theironjef posted:

It's one of those things that's easily sorted out by remembering that your character isn't just you. They would remember poo poo. I personally take the concept a bit further and also never require players to RP more than they absolutely want to for any social rolls or scene or whatever because their character's charisma and intelligence scores aren't their actual life skill. But the memory one, that one sucks. 90% of the time in books it comes across as that specific tone of DM condescension that makes a lot of old games poo poo to read.

hyphz posted:

You'll probably have to. The major problem is that skills your Kingdom didn't specialise in never increase, but the Control DC does, and it's used for everything. So as you gain territory you'll quickly find it's nearly impossible to succeed at anything but the narrow skills you chose. And while I guess it's correct that a kingdom would realistically need to expand carefully, in practice the main goal of playing the hexcrawl is to expand and gain territory for your kingdom as quickly as possible...

Zurai posted:

Except literally no one but you is saying that. No one's suggesting doing it as a pre-incentive. No one's suggesting having the DM say "theironjef, you bring cookies next session and I'll pay you 50 XP."

PoontifexMacksimus posted:

One variation I've seen is where the DM is a bit too enamoured with their homebrew setting and takes great offence when the party fails to commit every detail to memory, and vindictively punishes them for it.

Gynovore posted:

...unless you're playing HoL, in which case the rulebook explicitly encourages players to do just that.

Midjack posted:

If you're actually playing HoL you already hosed up unrecoverably.

Ghost Leviathan posted:

The idea of having individual player XP is still the original sin here.

Narsham posted:

Lambo Trillrissian posted:

so what I'm hearing is I should write a heartbreaker with a feat that allows players to gain XP while absent, that will fix everything

gradenko_2000 posted:

I think there's a good case to be made to use traditional XP in discrete amounts under certain scenarios of play, but I do agree that the party should just level together regardless of attendance. Even computer RPGs do this.

Kai Tave posted:

And to add to this point, everybody hates the thing that happens in computer RPGs where if you have more characters than can fit in your party, the ones on the sidelines don't gain XP.

Angrymog posted:

I just hate when they give me more characters than I can fit in my party.

Gatto Grigio posted:

leveling at different times in pre-3e D&D made more sense when every class had its own XP track; meant to be a balancing factor between martials and casters. Casters generally had higher XP requirements, so fighters and rogues would already be around levels 4-5 when the magic-users hit level 2.

Facebook Aunt posted:

Worked great for Baulder's Gate 1, because with infinite rerolls you could ensure you got weird fighter-only strength levels between 18 and 19, so your guy could carry around several loving ankheg shells (very heavy but worth big money). #lifehack

PoontifexMacksimus posted:

One variation I've seen is where the DM is a bit too enamoured with their homebrew setting and takes great offence when the party fails to commit every detail to memory, and vindictively punishes them for it.

The DM turned a failed novel script into an adventure and demanding you remember which GMPC has grey eyes speckled with amber and which has grey eyes speckled with gold would also fall under this category.

Drakyn posted:

Pouring one out for the neverwinter nights 2 expansion Mask of the Betrayer, with a combined party-joinable-NPC + player count of 5 and a maximum party size of 4.

CitizenKeen posted:

RIP Jennell Jaquays.

quote:

In the process of shepherding this project to completion, it appears that Justin also decided to do some reputational management. At some point, the "Thought of the Day - Deadnames" post disappears from his blog. The Wayback Machine's most recent capture is from January 2020; Roger SG Sorrolla references it in an essay written in December 2021 that was published in Knock 3. I assume Justin took down the post because he realized he appears in an unflattering light in it, and wanted to hide what he'd done.

He went further than that though. In November 2023, Justin put out a new post called "A Historical Note on Xandering" stating his intention to rename Jaquaysing after himself and to start calling it "Xandering". Going further, he republished the original post from 2010 with a new URL and a new title, as "Xandering the Dungeon". He deleted his original post about Jaquaysing, and set his blog to redirect the original link to the new post with his name on it.

In both these posts, Justin mentions Jennell and admits that he was looking at and thinking about her dungeon designs when he wrote them. And anyone who is already familiar with Jennell will remember the truth. But Justin's attempt to claim credit for himself is clear. If someone has only read his book, or seen "Xandering" referenced in conversation online, those new audience members aren't going to know about Jennell Jaquays, and they're no longer going to have an easy window into finding out more about her. Instead, they'll just known Justin Alexander.

quote:

First, note that he falsely declaims his own responsibility for this decision. "In 2023, for better or for worse, this term was changed to xandering." It was changed by him; he changed it. But he doesn't say that. He uses the passive voice. Not that he did it, but that it was done. By whom? Unstated. And look, he seems to empathize, maybe it wasn't even a good change. Of course he thinks it was good, or he wouldn't have done it. But twice in one sentence he minimizes his responsibility for doing it.

Later he has other fall guys to put the blame onto. The internet mob, they forced his hand, what else could he do? His lawyer's advice, how could he go against it? It's telling that in any scenario where the reader might think the change was for the worse, Justin fobs responsibility off onto others. He tries to forestall disagreement by presenting this as a fait accompli, a thing that has already happened and can't be reversed or undone. This is nonsense, since at the time that he wrote this, literally no one else had used the term "Xandering" yet at all. And anyway, that's not how culture works. It's always contentious, always changeable.

