can blame it on English mythology and the evolution of its spelling. Originally the bugbear was a legendary boogeyman-like creature in medieval English folklore that was historically depicted as a creepy bear-man or hobgoblin that lurked in the woods to scare children. According to Wikipedia and dictionaries, its name is probably derived from the Middle English word "bugge" (a frightening thing, cognates with "bogey" and "bugaboo"), or the Old Welsh "bwg" and Old Scots "bogill" (both mean evil spirit or goblin). In Finnish, the name of this original mythological creature is usually translated, when translated, into the forms "kiusa" (annoyer), "riesa" (nuisancer), "riiviö" (rascal), "mörkö" (bogey) and "mörökölli" (bogeyman) and of these we have preferred "riiviö" (rascal) in the context of fantasy in our tabletop campaigns because it sounds better than "bugbear".
@@danielmalinen6337And a Hobgoblin originally meant a tiny goblin, because the "Hob" part is derived from the old word for Robin, indicating that the creature was about the size of a small bird. Which, personally, I actually find more terrifying than a man-sized critter. Imagine a legion of songbird-sized goblins who are intent on killing you, and can fit into every tiny nook and cranny of your house...
@@chameleonx9253 And the mythological mischievous Kobolds were not much different from them, except that they could be invisible and were able to materialize, for example, in the form of a candle, a scoop, a hammer, a brick, a stone, a human, a child, or any animal.
If you have one of those people at your table who delights in using that word and the discomfort it causes, then says, "but that's what we called a bundle of sticks! I'm just being accurate to the setting!" Remind them that it likely came from the Latin "fasces" which is also the meaning glommed onto by Mussolini for his Fascist movement. Tell them your character is more inspired by Mediterranean medieval culture and then talk about throwing another "fashie" on the fire. Talk about your axe like, "this tool smashes fashies." Then look pointedly at them.
@@chameleonx9253 Which has caused me issues at least once in a relatively modern-set IRC freeform/battlebot hybrid campaign that inexplicably (OK, not so inexplicably, we were in our late teens and the early 00s had weird aesthetics by modern standards) used cigarettes to recover mp considering at the time that abbreviation was so heavily lodged into my dialect I used it without _thinking_ about what Americans are more used to hearing it mean. First hand experience of this - even if you don't offend anyone for entirely understandable reasons, it's still going to derail things.
A friend of mine is a traditionally trained blacksmith by trade, and they described whitesmithing as "The part of my job that actually makes reliable money" They also defined it as use of copper, but it often involves smaller, fiddly pieces of work, including jewellery. And there's more call for custom hand made bling than there is for the servicing of cannons in castles, or larp groups who like their armour authentic.
Thank you for all these great words to sprinkle into my narration! I'm definitely going to go out of my way to describe bundles of sticks in the future.
That's a good one ^^ My other word option pet peeve is the use of "human" as a race name. It allways bothered me how we use "humanoïds" and struggle to name someone we don't know the race, but know the gender. So I am, with all my heart, in love with Rioko Kui's take in dungeon meshi : "humans" define all sentient humanoïd races and the ones that's more like ourselves are named "tallmen". This way you can say "I've met a man but I don't know his race." and specify "I've met a tallmen wooman" If you know more. I took this whole heartedly in my homebrew and even added a layer of race discussion around the idea of orks, arakokras and other beastly humanoïds should be called "humans" too, with the undertone that not including them is fantasy racism. She even gave them a standout trait by doing this : they are tall ! Wich means they see further, walk faster, reach higher, are more intimidating and so on, all without making any change to our biology ! (Having the humans being the mundane ones was also one of my big pet peeves. To the point I made them the magic resitant ones in a homebrew. Taking inspiration from the french comic series Sillages ...)
Mincemeat contained meat and suet until way into the 20th century. Always. Or it was minced fruit. I've made recipes from 'Forme of Curie' up thru the 1917 'Billiken Cookbook' and the 1942 'American Woman's Cookbook.'
Not "thee," just "the" like the modern word. The weird letter that looks like a "y" is a variation of the "thorn" (þ), which is still used to denote a "th" sound in phonetics.
Luckily for me, my usual table doesn't have history nerds, so I can use any word I want (except for the short Christmas adventure I ran and kept bouncing between "Krampusnight", the name I intended to use for it and "Christmas" just because it's more natural to say in the context). Instead I have a bunch of military and weapon nerds, so we had an hour long discussion about the proper length of spears and their classification more than once.
If someone playing in your game is this hung up on language, don't play with them anymore. If the unpleasant conversation is too much to handle, everyone else at the table can just flee the country and change their faces/names.
Interestingly enough, my table went for the Tolkien solution almost immediately, “oh, does this turn to phrase exist?” “we’re playing the campaign in the localized version” it acknowledges the conceit of the genre, and also keeps the game moving along, which is nice
I was listening to the parody song "Bushes of Love" today. In the midst of my giggling, I realized how - without the video's context - linguists in the future are going to find that song and wonder what the eff we were up to.
I feel like "weird" can kinda work as "weirding," which I think sheds some of the more modern connotations. It did also get used in Dune a bit (some of the Fremen call Lady Jessica a "weirding woman").
Yeah... I mean *everyone* knows that blacksmiths did everything - from nails, to armor, to the most sophisticated masterly crafted swords... and probably the occasional scythe and plowshares...
