Doug

That's kinda what the article says though

At least he's not Aryan Jesus here. That's a sort of progress I guess?

Still terrible

I've never had the problem of not being understood.

You are either a uniquely spectacular communicator or a liar. It's not for me to say which. Regardless that's not the point. If you use the soft g sound and are not understood then, by your own explanation you are saying it wrong. That's something you need to contend with.

And regardless of how long the time period was

So no time requirement on archaic then?

there was a time when one guy spoke aloud the word when he invented it.

As is true of every word and yet I'm sure there are words you say differently than the first person. I'll bet you don't say the name of the element with the atomic number 13 the same way the man who discovered it does. Not to mention who knows how many words England took from France, mangled, and then got adjusted again in America. Who is the correct first person there, or does the first person only matter with this specific issue?

You can use the new pronunciation

I will as well many others.

as I have for 30+ years,

Me too! Still doesn't make yours right and mine wrong no matter how hard you try to deride it as "new" when it's barely newer than the format.

and I will continue to do so

I can't stop you. I can think you ridiculous for doing so but my suspicion that this would be the only reason I would think that of you diminishes with each response you send.

both are acceptable

Perhaps, but one seems to be falling out of favor. Just like a double space after a period or writing out words greater than ten but less than one hundred.

I could call it a moving picture and not be wrong, doesn't mean people wouldn't think me weird for doing so. I would have to deal with that the way you need to deal with what your choices cause people to think of you.

If you don't like it, that's a you problem.

Sure, but it won't stop me from making my own conclusions just like any other thing. The same is true for all of humanity to varying degrees.

people only started using the new pronunciation in the last 10-15.

As someone else pointed out already, this is untrue. While it may not have been popular in your circles, it definitely was in others. I've been saying it with a hard g as long as you have with a soft and I'm not the originator either.

English linguistics doesn't indicate anything at all.

They absolutely do. That's why you can sound out a word you've never seen before. You may not always be right when you do because they indicate, they don't define.

There are no rules about word construction or pronunciation.

There are, there are just exceptions. For example, an e at the end of the word is silent. I'm certain you can give me a word where it's not, but there are at least six in this paragraph alone where it is.

if you are understood then you have pronounced them correctly

In this logic if someone has been pronouncing a word all their life with a single pronunciation and travels to another location with a much different accent they can only now be pronouncing the word wrong.

If understanding is also the only metric then a hard g would still be preferable. Not only does a written g tend to make people lean to a hard g in my experience, but there's more words that could be mistaken for a soft g pronunciation.

You could argue that the original pronunciation is archaic,

Could I not argue that the original pronunciation has fallen out of favor?

the word itself is like 35 years old

Is there a time requirement for pronunciations to become archaic?

since there was only one acceptable pronunciation

Which isn't a time that existed, as we've established

who aren't likely to change.

Given your stance on language this is absolutely a you problem. If the rest of us collectively decided to understand it as only with a hard g, you would not be understood and therefore be pronouncing it wrong by your own logic.

You can find plenty of places where the claim is that it's a soft g because "choosey devs choose gif".

Where jiffy is used is irrelevant in that case.

Become popular? It's been popular roughly for the lifespan of the format. It's hardly language's fault the developer wanted to make an unfunny reference to a since forgotten peanut butter slogan.

On the other hand linguistics indicate a hard g sound with the construction of the word, constituent words aside. Plenty of four letter words starting with the gi combo have a hard g, including but not limited to gift which you may notice is very similarly constructed.

Whatever else the English language may throw at us, people appreciate consistency because we can make some sense of the world. A hard g is the consistent, predictable, sensible choice for the limited availability of those virtues English offers.

Sorry if it came off like I thought it was your first time. We all screw up sometimes, like I did with that comment lol

I've been playing since 2e as well. I took it that the rest of the table had different ideas and goals than you did. That's almost never fun as I'm sure you know.

I'm glad there were some good times

Maybe!

Well that sounds like a great reason to look at Pathfinder 2e

That sounds like a few problems and there should at least be a discussion with the group about expectations before future campaigns.

But the inverse of a skill based build getting a lot of lucky combat rolls and outdoing the combat character is possible in the book. A good DM can and should mitigate skill crits but is kinda stuck on combat ones.

Regardless, I'm sorry you had a crap time.

In other words of what others have already said, a crit skill check isn't making the impossible possible, it's the best possible outcome you could hope for. Just like how a crit on a thing you can't hit is the best you could hope for. You don't instantly kill it, you just get a very good shot in.

You don't convince the guard to let you go free, but maybe you manage to get him to believe you're inept enough that he can go to the other room and have a nap.

There's no crits on skill checks in the book. Play how you want