On The Horrible Naming

[Guild Goodknife]

Disagree.

Disagree with werk.

Agree with VirgilCaine.

Seriously guys, i think the names we got are not as bad as some people here make them! They are definitly not much different from the names we got in previous D&D books.
Now, please go on and kill me for this.

 

[Zurai]

No. They're wrong to like them. They have a right to their opinions. But that particular opinion is wrong. They need to come to terms with that. Sometimes that's hard, I know. But the first step is the hardest. Admitting that they were wrong. Then they can move on to the anger and depression and whatever the hell else they need to do to get their head screwed on straight.

It is impossible, by definition, for an opinion to be wrong. In order to be 'right' or 'wrong', something has to be provable. Opinions are unprovable by their very nature. Opinions are an emotional reaction. You can have a reaction for the wrong reason, but you cannot have a wrong reaction.

 

[Zurai]

The fact that the names are capable of dividing the designers into two camps is itself indicative of a problem. There wouldn't be a division if the names didn't climb to some level of suckage. Those designers who like them are wrong. They should come out and admit it or face being burned in digital effigy.

Incorrect. It is a fundamental fact of human nature that you can never please everyone. There will ALWAYS be at least two camps on any issue. If they'd gone with fully generic names (nothing more evocative than Power Attack, for example), I gaurantee that there'd still be two camps - the designers that love it and the designers that hate it.

 

[Simplicity]

It is impossible, by definition, for an opinion to be wrong. In order to be 'right' or 'wrong', something has to be provable. Opinions are unprovable by their very nature. Opinions are an emotional reaction. You can have a reaction for the wrong reason, but you cannot have a wrong reaction.

You seem to have an incorrect definition of opinion. An opinion is: a belief or judgment that rests on grounds insufficient to produce complete certainty.

You have a right to believe what you wish. However, that belief can be true or false regardless of the level of certainty you hold towards the belief. The opinion you present above, though you present it with great conviction, is an example of a wrong opinion. I may hold the opinion that lead paint chips are good and good for you. That belief would be a wrong belief regardless of how certain I am of it. And the fact that my opinion here would be wrong also invalidates your opinion. QED.

 

[Simplicity]

Incorrect. It is a fundamental fact of human nature that you can never please everyone. There will ALWAYS be at least two camps on any issue. If they'd gone with fully generic names (nothing more evocative than Power Attack, for example), I gaurantee that there'd still be two camps - the designers that love it and the designers that hate it.

You can please everyone. You just can't do it all the time.

 

[Traycor]

fortunate panda advance

innocent cat dance

fragrant secret stance

 

[BryonD]

1) Well, I'd like to have purely descriptive names as well - but I certainly see the need for more flavourful names, if you want to make the core books more appealing and less textbook-like. Especially for a newer group, that only gets into contact with Pen'n'Paper-RPGs for the first time. Individual flavour and homebrewing is something that develops over time.

I'm just not sure I can agree with that.
I absolutely won't claim that my single case is typical. But this is exactly the opposite of how it was with me. And I can't think of anyone I've ever gamed with for any extended time whatsoever that didn't come to gaming because their imagination and eagerness for this kind of imagination gaming was there long before they cracked the first book open. And I don't believe that are *any* people out there that are not gamers now but are going to hear "golden wyvern" and "emerald frost" and suddenly go "wow, I never thought it could be so colorful, sign me up."

Of course I'm fine with some flavor text and muse-worthy elements of the book. But that is far different. And I also will state that I think "textbook" is a really major overstatement.

 

[SteveC]

I've already suggested that the game designers stick to game designing and hire some writers to fill in the fluff info for them. There are several types of creativity, and it takes a brave man to admit that he might not have facility with all of them.

I have to chime in here 1000%. One of the ideas about 4E is to make it more flavorful, to, in effect, give it a real default setting, as opposed to the implied Greyhawk setting of 3X. I think that the designers at WotC are fantastic at making rules. I like just about all of the crunch that we've seen so far for 4E, and think it's fantastic game design.

The choices they're making as to which races and classes to include in core, the descriptive spell and talent/feat names, and the general "backstory" for the whole edition just aren't on the same level. I'd buy a book of game crunch from just about any of the guys they have designing 4E, but I don't think any of them should quit their game designing jobs to become novelists.

What really should have happened is to get a "fluff" team, who make those "setting IP" decisions, and fill them with writers. How do all of these new classes and races fit together? What are the names for the wizard schools, priestly orders? What is the backstory for the whole 4E cosm? A good fiction writer is what you need for that.

Just my opinion...

--Steve

 

[MerricB]

Can you speak on any kind of authority or from experience in stating this? Because as I understand designers create material and developers playtest and edit that material. At least, that's the way magic works.

And you'd be incomplete.

For Magic:

* Designers come up with card ideas, and give them wacky place-holder names.
* Developers get the cards into manageable forms.
* Story people come up with the card names.

(Incidentally, they have an article on card names this week!)

 

[DM_Blake]

1) Well, I'd like to have purely descriptive names as well - but I certainly see the need for more flavourful names, if you want to make the core books more appealing and less textbook-like. Especially for a newer group, that only gets into contact with Pen'n'Paper-RPGs for the first time. Individual flavour and homebrewing is something that develops over time.

Well said, but as a further note, homebrewing by adding fluff is easy.

But homebrewing by changing fluff from a to b, or by removing fluff, is more complicated and requires a good memory to look at your own fluff and be able to translate it back to the printed fluff.

And not just your memory. What a pain to invite a new player to the game and have to explain that "Purple Peacock Shaping" is really "Golden Wyvern Adept" - especially if you have 'homebrewed' a hundred, or a thousand, other fluff changes.

Which is why core books should leave out the flavor.

Let the homebewers add what they want, if they want, but don't make homebrewers change fluff from a to b.