As someone who adores archaic English words, and our language in general, I found this video hysterically funny and intelligent and also just, "yeah, I guess my players WOULD misunderstand that." Wyrd is a fascinating word which I love very much. And yes, the connotations are so much deeper than most people understand. The Norse term this concept, "Doom" which means basically the same thing, but sounds even scarrier! For instance your Doom/Wyrd might be to win the lottery, find a loving partner and live happily ever after, but neither word sounds ANYTHING like that. In runic study there is the concept of Wyrd (not embraced by all runevitki) which is an added rune to the elder Futhark and embodies concepts such as, "you are dealing with a situation which is part of your contract with the Universe" and also, "you're not supposed to understand this right now, but fate is involved" and even the Magic 8-Ball answer of "Ask again later." I agree that there's no reason to use that particular word that also means a piece of wood OR a cigarette, but whitesmith IS a rather valuable word, especially since there's no real replacement. Unless, maybe "finesmith," or "sharpsmith" or something? I suppose you could have your characters visit one of those to repair their weapons or create a lock. I do think the Tolkeinesque method of saying, "please note, I'm translating this all into words I think will make sense to you," is a good start point. At the same time, if I'm playing D&D, for the sake of immersion, I'd rather have a flagon or even a pint of mead/ale than a mug or glass. Flagons just sound more rustic, bold and exciting than "glass" (eeep or "drink" or" container!") I'd rather meet a cobbler than a shoemaker. I'd rather eat my food on a "trencher" than a "slice of bread." I would like to ride a stallion, gelding, mare, warhorse or palfrey, or even a nag, rather than just a plain "horse" or "pony."
Ngl, the only reason your players would think that a brownsmith or whitesmith was referring to race is if they are already constantly thinking about race. I’ve had to teach my friends about a lot of terminology they’d never heard of before, including “whitesmith.” But as they are not obsessed with thinking about the world through the lens of race, race was not how they initially interpretted the “whitesmith” profession. Instead they thought immediately of wood-burning forges (smiths covered in ash instead of soot) and ding ding ding silver and other pretty metals. I still had to tell them the full occupation, but they didn’t get uncomfortable. Because they weren’t waiting to BE MADE uncomfortable.
I learned a lot of new stuff today. A hint on measurements: a yard is a pretty good approximation of a meter, a pound is about 1/2 a kg, and a pint is almost 1/2 a liter. I usually just round them like this. If you find electrum confusing, wait until you play something that uses shillings. ;)
I grew up in the Southern Baptist church, and if I learned anything, it was that 20th century southern Americans did not speak 17th century King's English very well, and Jesus didn't even speak it at all. (Tho I'm sure He could have if He'd wanted.) It was rather cringe to hear them stumbling over the use of thee's and thou's, just because they mistakenly thought it was "proper" church talk. Case in point, you likely don't know what electrum is unless you heard of it in D&D and you looked it up.
For the case of accidentally implying the cultural presence of Jesus, in games I've played if it's as obvious as Jesus (like, Mesmer isn't so well-known) we tend to make a joke like acting as if you just heard a loanword we're unfamiliar with. Often that takes the form of asking "who" or "what" and people tend to answer that by reflex. And since it's quicker to improvise something based on the original than to make something out of whole cloth, there's a LOT of small towns with carpenters and/or cult leaders named Jesus. I don't think we're treating them as canon, but to me those types of accidental implications and the jokes we make about them are part of the fun of this medium. That joke won't land well at all in a film, novel, or video game unless it's a portal or incursion fantasy, but then it's not an implication anymore. But it works in tabletop games, because a lot of the time you're making it up as you go and everyone witnessing it knows that. Speaking of improvising something close to the original, we needed a name for a famous playwright once, someone at the table did the "make a name out of near synonyms" and we got Quivershaft who has stuck around as a recurring character, who has never appeared but has been mentioned in several campaigns.
The joy of online gaming, half the party is from the US, and half from Europe, I’m glad I’m from the UK and can cope with both imperial and metric measurement. I did wonder if the word Tinker, would be on your list, once an essential part of rural life, the traveller able to sharpen knives and mend pots and pans, now viewed in a very different light, or the really fun one that means miserly and starts with an N. Personally I believe in widening my players vocabulary and happily use some of the less common terms as long as they are the correct word to describe something.
Interestingly, in New Zealand English (or at least, the subdialects I'm familiar with), the whole 'mince meat doesn't contain meat' thing has worked itself out, somewhat. The pie filling that no longer contains meat (because apparently it once did, with the fruits and things being added to it... though that might just be more linguistic confusion) is refered to not as mince meat, but as fruit mince (being, well, minced fruit, at least in theory), meanwhile we have pies that do actually contain minced meat... which is just refered to as mince (or beef mince, or whatever-other-kind-of-meat mince, when the distinction must be made), and are thus 'mince pies', with the fruity ones being 'fruit mince pies' or 'christmas mince pies' (due to their usually seasonal nature). Nothing to do with fantasy or role playing, but I do find it a bit interesting that such a change has not become common in British English. Yay Linguistics?
As a french speaker, I cannot relate to these situations. I even had to translate the others like whitesmith as I never heard it before. This very much speaks volumes about how right you are though. Thing is, I did heard the french counterpart and both words for blacksmith (forgeron) and whitesmith (ferblantier) are so different that it wouldn't even confuse people so much in the tiny french corner of America. As for measurements, your comments are spot-on. Trying to make sense out of any measurement unit in a fantasy world is very pointless. The more accurate your world is, the more alien it will feel to the players and the things their characters should know outright will require reference charts and the whole thing will drag uselessly. This is why most fantasy work borrow so much from myths and legends, because we can relate to them, they are from our own world. Sprinkle just a bit of magic, enough to enchant, or dare I say "mesmerize" your players, but not so much as to loose them completely. All that being said, I just love your videos, you bring a sound reflection on rpg that we should at least put some thoughts on once in a while.
I fully understand that last point, I hate having to describe things in feet I wanna use metric but the game has imperial so heavily baked into how it works in a way that only works for metric that I have to use it for shorthand even if I barely understand what I'm even saying half the time and have to use a grid to help visualise my own descriptions. Also for the first point, while not quite the same thing, the ffxiv usage of "goldsmith" could be a way to refer to someone like a whitesmith in a way that doesn't invite unfortunate arguments or tangents. (In that game goldsmiths primarily craft accessories such as rings and bracelets, but also make things like glasses and other more specialised and delicate metalwork such as small weapons, which is close enough I could see someone trained in that good at making lcoks and watches and the like.
