D&D 5E (2014) Do you love Awesome Names?

[Bitbrain]

Reply to OP.

Yes, I love awesome names.

Granted, what I think is an awesome name might not be what somebody else perceives as awesome, so I have found it a good idea to back up my character's name with a character build that is mechanically strong.

 

[Yunru]

Quite frequently just Sam, you may recall.

*Ahem*
"They can be nicknames, but not your full name."

 

[Jacob Marley]

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that the guy who wants to just roll some dice and kill some monsters with his buds rather than faff around with some fantasy names isn't necessarily the "raging wank puppet" in this situation. I'll remember Fighter McFightface a hell of a lot longer than some generic nonsense stuffed with consonants and multiple apostrophes, particularly if he's played with aplomb. Goofy names don't preclude roleplaying, and people/places/things have stupid/generic names in real life. Or do names like the Black Forest, Goodenough Island, Rio Grande, Bell End, John Batman and Prince beak your verisimilitude and ability to immerse yourself in the Earth campaign setting? I mean, say what you will about owlbears, Dude, at least it's a consistent naming convention.

DM's and players who take this sort of thing too seriously set off warning bells that this is going to be a game more about stroking their world building ego and taking the equivalent of a history course rather than actively doing interesting things in game. Every session is going to be a damn lecture on not only what the copper pieces in this land are called, but how they got their name. That's certainly what I want to do with the 3 hours or so a week I get to game! Knowing minutia is not the same as immersion, and a poor substitute for living in the moment as your character.And comical names don't prevent an adventure from having stakes. Trying to stop the murder of renowned awakened landshark bard Robert Bulette and the subsequent selling of his body to Displacer Beef's Exotic Monster Delicatessen is an assassination plot the same as trying to save Duke Qfiil'gorr.

Incidentally, "Tirion upon Tuna" sounds like a Westeros seafood restaurant review column...

Nice strawman! 10/10

There's a huge degree of difference between wanting characters and NPCs to have names that fit the tone of the campaign and lecturing on the history of why copper pieces are called canaries in Ghurtyef'flan'd. (Feel free to add umlauts and accents where necessary.) If the game is humorous, play humorous; if serious, play serious. Playing against the grain is being the jerk.

 

[Caliban]

I love hidden (or not so hidden) pun names. But the key is to play it straight - the character doesn't know their name is a pun.

Past characters of mine:

Dwarven Bard named "Moradin's Chosen Hammer" by his religious zealot of a father. His friends just call him M.C. Hammer.

Human Rogue/Swashbuckler named Raymond Pierre Dubois. His friends call him Ray Pierre.

 

[Lanefan]

Hear, hear. Stupid names show a lack of creativity and commitment on the part of the player. I mean, "Sir Kalvin of Hobbes"? Really?

REALLY?

Yes, really; and he went on to a grand career as first a Cavalier, then later a Paladin. One of the longer-lasting characters in that campaign.

As a DM, I put a lot of work in my setting. That includes names. Frankly, I find it insulting if/when someone brings Fighter McFightface to my table. I work for weeks and months to carefully build a setting in which you can immerse yourself,

I think we have a vastly VASTLY different take-it-seriously level, you and I. I work for weeks and months to build a setting in which you can bash around, have a good time, kill things and take their stuff, and maybe have a story weave its way out of it all. My setting isn't sacred, nor precious to me. It's just a backdrop, and if Fighty McFightface* happens to wander through it and manages to build himself a bit of a career, so be it.

* - and I've had much worse names than that show up.

and you can't even be bothered to spend a few seconds to look at the list of names in the PHB and move around some letters to come up with something similar? What is a person who does that but a raging wankpuppet?

Er...someone who wants to put a little humour in the situation? Hardly my definition of a wankpuppet.

Nobody's asking you to memorize Noldorin naming practices in the city of Tirion upon Túna in the Undying Lands. They're asking you to exercise maybe - MAYBE - 30 seconds of creativity. FFS, if you can't be arsed to look at your PHB, there are any number of name generators on the Interwebz which will spew forth suitable names instantly.

So you wouldn't be impressed with my Elena, then, whose name is an acronym for what she is; or Aelyina (a shortened form of Aelinelaure which came from randomly rolling on a letter generation table otherwise known as a Scrabble board); or Eohyl Eriglif (also from the letter table). These are all characters I've played, past or present, and in all cases the name ended up fitting the character just fine.

Suitable is in the eye of the beholder. A creative pun or twist on a name (e.g. good ol' Sir Kalvin) is to me more inventive than simply looking something up online and has the added value of a bit of amusement.

Lan-"and where this name came from is a whole story unto itself"-efan

 

[Lanefan]

Dwarven Bard named "Moradin's Chosen Hammer" by his religious zealot of a father. His friends just call him M.C. Hammer.

That one is absolutely brilliant! Love it!

Lanefan

 

[Sunseeker]

As a person who has accrued a couple dozen nicknames over my lifetime- from endearing to insulting- I take such actions at the table as just being part of the fun.

