Names and Maps and Suchlike

[Rolzup]

I'm getting more and more interested in the idea of actually *running* a D&D game, so right now I'm in search of resources. Two types, specifically, as the Subject line indicates....

Names. I'm awful with thinking up names on the fly, and fantasy names are a particular weakness of mine. In desparation, I usually resort to grabbing a word at random and spelling it backwards. Far from ideal. I seem to remember hearing tell of an excellent on-line compendium of gaming-suitible names, but I can't remember any of the details that would allow me to *find* the site in question. Any suggestions?

And of course, maps. I know of WoTC's Map of the Week, and I'll mbe making good use of them, but any other source of good fantasy maps -- particularly cities and towns -- would be of great help.

And while I'm at it.... Any and all suggestions of on-line resources that people have found useful for running fantasy games would be appreciated -- I'm not too proud to take all of the help that I can get.

Rolzup

 

[dave_o]

Hey, dude, I'm sorta in the same boat. My advice?

First, use actual real-world place names, that are way obscure. Your players won't even know the difference. Also, for names, check out Behind the Name for a great entymology website, with search ninja power.

Maps? I've made a lot of my maps by taking real world maps and flipping some stuff around in PSP7 and Photoshop. There are also tons of map emporeium sites, if your Google-fu is strong.

If you want a more detailed tutorial on PSP map making, just ask!

 

[DaveStebbins]

For names I always recommend EBoN, the Everchanging Book of Names. It is a (shareware) random name generation program for Windows. It uses a reference list of names from a particular genre or culture and intelligent rules to generate new names with similar cadences and feel. It comes with a huge list of real world and fantasy name categories.

I associate names from specific reference sets (books) with different countries in my setting and generate lists of names for each one. I copy them and print them out so that I always have lists of NPC names available any time I need them.

http://ebon.pyorre.net

-Dave

 

[Kichwas]

I'm also bad with names, so I put together a random name generator for the Kalamar setting that I keep on my laptop as I run the game.

For anglo-celtic fantasy (what most people do when it comes to the linguistics) Judges Guild has a book of fantasy names organized into a variety of sections for how the person was named. I have this book and recommend it.

 

[DMScott]

EBoN's a neat little app. Another decent one is JH NameGen, available in trial and pay versions.

For maps, a good starting point is your local library - atlases and history books are chalk full o' maps, and the photocopier is cheap. What I do is make up the broad outline of my world, then when I need some detail I find a real-world map with the proper terrain types. This works fine so long as you're using a vaguely real world set of terrain and climate combinations. So if I need a forested area with a river running through it, I might get a map of medieval Germany or one of a national park. One of the first rules of DMing is "steal as much as possible"

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

If you can find one, pick up a copy of the Silmarilion by Tolkien. In the back is a short Quenya/Sindarin dictionary that I have found VERY useful in creating names. There's probably a more complete one floating around somewhere, but I don't know. The great thing about it is that Tolkien was a philologist, so he knew what he was doing.

 

[Djeta Thernadier]

Do a search on yahoo or google for name generators (or specific kind of name generator) and you should find some. I'm terrible at names and last week, I needed to come up with a bunch of gnome names and had no idea what to use, so I actually translated the word gnome into several other languages and used all these various words for "gnome".

Never underestimate the power of translating words into the same words in languages no one in your gaming group understands.

EDIT : Also, there's a few threads on ENworld about names people have used.

 

[Olive]

For names I always recommend EBoN, the Everchanging Book of Names. It is a (shareware) random name generation program for Windows. It uses a reference list of names from a particular genre or culture and intelligent rules to generate new names with similar cadences and feel. It comes with a huge list of real world and fantasy name categories.

I've just downloaded it, and it is pretty damn cool.

I can't afford the price just yet, but thanks for pointing it out.

 

[Agback]

G'day

Here's a possibility that you ought not to overlook: run your game in real geography.

Go to an historical atlas and grab a place and period that looks interesting (Europe in AD 1220, for instance). Then make a few racial and political substitutions (eg. replace the Germans and Scots with dwarves and the Welsh, Irish, and Bretons with elves. Replace the Anglo-Saxons with hobbits and the Romany with halflings. Replace the jews with gnomes. Replace the Teutonic knights and Templars with paladins. Re-jig Church politics to be more consistent with the clerics of a Good god, and the Caliphate to be more consistent with the clergy of a lawful God, and replace the Albigensians with Devil-worshippers. (Or not)). In short, design a D&D world with congruent geography.

But don't change the names or place-names.

Regards,


Agback