In regards to the sayings and words that come from real world history and beliefs like the Bible, you could also come up with historical events and legends in your world that give it a reason to have them as well. Instead of the guillotine being invented during the French Revolution and named for the inventor, have it invented by a tyrannical king and named for him. Could even have the king have a similar but different, like Guill Tinos. Or copy things in with a different context. Goliath still comes from a legend of a fight against a giant, but swap it so that David was the name of a Giant while Goliath was the name of the being that fought off the Giant, with him being a Goliath, the name taken for the race in his honour, and having at the time been referred to by a different name. Thus you have an explanation for where the name came from. I do agree that these other ones can be tricky to use, but there are fantast series out there that do use them and make it work. The Elder Scrolls series, for example, uses the word Wyrd, in the original context. They are a group of witches or druids (I'd have to double check) that use a unique type of magic and frequently predict future events. While it is a bit strange to see, it doesn't seem to confuse too many people, at least not for long. People tend to get the meaning from context pretty quickly.
In butcher terms, butt is also used for the shoulder of the animal. It's still used in fact. If you see on a menu or a package pork butt, it's actually talking about shoulder meat.
I do use leagues in my games for flavor- but if anyone has a problem with the term, I tell them one league is three miles or five kilometers, and it's the distance a person can walk in an hour. 1-league hexes are a good medium scale for maps. Weights, measures, and coinage? I keep them decimal. Thou, thee, thy, thine? They're fine for flavor if you know how to use them, but I cringe when people who don't know how to use them try to do it anyway, so I don't encourage the practice.
I had players wanting to be wise guys and asked for everything to be measured in American standard washing machines (27 inches wide). They laughed, I called for a break and I gave them what they wanted for the rest of the session. They have since become more cautious in what they ask for now
"Tinker" is one that derailed a session of mine for like 2 hours. I described someone as a "tinker" -- in the sense of an 'itinerant tinsmith'' who was in the area to... basically work on tableware and misc household items for money. ... And not at all qualified to like... invent firearms or create a complex clockwork construct for the party.
(I've also run into the whitesmith,, brownsmith, basically any sort of smith that isn't a blacksmith and doesn't hae the common name of the thing they work with in the name problem.)
I think words with historical meaning have the chances of creating in universe explanations. Also, dnd is not usually medieval one to one, rather than inspired, being able to include a number of modern cultural elements to help the story.
Lol this gave me a chuckle. Thanks for uploading. There are a lot of words not allowed at my table. Every time people start using thee's and thou's I just laugh at them. You bringing up english not even being a language in fantasy just reminds me of how I have regional tongues, instead of common. I also have many "Talisman of Tounge, or T.O.T," for sale. My higher ranking devils and angels do use thee and thou, or biblical like speech, after all Asmodias, Baal, Bael, and other devils of the bible are represented in D&D, as are Angel's. So there is Abrahamic influence in D&D or they would call themselves something else. And yes I have a homebrew Lore reason also.
The mangling of thee, thou, thy, thine, etc. and especially antiquated verb conjugations (-eth, -est) bandied about without any care for how they work grammatically grate at me so much
In my experience it can actually help with immersion, if you pick one or two of these terms that come up moderately often. Just don't overdo it and don't surprise your players with the terms mid session. It's not all that different from using gold pieces as currency rather than pound or dollar. I have to admit though, that I am the kind of player/nerd who would absolutely love to use the term wyrd unironically in my games, so my experience might have a slight selection bias.
never actually thought about the various different smith jobs, if you want to keep it simple could probably do light/heavy smith, or general smiths that take care of a village/town's daily needs and while they're able to sharpen weapons/tools or even get dents out of armors if they want something need made or properly repaired they would need to seek out a crafter. I'm using sweat metes as soon as I can, the suffering shall spread >= 3
in a larp i frequent, they use the term Chirurgeon and Chirurgery, and pronounce it Kai-urge-un and kai-urge-er-ree. This drives me slightly bonkers as those words are just "surgeon" and "surgery" from before spelling was standardized.
I’m my world, the Arcanist Guild is a society of strictly non-magical tinkerers and inventors that are excessively protective of their proprietary designs, thus embodying the original meaning of arcane being secret knowledge. They also get very offended at the appropriation of the word to refer to magic and won’t hesitate to correct people. It has all been very confusing for my players and I love it! 😁
Wow. For at least 30 years, I’ve been confusing sweetmeats (candies) with sweetbreads (organ meats). I had no clue until watching this video. It would definitely have derailed the game if I’d been at the table.
For those confused about thee, thou, thine, etc. If anyone has studied a Romance language, like Spanish, French, Italian, etc. then you may be familiar with the concept of Formal/Informal "you," a feature that Modern English notably lacks. For informal and formal pairs, in Spanish you have tú/usted, in French you have tu/vous, in Italian you have tu/lei (see a pattern yet?), and in Early Modern English, we had thou/you, a feature we notably dropped. Notice the crux of the issue: thou is the _INFORMAL_ you. You would use "thou" when speaking to a peer or a loved one (or God for some reason, which is why European languages use the informal you in their Bible translations, and why "thou" survives pretty much only in the Bible in Modern English). You would not use it when speaking to a superior or a stranger, as that would come off as kind of rude. Also, it most likely would have been pronounced like "thoo" (rhyming with "you", voiced th like in "other"). Because "thou" is now archaic and pretty much only exists in religious texts and old documents, we mistakenly think of the opposite, that "you" is familiar and friendly, and "thou" is formal and stuffy. If you're really trying to go for realism, you need to do the opposite, thou for your friends and you for more formal occaisions-- unless you're speaking very personally to a deity while in prayer. This is also not going into all of the "thee" and "thine" and "ye" and all of the "makests" and "dosts" that so liberally pepper fantasy settings, because if you're going to use archaic language, _please for the love of god do some research first._ For players who don't care, it rarely sounds that epic or noteworthy for them, and for people who do care, it makes our eyes roll to the back of our heads. Honestly, just sticking with "you" exclusively is perfectly fine and no one will care that much if you do.
