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Bob the Adventurer
Tweet Topic Started: Jan 17 2007, 05:07 AM (347 Views)
kismetrose Jan 17 2007, 05:07 AM Post #1
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During the times that I've run D&D, I've done my best to use distinctive names; I've tried to give each character a unique name so that they could be told apart. I've also tried ot use fantasy-sounding names that aren't heard much in my neck of the woods. I've shied away from using common, real-life, modern, local names - no Johns, Michaels, etc. But every now and then a name would creep in, like Bill the town guard who came into his own during the Thandell war.

When you're running D&D, what kinds of names do you use? What about your players?

I use fantasy names in large part to set a mood and to give a certain tone to the game - to set the world where Moclyss the drow wizard lives apart from the world where we live, and to help my players grasp Moclyss' world better.

I also use fantasy names to distinguish characters from one another. It's all fine and good when a campaign is new, but my long-running D&D campaign's had a few hundred NPCs run through it. Sometimes the names help me remember things about the NPCs, even if I haven't seen them in a while.
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Freston Jan 17 2007, 10:27 AM Post #2
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I've found the perfect solution Kismet ;)

You know this has been a great help to me for quite some time now. I really owe you thanx for that. But even with a list like that the occasional 'regular' name finds his way to an NPC. Also, I have a couple of NPC's with the same name.
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DarkElf Jan 17 2007, 10:59 AM Post #3
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I like to have specific names for my NPCs, specially the important ones. The problem I always have is usually my players want to talk to some random guy walking down the street. Thats when Bob always comes into place.

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kismetrose Jan 17 2007, 01:43 PM Post #4
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Freston
Jan 17 2007, 10:27 AM
I've found the perfect solution Kismet ;)

You know this has been a great help to me for quite some time now. I really owe you thanx for that. But even with a list like that the occasional 'regular' name finds his way to an NPC. Also, I have a couple of NPC's with the same name.

I'm glad that you like it and that you're able to use it! When I run D&D I grab from that list a lot. I've also been using Gary Gygax's Extraordinary Book of Names for some time now, for D&D, Stargate, and Vampire, and it has been awesome.
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kismetrose Jan 17 2007, 01:48 PM Post #5
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DarkElf
Jan 17 2007, 10:59 AM
I like to have specific names for my NPCs, specially the important ones. The problem I always have is usually my players want to talk to some random guy walking down the street. Thats when Bob always comes into place.

Ahhhh! I see. It's easy to be caught flat-footed when players try to engage an NPC pretty much on a whim. That happened to me not too long ago. One of my Vampire PCs was trolling for a new servant and she came across this sailor starting to develop arthritis in his hands. I had to come up with a name for him off the top of my head - Henry, not as though there weren't plenty of Henrys in fourteenth century England - and I thought he would be too low-brow for her taste. Not only did she employ him, though, but now he's gotten himself a major part.

But here's another question: Do you folks prepare a list of names before a game session? Do you come up with them from inside your head or do you consult a book/web site?
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Redisbest Feb 4 2007, 04:03 PM Post #6
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kismetrose
Jan 17 2007, 12:48 PM

But here's another question: Do you folks prepare a list of names before a game session? Do you come up with them from inside your head or do you consult a book/web site?

A list of names beforehand sounds like a really good idea. I usually end up naming NPC's something that sounds interesting but that's already in my head- like Hyram, my favorite crazy old man NPC. I named him that because he's acutally a very powerful wizard (he's forgotten that, though) and I didn't want the players to figure him for anything more special than a crazy inkeeper.

Right now most of my main players are from your list- even many of the river/lake etc names are pulled from there. Everything else is pretty much named for French words that I pronounce funny. I took Spanish and have not even the vaguest idea of French pronounciation rules, so the variations that occur naturally through my ignorance allow for some interesting variety. :P
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kismetrose Feb 5 2007, 12:00 PM Post #7
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I usually end up naming NPC's something that sounds interesting but that's already in my head

Valefor is able to do that really well and in a few moments he's usually able to come up with something interesting, but I can't seem to do that often. I tend to want a certain sound that I just can't generate on my own - like, I want a person to have a high-noble sounding name, or whatever.
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Right now most of my main players are from your list- even many of the river/lake etc names are pulled from there.

