On The Horrible Naming

[Zurai]

How about: "Shall I let you breathe again?"
Or "Should I stop killing you now?"

I'm pretty certain that if 6 billion people didn't agree, those who do not agree could be quickly dealt with.

There is a pretty large percentage of the population that has suicidal tendencies. I'd be willing to bet all of my money that if you asked every person on earth whether they want to die, you would encounter more than one answer, even if you insist on yes/no.

 

[BryonD]

fortunate panda advance

innocent cat dance

fragrant secret stance

whiskey tango foxtrot

 

[rounser]

whiskey tango foxtrot

marcia marcia marcia!

 

[PoeticJustice]

Could Zurai and Simplicity PLEASE stop arguing an off-topic point inside this thread. Nobody else is interested at this point, so could you two at least make it a private conversation?

 

[Zurai]

Could Zurai and Simplicity PLEASE stop arguing an off-topic point inside this thread. Nobody else is interested at this point, so could you two at least make it a private conversation?

Are you going to pay for a CS account for both of us so that we can PM? Sorry to disappoint you, but it is the nature of message boards to go off-topic.

 

[PoeticJustice]

No, but since you obviously feel passionate about whatever your discussing, I thought you could move it to an email conversation. Your email is listed on your profile, yes?

 

[Zurai]

Nope. I never put my email on public forums, because that's a quick and easy way to win yourself 10,000,000 spam mails a day. I am currently blessed with an email that gets an average of 1 spam mail a month or less, and I'd rather not change that for the worse.

 

[Lackhand]

Anyway. Some of the names are less awesome than they could be, and I agree with statements earlier in this thread that it's the three-word nature; they become lots better if you simply drop one of the first two words, either works.

Go figure.

 

[Simplicity]

I agree to simply stop listening to him, since he is clearly a man of wrong opinions.

 

[Lurker37]

It is interesting to note that one sales point of 4E has been "easier for new DMs" and thus it will grow the hobby by growing the DM pool first.
I'm not clear on how flustering a new DM because he can't recall what his npc's feat *does* is going to fit into that plan.

I believe this hits the nail on the head.

These fluff names have the potential to make the game harder for new or inexperienced players and DMs to use the feats. That alone should be sufficient reason to avoid them.

To any player new to 4E, "Gold Wyvern Adept" could mean anything from "I have a pet mini-dragon" to "I successfully completed the pub crawl in the local village, which starts at the Boar's Head and finishes at the Golden Wyvern." This is even worse for a DM, who doesn't have the players' luxury of just boning up on the feats taken by their character. New DMs need every piece of mnemonic aid they can get.

So a name like "Selective Spell AOE", for all its faults, at least jogs the memory of anyone reading it, even if it's only their first game.

The reference to the name of (what we assume will be) a PHB-listed wizard order may be helpful for those who have studied the PHB cover-to-cover a dozen times, but it won't help those who (shock, horror) don't own a copy themselves. This is compounded if the DM chooses to not use those particular order names in his game, or if his game world doesn't allow for wizard orders.

There's enough of a learning curve for new players (let alone new DMs) without adding feat names that seem to be deliberately chosen to be as uninformative and confusing as possible.