Speaking of copper: The word 'copper' is derived from the island Cyprus, technically meaning 'the metal from Cyprus' (or something). So, would using the word 'copper piece' imply that Cyprus exists in your game world? Yeah, we're going with Tolkien further than we're aware of...
One pushback: in my alt history american setting, I gloss over explicitly derogatory language, but I make a point to still use words that a nonwhite culture proudly used and still use to refer to a nonracialized cultural practice. Specifically, the use of fetishes in vodun. Yes, I could whitewash it to talisman or totem or simply 'magic item', but part of honoring that culture is respecting their words. So my party collects fetishes from time to time, despite it being an uncomfortable word to say in modern white culture
You cannot tell me which words to use, you are not my real DM! I mean I agree with pretty much everything, but I just don't like to get told what I can or cannot do.
Of course it's confusing when everyone should be using silver for money. Electrum? Platinum? Never heard of them. Gold? Never even seen gold, except the cross in the cathedral and the ring the Baron wears.
Blacksmith, Ironsmith ... Whitesmith, Silversmith ... Brownsmith, Coppersmith ... Goldsmith is just Goldsmith ... don't break your players brains, use common vernacular. Personally, I would introduce silversmith and coppersmith as artisans, rather than smiths, even though that's what they are ... "do you want it functional or beautiful?"
The thing I don't get is that it's called "common". I am probably misremembering, but I recall a line in 3.5E? that says common is a translation into the normal vernacular of the host table (or some such).
As somebody who ran and played RPGs in several languages, I entirely disagree. Just spin your yarn with all the words and phrases necessary and available for the narrative. Except maybe for the word 'OKAY,, which I feel is a vicious attack against general verisimilitude for non-contemporary settings, I see no use in banning too many ingredients from my storytelling toolkit. Even, or especially if words are used the wrong way, that's only a chance to grow from mistakes as a group, or at least as an individual. I am anti-semantic like that.
![[PLEASE READ DESCRIPTION] Interview with an Anglo-Saxon in Old English](/img/n.gif)
I thought the words were the DM saying…
“Are you sure about that?”
"You can certainly try."
@@chameleonx9253 That's 4 words bro, read the assignment
I thought it was going to be "can I roll to seduce"
In one game the Jesus Christ thing came up so often that the DM just put an ancient long dead dragon in the backstory named Djezuskraizt, and it's now canon in that world that people exclaim Djezuskraizt in exasperation or surprise because of the dragon's historical love of incredibly annoying practical jokes and pranks, so much so that it became a kind of tradition to blame him for all the little things that go wrong, like some kind of demigod of misfortune. So now players can stop saying 'who?' any time someone says it out of habit
stealing this
I’m not religious, but growing up in NC had a way of ingraining that phrase in my brain. Have to fight it
That is pretty funny
'The tarrasque starts romancing you'
'Well, somehow Vecna has returned'
'To attack, buy a DLC'
'Make the Swordcoast great again'
"Roll to turn the doorknob."
"Hammering a piton counts as an attack."
"Let me explain how Half-Orcs are made."
"Your magic items are destroyed."
"The Beholder rolls to seduce you."
"Make X great again" in any setting, even as a joke, just immediately makes me groan. I know making fun of political figures (especially really bad ones) is funny, but to me it's both really low-hanging fruit, and just uncreative that the best way you can characterize your villain is just "he's donald trump but an elf."
Like, there's a million ways to characterize a bad guy. And a million more if you want to paint some political figure as ignorant or corrupt in your setting, implicitly or explicitly. Invoking the literal Trump card is just lazy, and tends to make people really uncomfortable no matter which side of the 21st century culture war they're on.
Trump's sweetmeat crits, rolling damage.
That's how I'm playing Dagult Neverember in my Storm Kings Thunder. Not overtly, but I think he makes quite a compelling villain. I'm waiting to drop the Make Neverwinter Great Again slogan until the city is absolutely overrun with gnome refugees from the Fire Giants' Shenanigans though.
@@BetaDude40depends on the group, some groups may find that extremely hilarious (especially if they are good at voices).
I'm pretty sure that the accepted term for a white smith in fantasy gaming is tinkerer or, failing that, something like clocksmith or gearsmith.
Tinsmith or silversmith are also good if you need to be more specific.
I tend to use "finesmith", if there's a need to distinguish the metalworker responsible for fine detail and finishing from the one who casts or forges the rough structure of a metal item.
Tinker is specifically an itinerant tinsmith historically.
But yeah, these ideas, sometimes including jewelers, get rolled into tinkers in fantasy.
Brownsmith is actually bronzesmith, or at least that's what modern-ish terminology defines it as.
Coppersmith was called redsmith or brazier if it's alloyed with zinc, usually to make brass for bells.
Also, it is general roleplaying wisdom to not engage in historical authenticity unless your group is entirely onto it. No need to tie it to D&D.
"Hey guys! Let's split up!" See? Already know 'em!
I Occasionally give my players a problem where they have to split up because of time restraints and watch them squirm.
@@lyudmilapavlichenko7551 Or you could use that video game mechanic where you need to split up into teams to solve puzzles where you need to be in different areas at once, or one member of the team can access a part of the dungeon others can't.
I once reacted with "Really?" to a player's action in combat as a DM, regret it for sure.
That's along the same lines as, "Are you sure about that?"
Bugbear is another word that I have issues with. It has nothing to do with bears or bear like goblins. The term refers to goblins who played annoying tricks on people, which is why it's used as a term for an annoyance today.
You can blame it on English mythology and the evolution of its spelling. Originally the bugbear was a legendary boogeyman-like creature in medieval English folklore that was historically depicted as a creepy bear-man or hobgoblin that lurked in the woods to scare children. According to Wikipedia and dictionaries, its name is probably derived from the Middle English word "bugge" (a frightening thing, cognates with "bogey" and "bugaboo"), or the Old Welsh "bwg" and Old Scots "bogill" (both mean evil spirit or goblin).