Well, I'm glad you're able to use it! I tend to use it when I'm playing games like D&D. Right now I've been having to use other sources since White Wolf stuff tends to use more real-world names.
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Everything else is pretty much named for French words that I pronounce funny. I took Spanish and have not even the vaguest idea of French pronounciation rules, so the variations that occur naturally through my ignorance allow for some interesting variety.

French pronunciation is a LOT different than Spanish. I'm only able to pronounce French things that I've heard before, or that look like something I've heard before. It's a beautiful language to be sure, but its pronunciation and spelling rules can be quite mysterious.

You know what really got me? When I was going to do an Aztecan-style thing for a Stargate game, and I got to looking at the names of the gods. Pronunciation was a wild shot in the dark there, as well as tongue-exercise.
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Freston Feb 6 2007, 05:16 AM Post #8
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I usally have a list handy when we play. I write down about 30 names from Kismet's list on a smaller piece of paper that I keep with my other DM stuff. I usally have no clue as how to pronouce them, and seeing how it's influenced by different styles I add some random accent to the names... just whatever comes to mind. English, for the most part.

"Redisbest"
 
I took Spanish and have not even the vaguest idea of French pronounciation rules

Justy randomly change the pitch of your voice when pronouncing a vowel. And for te rest you pronounce everything differently than you write it ;)

But French is a beautiful language, except that:
Je parle toutes les langues, exceptée la langue française parceque c'est une langue très difficile :unsure:

"Kismet"
 
but its pronunciation and spelling rules can be quite mysterious.

So is English to a non-native speaker, as whitnessed here
But I understand this will be fixed:
Quote:
 
The EEC has just announced an agreement that English will be the official language of the EU, rather than German (the other possibility). As part of negotiations Her Majesty's Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5 year phase-in of new rules which would apply to the language and reclassify it as "EuroEnglish".
The agreed plan is as follows: In year one the soft 'c' would be replaced by 's'. Sertainly this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard 'c' will be repaced by 'k'. This should klear up konfusion and keyboards kan now have one less letter.
There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome 'ph' is replased by 'f'. This will reduse 'fotograf' by 20%.
In the 3rd year publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.
Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also al wil agre that the horible mes of the silent 'e's in the language is disgrasful and they should eliminat them.
By year 4 peopl wil be reseptiv to lingwistik korektions such as replasing 'th' with 'z' and 'w' with 'v' (saving more keyboard spas.) During ze fifz year, ze unesesary 'o' kan be dropd from vords kontaining 'ou' and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of letters.
After ziz fifz year, ve vil hav a reli sensibil riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubls or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi to understand ech ozer. Zen ze drem vil finali kum tru! Ve vil al spik lik Germans!!



That will clear up some difficulties EEC-style:
Quote:
 
The tribal wisdom of the Dakota Indians, passed on from generation to generation, says that, "When you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount." However, in modern business, education and government, a whole range of far more advanced strategies are often employed, such as:

1.) Buying a stronger whip.
2.) Changing riders.
3.) Threatening the horse with termination.
4.) Appointing a committee to study the horse.
5.) Arranging to visit other countries to see how others ride dead horses.
6.) Lowering the standards so that dead horses can be included.
7.) Reclassifying the dead horse as "living impaired".
8.) Hiring outside contractors to ride the dead horse.
9.) Harnessing several dead horses together to increase the speed.
10.) Providing additional funding and/or training to increase the dead horse's performance.
11.) Doing a productivity study to see if lighter riders would improve the dead horse's performance.
12.) Declaring that as the dead horse does not have to be fed, it is less costly, carries lower overhead, and therefore contributes substantially more to the bottom line of the economy than do some other horses.
13.) Rewriting the expected performance requirements on all horses.
14.) Promoting the dead horse to a supervisory position


EDIT: Sorry for the derail... I just followed my train of thougth whilst typing.
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