NAMING YOUR CHARACTERS

I have several techniques to name characters. All depends on what I feel like doing.
Anagrams of words, (usually adjectives that my characters are supposed to be like) other names and such... sometimes i'll roll 1-26 (each number corresponding to a letter) and choose an arbitrary number of times to roll the dice to come up with a name... othertimes, i'll just... make stuff up on the fly.

Naming is the least of my problems this way. Who cares if you end up with wierd names? It's a fantasy realm, and the names are pretty much going to make sense no matter WHAT fantasy realm you stick em' in.

Zkplog comes outta the dice? No problem? Insta-badguy name. Roopleg? no problem, you've got an NPC who'll die within 3 fetch-quests of having known him. Zagreb? Well, that's the capital of Croatia, but it's also an awesome Hero name heh heh.

Zagreb has gained a level! (and it's making Bosnians nervous)

author=Shadowtext link=topic=1644.msg36130#msg36130 date=1223307633
Your audience. They're the ones who have to read and remember these names. Never use the exoticness of the setting as an excuse for dropping elements of the real world that make it easier for the audience to relate to the characters or concepts within. Don't drop real world naming or language rules unless it serves a purpose to do so, and I rarely see a valid purpose for doing so--the most I usually get is that the writer has invented his own language and has the rules for it written down somewhere....but I have never seen a valid reason giving for making up your own language for a fantasy world, either, outside of intellectual masturbation. So that excuse doesn't fly with me either.

For the most part, the RPG itself should be more concentrated on the story than the superficial things like a character's name. One could argue that any name can happen given the whim of the parents. The name itself shouldn't distract too much from the character and how he/she is incorporated in the world in which they were wrought.
Oftentimes, the parents' excuse needs be little more than "My kid is special, and he/she deserves a name that sets him/her apart from the rest".

And which language rules would you propose constitutes valid "real world" representation? Shall I adopt the all-too overused Japanese or just call all my guys John and Peter to satisfy the rules of English? And where does that leave people like Frank Zappa and Penn Jillette who have given strange names to THEIR kids?

Maybe you should try to convince me that Dweezil and Moxie Crimefighter aren't valid as names?

author=Blitzen link=topic=1644.msg26472#msg26472 date=1217970001
That's the inherent difference in crafting names for games and for stories, however. In the most mechanical video games, names are identifiers and have little else to do with the game. For example, anyone who plays Tetris knows the peices, but it is not nescessary that they have names, because the player has an idea of the properties of the piece without having to have it labelled. The pieces, although without names or shapes that exist in the real world, become symbols and thus the player gives them an IMPLIED meaning through thier interaction with them.

When it comes to CHARACTERS, they are essentially units of your game mechanic, in this case the basic RPG Mechanic structure. Any meaning you give them, ie names or graphical uniqueness that doesn't serve a discretlely function purpose, in an IMPOSED meaning. This means that you actually TAKE AWAY some oppourtunity for the player to be creative and attribute thier own meaning to those objects. An example is your typical RPG cast, where the characters are funtional representations of the stats they represent. Let's say you have a tank-style character, and as a designer you put the title of Knight on it. What you have actually just done is LIMITED the interactive experience by applying a label rather than no label. While the player could have attributed to the lableless object any value that they wished, you as a designer had gone ahead and done it for them.

It all depends what you are trying to do as a game designer if you think this is a good thing or not. Sometimes it is nescessary for identification purposes (ie the player needs to know which object is a KEY style object and which is a LOCK style object in order to progress in the game). Or, if you're designig the game with the aesthetic as vital to the gameplay experience, then it will play a huge role in your presentation.

Personally, I would think that the best games are the ones where you can take away the atmospheric elements and be left with something that is still a hell of a lot of fun. There is still a creativity in good design that can exist without an aesthetic focus. That being said, themes and aesthetics help differentiate your design if it is similar to others, to the point where it develops to become a mechanic in itself that differentiates it from other designs.

I'm not taking either side of this dialectic, but keep this in mind when you are designing your games.

I love this!! This is exactly how I feel in terms of game design. Everyone who didn't read this for whatever reason should read it again---it's inspiring!!

I just wanted to reinforce the idea that a good game, stripped of all of its atmosphere and story (in theory) would still make it FUN! Of course, an RPG stripped of its story would be somewhat lifeless, and a little confusing--but all of the elements of the game (outside of its story) should aim to be fun.

If we all did this, the story and characters would only be a part of the package, and not the entire focus.

I usually use Name Databases when looking for good names for my character. If I am looking for a Japanese Name in a Japanese game I look for Popular Japanese Male names. If I am looking for a medieval name to fit my theme I do the same. Its easy, simply, and provides alot of choices.

You have a vampire NAMED Dracula in your game who is named Dracula BECAUSE he's a vampire? Talk about a textbook example of what NOT to do!