In Finnish, the name of this original mythological creature is usually translated, when translated, into the forms "kiusa" (annoyer), "riesa" (nuisancer), "riiviö" (rascal), "mörkö" (bogey) and "mörökölli" (bogeyman) and of these we have preferred "riiviö" (rascal) in the context of fantasy in our tabletop campaigns because it sounds better than "bugbear".
@@danielmalinen6337And a Hobgoblin originally meant a tiny goblin, because the "Hob" part is derived from the old word for Robin, indicating that the creature was about the size of a small bird.
Which, personally, I actually find more terrifying than a man-sized critter. Imagine a legion of songbird-sized goblins who are intent on killing you, and can fit into every tiny nook and cranny of your house...
@@chameleonx9253 And the mythological mischievous Kobolds were not much different from them, except that they could be invisible and were able to materialize, for example, in the form of a candle, a scoop, a hammer, a brick, a stone, a human, a child, or any animal.
I had to Google the word for a bundle of sticks lol
The shortened version is also used in British English to refer to a cigarette.
@@chameleonx9253 yep. Or some strange pork things lol
If you have one of those people at your table who delights in using that word and the discomfort it causes, then says, "but that's what we called a bundle of sticks! I'm just being accurate to the setting!" Remind them that it likely came from the Latin "fasces" which is also the meaning glommed onto by Mussolini for his Fascist movement. Tell them your character is more inspired by Mediterranean medieval culture and then talk about throwing another "fashie" on the fire. Talk about your axe like, "this tool smashes fashies." Then look pointedly at them.
@@chameleonx9253 Which has caused me issues at least once in a relatively modern-set IRC freeform/battlebot hybrid campaign that inexplicably (OK, not so inexplicably, we were in our late teens and the early 00s had weird aesthetics by modern standards) used cigarettes to recover mp considering at the time that abbreviation was so heavily lodged into my dialect I used it without _thinking_ about what Americans are more used to hearing it mean. First hand experience of this - even if you don't offend anyone for entirely understandable reasons, it's still going to derail things.
"Rocks fall, and everyone dies?"
Nah... you can throw that in every few sessions. And in 99% of times your player knew exactly why :D
@@robertnett9793 only a 1% chance the players aren't which specific stunt or combination thereof caused it?
I'm an overgrown child, so thank you for making me laugh with the cellar full of butts.
The butt jokes didn't get me until the very end of the video, what an exquisitely funny phrase
That was very informative. I thought for sure it was going to be more along the lines of "And then the player said 'I attack the gazebo!' ".
A friend of mine is a traditionally trained blacksmith by trade, and they described whitesmithing as "The part of my job that actually makes reliable money"
They also defined it as use of copper, but it often involves smaller, fiddly pieces of work, including jewellery. And there's more call for custom hand made bling than there is for the servicing of cannons in castles, or larp groups who like their armour authentic.
Thank you for all these great words to sprinkle into my narration! I'm definitely going to go out of my way to describe bundles of sticks in the future.
That's a good one ^^
My other word option pet peeve is the use of "human" as a race name. It allways bothered me how we use "humanoïds" and struggle to name someone we don't know the race, but know the gender.
So I am, with all my heart, in love with Rioko Kui's take in dungeon meshi : "humans" define all sentient humanoïd races and the ones that's more like ourselves are named "tallmen". This way you can say "I've met a man but I don't know his race." and specify "I've met a tallmen wooman" If you know more.
I took this whole heartedly in my homebrew and even added a layer of race discussion around the idea of orks, arakokras and other beastly humanoïds should be called "humans" too, with the undertone that not including them is fantasy racism.
She even gave them a standout trait by doing this : they are tall ! Wich means they see further, walk faster, reach higher, are more intimidating and so on, all without making any change to our biology !
(Having the humans being the mundane ones was also one of my big pet peeves. To the point I made them the magic resitant ones in a homebrew. Taking inspiration from the french comic series Sillages ...)
This an extremely beautiful way of doing this
Mincemeat contained meat and suet until way into the 20th century. Always. Or it was minced fruit. I've made recipes from 'Forme of Curie' up thru the 1917 'Billiken Cookbook' and the 1942 'American Woman's Cookbook.'
As much as i would love to focus on what numbere a butt-ton would suggest, instead I will say thank you, i had NO idea "ye" was just "thee"
Not "thee," just "the" like the modern word. The weird letter that looks like a "y" is a variation of the "thorn" (þ), which is still used to denote a "th" sound in phonetics.
Pork Shoulder is often still called Pork Butt because it used to be shipped in barrels, which of course were once called butts.
Tinsmith works for whitesmith (not perfectly but is a close facsimile)
Sweetmeats sounds like a great name for a goblin.
Yes 🤣🤣
Luckily for me, my usual table doesn't have history nerds, so I can use any word I want (except for the short Christmas adventure I ran and kept bouncing between "Krampusnight", the name I intended to use for it and "Christmas" just because it's more natural to say in the context).
Instead I have a bunch of military and weapon nerds, so we had an hour long discussion about the proper length of spears and their classification more than once.
Greensmiths work copper Brownsmiths work bronze whitesmiths work tin for and are upmarket tinkers
If someone playing in your game is this hung up on language, don't play with them anymore. If the unpleasant conversation is too much to handle, everyone else at the table can just flee the country and change their faces/names.
Interestingly enough, my table went for the Tolkien solution almost immediately, “oh, does this turn to phrase exist?” “we’re playing the campaign in the localized version” it acknowledges the conceit of the genre, and also keeps the game moving along, which is nice
Also, they speak English because we are. :P Though Orcish will always be a broken Cockney English as far as I'm concerned.
My DnD group uses our own measurement system for our fantasy games! Works better since we are all from different places in the real world.
