The Role of Names in Roleplaying Games

[SrGrvsaLot]

The Storypunk thread on the indie games forum got me to thinking, how much of a role does the title of an RPG play in creating the mood and theme of the game. Is a title actually capable of changing the way people aproach a game, or is it more of an afterthought. When I think of games that have aptly chosen names, like dungeons and dragons (which conveys the somewhat simplistic nature of play), I imagine them to have a great impact. When I consider games with less aptly chosen names (Like Aberrant, which fails to convey the hero-worship, godlike power, and ubiquitous media presence that are hallmarks of the game), I think that names are less important.

Any opinions on this issue?

[Jack Spencer Jr]

Is a title actually capable of changing the way people aproach a game, or is it more of an afterthought.

The title of a piece has an efect, make no mistake. The movie version of the novel Eaters of the Dead was renamed The 13th Warrior simply because the title was off-putting. Mention to someone who has never heard of kill puppies for satan, and they will look at you like you're growing a second head.

The title will make up a great deal of the first impressions for a piece and will either attract or repell potential customers. But it is not the end-all of this. Favortable word of mouth can overcome shortcomings in the title and a great title <> a great game.

[ThreeGee]

Hey John,

As Jack says, the title forms your first impression when you know nothing about a game. However, as time wears on, the title is just a collection of sounds that you associate with an idea in your head.

I suppose it goes without saying that my game titles are largely nonsense, which I imagine weeds out the casual readers and leaves only the folk who are likely to enjoy such games.

Later,
Grant

[Felix]

My experience has been that the title often can't convey a lot of information (although there are exceptions). The purpose of the title is to be memorable, somewhat related to an idea of the game, but not necessarily to tell you what the game is about.

For example, is "Paranoia" a good name for an RPG? I think so. It conjures up the idea of conspiracies, of watching your back -- fertile ground for a lot of scenarios. Similarly, "Aberrant" suggests freaks and weirdos, an evocative title. But the name alone doesn't give you anything real to go by.  Those titles aren't enough to make even a cursory judgement about the game.

What I find important in first impressions about the game is the subheading (or equivalent for a webpage-based game). "The roleplaying game of a darkly humorous future," the subheading for Paranoia, does tell me something about the game's designs. If I was purchasing a game based solely on looking at the cover, that's what I'd want to see.

So it wouldn't matter to me if Jonathan Walton's game was called "Storypunk" or "Here-Ever-After." But I'd expect to see right below it something like "You control the story's destiny."

Felix

[M. J. Young]

Around 1992 E. R. Jones came to me with an idea for a game he wanted to call Multiverse, and I started working on what he had. Then in 1997 it was ready to go to press, and a quick bit of research revealed that Michael Moorcock held a trademark on the word "Multiverse" at least in relation to the comics industry--and as comics were within the possibilities of what we wanted to do, we needed a new name. After a bit of scrambling, we came up with Multiverser.

The reason I tell this is that this very slight very subtle change of the name completely changed the way I saw it, and very much for the better.

As long as I was working on his idea under the original name, I kept thinking of this as a game about the many different universes and worlds you would visit, the places you would go and the challenges you would face there. That is, it was about the universes, worlds, places, and challenges. When the name was changed, I suddenly realized that what really drove the stories and the game was the characters. This isn't really a game about a place or a bunch of places or even every place imaginable; it's a game about these people, and it is they who tie everything together and give it continuity.

So I think that sometimes, at least, what you call the game will have a significant impact on what people expect of it, even after they've played it many times. Most of us have played D&D in overland campaigns, wars, ocean voyages, and the many other settings and events that can drive it; but as soon as we say Dungeons & Dragons, most of us think of those underground tunnels fighting monsters and gathering treasure.

If the name Multiverser could so impact the perceptions of one of the designers, it probably has a lot more impact on people who don't have any idea what it was supposed to be and do before they got it.

--M. J. Young

[Fade Manley]

This is something I've been wondering about recently. In the game I'm working on, I have a fairly complete setting and the bones of a system, but I don't yet have a name; it's always 'the game I'm working on' or 'my setting' or 'this new system thing'. And it seems to me that if I had a name for the game, I would have an easier time of describing it; a good evocative name would give me something to structure my summaries around, where I currently flail.

