5 Words You Should NEVER Say In D&D

We've all misspoken or used the wrong word on occasion. This video isn't about that. It's about interrogating the words we use, with a healthy heaping of history to bring everything together. All in good fun.

#fantasy #dnd #dnd5e #language #history #english

Credits:
The Grungeon Master logo, background and intro music were composed by the wonderful Janina Arndt!

[TheTsugnawmi]

I thought the words were the DM saying…
“Are you sure about that?”

[Telleryn]

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

[TakaD]

'The tarrasque starts romancing you'
'Well, somehow Vecna has returned'
'To attack, buy a DLC'
'Make the Swordcoast great again'

[TheStartrek]

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.

[kovi]

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.

[Crits-Crafts]

I had to Google the word for a bundle of sticks lol

[wesleythomas]

"Hey guys! Let's split up!" See? Already know 'em!

[douglasphillips]

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.

[Setrus]

I once reacted with "Really?" to a player's action in combat as a DM, regret it for sure.

[malachilynch]

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.

[ceninant]

"Rocks fall, and everyone dies?"

[wanderlking]

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!' ".

[hollyingraham]

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.'

[macmusial]

The butt jokes didn't get me until the very end of the video, what an exquisitely funny phrase

[SymbioteMullet]

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.

[lynxfirenze]

I'm an overgrown child, so thank you for making me laugh with the cellar full of butts.

[baptistenormand]

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 ...)

[SuperUnnamedplayer]

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.

[JonathonBone]

Pork Shoulder is often still called Pork Butt because it used to be shipped in barrels, which of course were once called butts.

[Kmonroe]

Tinsmith works for whitesmith (not perfectly but is a close facsimile)