There's one more reason Justin states for the change, and only here does he paint himself as the agent of his own actions. "Jennell Jaquays wanted a change. She didn’t like that the term dropped the 's' from her name. Her name is very important to her. This wasn’t a problem. In fact, Jennell had previously requested some sweeping changes to the article for similar reasons, and I’d made those changes." The sweeping change he mentions was finally replacing the 3-4 places where he'd used her old name. He's sure to let us know how arduous this was, to press CTRL F and then type in seven new letters. He assures us that adding the S was even more difficult. (So much harder than using a totally different word!) But, he says, she asked, so he did it. Except he didn't. He never edited his blog to spell Jaquaysing correctly. For god's sake, he doesn't even spell it that way in this very post where he's claiming he did!

But Justin's point here is that he's doing something Jennell wanted, something she asked for. "I spoke with Jennell earlier this year. We both agreed that the name should be changed, and I said it would be a large project to do it, but I’d make sure it happened by the end of the year." Now here he commits a bit of sleight of hand. Remember that what Jennell asked for was for "Jaquaying" [sic] to be spelled Jaquaysing. But in this sentence, Justin doesn't actually say what the change was that they agreed on. Then he mentions talking to his publisher, and to his lawyer. Then he says "After a bunch of back-and-forth, we finally settled on the term 'xandering.' ", and in this sentence, he doesn't clarify which of the three parties he's been talking to the "we" refers to. So this is Justin's magic trick. Jennell asks him to spell her name correctly. His publisher agrees to his request to call the term "Xandering." But without directly stating it - and thus without explicitly lying - he manages to imply that it was Jennell who asked him to replace Jaquaying [sic] with "Xandering". It was her idea, he says, he's doing it for her.

quote:

Justin, if you are reading this, you did a basically good thing in 2010 when you drew people's attention to something that someone else had done well. And then you've progressively poo poo all over that one kind action over the years. I wish you'd stop. Right now you're behaving like an actual grave robber. I hope you'll have a change of heart. And if your book is fortunate enough to have a second printing, I hope you'll go back to talking about Jaquaysing. And that you'll spell it correctly from now on.

I ask that anyone who's reading this refrain from harassing Justin on social media. It's wrong, and it won't accomplish anything. He already claims to feel persecuted and to feel justified in his actions because of that persecution. More will only further entrench his decision.

If you want to take actions that might benefit Jennell's family, you can contribute to the GoFundMe that will help pay for her medical and funeral costs. If you knew Jennell personally, you can share a memory on her obituary page. If you feel inclined, you can volunteer to participate in the Jennell Jaquays Memorial Game Jam, and after the jam is completed, you can purchase Return to Perinthos, which will initially support Jennell's family, and later donate its proceeds to the charity Trans Lifeline.

You can carry on Jennell's gaming legacy, and help prevent her erasure, by continuing to talk about Jaquaysian and Thracian dungeon designs. Again, harassing people who say "Jaquaying" [sic] or "Xandering" would be wrong, and wouldn't honor Jennell's memory. But you can set a good example, tell the truth, play the game she loved, draw the kind of nonlinear maps like she was famous for, and help make sure that people remember her name.

And if you know a trans woman, whether as part of your gaming hobby, or in any other part of you life, be kind to her. The loss of one of our foremothers is very far from being the only problem that we, collectively, are facing right now.

Nuns with Guns posted:

So this interesting post is going around today:

https://diyanddragons.blogspot.com/2024/01/xandering-is-slandering.html?m=1

The Alexandrian's old blog post titled "Jaquaying the Dungeon" has come up here before, an essay post praising the nonlinear structure of the dungeons Jennell Jaquays created. There were couple controversies around it: first, after the publication Jennell had transitioned and her name was changed. Justin initially refused to edit his blog post and made a big essay defending his deadnaming of Jennell, until she posted on his blog specifically telling him to change her first name and correct the typo in her last name, which is Jaquays so it should be "Jaquaysing." Justin changed her first name in the essay, but never adjusted anything about her last name.

The blog post above has a recap of the whole timeline if anyone needs a refresher, but apparently Justin Alexander's decided instead to just rename the whole concept to "Xandering the Dungeon," deleting the old blog posts, and reposting it ahead of publishing the essay in his book.



I will note that the author doesn't want anyone to go after Justin Alexander. She just wants to make sure people know who to properly recognize for the nonlinear dungeon design Jennell Jaquays did:

aw frig aw dang it posted:

I wouldn't call that interesting. It reads like someone stirring up poo poo for clicks in the wake of a tragic death.

people gotta stop falling for clout sharks

Nuns with Guns posted:

I don't think it's clout chasing? It's someone pointing out how Justin Alexander's appropriating a concept he credited to someone else. "Interesting" is a bad word to use, though, so sorry about that. I default to it when I look at something that seems like a complete mess and I'm not fully sure how to articulate why it's a mess.

aw frig aw dang it posted:

It's someone rehashing poo poo that was already very well-known and understood in the relevant communities to generate posts like CitizenKeen's below yours.

edit: and the one after that post lol

Destrado posted:

I didn't know about the recent history of it, and I appreciated reading about it in this here relevant community, so jog on?

aw frig aw dang it posted:

It's someone rehashing poo poo that was already very well-known and understood in the relevant communities to generate posts like CitizenKeen's below yours.

edit: and the one after that post lol

aw frig aw dang it posted:

It's someone rehashing poo poo that was already very well-known and understood in the relevant communities to generate posts like CitizenKeen's below yours.

edit: and the one after that post lol

Destrado posted:

I didn't know about the recent history of it, and I appreciated reading about it in this here relevant community, so jog on?

Destrado posted:

I didn't know about the recent history of it, and I appreciated reading about it in this here relevant community, so jog on?

weast posted:

my only knowledge of him is something about a really stupid argument against D&D 4e, i think?

weast posted:

my only knowledge of him is something about a really stupid argument against D&D 4e, i think?