Can bad character names kill the campaign.

[Dagger75]

With an inspiriation from the Worst. Character. Name. Ever. Thread I have this question.


Does a player who has a stupid character name kind of ruin the game for you? It does for me. Its just hard for me to interact when the characters name is Zippo, or the cliche Bob. Just knowing that word is spelled out on the character sheet irkes me. Its a pet peeve of mine. I had a Jaysyn (Pronounced Jason) for some reason that worked for me. Some names in real life work well in fantasy games, most don't. For me a fighter named Brian would be stupid. D20 modern or Spycraft it works.

At cons most of the games have pre-gen character, I even like naming those characters. A small of piece of me is upset when I see the "Characters Name" prefilled on the character sheet. I always try to make up new ones. A few names I recycle, I try not to though. The computer game Civilization wouldn't have as fun for me if I wasn't able to make up the names for my town. Half the fun was making up the titles and the city names for me.

That all for my freakish pet peeves for this day.

 

[kengar]

It can affect the tone of the campaign if characters have names that don't fit the setting, etc. I don't know if that = the "kiss of death" for the campaign, but it can mean starting with a strike against it.

 

[Fenes 2]

In a word, yes. Having to deal with a character name like "Mr. J. Jackson" in a FR campaign breaks my immersion and suspense of disbelief, and shows a lack of consideration toward my efforts to make an internally consistent campaign. Unsuitable names also show, imho and ime, that a player does not take the campaign seriously. If a PC has a stupid name every encounter where the name is mentioned threatens to become a running joke.

 

[The Forsaken One]

Currently I'm DMming a Realms game that started at the beginning of the new year and we have a Cleric of Shar who's name is Allah...

Well we all had a great laugh and spilled coke by the gallons when he mispronounced something he cast and half the group understood it as 'Jihad'... really. We kept laughing for minutes.. oww man... that went into the records right next to:

'Rent a Lich'

And more stuff like that.. we write all that stuff down hehe. Great stuff.

Well now I as DM ended up creating a 7th level spell named Jihad for him hehe. Know it's religious topic but it's fun

 

[Volaran]

I well remember playing in a realms campaign featuring a wandering ninja from Kara-Tur. His name? Maximus Andronicus

In a more serious campaign, I think there would have been irritation. Fortunately, this wasn't very serious, and Faerun's only Roman Ninja was almost normal.

 

[TiQuinn]

If it's a really dumb name, then yeah, it can wreck the whole tone of the game, and both myself and the other players usually just pick on the player mercilessly until they change it.

Real world names like Brian, Michael, Jason, etc. don't necessarily bother me since they existed during medieval times as well.

Names like Bob, Jim, Larry, etc. are out.

 

[Derulbaskul]

Yes, they can absolutely ruin the tone of the campaign... as I am, once again, discovering.

Also, I really hate seeing real world names in published modules. I picked up NG's Morrick Mansion this week and was really browned off to, once again, see a plethora of real world names. I mean, it doesn't take that much effort, particularly with internet access, to put a little bit of thought in?

Cheers
D

 

[yennico]

I started a new campaign in Greyhawk. One player choose Gilgamesh as name for his fighter PC.

I disallowed this name, because if somebody calls this PC I always think of the person out of the myth....

Just my 2 cents
yennico

 

[kibbitz]

Yes, some names really don't work at all and it gets in the way when you're trying to set a mood. I mean, unless you're running something comedic, it's hard to have the High Priest of the Fleshless King named Bob.

 

[Kraedin]

I don't know. Once, all of out characters had names cobbled together out of russian history, and that campign didn't have any problems.

We had Fydorivich, Aleksandr Kerensky, Antonin Rasputin, Leon Trotsky, Vladimir Ulyanov and Vladimir Lenin with no problems.