stupid PC names

[BlueWing]

Silliest name I ever had to deal with was during my first gm session. It was a GURPS adventure that I had written myself, and my more experienced GURPS friend wanted to make "gm"ing a challenge for me, so his character was Minky McBoodle, the fireworks salesman. He got annoyed that all my npcs made their rolls to resist his sales tactics... Things like this are why I generally avoid GURPS now.

Oh, and there was also a guy named Brother Fro the Paladin when we tried out the horrible Diablo II tabletop game that came with the collector's edition of the computer game...

 

[Fenes 2]

If someone wants to play a PC named "B33r4u" in a D&D campaign then I will tell him to choose another name, since such a name not only annoys me, it makes it unneccessary harder for me to immerse myself in the campaign. If the player will not budge, too bad for him.

As far as I see it, people who don't show enough consideration not to insist on a name they know offends me are not people I want to play with. For me, respecting the other players' wishes and taking care not to offend the rest of the group is part of a level of social maturity I expect from players and DM alike.

Call it juvenile as much as you want, I don't care. I want to have fun DMing. I won't play with people who try to ruin my fun.
Since PCs with ridiculous names ruin my fun I won't play with or DM for people who insist upon stupid names.

 

[Sunglar]

Oh my! I’ve had some pretty goofy ones in my life as a DM…

From my first D&D (Red Box) campaign:

Conan, the Elf
Mano (that’s hand in Spanish) Fast, the Thief
Dragon Knight (like the old Nintendo game) the Fighter

And the list goes on…

More recently on my next to last AD&D campaign (1993-1999):

Bilbo Viscalla the Thief
Analkyn Skyrunner, The Cleric

Well and on the few occasions I’ve played I must admit to once having played a CN Dwarven Fighter called Glovar Walco.

(Edited for this...)

Almost forgot, I had a player name his Wizard Tim, called Mighty by some!

 

[Shard O'Glase]

And a crappy name like some lame leet speak name is Juvenile as well. I'm not denying that and a DM probably should ban it if he thinks it would disrupt his game.

But there is another side of the coin hinted at in this thread and seemingly accepted. That I am the law and names have to fit within my anal parameters crap that is just as Juvenile. The sorry but that's not an elf name there aren't enough syllables and where are the random y's thrown in. And your last name the moon isn't mentioned nor is any other piece of nature or time of day. I'm sorry you just can't name your elf Fran Wider. And you Bob, John Stormhammer your not a dwarf cut that crap out.

If the DM gets a big enough Bee in his/her bonnet about the proper names people should have he/she deserves crap for it. Becuase this kind of crap can disrupt the fun on the game for the players just as much as D0000D would for the DM.

 

[Tsyr]

And a crappy name like some lame leet speak name is Juvenile as well. I'm not denying that and a DM probably should ban it if he thinks it would disrupt his game.

But there is another side of the coin hinted at in this thread and seemingly accepted. That I am the law and names have to fit within my anal parameters crap that is just as Juvenile. The sorry but that's not an elf name there aren't enough syllables and where are the random y's thrown in. And your last name the moon isn't mentioned nor is any other piece of nature or time of day. I'm sorry you just can't name your elf Fran Wider. And you Bob, John Stormhammer your not a dwarf cut that crap out.

If the DM gets a big enough Bee in his/her bonnet about the proper names people should have he/she deserves crap for it. Becuase this kind of crap can disrupt the fun on the game for the players just as much as D0000D would for the DM.

That, my friend, is your view.

Myself, and most of my players, would disagree with you.

We happen to believe, most of us anyhow, that names are very important. They help define a character. A character with a goofy name is probably going to wind up being... well... goofy. Or, at least, shallow. And a name can be a huge part of your character, if you play it right. For example, one of the players in my current campaign is playing an elf named Temarin Jel S'Rytha... which seems like an ordinary enough name, I suppose, except that (by the name guidelines for the elves for my world), that's actualy a very exceptional name... Properly he would be Temarin Jel Herran S'Rytha. (Quick summary: Jel XXXX means "son of", and "S'XXXX" is "Of the clan"... a full elves name is XXXX, Jel(son of)/Ten(daughter of) XXXXX, S'XXXXX). It's actualy a very important part of his back story that he renounced his family name. And it's very apparent to everyone else, too, that his name is unique (Well, anyone familiar with elves).

We happen to LIKE gaming like that.

If you don't, fine, but don't call me "anal" and that "I deserve crap" because of it.

Why is it wrong, might I ask, to have cultural standards? Do they not exist in your games? Are names completely random?

 

[tarchon]

I grumble a little at stupid names, but I wouldn't forbid one. I did once play a human named Hume, who adventured with his buddy Ulf the Elf.

 

[MissingDividends]

As a player in one campaign, there is a fellow player named Youara Mymama pronounced "you are a my mama"
she has goten us into truble with the orcs, the goblins, the humans, the dragons, and the centars...in the world there is really only 1 race left, the veloceraptors(thats not spelled right), and i got them mad at us.....we are universilly hated....

 

[Thorin Stoutfoot]

Hm... I once named a human Monk I had "Thelonious." Just to see if anybody got the joke. Nobody even noticed.

 

[ZiaRahman]

I played with a Sir Pepsi once. We still laught at that one

 

[Mirth]

I had two brothers in my game once. One played a fighter named Bud, the other played a cleric named Wiser (because he was wiser, see?). And then there was Doug the ranger, created by a guy named Doug, of course. However, I've had my share of dumb names too. One of the longest characters I've played (~10 years) was a magic-user named Dezinare because an I Love Lucy rerun was ending and Dezi Arnez was on the screen.