What's in a (Spell) Name? - Poll

[tuxgeo]

Named spells become increasingly absurd the moment you have anything casting it naturally or from a patron.

4E witches and 3E sorcerers, for example.

Named spells should become increasingly re-flavored the moment you have any character casting it either naturally or from a patron.

A hearty witch could reflavor "Tasha's Hideous Laughter" as "Merry Be" instead, and then the original name wouldn't matter, because the player wouldn't have used any part of it anyway.

Having an attribution to an "originating" character as part of the name of some spells helps to strengthen the message that magic-users can create new spells, or create new versions of old spells.

 

[nightwalker450]

I find it hard to imagine the D&D spell books without them... But I see no reason to add more just to add more, if something is added it should be for some contribution in the real world of D&D, that is worthy of being immortalized by the game.

Getting rid of them seems more like some type of unnecessary Political Correctness change. I don't think we should sacrifice some of the D&D Heritage for political correctness.

 

[Lanefan]

WotC could take it one step further and run a contest - if you win you get to name a spell after a character of your choice.

Lanefan

 

[Terraism]

I voted "no", with the focus on "keep them in setting-specific locations". The key here for me is that, frankly, I don't care about D&D's "shared history" or anything of the sort. Despite having been playing for fifteen years now, and having played in Greyhawk, in the Forgotten Realms, in Eberron - all settings that I have enjoyed (some to a greater extent than others) - the shared history is irrelevant to me in the rules.

What I want from the D&D rules is a ruleset that doesn't make numerous assumptions about the world and the flavor thereof. I don't want to have the ruleset itself assume the existence of the Feywild, or the Great Wheel. I don't particularly want the ruleset itself to include the existence of Pelor, Corellon, Vecna, or Tiamat, either. What I want is a class-based, traditional fantasy focused ruleset that can easily create characters for a game based around Eberron, or Ravenloft, or Greyhawk, or the world of the Black Company. Or my homebrew. Or a friend of mine's homebrew. Or... you get the point.

Now, obviously, the core rules have to include some assumptions or we'd only have "human" as a race. But I prefer those assumptions to be kept to an absolute minimum - elves are slender and magical, dwarves are short, stocky, and awesome, etc. Let the fleshing out happen in supplements and the hands and minds of players and DMs.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

Named spells should become increasingly re-flavored the moment you have any character casting it either naturally or from a patron.

Having an attribution to an "originating" character as part of the name of some spells helps to strengthen the message that magic-users can create new spells, or create new versions of old spells.

Exactly. Those named spells were often named for the characters who invented them originally. (From the players who invented them, anyway.) Getting rid of them would be doing poor service to those who did much to make the game what it was. A little homage isn't going to hurt, and you might even learn something, as some have from Blacky's post. Is it so hard to have a little respect for the people who made D&D what it is?

(And I'm not even that big of a fan of D&D!)

 

[Kingreaper]

In D&D, a sorcerer's magic comes from their ancestry. Presumably, their spells are an expression of their ancestry in some shape or form. Them having access to named spells only makes sense if their flavor paints them as writing the spell INTO their blood, which it does not. Then you have all the various creatures with natural spell abilities. 4E gets around this issue entirely, but introduces the Witch, which is basically a proto-wizard that gets its spells from such patrons as Sehanine, the moon goddess. It's a bit strange to imagine Sehanine handing out copies of Bigby's spells behind his back.

Unless you think of it differently: Sure, a sorcerer, or god, can create a forceful hand.

Bigby, having a bit of a... thing... for giant, crushing, hands decided to try and work out how to do that through spellcraft, rather than innate/godly magic.

So, a sorceror isn't using Bigby's spell, Bigby's just the guy who managed to work out how Wizards could do it.

 

[Aramax]

I voted yes plus add some-
Wow,the number of people if you add limited,yes and yes plus is a CLEAR majority.I would also like to see some 'flowery 'names like
Rilfons trully excellent Magic Missle,but on that on I think Im in the minority

 

[Kynn]

A lot of people have disliked the "implied setting" concept of 4e, with "Bael Turath" and "Arkhosia" and other things floating around in the core fluff and crunch.

I'm thinking that the "named spells" are that kind of implied setting detail too -- easily overlooked if you want to do it, but some of the flavor and charm is lost in such a case.

Does anyone else see the "named spells" (and magic items, and artifacts) as being part of an "implied setting" and if so, do you feel the same way about that as you do about PoLisms in 4e?

 

[Mengu]

Does anyone else see the "named spells" (and magic items, and artifacts) as being part of an "implied setting" and if so, do you feel the same way about that as you do about PoLisms in 4e?

Yes and yes. I'd prefer a more open ended D&D, where DM's are able, and encouraged to create their own campaign worlds. It's entertaining (and often simple) to play/run in established campaign worlds like Forgotton Realms, Dark Sun, and Eberron, but I believe even WotC said their polls indicate most people play in home brew worlds. As such, the more open ended D&D can be, the more a DM will be inspired to create his own unique world, with its own flavor of rules, spells, and the like.

 

[ExploderWizard]

As long as the spell actually does what the name implies I'm happy either way.