Who cares about Otiluke, Mordenkainen, Rary and whatever geezer names they trot out.

Pour · Jul 19, 2012

The historic names may add something for a select group of the fan base, and that's cool. I don't particularly care, as they have no bearing in my game, but I wouldn't actively seek to eliminate them. They really do no harm.

I do see something else in this kind of a topic, though, which I do sympathize with. The more of the past nuances you bring into the present edition, the more the people who do not cherish the idiosyncrasies and nuances of the past will resist for feeling forced, disassociate for being uninterested, or simply wonder as to their lack of reference. The names are unimportant to some as they are important to others. Luckily, they're just names, but I could see other aspects of the game with much more mandatory weight being contentious between old school, 3e, 4e, and entirely new gamers. It's not all nostalgic to everyone, and some of the quirks actually come off as silly or entirely unappealing. I've felt it before myself over issues with the assumed cosmology. It's only exasperated by extremists.

Mallus · Jul 19, 2012

I don't so much like those names because of their part of D&D's history, or brand identity, or whatever --though there's nothing wrong with a little respect for what came before.

I like them because they're good names. And specific/concrete language is almost always better the non-specific/mushy language.

Using the classic D&D names is a great starting point. A DM might want to replace them with their own setting specific ones, and that's even better. But follow suit -- don't genericize.

A friend of mine in my old 3.5e campaign had a great naming his spells and self-made items in grand old Gygaxian/Vancian fashion. His Burne's Immaculate Contraction wouldn't have had half the charm if he called it Shrink Large Magic Item.

JRRNeiklot · Jul 19, 2012

TwinBahamut said:
The difference here is that real world scientists are real people who have actually done something to deserve the respect, and that the use of their names is done to avoid confusion

There is no difference to the characters. The word IS real for them.

Still, I'm not a fan of this style of naming spells after random wizards...

Mordenkainen is hardly a "random" wizard.

Dannyalcatraz · Jul 19, 2012

Keep the names, I say. Besides the parallels to RW naming conventions of discoveries, they are touchstones to the dawn, not just of the game, but of the hobby. Sure, they may be out of place in campaign settings that other than those of their origins, but D&D DOES allow for interplanar travel & multiple Prime Material planes...

If that still bugs you, realize that not every setting has an Ehlonna, Zagy, etc., and just change the names for your campaign.

FWIW, I sometimes do this myself. I was in a campaign in which there was a HR that allowed casters to learn Metamagically altered spells as distinct spells without having the feat. IOW, you could learn fireball as a 3rd level spell, as per normal. But you could learn Still Fireball as a distinct 4th level spell, one tht counted against your spells known.

My lightningphillic, armor wearing sorcerer PC learned ALL of his attack spells as either stilled or lightning (or both) versions, and plastered his name all over them.

Herschel · Jul 19, 2012

Need to quote.

Herschel · Jul 19, 2012

Jacob Marley said:
Which version do you choose? Rary the Mage or Rary the Traitor? Do you include information about them that occured in Living Greyhawk? Even is many, many players of D&D didn't participate?

Or, perhaps instead, we just say something like "Tenser is an anagram of Ernest, son of Gary Gygax, and was one of the first characters played in the early days of D&D. We are including him and other of the early characters' names throughout these books... yadda, yadda, yadda."

I'd leave the Living Greyhawk stuff out, but wouldn't mind it being in. Personally, I'd go with the rary the Traitor included because that was in the regular, mass market material.

As for the Tenser bit, yes, that's what I'd like to see. Then a short description of the character's personality, specialties, etc. Bring the game home and make it feel more personal. A shared story amongst players.

Mengu · Jul 19, 2012

I couldn't care less, what the books call the spell. I dislike the setting implications, but if it's just a name, I can live with it, whatever. I will likely reflavor everything to fit my characters/campaigns any way, as I have done so in all previous editions. I'm fine with generic names, Greyhawk names, Japanese anime names, whatever floats their boat. It's the mechanics that matter to me.

Herschel · Jul 19, 2012

Dannyalcatraz said:
Keep the names, I say. Besides the parallels to RW naming conventions of discoveries, they are touchstones to the dawn, not just of the game, but of the hobby. Sure, they may be out of place in campaign settings that other than those of their origins, but D&D DOES allow for interplanar travel & multiple Prime Material planes...

If that still bugs you, realize that not every setting has an Ehlonna, Zagy, etc., and just change the names for your campaign.

FWIW, I sometimes do this myself. I was in a campaign in which there was a HR that allowed casters to learn Metamagically altered spells as distinct spells without having the feat. IOW, you could learn fireball as a 3rd level spell, as per normal. But you could learn Still Fireball as a distinct 4th level spell, one tht counted against your spells known.

My lightningphillic, armor wearing sorcerer PC learned ALL of his attack spells as either stilled or lightning (or both) versions, and plastered his name all over them.

Which is why maybe sidebars would be "good enough". I don't mean to imply every world must have a Drawmij, just that a something to unite the player base about him is something I definitely want.

Crazy Jerome · Jul 19, 2012

Having been a fan of Vance's "Dying Earth" almost as long as I've been running D&D, I've always liked the names. I do agree that there should be some kind of information about where they come from, if only in an appendix. It wouldn't hurt to include a few suggestions about changing the names to fit your campaign, either.

In fact, I wish more spells had such names, but within limit. I doubt many people would be really thrilled at this point with "Jezebel's Fireball" or "Fuzzy's Magic Missile."

It works for most of the Leomund or Bigby or similar spells because those spells are nearly always really odd. The Melf's spells are an exception, both because of the silly name and because what's so odd about "Acid Arrow"?

If they were consistent about this, a spell having a name would be an easy clue that it does something unusual. You can even extrapolate this to a kind of natural language effect on spell names within the game world. Back at the dawn of magic, "Magic Missile" did get named after someone. There might have even been competing versions. It operated a little strangely in those days. After thousands of wizards tinkered with it for centuries, it settled down into (presumably) perfected form, which everyone just calls "Magic Missile" because it's so standard. And in any case, the "Magic Missle" we have now is a conglomeration of those spells. So who would it be named after?

Or if you really want to get far afield, use the Arcana Evolved simple/complex/exotic division, with all the exotic spells as named spells, but sometimes having simple or complex versions of those spells that are more bare bones. "Fireball" does the basics that it always did, but "Jezebel's Fireball" does that "expanding to fill a certain space" trick.