D&D 5E The Taxonomy of Species in D&D Next/7e

[Savage Wombat]

I like KoDT's Hackmaster with it's Crested Gutter Trolls and Flat-Footed Ogres. Sound like there are anorak-wearing monster-spotters running around the world.

 

[kitsune9]

I actually like the compound names of 4e even though I don't play it. There's something about being in a dungeon facing off against a Bonesplitter Ogre or a Skullcrusher Rocktroll that makes me pause and wonder what kind of hurt these guys are going to dish out on me as opposed to a simple ogre (CR 3, hp xx, attack +x, etc., etc.) or a troll (CR 6, hp xx, attack +x, etc, etc.).

However, I would find the names frustrating if I was to run a more traditional or very medieval game. An ogre or troll in name would be more than enough to invoke fear.

 

[howandwhy99]

Players have all the sounds in the world to name their characters. As PC names are usually hard enough to remember, monster names really need to be recognizable and easily memorable.

Wilden are fine, but could be more self named. "Wequatl-sten" or something.
Shardmind sound like demi-humans. I"d call them Crystalmen or Crystalfolk.

The key element I see missing through this whole affair is that creature names are not given by books, but by the players. DMs describe things as encountered by the PCs. The players usually come up with ways of calling these things stuff. "Big horned alligator people" or "Gatorpeeps" or "Bootskins". It's not until the name of the creatures come up during play, either with the creatures themselves or some other creatures who may have another name for them, that someone else's name for the creature is learned.

That's a big part of the game IMO. And probably why so many names were kind of silly early on in D&D.

 

[The Human Target]

The compound type 4e names can get kinda over the top, but they do serve a purpose in that they describe the creature quickly for the players and the DM.

Kids on the street in game probably call it it "that white owlbear" but Winterclaw Owlbear is just a way of getting across what it is.

Also- I loathe the hard to say names. Wilden is easy and gets across the basic concept of a nature being to the average person. Phytanians doesn't roll of the tongue, nor is an average person going to get any concept of the creature from the name.

I don't think D&D has to be dumbed down to the lowest common denominator, but nor should it assume fluency in dead languages or Kurdish mythology.

Don't even get me started on the change from the Silver Marches to Luruar.

 

[JohnSnow]

Tolkien is probably the singularly worse example you could cite when it comes to retaining the " raw and heroic language of the Norse and Germanic sagas " . The guy literally wrote the book on made up " gobbledygook " .

Oh?

So tell me, where's your degree in Anglo-Saxon languages and literature? How much work did you do as a translator of ancient Greek, Latin and Hebrew texts to help create the New Jerusalem Bible? Yeah, I didn't think so.

It's true that Tolkien used languages he invented, but he did so with the scholarly knowledge and linguistic background of a man who spoke and could read something like 12 of them. And most of the "made up words" in The Lord of the Rings are actually words that are related to English in the same way that one of Tolkien's made-up languages is related to the common speech the book was supposedly translated from. The proper (elvish-derived) names of Middle-Earth are the only situation where we witness the actual versions of the professor's made-up languages.

Notice, it's "Mirkwood" not "Filnafel forest" (or some other B.S.), and they're the "Misty Mountains," not the "Mortelnath range." I could also point to Rivendell, Hoarwell, Silverlode, Mount Doom, and so forth. In a similar vein, "Hobbit" may be a made-up English word, but it's a natural linguistic descendent from the Anglo-Saxon combination "holbytla" which means "hole-builder," so as to represent the distinction between the word the Hobbits used for themselves and the word the Rohirrim used (both supposedly in the invented language of Westron). And so forth.

There's plenty of gobbledygook in fantasy fiction, but unlike most authors, Tolkien wrote a dictionary and grammar rules for his made-up languages, and he stuck to them. Not only that, but he then decided to translate many of the made-up words into their equivalents of languages related to English, so that what was supposed to sound familiar sounds appropriately familiar, and what was supposed to sound alien sounds appropriately alien.

As I said, the Elvish words were left "untranslated" and are therefore rendered "as-is," rather than being switched into their equivalents in Latin and Greek (Elvish being the closest thing there is to a "Westron Latin"). Thus, the book is presented to us in such a way that what should be accessible to readers is accessible, and what should be remote remains remote.

You may not appreciate all the work Tolkien went through in order to accomplish this, but that hardly means it qualifies as "made-up gobbledygook."

Sorry, but I couldn't let that one slide by.

 

[Kaodi]

So tell me, where's your degree in Anglo-Saxon languages and literature? How much work did you do as a translator of ancient Greek, Latin and Hebrew texts to help create the New Jerusalem Bible? Yeah, I didn't think so.

I should likewise demand to see the linguistics credentials of anyone who expresses a belief in the superiority of a certain mode of expression.

In a similar vein, "Hobbit" may be a made-up English word, but it's a natural linguistic descendent from the Anglo-Saxon combination "holbytla" which means "hole-builder," so as to represent the distinction between the word the Hobbits used for themselves and the word the Rohirrim used (both supposedly in the invented language of Westron). And so forth.

How is this different that what I was originally proposing? Just because you express a preference for made up words derived from Old English does not invalidate the derivation of made up words from any other language. One of the names I proposed about for shardminds, " isdyr, " is nothing other than Icelandic for " ice door " , with krustallos in Greek meaning " ice " and " rock crystal " . The Living Gate being essetially a big door made out of crystal. And that took me about all of thirty seconds with Wikipedia and Google Translate. And before you get all concerned about my linguistic credentials again, let me remind you of something: it's a game.

You may not appreciate all the work Tolkien went through in order to accomplish this, but that hardly means it qualifies as "made-up gobbledygook."

Sorry, but I couldn't let that one slide by.

Clearly you missed the part where I was in fact responding to someone using the term " gobbledygook " as a pejorative for deriving words from other languages. If such a charge applies, it must apply to both the result of a non-academic and an academic engaging in a similar activity. The real distinction is not that what Tolkien made up was " mere gobbledygook " . Obviously it was first class gobbledygook.