Dear 4e, Please Stop with the Horrible Portmanteaus!

[The Shaman]

I don't usually have an opinion on things 4e related, as I know next to nothing about the game.

But the 4e monster names what pop up on the forums? Ohmigawd those are really effing awful. Pure butt gravy.

 

[Garthanos]

This sort of thing is actually what I'm all for. I've always been a fan of how the devils work - with having general names (Horned Devil) alongside the 'proper' infernal terminology (Cornugon). Having races that have both some more straightforward names that they are commonly known as, along with a more fantastical name for those who prefer such things, would seem a happy solution to many of these complaints.

I am rather fond of things being called different names by people from different places, it goes beyond just the educated terminology versus not educated. When Authors mention that a certain people call this monster something and it expresses something about that people and there history... its quite cool... it might just be language but it might be things like Fey folk call him the Great Reaver

 

[The Ghost]

Y'know guys, we still have wars over how to pronounce "Drow", and threads that ask how to pronounce "Eladrin".

So what? The word "guarantee" has six (!) different, acceptable pronunciations according to my dictionary.

 

[Rechan]

So what? The word "guarantee" has six (!) different, acceptable pronunciations according to my dictionary.

My point being that even a small simple word can be confusing on how to pronounce, not just exotic discombobulated words.

 

[Cyronax]

I think "Double Hell" sounds awesome. It's like something translated from English into Cantonese and back again by a beta web translator.

Maybe I'm just a bit jaded. Most writing is bad. Thus the prevalence of bad writing in fantasy fiction, let alone fantasy-fiction based gaming products, let alone specific --and questionable-- naming schemes in gaming product lines with crowded release schedules --ahem, where was I, oh--- the prevalence of bad writing doesn't surprise me at all.

And there ain't much that's going to change it. As others have pointed out, good writing is hard. Some writers are Jack Vance, most are not. So take whatever good you find, name-wise, and forget the rest.

Double hell is kind of cool for certain campaigns.

I have a few dystopic and cynical 'elseworlds' or demiplanes in my cosmology (on top of a fairly serious Norse-themed cosmology) and I am seriously thinking of making a mischievous implike entity who named his realm tongue-and-cheek -- 'Scarytown.'

It wouldn't be a big part of the campaign, but it might be a side comment from some merchant in Sigil's Grand Bazaar -- "oh yeah .... this statue .... it comes from Scarytown." And then the NPC can roll his eyes and say "oh you know those queer folk from blah blah and their silliness."

Looking over the system's names as a whole I don't really mind most of the portmanteaus. In fact I really like the terms Shadowfell and Feywild -- just not Shadowdark or Feydark. I term them Niflheim and Alfheim IMC, but also use the game terms as colloquialisms of adventurers.

/earmuffs for Eric's Grandma

The ones that really annoy me are the shardminds and others like the Fell Taint monsters are very poor names. When I first saw the monsters in MM2 I thought it was similar to the ubiquity of calling Tea Party protesters by a certain nickname. OR -- the use of 'shard' as a verb in slang nowadays.

/end earmuffs

Maybe game designers should check urban dictionary against all future monster names?

I don't mind crude humor at the table sometimes, but only when its most intentional.


C.I.D.

 

[fireinthedust]

Yup, MtG has generally had very cool names, so it's not like there's something in the water supply at Renton. Sengir vampire: What the heck is Sengir? Probably a place. The word sounds nasty, and since it has vampires it must one bad-ass place.

As opposed to Sunnydale, which sounds like a happy place (and, sadly, wasn't... except that musical episode)

 

[fireinthedust]

If I had a portable manatee I would take it everywhere...what?

Not me, those things are heavy. I wouldn't mind a flying Manatee, though, who could take me places. ...

Why does the shadowfell need an underdark?

Wasn't 4e trying to do away with pointless symmetry in the planes?

Yeah, that does bug me. I think the "feywild underdark" or Feydark is pretty lame. I mean, I get it: they're supposed to be opposite ends of the material realm. Still, Fomorians can be all over the place. Ogres aren't limited to the Fey realms, neither are Trolls. Drow are "fey", technically.

PS:

Spoiler

The Shadowfell IMC tends to be the very deep underdark, toward the deep center of the earth, deeper than the deepest drow city, a land of the dead and dying not unlike Sheol or Hel or Hades or Xibalba.

And my Feywild tends to actually be places where arcane magic flows into the world, along ley lines, in deep wilderness where sentient beings rarely tread.

But I'm in favor of the planes all being part of The World, usually, in my campaigns.

Nice!

Spoiler

I tend towards another world that's reached through the earth, like Hades; but still on another plane, like you jump through a crack in the earth near a graveyard or battlefield. Then again, the Elemental Chaos tends to be deep under the surface, but locked away by magic (until the PCs break through for whatever reason, TBD); so it *is* part f the world, as is the Astral Sea (ie: outer space, but magical), while the other two are other planes (like Alba for the feywild, and Hades for the shadowdark).

 

[bouncyhead]

If I had a portable manatee I would take it everywhere...what?

By Manatee do you mean Seacow?

 

[SkidAce]

Glad you caught it.

(of course so did everyone else but it was so awfull they just ignored it)

 

[Desdichado]

Really fureee ondee ... sounds like furr yondee... only if I really squish hard like some eastern folk... and dont pronounce the y in its consonant form clearly one time and sneak it in a little the other time. I am from "spell it like it sounds Nebraska" - have you had your ears checked recently (I know we are both pushing it in years but) <insert or delete additional silly not quite insulting things in retaliation here./> ... etc etc

Not sure if we got the patent in but I think nebraskans invented phonics.

OOOOhhh K. Now, try not to super enunciate and say them normally. They're practically identical and to a casual listener, you can't actually distinguish the sutble difference between them.

And even if they weren't, it's not like it's difficult to read that word and pronounce it sensibly. And it's hardly like there's anyone actually from Furyondy who's going to come and correct such a sutble mispronunciation.

For example, someone just said that they chuckled over the word ilithid because it sounded like someone with a lisp saying illicit. Well, not to me; I stress the first syllable.

But rather than worrying about whether that is "right" or not, the point is, it's not a difficult word to read or say. It's one thing if we called all D&D monsters stuff like ixitxachitl. If we did, then yeah, I might sing a different tune about battle-spike behemoth, or whatever it is. But we don't, so battle-spike behemoths sounds stupid, and I wonder why we couldn't just say stegosaur like the original MM did.