This is RPG-ology #94: Name-monics, for September 2025.
Our thanks to Regis Pannier and the team at the Places to Go, People to Be French edition for locating a copy of this and a number of other lost Game Ideas Unlimited articles. This was originally Game Ideas Unlimited: Name-monics, and is reposted here with minor editing [bracketed].
Some years back I started a web site for Martial Arts in Role Playing Games. It was somewhat limited in scope, dealing directly with the original Advanced Dungeons & Dragons system and how the same things and others would be done in Multiverser, but gave sufficient information about both systems that players could fairly easily convert materials to their own games. It also included about thirty martial arts styles , nearly all of them invented, nearly all of them with made-up names. It is the names that interest me right now.
There were many kinds of names used. Some, such as Von Dom and Miyagido, paid homage to real and imaginary martial artists. Others used names of famous people, such as Chiang Kai Chek and Chow En Lai, as style names. The vast majority were puns or jokes. Ba Fai is noted for the variety of choices. Doshi Do is the famous whirling dance style. Foo Tsor and Sah Swatch used potent kicks. Han Karon focused on the baseball-bat-like Tetsubo. Hee Fo involved, of course, throws. And who could forget styles like Ah Tsu, Flopping Fish, Gazuntite, Hee Cupp, Mung Ki, Okydoky Smoky, Tsing-tsing, and Won Ton?
And that of course is the reason for the silly names: they are easily remembered.
A few months after the site was established, someone wrote to me asking why I used such silly names for martial arts styles, instead of using real styles such as the rather obscure one he studied. I did explain how in Multiverser it was quite possible for someone skilled in a martial arts style to bring that style into the game; the referee was given all the tools necessary to do so. It did not make sense for me, whose experience with real martial arts is fairly limited, to attempt to make such conversions for the myriad of real styles out there; it made far more sense for those who actually studied these styles to discuss the strengths and weaknesses, the special attacks and defenses, the best mechanical representation of their particular abilities, with their own referee. If I were to say, for example, This is how Karate works in Multiverser, someone would certainly come along who had far better knowledge of Karate than I and note immediately that I had missed something, or misrepresented something. Instead I say, This is how we go about the process of converting real martial arts to game play, and thus enable the karate student to make what he knows real for his character.
But I also said that it was important for the styles to have silly names, because they were easy to remember. I may know the names of a dozen real martial arts styles, even some of the obscure ones; but I can t always think of them at need. As referee, I have a lot to remember at any one moment. The player characters all have names; many of the non-player characters do as well. Character stats and abilities might matter in this situation, and I need to be aware of these. Where everyone is standing can be important, particularly as they relate to significant objects such as exits, furnishings, and value items. I should know whether there s anything just beyond sight of the characters, such as in the next room, that might be affected by the events here–for example, reinforcements which will come if there are sounds of a fight. I have a lot on my mind when I m running a game. I don t need to add to it the unfamiliar and difficult foreign name of an obscure martial arts style practiced by one of the characters–and particularly if it is a non-player character who is only going to be important for one or two game sessions.
This aspect of using names that somehow fit the purpose has many other applications. Places on your map are easier to recall if you don t give them all strange names. There is no reason why the village where the northernmost bridge crosses the river can t be called North Bridge, or the highway that leads off the bottom of the map into uncharted territory South Road. I ve used names such as Good Harbor and Coast Road without anyone batting an eye. Here in South Jersey, there s another road naming convention. If you lived in Pennsville, the road that went to Auburn was called Auburn Road; if you lived in Auburn, that road was called Pennsville Road. On the maps and road signs, it came to be Pennsville-Auburn Road–and there are hundreds of such roads in this state, named for the towns at either end. Use names that have some sense to them, and you won t have trouble remembering the names.
E. R. Jones used a trick that worked well for him. No matter what game it was, every time you met a thief in one of his worlds the guy s name was probably Henry. I don t think he ever knew anyone of that name; he just liked using that name for bit part thieves. He had another name for stablehands, another for bartenders and innkeepers, another for city watchmen–standard names that he could pull out when someone asked, and not have to note anywhere because ultimately that was the name he always used for that bit part.
Not so long ago, in the article Characterization, we mentioned using names and voices that fit together, so that the name and the voice would each help remind of the other. The more you build these kinds of mental reminders into your worlds, the easier it will be to call them back to memory. When I was writing The Dancing Princess, I gave the three girls names in alphabetical order–Margaret, Nerene, and Olivia–knowing that I would better remember the names, birth order, and consequently personalities because of that. I also gave the demons alphabetized names, for much the same reason–and so that if I were sketching positions on a scrap paper each character could be quickly represented by a different letter without confusion.
In running Multiverser worlds, I will often use the name of a friend or relative from years past, unknown to my players–but then, there is more to this idea than just remembering a name, so I ll come back to it another time.
The more help you give yourself when you create these things, the easier they will be to remember when you run them, and the smoother your games will run when they are executed.
[Next week, something different.]
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