What's in a (Party) name?

[Ogrork the Mighty]

I think the best names are the ones that aren't intentionally created simply for the purpose of having a name. To me, that comes across as fake and arrogant. Better to have someone else or some other group start calling the party a certain name based on their accomplishments. If the name sticks, it's good, if not, oh well. It's kinda weird when you stroll into town and say haughtily "We are the Crimson Blades!", as half the population roll their eyes and the other half just laugh at you.

 

[D+1]

Yep, it's tough to inflict a name upon a party of PC's without it coming off sounding arrogant or just cheezy (and I'm not sure which is worse.)

First D&D game I played in lasted over 10 years and the party had already picked up a name before I joined - The Avengers. Don't really know where it came from or why, but I have long suspected it was a nod to the old TV show.

Second longest campaign I am proud to have been able to give the party their name - the Flashing Blades Adventuring Company. "Flashing Blades!" was a battle cry I used for my swashbuckler character and it just sort of got picked up by everyone on a general wave of engendered enthusiasm.

After that we TRIED real hard to give our PC groups a name but nothing seemed to work. One group sorta got named The Replacements because the cast of PC's had a high rate of turnover, but it was a meta-game thing. It was the players making fun of their own characters, not something the PC's themselves would have come up with and taken pride in and rallied around. It was a repeated problem in every campaign until...

I ran my first 3E campaign which lasted a couple of years. Sending the PC's through the WotC Adventure Path modules (or at least most of them) they went through Speaker in Dreams, which I set in the city of Arabel in the FR. They "saved the city" as per the module and were given medals that read, "Hero Of Arabel". They became "The Heroes of Arabel", or HOA for short (and pronounced "hoo-ah", in the Marine Corps fashion.)

I thereafter decided that whatever the name of future PC collectives would be, it would come much faster and sound much better if it's based on events in the game world, not "wishful thinking" by the players of the characters. If you see what I mean...

 

[Tuzenbach]

The Drunken Puppets?

 

[gunter uxbridge]

The players in my Silver Marches game take great delight in refering to themselves as the "Heroes of the Nethyr Mountains." Of course, nobody else calls them that, but what the heck.

 

[Synchronicity]

Heh...a group of my players once decided to call themselves "The Defenders of all that is Pure and Good!", so that they'd get good press by default. Picture the following scene..

King: "Vizier! Who are that rag-tag band of adventurer types over there?"
Vizier: "Them? They are The Defenders of all that is Pure and Good, Sire!"
King: "Such a sterling recommendation from my faithful vizier! We must hire them immediately! Now tell me, what do they call themselves?"
Vizier: *Sighs* "That's what I've been trying to tell you, Sire.."

They were a fun group. Never a dull moment.

 

[CalrinAlshaw]

(Warning, Storyish)

Well, my group I play in while in 2nd ed AD&D had just completed the Desert of Desolation, and were travelling through some mountain pass to get back to civilization, we then encountered a bunch of mountain-men bandit types, took them down. We continued on, and near the far end of the pass we found this statue a way off the road near where we were going to make camp. We ended up having to place a gold piece in a proferred bowl for the statue to move. Then we went down to check it out...well, there turned out to be a beholder behind some jail-type bars that was kinda insane...it also had 8 mummies it commanded to attack us. 7 of the mummies had very valuable gold scarab broaches. When I did a quick party-count (7), I suggest we call ourselves the scarabs since we now had these cool broaches and had been travelling in the desert, and once we got back to civilization it would be an exotic insect to most people. Thus, we became the "Company of the Scarabs"

Calrin Alshaw

 

[Fenes]

We have had one party decide on a name, after a lengthy discussion - they settled on "Glory Blades" often changed to "Gory Blades". Since then no party got a true name.

 

[Tuzenbach]

The Lava Children!!!

 

[wighair]

The players in my Silver Marches game take great delight in refering to themselves as the "Heroes of the Nethyr Mountains." Of course, nobody else calls them that, but what the heck.

Lucky it wasn't the Nethyr Regions!

 

[Silver Moon]

Of our three campaigns:

One group's name is based upon the name of their first ship (Silver Moon Adventurers)

One is based upon the name of their leader (Arcade's Gang)

And the other is based on an old SNL skit (Da'Bears)