Characters with the same name? In the same party?

[Cor Azer]

Now, this has been going on for over a year in my face-to-face game...

Have you ever been in a D&D group where more than one character has the same name? The players in my face-to-face game made their characters together, but hadn't really collaborated on names, and when they introduced themselves to each other two of them had selected the name 'Lia' as their elves' first names (they had different last names though). We function fine, and never really thought about getting one or the other to change their names - after all, in real life, I have all sorts of friends whom have the same first names.

As the DM, I rather enjoyed this, because it easily led to me having multiple NPCs with the same first names, and fortunately, the players haven't gotten confused about them.

While I'm somewhat surprised it doesn't happen more often, I can understand - I don't really recall any version of D&D having possible racial names listed in the Player's Handbook (where both above players got 'Lia').

Anyone with similar naming experiences?

 

[MrFilthyIke]

Anyone with similar naming experiences?

In a Ravenloft game my wife and I made characters seperately, and
to our suprise introduced Tristen and Yseult to each other.

 

[El Ravager]

Haven't had that situation, but the players in my group do have this habit of giving characters the same name as one of the other players. THAT is very confusing. More than once, someone has named their character Andrew which is the same name as my roommate who plays with us. In my current game a player has named his character named Jon and a week later a new player joined us whose name is, of course, Jon.

 

[Cor Azer]

In a Ravenloft game my wife and I made characters seperately, and
to our suprise introduced Tristen and Yseult to each other.

Do I lose geek points for not catching that reference?

 

[lukelightning]

My suggestion would be to do what people do in real life when they have situation with more than one person having the same name. I have two friends named "Rick" and I've dubbed them "Crazy Rick" and "Frog Rick" (because Frog Rick once had pet frogs, and Crazy Rick is, um, a bit odd.)

Or have a duel and the loser has to change their name.

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

Yes.

 

[Hand of Evil]

I will not relive the nightmare that was Bob!

Okay, the year was 1979 late summer early fall the players all came together and proceeded to drive a nail into my forehead, they all decided to name their characters Bob, there was Ranger Bob, Cleric Bob, Fighter Bob, Wizard Bob and Thief Bobby.

Arrrrrrrr the pain.

 

[Altalazar]

In all the decades I've gamed, I've NEVER had that happen. Though if it did, you could do what they do on Survivor and come up with nicknames or use the last initial.

 

[MrFilthyIke]

Do I lose geek points for not catching that reference?

Yseult was form of Iseult, a version of Isolde...from Tristan and Isolde.

 

[Crothian]

At one of the Ohio Gamedays there was a CoC game were I believe three of the five PCs were named John.