I was listening to the parody song "Bushes of Love" today. In the midst of my giggling, I realized how - without the video's context - linguists in the future are going to find that song and wonder what the eff we were up to.
Well... if you need a new word for the 9th level Weird spell, the most boring but accurate new name would probably be "Mass Phantasmal Killer"
I feel like "weird" can kinda work as "weirding," which I think sheds some of the more modern connotations. It did also get used in Dune a bit (some of the Fremen call Lady Jessica a "weirding woman").
Yeah... I mean *everyone* knows that blacksmiths did everything - from nails, to armor, to the most sophisticated masterly crafted swords... and probably the occasional scythe and plowshares...
As someone who adores archaic English words, and our language in general, I found this video hysterically funny and intelligent and also just, "yeah, I guess my players WOULD misunderstand that."
Wyrd is a fascinating word which I love very much. And yes, the connotations are so much deeper than most people understand. The Norse term this concept, "Doom" which means basically the same thing, but sounds even scarrier! For instance your Doom/Wyrd might be to win the lottery, find a loving partner and live happily ever after, but neither word sounds ANYTHING like that. In runic study there is the concept of Wyrd (not embraced by all runevitki) which is an added rune to the elder Futhark and embodies concepts such as, "you are dealing with a situation which is part of your contract with the Universe" and also, "you're not supposed to understand this right now, but fate is involved" and even the Magic 8-Ball answer of "Ask again later."
I agree that there's no reason to use that particular word that also means a piece of wood OR a cigarette, but whitesmith IS a rather valuable word, especially since there's no real replacement. Unless, maybe "finesmith," or "sharpsmith" or something? I suppose you could have your characters visit one of those to repair their weapons or create a lock.
I do think the Tolkeinesque method of saying, "please note, I'm translating this all into words I think will make sense to you," is a good start point.
At the same time, if I'm playing D&D, for the sake of immersion, I'd rather have a flagon or even a pint of mead/ale than a mug or glass. Flagons just sound more rustic, bold and exciting than "glass" (eeep or "drink" or" container!") I'd rather meet a cobbler than a shoemaker. I'd rather eat my food on a "trencher" than a "slice of bread." I would like to ride a stallion, gelding, mare, warhorse or palfrey, or even a nag, rather than just a plain "horse" or "pony."
Ngl, the only reason your players would think that a brownsmith or whitesmith was referring to race is if they are already constantly thinking about race. I’ve had to teach my friends about a lot of terminology they’d never heard of before, including “whitesmith.” But as they are not obsessed with thinking about the world through the lens of race, race was not how they initially interpretted the “whitesmith” profession. Instead they thought immediately of wood-burning forges (smiths covered in ash instead of soot) and ding ding ding silver and other pretty metals. I still had to tell them the full occupation, but they didn’t get uncomfortable. Because they weren’t waiting to BE MADE uncomfortable.
I learned a lot of new stuff today.
A hint on measurements: a yard is a pretty good approximation of a meter, a pound is about 1/2 a kg, and a pint is almost 1/2 a liter. I usually just round them like this.
If you find electrum confusing, wait until you play something that uses shillings. ;)
Not gonna lie, "The Butt Cellar" would be an amazing name for a gay bar/club.
I may steal that. Thanks bro.
Butts to Tongues, Ale of all Sizes.
just make sure to include the e, its a butte
I'm lucky enough to play with well adapted adults so I don't have problems with most of these.
Naaaaaah, it's more fun the other way. We all learn something new every day.
I grew up in the Southern Baptist church, and if I learned anything, it was that 20th century southern Americans did not speak 17th century King's English very well, and Jesus didn't even speak it at all. (Tho I'm sure He could have if He'd wanted.) It was rather cringe to hear them stumbling over the use of thee's and thou's, just because they mistakenly thought it was "proper" church talk. Case in point, you likely don't know what electrum is unless you heard of it in D&D and you looked it up.
I love these videos, they feel like lectures that I chose to attend.
I miss earlier editions of D&D where a butt of wine was listed in the player's handbook
For the case of accidentally implying the cultural presence of Jesus, in games I've played if it's as obvious as Jesus (like, Mesmer isn't so well-known) we tend to make a joke like acting as if you just heard a loanword we're unfamiliar with. Often that takes the form of asking "who" or "what" and people tend to answer that by reflex. And since it's quicker to improvise something based on the original than to make something out of whole cloth, there's a LOT of small towns with carpenters and/or cult leaders named Jesus. I don't think we're treating them as canon, but to me those types of accidental implications and the jokes we make about them are part of the fun of this medium. That joke won't land well at all in a film, novel, or video game unless it's a portal or incursion fantasy, but then it's not an implication anymore. But it works in tabletop games, because a lot of the time you're making it up as you go and everyone witnessing it knows that.
Speaking of improvising something close to the original, we needed a name for a famous playwright once, someone at the table did the "make a name out of near synonyms" and we got Quivershaft who has stuck around as a recurring character, who has never appeared but has been mentioned in several campaigns.
I don’t play dnd nor do I really ever think I will but I consume a lot of this content
im so glad this didnt turn into a "never say no" video.
This was fun and interesting, reminds me of older Tom Scott videos, but with an RPG twist. Well done sir.
We just always assumed "common" language in D&D was different from what players are speaking in would.
The joy of online gaming, half the party is from the US, and half from Europe, I’m glad I’m from the UK and can cope with both imperial and metric measurement.
I did wonder if the word Tinker, would be on your list, once an essential part of rural life, the traveller able to sharpen knives and mend pots and pans, now viewed in a very different light, or the really fun one that means miserly and starts with an N.
Personally I believe in widening my players vocabulary and happily use some of the less common terms as long as they are the correct word to describe something.