I don't find people being unwilling (and it is usually an unwillingness, not an inability) to say my name to be "part of the fun". It's one thing to get an endearing nickname, and I understand the definition of what constitutes "endearing" is different from person to person, and likewise nicknames are more common in certain cultures than others. But is really isn't unreasonable to ask other players to address you properly. People who refuse are not "fun", they're jerks who are undeniably using the nickname as a way to insult the character and their lack of respect is an insult to the player. I play D&D for the fun, yes, and no part of the fun is "being willfully insulted by the people you play with for their amusement."

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Nice strawman! 10/10

There's a huge degree of difference between wanting characters and NPCs to have names that fit the tone of the campaign and lecturing on the history of why copper pieces are called canaries in Ghurtyef'flan'd. (Feel free to add umlauts and accents where necessary.) If the game is humorous, play humorous; if serious, play serious. Playing against the grain is being the jerk.

Say Aliens was a game session. Was the player of Hudson was being the jerk because he wasnt being serious enough?

The tone of the game is a group effort by all the players. Moreover, tone is not some homogenous thing in the campaign world. What kind of jerkwad decides to play a guy named "Fatty" Arbuckle! Didn't he know that the DM had a very serious campaign arc for his character? How are people supposed to buy into this trial adventure with a name like Fatty?!

IMX, the guys who get sticks up their butts about this sort of thing play the same generic bland guy in every campaign, whose only memorable traits are "competent protagonist". They do the "correct" thing to solve the adventure, and wouldn't dare have a character fall for a ruse, trigger a trap, or make the wrong decision when they, as a player, know the "correct" answer. I'll take Virus Lou, who decides to eat grapes they find in the Abyss any day over those snooze fests.

 

[Kabouter Games]

There's a huge degree of difference between wanting characters and NPCs to have names that fit the tone of the campaign and lecturing on the history of why copper pieces are called canaries in Ghurtyef'flan'd. (Feel free to add umlauts and accents where necessary.) If the game is humorous, play humorous; if serious, play serious. Playing against the grain is being the jerk.

That's what I was getting at.

Yes, really; and he went on to a grand career as first a Cavalier, then later a Paladin. One of the longer-lasting characters in that campaign.

For that I am glad. I'm glad you had fun. Hell, I wouldn't have given you too much flak for it, though I would have raised an eyebrow.

I think we have a vastly VASTLY different take-it-seriously level, you and I.

There's where you're coming a cropper, mate. It's not about "taking it seriously." It's about not being a wankpuppet. If you look around the table at characters with appropriate names and deliberately trot out "Sir Kalvin of Hobbes," you're just being a jerk.

Er...someone who wants to put a little humour in the situation? Hardly my definition of a wankpuppet.

Depends. If you're* so self-centered you impose your humor** on people who don't really want it, if the only person amused is you, then yeah, you're a wankpuppet. That's what I'm talking about.

So you wouldn't be impressed with my Elena, then, whose name is an acronym for what she is; or Aelyina (a shortened form of Aelinelaure which came from randomly rolling on a letter generation table otherwise known as a Scrabble board); or Eohyl Eriglif (also from the letter table). These are all characters I've played, past or present, and in all cases the name ended up fitting the character just fine.

As difficult as it might be to believe, I don't have a problem with any of those. Those are at least suitably "fantasy," even Elena, which is somewhat exotic. It's not Sir Kalvin of Hobbes, or Fighty McFightface, or Bob the Cleric.

Suitable is in the eye of the beholder.

True dat! If it weren't, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

Let me put it like this. For me, if it's my regular Wednesday AL game (like I'm off to in a matter of minutes), who cares? Nobody at that table is invested in Storm King's Thunder. We're scalpin' Nazis, not creating a collaborative story. Hell, nobody really roleplays; it's an exercise in killin' giants, more of a wargame than an RPG. So names don't matter even one little bit. If you want to try to be funny, have at it.

My home table is different. There, we're engaged in collaborative storytelling. It's just plain rude to insert Fighty McFightface into an exercise where everyone else is committed to the story. It shows you care more about your cheap joke than anyone else at the table. I don't think that kind of behavior is defensible. It's not about BadWrongFun, either, in terms of the game; it's about being able to interact with other human beings with sensitivity, i.e., not being a selfish wankpuppet.

A creative pun or twist on a name (e.g. good ol' Sir Kalvin) is to me more inventive than simply looking something up online and has the added value of a bit of amusement.

Creative and inventive do not necessarily equal appropriate. That's all I'm saying.

Regards,

Bob
www.r-p-davis.com

* Here I'm using the colloquial "you," not intending you personally.
** For a given value of "humor."

 

[JonnyP71]

As always with these things it is down to 'common sense' - something a lot of us seem to be lacking in

Respect your fellow gamers, respect your DM and the expected tone of the game, have fun!


On the subject of nicknames, one guy brought a Wizard with a lengthy backstory to our table, about him being a disinherited Noble, out to prove to his family that he wasn't the lazy ne'er-do-well they considered him to be, and therefore regain his title and inheritance. He was described as as being quite weedy, a little bit arrogant and dismissive.

He told us his name, nobody remembered it. He was immediately dubbed 'Peewee Princeling' and that was that. I was DM, even I referred to him as Peewee. The player got used to it - he had to!