What's Your Favorite Name for a TTRPG and Why?

[innerdude]

Personal admission: I've come to seriously despise anything RPG related that uses the "Noun & Noun" paradigm for product naming. It's so over used that it now actively turns me off to whatever the product is.

Same thing with "Noun: The Gerund".

Whatever you choose, don't do those. Or do, as you are wont. I'm just one cranky dude tossing peanuts from the gallery, after all.

 

[innerdude]

To follow on, the RPGs I own with what I think are the coolest titles are Interface Zero, Court of Blades, and  Ironsworn.

 

[Staffan]

I like bespoke games more and more. However, I do think they need to properly suit their core tenets of IP. For example, if Blade Runner had rules for massive attack ships, battle armor, and plasma rifles Id likely check out.

"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe... Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion... I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain... Time to die."

Those things might exist in the BR universe, but they are not appropriate to the theme.

Awww...

Call of Cthulhu, it does what it says, it calls you to the game and it rolls off the tongue.

The question is which tongue.

 

[Fifinjir]

Shadow of the Demon Lord - its big bad makes a clear impression right from the start. Gives the feeling of the “Demon Lord”…well, overshadowing everything either subtly or overtly.
The Nightmares Underneath - albeit I think it’d work a little better if nightmare was singular, but I still get the impression of an enemy that’s closer than you think and might appear when or wherever.

Hmm, both just so happen to be focused on the bad guys.

 

[HaroldTheHobbit]

I really like Pathfinder. It speaks to the 12-year old me that spent a lot of time alone in the woods. In reality it's just another d20 fantasy murderhoboing game, even though I love it.

Another one is the old pastiche game Violence. Contrary to Pathfinder, here you get what the name implies. And it actually was playable, at least for beer and pretzels style one-shots for cynical folks from the ironic generation - I'm guilty.

 

[Blue]

I want a name that:

• Is evocative of the type of gameplay it engenders.
• Is not a single word or pair of words commonly seen together that would make it hard to google when I want to search for advice, adventures, pre-gens, custom foes, house rules, etc.
  • Paired words that aren't commonly together, like Savage Worlds, is okay.
• Isn't alliterative X & Y where they both start with the same letter like a D&D homage.
  • My first named fantasy heartbreaker, as a young teen, was called Heroes and Hydras. The pull is strong.
  • (And sorry for your original name idea, but I definitely wouldn't pick one where the initials - V&V - are already taken by a well known game that will steal your search results.)

 

[JohnSnow]

For evocative names, there's a couple. Not all the "&" names are good, but some are. Giving credit where credit is due, the most successful RPG of all time tops it. Whether or not you like its current owner, Gygax & co. hit the ball out of the park with the name. For me, there's only a few others that managed it almost as well since. Here's my list:

Dungeons & Dragons
Warhammer Fantasy
Savage Worlds
Pathfinder
Monster of the Week

This is all because they are usually "exactly what it says on the tin." Honorable mention goes to GURPS, Champions, Vampire: the Masquerade, Spycraft, Iron Heroes, and Mutants & Masterminds. Separately, Five Torches Deep, Dungeon Crawl Classics, and one or two others have managed to come up with evocative names that harken back to old D&D by evoking the tropes of that era.

I feel like someone should have made a game called Swords & Sorcery, but I think that name got burned on a D&D copycat that didn't survive, and nobody has tried it since.

 

[Teo Twawki]

Nephilim. A word ripe with many meanings, misunderstanding, mythology, and religion & conspiracy. A lot to unpack. Just like the game's setting and character creation.

Twilight: 2000. A grim and dim setting about a world on the verge of its self-imposed heart of darkness where life--like the length of twilight--is all too brief. Set in the then (@ time of its writing) future year of 2000. You get what it says on the tin.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Shadow of the Demon Lord - its big bad makes a clear impression right from the start. Gives the feeling of the “Demon Lord”…well, overshadowing everything either subtly or overtly.

I've never played it, but I agree about the name.

 

[Committed Hero]

This is all because they are usually "exactly what it says on the tin."

Likewise Magical Kitties Save the Day and Kill Puppies for Satan.