Interestingly, in New Zealand English (or at least, the subdialects I'm familiar with), the whole 'mince meat doesn't contain meat' thing has worked itself out, somewhat. The pie filling that no longer contains meat (because apparently it once did, with the fruits and things being added to it... though that might just be more linguistic confusion) is refered to not as mince meat, but as fruit mince (being, well, minced fruit, at least in theory), meanwhile we have pies that do actually contain minced meat... which is just refered to as mince (or beef mince, or whatever-other-kind-of-meat mince, when the distinction must be made), and are thus 'mince pies', with the fruity ones being 'fruit mince pies' or 'christmas mince pies' (due to their usually seasonal nature).
Nothing to do with fantasy or role playing, but I do find it a bit interesting that such a change has not become common in British English.
Yay Linguistics?
It's important to note that Samaritans are an extant group.
I'm here referring to people from Samaria, which no longer exists. I am aware of the religious group who are using the same name
As a french speaker, I cannot relate to these situations. I even had to translate the others like whitesmith as I never heard it before. This very much speaks volumes about how right you are though. Thing is, I did heard the french counterpart and both words for blacksmith (forgeron) and whitesmith (ferblantier) are so different that it wouldn't even confuse people so much in the tiny french corner of America. As for measurements, your comments are spot-on. Trying to make sense out of any measurement unit in a fantasy world is very pointless. The more accurate your world is, the more alien it will feel to the players and the things their characters should know outright will require reference charts and the whole thing will drag uselessly. This is why most fantasy work borrow so much from myths and legends, because we can relate to them, they are from our own world. Sprinkle just a bit of magic, enough to enchant, or dare I say "mesmerize" your players, but not so much as to loose them completely. All that being said, I just love your videos, you bring a sound reflection on rpg that we should at least put some thoughts on once in a while.
Master class on English and trades history. Greetings from a Spanish speaker.
A historic tread for white smith is a bright smith as the work is bright finished rather than oil darkened black for rust prevention.
I fully understand that last point, I hate having to describe things in feet I wanna use metric but the game has imperial so heavily baked into how it works in a way that only works for metric that I have to use it for shorthand even if I barely understand what I'm even saying half the time and have to use a grid to help visualise my own descriptions. Also for the first point, while not quite the same thing, the ffxiv usage of "goldsmith" could be a way to refer to someone like a whitesmith in a way that doesn't invite unfortunate arguments or tangents. (In that game goldsmiths primarily craft accessories such as rings and bracelets, but also make things like glasses and other more specialised and delicate metalwork such as small weapons, which is close enough I could see someone trained in that good at making lcoks and watches and the like.
In regards to the sayings and words that come from real world history and beliefs like the Bible, you could also come up with historical events and legends in your world that give it a reason to have them as well. Instead of the guillotine being invented during the French Revolution and named for the inventor, have it invented by a tyrannical king and named for him. Could even have the king have a similar but different, like Guill Tinos. Or copy things in with a different context. Goliath still comes from a legend of a fight against a giant, but swap it so that David was the name of a Giant while Goliath was the name of the being that fought off the Giant, with him being a Goliath, the name taken for the race in his honour, and having at the time been referred to by a different name. Thus you have an explanation for where the name came from.
I do agree that these other ones can be tricky to use, but there are fantast series out there that do use them and make it work. The Elder Scrolls series, for example, uses the word Wyrd, in the original context. They are a group of witches or druids (I'd have to double check) that use a unique type of magic and frequently predict future events. While it is a bit strange to see, it doesn't seem to confuse too many people, at least not for long. People tend to get the meaning from context pretty quickly.
My favorite thing to say is "that was a fun combat think the next one will be harder" I've wiped out entire parties egging on game masters 😂
I enjoy all of The Grungeon Master videos
I just got inspired to have two different cellars with two different kinds of butts, one is booze, one is a butcher shop's meat cellar.
I refer to whitesmiths as tinkerers. That's as close to a comparison as you can get.
A personal bugbear? Sounds dangerous
I mean, with the extra range with melee attacks, they're an excellent choice for bodyguards
In butcher terms, butt is also used for the shoulder of the animal. It's still used in fact. If you see on a menu or a package pork butt, it's actually talking about shoulder meat.
I do use leagues in my games for flavor- but if anyone has a problem with the term, I tell them one league is three miles or five kilometers, and it's the distance a person can walk in an hour. 1-league hexes are a good medium scale for maps. Weights, measures, and coinage? I keep them decimal. Thou, thee, thy, thine? They're fine for flavor if you know how to use them, but I cringe when people who don't know how to use them try to do it anyway, so I don't encourage the practice.
I had players wanting to be wise guys and asked for everything to be measured in American standard washing machines (27 inches wide). They laughed, I called for a break and I gave them what they wanted for the rest of the session. They have since become more cautious in what they ask for now
That was a whole buttload of information.
"Tinker" is one that derailed a session of mine for like 2 hours.
I described someone as a "tinker" -- in the sense of an 'itinerant tinsmith'' who was in the area to... basically work on tableware and misc household items for money.
... And not at all qualified to like... invent firearms or create a complex clockwork construct for the party.
(I've also run into the whitesmith,, brownsmith, basically any sort of smith that isn't a blacksmith and doesn't hae the common name of the thing they work with in the name problem.)
I think words with historical meaning have the chances of creating in universe explanations. Also, dnd is not usually medieval one to one, rather than inspired, being able to include a number of modern cultural elements to help the story.
you call the Samaritans historical but they're still around!
Lol this gave me a chuckle. Thanks for uploading. There are a lot of words not allowed at my table. Every time people start using thee's and thou's I just laugh at them. You bringing up english not even being a language in fantasy just reminds me of how I have regional tongues, instead of common. I also have many "Talisman of Tounge, or T.O.T," for sale. My higher ranking devils and angels do use thee and thou, or biblical like speech, after all Asmodias, Baal, Bael, and other devils of the bible are represented in D&D, as are Angel's. So there is Abrahamic influence in D&D or they would call themselves something else. And yes I have a homebrew Lore reason also.
