D&D 5E Do you love Awesome Names?

[Jefe Bergenstein]

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, 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? 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.

It's one thing if everyone at the table is naming their characters something stupid or silly. It's another if you're the only one. If you show up with Fighter McFightface when everyone else has carefully selected appropriate names, you're not funny, you're not clever; you're just a jerk. You've proved but one thing: You don't give a flip about anyone but yourself, or you would have taken the couple of dozen seconds to come up with an appropriate name.

Thanks for the rant space.

Cheers,

Bob

www.r-p-davis.com

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...

 

[Waterbizkit]

I tend to lean towards more serious names for my NPCs and, on those extremely rare occasions, my PCs. The truth be told though... I don't give a tinker's cuss what my players name their characters, I just can't be bothered. And as usual I find myself fascinated with the things others get hung up on and that names are one of those is interesting to me.

Some of you seem put right off by silly names and while I can't say I don't understand that point of view I have a hard time imagining myself sharing it under any circumstance. Does that matter if I'm running a published AP, a one-off or a full-blown, built from the ground up "this is my baby" homebrew... bring whoever you want along for the ride. Sir Stiffington, Blue Knight of the Viagra Wood will be just as welcome as Thorgrim Bronzebeard or Tidurion Maethial. I'm just not that bothered.

Now I suppose if I had a player or two who were really bothered by this sort of thing I'd make sure it was addressed before things got rolling, but in all the years I've played it's never been an issue. I mean in our current campaign I have five players, four of whom have characters with "normal/serious names"... and then there's Mordor the Despoiler. No one gives a toss. Like I said though, I can understand that wouldn't be the case for everyone, it just is for us.

 

[Rune]

I mean, say what you will about owlbears, Dude, at least its a consistent naming convention.

That is a sig-worthy quotation.

 

[Wulffolk]

I strongly prefer serious setting-appropriate names. I have a few ways I deal with players that choose silly names:

Online games - I just flat-out ignore players that do not take the time to choose a setting-appropriate name. If asked why I am ignoring them I will explain through private messages. This has had a positive impact on some players and changed their future behavior.

Convention games - I just usually bite my tongue and do my best to have fun with my limited time having to deal with those players.

Table-top groups - if it is one player then I take the time to help them understand my perspective and ask them to reconsider their choice. If it is more than one player then I reconsider my participation with a group that has such a high percentage of people that invest so much less effort and creativity into the game than I do.

As a DM - I absolutely refuse to waste my time running a game for players that lack respect for the time I invest in creating and running a game. A player that doesn't understand that is a player I don't want at my table.

 

[Gardens & Goblins]

This wouldn't be the same Dave that covered his wounded forearm with fresh leopard pelt, healed himself, and unwittingly grafted said pelt to his arm... would it?

It must be the name.. but no, this one gained famed from such antics as flicking through the Deck of Many of Things in an attempt to find the Holy Avenger, dooming the countryside to a meteor strike, dragon attack and twice turning his gear to glass. Who was often physically placed in locations by the poor god that was unfortunate to be lumped with, after doing his best to ignore prophetic dreams. Who climbed a cliff face, infiltrated a cultist island temple, all to reclaim 10 gold pieces owed to him by the fighter (who was deep undercover). Who insisted in casting light on himself and levitating through church windows to impress the locals. Who, when a critical hit - and due to an interesting complication with the reincarnation spell - turned him into a badger.. proceeded to use Fly to harass enemies from up high through tactical airborne defecation. Who, short for time, was caught between praying and gambling - and ended up praying for luck with his gambling. Who became a paladin for bit, 'to see what all the fuss was about'. Who, atop a tower in a decidedly fantasy trope moment, confronted an enemy cleric and was blasted with 12D8 damage - took 12 damage. And then saved for half. Who used Sunbeam in a pub brawl (with the same fighter as mentioned before, and again over the reclaiming of a few gold owed.)

And so on...

The running joke became that he must be getting his spells from somewhere/someone, but no god wanted him, or at least would confess to having him as a follow.

Ah Dave... you crazy, ungodly cleric loon..

 

[Yunru]

Awesome, maybe not. But definitely not any truncated names. It's Thomas, not Tom. Lucretia, not Lucy. They can be nicknames, but not your full name.
Otherwise you end up with Gimli, Aragon, and Bob.

As an aside, BehindTheName is awesome for finding good names.

 

[MostlyDm]

Re 2/3, yes I know - Robilar was allegedly 'Rob Liar' too.

But the actual piece I read dissected those famous NPC names from G1-2-3, and found that while being silly, some of them were also very clever.

'Faffle' - means to stammer or stutter
'Cloyer' - claim a share in profits
'Bulse' - a small purse for diamonds
'Frush' - to break into small pieces

Some were just made up nonsense, but others were, in true EGG style, a little cleverer than that


My newest character (for a 13th Age game using Dark Sun) is a Roguish Entertainer by the name of Khanjali Mac - Khanjali = a form of Asian knife, Mac 'the knife'. His form of entertainment - Knife Throwing.

See, I'm fine with stuff like that. Khanjali Mac? No problem. Robilar? Tenser? Even Melf or Rary? Sure.

A recent player was going to play a human named Rob. When he saw the Dragonborn, he thought they looked awesome. But the Dragonborn "Rob" sounded dumb to him. His solution? Dragonborn Rob becomes Drob.

Drob is a fine name, doesn't break immersion to me at all.

The key thing, to me, is context. If the joke is a meta joke that doesn't exist in the fantasy world, it works fine for me. Unless it's an intentionally silly game, which I do play sometimes but is not my preference, I don't want the joke to be explicit in the fantasy world. Fighter McFightFace is hard to get around, for me. But Trodaire McTroidDreach (Which is what you get when you google translate Fighter, Fight, and Face into Irish and try to figure out which word best fits the context) is... well, it looks hard to pronounce, like all Irish words. So I wouldn't choose it. But if you can figure out how to say it, I bet it's actually not that bad.

In 20+ years of gaming, I've honestly never encountered the situation I hear people complain about... where the DM or the players find the names of NPCs or PCs to be too hard to remember/say/pay attention to/etc. I always hear people talk about that as an issue, but I have never really experienced it. I guess if this was a big problem in your games, there'd be some value added in having everyone's names be goofy and memorable.

I've also seen people joke about just using real world names. So, King George Washington summons the party to his palace at New York, and charges them with venturing into the dark city of Detroit and slaying the evil lord Julius Caesar and his court wizard Ringo Starr.

The concept always amuses, but I think it would actually be more confusing for me, not easier at all.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Awesome, maybe not. But definitely not any truncated names. It's Thomas, not Tom. Lucretia, not Lucy. They can be nicknames, but not your full name.
Otherwise you end up with Gimli, Aragon, and Bob.

Yeah, or Legolas, Gandalf, and Sam.

Wait a minute...

 

[Yunru]

Samwise, never just Sam.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Quite frequently just Sam, you may recall.