White Raven Onslaught Revision

[AllisterH]

I tend to side with those that "LIKE" the flavourful names.

1. There is a limited amount of names that you can use. With not only spellcasters needing names for their specific powers, you end up runing out of names. Take for example, the Greater/Superior/Improved naming convention. If you come up with a move that is say a variant of Trip, and greater/improved and superior have all been used, do you say Improved Trip II?

2. In terms of fluff, for the people that like to insert their own names, it doesn't matter what the original name is and for the people that aren't creative enough/can't be bothered, the fluff name works well enough.

3. Nobody actually names their moves, "improved Trip" when looking at martial disciplines (not just the Eastern branch). Medieval schools also named their moves and many times you couldn't figure it out either.

Personally, I find it funny that at the one hand, people hate names like Ice Devil/Spined Devil etc but at the same time, other people (not necessarily the same) prefer exact naming conventions.

 

[Lizard]

Yes.

When my DM is running a character who is supposed to be all-knowing and wise, and a player asks him something the DM isn't prepared for or can't figure out, he has the NPC say some nonsense catch-phrase, ala Vorlons, to cover up his (the DMs) being caught unawares.

I'm just sayin', is all.

 

[hong]

When my DM is running a character who is supposed to be all-knowing and wise, and a player asks him something the DM isn't prepared for or can't figure out, he has the NPC say some nonsense catch-phrase, ala Vorlons, to cover up his (the DMs) being caught unawares.

I'm just sayin', is all.

I do this better than you.

 

[Lizard]

I tend to side with those that "LIKE" the flavourful names.

1. There is a limited amount of names that you can use. With not only spellcasters needing names for their specific powers, you end up runing out of names. Take for example, the Greater/Superior/Improved naming convention. If you come up with a move that is say a variant of Trip, and greater/improved and superior have all been used, do you say Improved Trip II?

Greater Lord Improved Trip True!

Here's a good example Getting It Wrong In 3e:

Light of Mercuria
Light of Lunia
Light of Venya

Quick!

Which is the highest level one?
Which is the lowest?
What the frack do they DO?
Who/what are Mercuria, Lunia, and Venya?

What's wrong with this?

Lesser Aura Of Undead Bane
Aura of Undead Bane
Greater Aura of Undead Bane

Or almost anything else which gives you:
a)The vaguest hint of what the spell does
b)The relative power of each spell in the series

It was bad design in 3e; it will be bad design in 4e. Period.

2. In terms of fluff, for the people that like to insert their own names, it doesn't matter what the original name is and for the people that aren't creative enough/can't be bothered, the fluff name works well enough.

Except for the whole part where people need to talk about the game to each other, and if everyone is using different terms, it can be difficult. To continue the above example, I renamed the spells 'greater/lesser light of Aelfheim' to fit the Nordic theme of the game I'm in. If I have a question about the spells, I have to remember what they were originally called to look them up, or to ask online about them. If the names are unlikely to be changed in the first place, this problem is avoided. It's akin to calling everything in the Monster Manual 'Marklar' and then saying "Creative DMs will have no problem making up new names".

3. Nobody actually names their moves, "improved Trip" when looking at martial disciplines (not just the Eastern branch). Medieval schools also named their moves and many times you couldn't figure it out either.

And when WOTC (or someone else) publishes a culture-specific supplement, that will be great. Generic rules should be *generic*. No Bigby. No Mercuria. No White Ravens.

Personally, I find it funny that at the one hand, people hate names like Ice Devil/Spined Devil etc but at the same time, other people (not necessarily the same) prefer exact naming conventions.

What's to hate? You hear "Ice Devil", you have a good idea what you're dealing with. A lot better than Glooblefluxer. (To that extent, the 4e Monstername AdjectiveNoun convention is a positive. If you encounter an Ogre Spleensucker, you know to guard your spleen.)

 

[Lizard]

I do this better than you.

That is in accordance with prophecy.