Name seems vastly important to me; the HERO system never interested me partly because I dislike the heroic concept, and if the entire system is named after it... Similarly, I read In Nomine the first time because I found Latin intriguing. While a title is hardly the be-all and end-all of a game's success, it's certainly important to it, especially with how many games there are out there. I do wish there were a guide on naming games the way there are guides on writing them, so that I had something to work from; I suspect my game won't feel 'centered' until it has a name tacked on.

[Jack Spencer Jr]

Hello, Heather.
Welcome to the Forge.

I do wish there were a guide on naming games the way there are guides on writing them, so that I had something to work from; I suspect my game won't feel 'centered' until it has a name tacked on.

Eventually you will find the name that is right. I would advise against "World of (blank)" sort of titles

[talysman]

I do wish there were a guide on naming games the way there are guides on writing them, so that I had something to work from; I suspect my game won't feel 'centered' until it has a name tacked on.

Eventually you will find the name that is right. I would advise against "World of (blank)" sort of titles

I dunno, I'd like to see a game called "World of Stuff". =}

my suggestion is to look first at the focus of your game, in terms of the the elements of Exploration (Setting, Character, Situation, System, Color). whatever your game focuses on should be reflected in the title. writing a setting-heavy game? your title will probably be a place-name, or a phrase evocative of a place. focusing on character interactions or development? name the game after the prominent character type or some element of personality. and so on.

some examples:

Sorcerer, Elfs, and Trollbabe are all setting-lite and focus heavily on specific character types.
Donjon is setting-lite, but focuses on a type of setting; Paladin focuses on character.
InSpectres focuses on characters (inspectors) in specific kinds of situations (suggested by the pun.)
Orkworld seems at first to be about a setting, but really it's a setting that focuses on a character type (orks), which are evoked by a name.
Le Mon Mouri is focused on both setting and character, with the two tightly interwined -- the same as they are in the title.

there are exceptions, of course, such as when an rpg is an adaptation of a book, film, or tv series. other fictional forms are titled in much the same way: the title evokes or describes a character when the focus is on a character, describes a setting when the focus is on the setting. when a work is adapted as a game, the focus may shift, but the selling-point is the tie-in to the original product. thus, although there are stats for Elric and Stormbringer in the game of the same name, the focus is more on the setting Elric and Stormbringer belong in.

[Fade Manley]

I do wish there were a guide on naming games the way there are guides on writing them, so that I had something to work from; I suspect my game won't feel 'centered' until it has a name tacked on.

Eventually you will find the name that is right. I would advise against "World of (blank)" sort of titles

I dunno, I'd like to see a game called "World of Stuff". =}

my suggestion is to look first at the focus of your game, in terms of the the elements of Exploration (Setting, Character, Situation, System, Color). whatever your game focuses on should be reflected in the title. writing a setting-heavy game? your title will probably be a place-name, or a phrase evocative of a place. focusing on character interactions or development? name the game after the prominent character type or some element of personality. and so on.

This is, perhaps, why I'm having so much trouble; as much as I have setting all over the place, I'm still not sure what the game as a whole 'is about'. (Hence my reluctance to post a thread about it yet.) While I would like it to be character-based as much as possible, at the same time I haven't been writing it for a case of "the PCs are X", except maybe in the sense that "the PCs are competent people who happen to work somewhere in this setting". So I can't really name it after the PCs (Sorcerer, Paladin, Nobilis), or after a particular pursuit (Dungeons and Dragons, Traveller) or mood (Paranoia). And if I name it after the actual setting, it's just a random jumble of syllables, since it's not a recognizeable place from a pre-existing series of books or what not.

Sorry, I don't mean to ramble away from the topic: basically, I have the feeling that until I get a name for the game, and thus something to center it all around, I can't clearly articulate "what the game is about". But until I know what the game is about, I can't come up with an appropriate name. At this point I'm about ready to start flipping through my Latin dictionary again, but I'll go over the principles you suggested, and see what I can come up with. If nothing else, working on a title gives me a focus, and the ideas about titles here are helping me work out what exactly I need there.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Heather, you might consider using a "working title" as you continue to develop your game. A working title is used as a reference for the author until a final title can be decided. Sometimes the working title turns out to be the real title after all, and sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes a working title is humorous ("My Damned Game") and sometimes it isn't.

More generally speaking, I think that this discussion might do well to consider two things: (1) the difference between Grab and Function, and (2) the many possible purposes of a title.

