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<blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 7264771" data-attributes="member: 16814">I name towns for a specific feature of the town, or for a specific event that happened there.&nbsp; Bad Ankle, provided above, is exactly what I do, only I run a 'time changes things' pass over it and might have that town down as Bankley.&nbsp; Depends on the setting theme I'm pushing.&nbsp; Having the towns names for clear features helps reinforce player memory -- &quot;Hey, remember that town, the one with 10 wells?&quot;&nbsp; &quot;You mean Tenwell?&quot;&nbsp; &quot;Yeah!&nbsp; That one!&quot;I've learned that while I might geek out on cultural names, my players don't uniformly hold the same likes, and that using easily remembered names for towns and NPCs works way better for immersion in the plot than having to recall how to pronounce that one name.&nbsp; If you can't remember it easily, you won't, a tautology of obvious proportions.&nbsp; So, I now use names common in real time, with perhaps a single letter changes - Tom becomes Ton, frex - and town names clearly ties to reinforcing information - Tenwell has ten wells, and this was important for something.However, I still dislike completely obvious naming, like Eastport and Westport.&nbsp; I'd build in some history with Newport and Oxley (named for the fearsome pirate Ox, a minotaur who rampaged the seas until he founded the town and retired as a king among pirates).&nbsp; Newport does most of the business these days, and is highly mercantile, but if you need something special, something you might not be supposed to have, then Oxley's your port of call.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Ovinomancer, post: 7264771, member: 16814"] I name towns for a specific feature of the town, or for a specific event that happened there. Bad Ankle, provided above, is exactly what I do, only I run a 'time changes things' pass over it and might have that town down as Bankley. Depends on the setting theme I'm pushing. Having the towns names for clear features helps reinforce player memory -- "Hey, remember that town, the one with 10 wells?" "You mean Tenwell?" "Yeah! That one!" I've learned that while I might geek out on cultural names, my players don't uniformly hold the same likes, and that using easily remembered names for towns and NPCs works way better for immersion in the plot than having to recall how to pronounce that one name. If you can't remember it easily, you won't, a tautology of obvious proportions. So, I now use names common in real time, with perhaps a single letter changes - Tom becomes Ton, frex - and town names clearly ties to reinforcing information - Tenwell has ten wells, and this was important for something. However, I still dislike completely obvious naming, like Eastport and Westport. I'd build in some history with Newport and Oxley (named for the fearsome pirate Ox, a minotaur who rampaged the seas until he founded the town and retired as a king among pirates). Newport does most of the business these days, and is highly mercantile, but if you need something special, something you might not be supposed to have, then Oxley's your port of call. [/QUOTE]

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