 

[hong]

Except for the whole part where people need to talk about the game to each other, and if everyone is using different terms, it can be difficult. To continue the above example, I renamed the spells 'greater/lesser light of Aelfheim' to fit the Nordic theme of the game I'm in. If I have a question about the spells, I have to remember what they were originally called to look them up, or to ask online about them.

If you cannot even remember the names that you yourself made up, there is no hope.

And when WOTC (or someone else) publishes a culture-specific supplement, that will be great. Generic rules should be *generic*. No Bigby. No Mercuria. No White Ravens.

Hello in there. D&D is not generic, and has never been so. It has always had, if anything, more idiosyncrasies than any other ruleset this side of RIFTS. Just because you decided to pop in when they threw a few bones to the s*mul*tionists does not change this fact about the zeitgeist.

 

[hong]

That is in accordance with prophecy.

Yes.

 

[Lizard]

If you cannot even remember the names that you yourself made up, there is no hope.

I have to remember the names I *changed*. And if they were good/memorable names in the first place, I wouldn't have had to change them. QED.
[/quote]

Hello in there. D&D is not generic, and has never been so. It has always had, if anything, more idiosyncrasies than any other ruleset this side of RIFTS. Just because you decided to pop in when they threw a few bones to the s*mul*tionists does not change this fact about the zeitgeist.

Lizard's Fifty Second Principle says you're wrong. Neener. D&D is a set of generic rules for playing in the genre of D&D. Once you understand that D&D is a genre, life is much clearer.

(Boy, that "Argue Like Hong" self-training program was really worth it!)

Zeitgeist is yesterday's word. The current zeitgeist says so. Today's pompous German word is 'gestalt'.

 

[hong]

I have to remember the names I *changed*. And if they were good/memorable names in the first place, I wouldn't have had to change them. QED.

If you cannot remember the correspondence between names that you made up and the names you replaced, there is no hope.

Lizard's Fifty Second Principle says you're wrong. Neener. D&D is a set of generic rules for playing in the genre of D&D.

Precisely. I am glad that your self-education continues to make progress.

(Boy, that "Argue Like Hong" self-training program was really worth it!)

Unfortunately, I still do this better than you. But take heart, you're improving.

Zeitgeist is yesterday's word. The current zeitgeist says so. Today's pompous German word is 'gestalt'.

Gestalt is so videogamey.

 

[AllisterH]

Greater Lord Improved Trip True!

Here's a good example Getting It Wrong In 3e:

Light of Mercuria
Light of Lunia
Light of Venya

Quick!

Which is the highest level one?
Which is the lowest?
What the frack do they DO?
Who/what are Mercuria, Lunia, and Venya?

What's wrong with this?

Lesser Aura Of Undead Bane
Aura of Undead Bane
Greater Aura of Undead Bane

Or almost anything else which gives you:
a)The vaguest hint of what the spell does
b)The relative power of each spell in the series

It was bad design in 3e; it will be bad design in 4e. Period.

So what happens when you come up with a stronger/weaker version? Do you call it, Superior Aura of Undead Bane? What if the spell is a slight variation (for example, you can choose certain undead for greater effect)? Variant number 1 of greater aura of undead bane?

There's also another benefit I can see. If White Raven does encompass an entire school, you end up with the BIGBY/OTILUKE effect in that players are interested in finding out mroe about the "White Raven" which is a good thing as they are more interested in the world.

It also helps when designing powers a la M:TG (For example, if I tell a M:TG player to design an Angel, even though there's no explicit rule about this, you're going to end with a large selection that have common traits).

The thing is, your worry about players having to constantly reference what the move is doesn't appear to be true given the existence of Bigby/Otiluke in D&D and creatures in M:TG in that players eventually know what to expect even if they've never seen the spell/creature before (For example, Bigby's pointing Finger would automatically give people an idea what the spell was)

There's also the fact that even if you use "explicit names" you still have to look it up. For example, I know what a trip and greater undead bane probably are, but I still have to look under UNDEAD BANE and TRIP to know what the effect actually is if I don't regularly use it. Thus, the benefit of using "explicit" names doesn't actually EXIST.