#1. "Grab" is the extent to which a title (or any easily-perceived feature) leads a person to look again at the game.

Grabs can be weak or powerful, based on so many variables that it's almost impossible to go by anything but your own aesthetic sensibilities, rather than try to anticipate what "people will think." Titles, for instance, range from one word to a dozen, from incredibly literal to incredibly opaque, and from very serious to very funny.

Function, for the moment, is best described as how much fun the game is to play, especially in terms of its imaginary content - what it's "about," and how well you get that during play.

People often make the mistake that the better the match between Function and Grab, the better the Grab. This is a very flawed notion, in fact, literally impossible, and I urge people to abandon it.

#2. What's a title "for"? Ultimately, long-term, it's only to maintain your property and its identity as a product. It's a label, that's all. That's the long-term notion. Short-term, people often think of it as the overriding most important thing imaginable, a make-or-break feature. I don't think that's valid; I think customers, retailers, whoever, are more impressed by specific physical design features than by title alone.

My real point in #2, though, is to caution against talking about title in a vacuum - when a given point or question is raised, then I hope people can be clear about what purpose they're envisioning.

Best,
Ron

[John Kim]

As much as I have setting all over the place, I'm still not sure what the game as a whole 'is about'. (Hence my reluctance to post a thread about it yet.) While I would like it to be character-based as much as possible, at the same time I haven't been writing it for a case of "the PCs are X", except maybe in the sense that "the PCs are competent people who happen to work somewhere in this setting". So I can't really name it after the PCs (Sorcerer, Paladin, Nobilis), or after a particular pursuit (Dungeons and Dragons, Traveller) or mood (Paranoia). And if I name it after the actual setting, it's just a random jumble of syllables, since it's not a recognizeable place from a pre-existing series of books or what not.  

Hmm.  Personally, I feel as though "HarnMaster" and "Skyrealms of Jorune" are fine names.  They excellently convey what the game is about: providing a tailored basis for games within the named setting.  Of course, if you can come up with a cool descriptive phrase for your setting, that is fine -- but I would be wary of this.  "Deadlands" is a great name which excellently conveys it.  However, "Blue Planet" is mediocre and "Sovereign Stone" is worse (IMO).  Personally, I would vastly favor an invented word like "Harn" over an ill-fitting English label.

[Thomas Tamblyn]

However, "Blue Planet" is mediocre and "Sovereign Stone" is worse (IMO).

Really?  I rather like blue planet - wish I'd thought of it first actually.  But agreed on sovereign stone.

The problem with 'collection of syllable' names (skyrealms, Harn, Alyria) is, in my (controversial) opinion mostly down to sturgeon's law - 90% of them are crap.  Its a lot more difficult to invent a word than many people think, but once they've been using it for a while they get attached to it and don't realise that it will put people off rather than draw them in.

So, in conclusion, only use the world's name if other peopletell you that it sounds nifty, but if they do - go nuts.

[John Kim]

The problem with 'collection of syllable' names (skyrealms, Harn, Alyria) is, in my (controversial) opinion mostly down to sturgeon's law - 90% of them are crap.  Its a lot more difficult to invent a word than many people think, but once they've been using it for a while they get attached to it and don't realise that it will put people off rather than draw them in.

So, in conclusion, only use the world's name if other people tell you that it sounds nifty, but if they do - go nuts.

Agreed, but 90% of anything is crap, so it just goes to figure.  As with any aspect of a game design, it always pays to get other people's feedback.

[Fade Manley]

Hello,

Heather, you might consider using a "working title" as you continue to develop your game. A working title is used as a reference for the author until a final title can be decided. Sometimes the working title turns out to be the real title after all, and sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes a working title is humorous ("My Damned Game") and sometimes it isn't.

More generally speaking, I think that this discussion might do well to consider two things: (1) the difference between Grab and Function, and (2) the many possible purposes of a title.

(much good advice and detail snipped)

This has helped immensely; I now have a working title for the game, and I'm looking more into what the Grab and Function actually are, in this case. While I don't feel entirely competent enough to try to contribute much to this discussion--I don't have the terminology down yet--I did want to mention that I've found it helpful. And now that I have a name, I can turn my attention back to the blasted dice mechanics and the pretty probability graphs...

[Jared A. Sorensen]

This thread also dealt with naming games.
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=1203