Episode 245 – small topic round-up
by Dan Repperger
* (0:30) John provides an update on the still-running Bloodmoon Goblins Kickstarter.
* (2:05) Fear the Boot still plans on attending the GAME Convention in Springfield, Missouri, October 7 – 9, 2011.
* (2:42) If you’re interested in playing the Old Republic MMO, Fear the Boot has a guild already forming on the official game site. You can see details and sign up to run with us here!
* (5:00) Why every roleplaying game should come with a pronunciation guide for all of its proper nouns.
* (10:42) Getting people in your gaming group to step up and take leadership roles in the party, particularly when they’re not naturally dominating. The distinction between explicit and implicit leaders and how to work with both.
* (24:49) Chris reflects on his rant from the last episode and goes on to tell us a story about his childhood.
* (26:47) Rewarding players for doing extra prep or post-game work.
* (37:06) Helping someone create a character for a setting they’ve never played in.
Hosts: Chris, Dan, John, Pat, Wayne
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
In regards to the pro-noun topic:
In the Sword of Truth series, Kahlan’s name was hard to pronouce, and I still get people to argue on it.
The word “drow” or “trow” refers to little trolls or fairy creatures in folklore from around the islands near Scotland, I believe. It supposedly comes from the Norse word for “Dark Elf” from the Edda (which I believe had both Light Elves and Dark Elves). I have no idea how it’s pronounced since I’ve only got print sources to look at (not having any convenient ancient Scots or Vikings at hand to talk to).
That said, despite the amount of anguish I know this may cause people, I don’t believe there is ANY SUCH THING as a “correct pronunciation” of any word. There’s only whatever the people writing the dictionaries have decided are the “most common” pronunciations that particular year. Having an English teacher for a grandmother, it took me quite a while to get over the rage one feels at having people use “wrong pronunciations” but it no longer bothers me because I realized that this is how language evolves. Language changes when people say things the “wrong way.” If it didn’t, there’d be no NEED to ask an ancient Scot how to say “Drow” because we’d all still be saying Dökkálfar. ;)
Oh gosh yes, pronunciation. The one that is probably the worst for me is “Sephiroth.” There was no voice acting in the original Final Fantasy VII and I don’t care what people say, you can’t tell the choir is singing the proper pronunciation of his name during the ending battle song. Plus, giving the proper pronunciation for a name that late in the game is pretty ridiculous. It was years before I heard the correct version, and he was my favorite character from my favorite game for all those years. I still say it “sef-EYE-roth” or really more like “sef-EYE-rith” due to how the syllables end up while trying to pronounce it in with American phonetics. The correct way is “SEPHIE-roth” which sounds really silly to me. ^^;;
Drizz’t, yeah that threw me too. I believe it’s in the third book where the author finally has some kid yell his name out phonetically as “drizz-it”, at which point I went “you have got to be kidding me.” I’m sorry, but phonetically, “Drizz’t” is pronounced “Drizzt” which yes, is difficult to actually say, but easy enough to read/think. Telling us how to pronounce it three books later is not helpful. x_x I wish there was some easy way to just interject pronunciation tips into a book without killing immersion.
I did manage to do that in one long story I wrote recently, the main character I had introduced right off the bat in the literal first word by someone yelling his name, “JeeeeeAAAAAN!” If you can’t figure out that “Jian” is thus pronounced “jee-AHN” then I just dunno anymore. ^^;;
OK I’m at 11.27 and I have to post right now. Maybe follow up later. “Getting others to take on leadership positions” has pretty much defined my RP career. My first group was much younger than me because the GM (who owned the FLGS) wanted to bring in someone more mature to balance out the 11-13 year old group, but he wanted someone who was also learning the game fresh. I was a handy wargamer and got roped into it. I loved it but as the campaign went on I ended up making more and more of the decisions, just as a function of settling the arguments between the others.
From then on, it seems that it doesn’t matter what the character I create is like, all the other players defer to him/her. I say players very specifically because they seem to have been able to completely ignore the traits of the own characters. To the point where a ‘hide in plain sight’ government agent sent to infiltrate the group ended up sending everyone to their deaths. Not a popular move but they already had their suspicions about my character so why did they follow his suggestion?
The best campaign I’ve played so far was one where I initially decided to play a leader type and ended up being a much more supporting type. That was handily facilitated by having an NPC army to command but it was nice to not have to make OOC bold moves just to keep the story moving along.
Tirsden, it is pronounced ‘Drizzt’. In the scene you’re talking about Stalvatore was using the kid to poke fun at all the people he kept hearing pronounce it wrong. He talks about it in the afterword of the Dark Elf Trilogy collection.
Adventure comics 351 – page 12: “MIX-YEZ-PITEL-ICK”
1966 Bitches.
Yes I was saying it wrong too…