The mangling of thee, thou, thy, thine, etc. and especially antiquated verb conjugations (-eth, -est) bandied about without any care for how they work grammatically grate at me so much
In my experience it can actually help with immersion, if you pick one or two of these terms that come up moderately often. Just don't overdo it and don't surprise your players with the terms mid session. It's not all that different from using gold pieces as currency rather than pound or dollar. I have to admit though, that I am the kind of player/nerd who would absolutely love to use the term wyrd unironically in my games, so my experience might have a slight selection bias.
I’m surprised “sweetbreads” didn’t come up, as a subset of (delicious) organ meats.
Just call whitesmiths tinsmiths.
i mean the thing is - that the game isn't historical, it's fantasy, you can do whatever the hell you want with it
I’ve found it pointless to ask small minds to expand.
Now I *want* to use these words.
Sweet Meats does refer to meat usually the inner loin of an animal.
get in someone finally brought up white and brown smiths
The Wyrding Way.
I nominate fateweaving/fateweaver as a weird or fatebending substitute.
never actually thought about the various different smith jobs, if you want to keep it simple could probably do light/heavy smith, or general smiths that take care of a village/town's daily needs and while they're able to sharpen weapons/tools or even get dents out of armors if they want something need made or properly repaired they would need to seek out a crafter.
I'm using sweat metes as soon as I can, the suffering shall spread >= 3
This was an actually interesting video.
Never before have I seen a Brit modest about their use of units of measure. ;-)
Messed up that sweetmeats refers to confections and candy while sweetbreads refers to offal.
in a larp i frequent, they use the term Chirurgeon and Chirurgery, and pronounce it Kai-urge-un and kai-urge-er-ree. This drives me slightly bonkers as those words are just "surgeon" and "surgery" from before spelling was standardized.
Water weird? Lava weird?
Just wyrd. 😂
BTW, the Samaritans still exist...
I’m my world, the Arcanist Guild is a society of strictly non-magical tinkerers and inventors that are excessively protective of their proprietary designs, thus embodying the original meaning of arcane being secret knowledge. They also get very offended at the appropriation of the word to refer to magic and won’t hesitate to correct people. It has all been very confusing for my players and I love it! 😁
Wow. For at least 30 years, I’ve been confusing sweetmeats (candies) with sweetbreads (organ meats). I had no clue until watching this video. It would definitely have derailed the game if I’d been at the table.
hey I'm British and even I have no idea why the word air bending would be considered funny
Very nice!
Umm? I call it snacks.
I thought Al Yankovic was the "master of Wyrd"
Whitesmith = Silversmith, Jeweler
For those confused about thee, thou, thine, etc.
If anyone has studied a Romance language, like Spanish, French, Italian, etc. then you may be familiar with the concept of Formal/Informal "you," a feature that Modern English notably lacks. For informal and formal pairs, in Spanish you have tú/usted, in French you have tu/vous, in Italian you have tu/lei (see a pattern yet?), and in Early Modern English, we had thou/you, a feature we notably dropped.
Notice the crux of the issue: thou is the _INFORMAL_ you. You would use "thou" when speaking to a peer or a loved one (or God for some reason, which is why European languages use the informal you in their Bible translations, and why "thou" survives pretty much only in the Bible in Modern English). You would not use it when speaking to a superior or a stranger, as that would come off as kind of rude. Also, it most likely would have been pronounced like "thoo" (rhyming with "you", voiced th like in "other").
Because "thou" is now archaic and pretty much only exists in religious texts and old documents, we mistakenly think of the opposite, that "you" is familiar and friendly, and "thou" is formal and stuffy. If you're really trying to go for realism, you need to do the opposite, thou for your friends and you for more formal occaisions-- unless you're speaking very personally to a deity while in prayer.
This is also not going into all of the "thee" and "thine" and "ye" and all of the "makests" and "dosts" that so liberally pepper fantasy settings, because if you're going to use archaic language, _please for the love of god do some research first._ For players who don't care, it rarely sounds that epic or noteworthy for them, and for people who do care, it makes our eyes roll to the back of our heads. Honestly, just sticking with "you" exclusively is perfectly fine and no one will care that much if you do.
Speaking of copper: The word 'copper' is derived from the island Cyprus, technically meaning 'the metal from Cyprus' (or something). So, would using the word 'copper piece' imply that Cyprus exists in your game world?
Yeah, we're going with Tolkien further than we're aware of...
One pushback: in my alt history american setting, I gloss over explicitly derogatory language, but I make a point to still use words that a nonwhite culture proudly used and still use to refer to a nonracialized cultural practice. Specifically, the use of fetishes in vodun. Yes, I could whitewash it to talisman or totem or simply 'magic item', but part of honoring that culture is respecting their words. So my party collects fetishes from time to time, despite it being an uncomfortable word to say in modern white culture
You cannot tell me which words to use, you are not my real DM! I mean I agree with pretty much everything, but I just don't like to get told what I can or cannot do.
Of course it's confusing when everyone should be using silver for money. Electrum? Platinum? Never heard of them. Gold? Never even seen gold, except the cross in the cathedral and the ring the Baron wears.
Blacksmith, Ironsmith ... Whitesmith, Silversmith ... Brownsmith, Coppersmith ... Goldsmith is just Goldsmith ... don't break your players brains, use common vernacular.
Personally, I would introduce silversmith and coppersmith as artisans, rather than smiths, even though that's what they are ... "do you want it functional or beautiful?"
The thing I don't get is that it's called "common". I am probably misremembering, but I recall a line in 3.5E? that says common is a translation into the normal vernacular of the host table (or some such).
...Snuffalupagus?
As somebody who ran and played RPGs in several languages, I entirely disagree. Just spin your yarn with all the words and phrases necessary and available for the narrative. Except maybe for the word 'OKAY,, which I feel is a vicious attack against general verisimilitude for non-contemporary settings, I see no use in banning too many ingredients from my storytelling toolkit. Even, or especially if words are used the wrong way, that's only a chance to grow from mistakes as a group, or at least as an individual. I am anti-semantic like that.
Wot dost thou meaneth?