OK, it seems I've become more than a little pun-happy with regards to naming NPC's in my homebrew 3.5E setting of late. This has never been my style. However, I now feel like a man obessesed. Some examples...
Johannes, a master chef at the Palm D'Whorl, whose nicknames include Saucy Jack, Spring-Veal Jack, and Jack a' Knives.
Donatello Perlozzi, known on the street as The Right Reverend Don Magic Wand, essentially a flambouyant pimp with a very interesting and non-euphamistic magic wand...
Brak Ton Gordo or, El Breako, a highly regarded painter of relegious scenes who has terrible reputation as a wife-and-critic beater [picture the souls El Greco and Jackson Pollock housed in the body of a half-ogre].
Frankly, this amuses the hell out of me. I'm spinning whole story hooks out of these names that are popping unbidden into my head.
Now I've always thought using puns hurt the 'willful suspensenion of disbelief' [ouch --using that phrase always gives me a headache]. I felt that a DM should create settings with integrity and internal logic, not relying on elements that break out of the storytelling spell --or fictive dream, or whatever...
But not anymore. So what do you all think of things like punny names? If you like them, what are some of your favorites? What do you think of using overt metatextual references in your games? Does it increase or spoil the fun??
Johannes, a master chef at the Palm D'Whorl, whose nicknames include Saucy Jack, Spring-Veal Jack, and Jack a' Knives.
Donatello Perlozzi, known on the street as The Right Reverend Don Magic Wand, essentially a flambouyant pimp with a very interesting and non-euphamistic magic wand...
Brak Ton Gordo or, El Breako, a highly regarded painter of relegious scenes who has terrible reputation as a wife-and-critic beater [picture the souls El Greco and Jackson Pollock housed in the body of a half-ogre].
Frankly, this amuses the hell out of me. I'm spinning whole story hooks out of these names that are popping unbidden into my head.
Now I've always thought using puns hurt the 'willful suspensenion of disbelief' [ouch --using that phrase always gives me a headache]. I felt that a DM should create settings with integrity and internal logic, not relying on elements that break out of the storytelling spell --or fictive dream, or whatever...
But not anymore. So what do you all think of things like punny names? If you like them, what are some of your favorites? What do you think of using overt metatextual references in your games? Does it increase or spoil the fun??
