A Melody In Your Name

I call everyone "Darling" because I can't remember their names.
-- Zsa Zsa Gabor

One of the things that has turned otherwise interested parties away from Tunnels and Trolls is the silliness of the spell names. One of the reasons Ken St. Andre gives for the names is that, at the very least, they are more memorable than their counterparts in other games. Although that may be true, it can ruin the atmosphere of a gritty, swords-and-sorcery flavored game if, when faced with some shadowy apparition from the netherworld, your wizard calls, with a flourish: "Oh, Go Away".

(As a side note, it seems like it's easier to make a 'serious' game silly than the other way around. Worth pondering, that.)

Following is a list of Level 1 Spells from the 5th edition, along with suggested translations.

Detect Magic: Sense Magic
Lock Tight: Holdfast Portal
Will-o-Wisp: Glimmerlight
Knock Knock: Unbind Portal
Oh There It Is: Expose Hidden
Take That, You Fiend: Vexing Smite
Vorpal Blade: Keen Edge
Oh-Go-Away: Repulse Foe
Teacher: Instruct
Hocus Pocus: Ensorcel Staff

Some of the names aren't so silly, as you can see by the list above, but if the impetus behind "silly" names is to make them more memorable, I suggest that these alterations would do that, without compromising the atmosphere of the game.

cheers,
Adam

Epithet the Awesome

I recall seeing a documentary on kung fu movies a bit back (the title of which I can't currently recall, sadly). One of the Chinese commentators mentioned that, in Hong Kong, Bruce Lee was called "Lee Three-Kick" because his fight scenes all had 3-kick combinations (and for some reason that was frowned upon). I thought it was a strange nickname to give someone until I realized that, to the Western ear, it would sound better if it was phrased as "Three-kick Lee". Somehow it just scans better. So when I had a chance to play a one-shot T&T game with the inimitable Larry DiTillio, I named my buccaneer character "Three-kick Rick" in homage to Mr. Lee.

Recalling this, I was thinking the other day about stereotypical name patterns in High Fantasy RPGs. You know the type: "Osric the Wise", "Harald Orcbane", or "Beorn Blood-Axe", things like that. Nothing exactly wrong about them, but somehow...lacking. The names all seem to break down basically to this:

Common Name + Descriptive Phrase

It reminds me of White Wolf's pattern of "Noun-that-could-be-used-as-an-adjective: the Other-Noun". (Seriously, couldn't they have just called it "The Vampire Masquerade?")

But if you switch those syntactic groups around, you have a name that sounds a little less corny:
"Wise Osric"; "Orc-Bane Harald"; or "Bloody-Axed Beorn". It seems like pirate movies and westerns follow this pattern, too, which could be why it sounds better to my ears. Things like "Black Bellamy", "Calico Jack", or "'Buffalo' Bill Cody" come to mind.

So if you're having trouble finding an appropriate epithet for your character (if you see fit to give your character one), see if simply switching the order doesn't make it more palateable.

cheers,
Adam