Why are all the good names taken?

The more work I put into my homebrew game, the more frustrated it gets that it doesn't even have a name. It has a codename, and that's about the extent of it. You see, I'm trying to avoid:

• Alliterations. Dungeons and Dragons, Labyrinth Lords, Tunnels and Trolls; while they're all classic games, they're not what the game should be compared with. This game isn't classic, and it's not particularly old-fashioned, although older roleplaying games are its main focus. It also has a good mix of some independent games, Forge-style, if you will. But trying to have a slightly silly name reminiscent of the old classic isn't something that I relish. To people that like D&D, they'll still play D&D. For people that don't like it, they'll have to waste their valuable first impression time on insisting that it's not like D&D even though it has an alliteration.
• Long, Wordy Names. I haven't the testicular fortitude to name a game something like Lamentations of the Flame Princess or Descent: Journeys in the Dark (which isn't strictly a roleplaying game, but c'mon), or Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. They imply a certain grandiosity that makes one think of five hundred page games with complex, interlayering rules that I dislike. If my game gets to be more than 50 pages, I'll be shocked and probably have to cut something. My inspiration is the Little Brown Books, not the Encyclopedia Britannica that is 4th edition D&D. Long titles suggest long-winded writing, and a certain lack of economy of words.
• Acronyms. GURPS is a horrible name. Horrible. I don't care what it stands for, when one says the acronym it sounds like a vulgarism for vomit. And if you say it out, it's another Long, Wordy Name. 
• Colons. White Wolf lives off of acronyms, and they make buyers sound like idiots. What do they call a game about Vampires? Vampire: The Masquerade or Vampire: The Requiem. I realize that the game is marketed towards people who are interested in a "gothic roleplaying game", but the game would have had a much, much better title of just "Requiem" or "Masquerade." For another stinker, try "Mage: The Awakening." Again, just Awakening would have been a much, much better name. I just don't understand the point of having such a formulaic name. No, "Subject: The Descriptor" is straight out.

I'm currently toying with sticking one-word titles on top of my rough draft and seeing what sticks. For example, the name "Portcullis" makes it sound like a game about defending keeps and "Iron Gauntlet" makes me think of power metal and arcade games.

Clearly, naming a game is an art more than a science, and unfortunately, I'm a poor artist.

Inspiration for Gaming

David, from http://towerofthearchmage.blogspot.com/, let me on to an interesting question:

This month’s RPG Carnival, hosted by Campaign Mastery, poses the question:

What non-game media have most inspired your games and how?

And you know, that's a really good question. I guess for me, it'd have to be:

• Elric of Melnibone: I know some people have issues with him telling instead of showing, and his unusual writing style, but I was exposed to this work at a relatively young age. The raw creativity of his work astounded me, and the plain fact that it was so different was really cool. Here, for the first time in my life, was a character with actual problems, a character with depth and substance. He was alternately gloomy and elated, and he had a real history. 
• Robert Aspirin's "Myth" series: Another book that I'd read from an early age, containing interesting bits about ley lines and alternate universes and demons just being regular people. I think it helped shape my sense of silliness in my game worlds, which is probably a good thing after reading Moorcock heavily.
• Theives' World: This book, I read heavily in. Matter of fact, the repeated readings and re-readings led to the spine caving in entirely- it's currently held together by duct tape and wishful thinking. The book featured an absolute hell-hole of a town, and the interesting characters that live in it. Because of this book, I've had a strong taste for the wierd and the very low-magic game worlds, where the sorcerers who exist are tragic figures and the theives aren't all bad. It's a really, really good read from some of the finest writers of science fiction and fantasy, in my opinion. I haven't read it in at least 5 years due to the condition of the binding, but I can still remember Jubal the slaver and the bizarre things he'd been through.
• Conan the Barbarian: I loved this movie. I hadn't been exposed to this before I started gaming, nor had I read the books, but I'd seen the movie. You can say what you will about it, if you approach it with an open mind and a young man's imagination, it's pretty damn good.
• The Lord of the Rings: Not the books, mind you. I've never cared for Mr. Tolkien's writing style in the least. I'd tried to get through the books, but I'll be damned if he doesn't take one hundred pages to get through what should be two paragraphs of travel, and no, the book isn't better for it. I'll argue about it until the day I die. But anyways, the movies were spectacular, filled with scenes of great battles and bizarre sorcery and incredible landscapes and cities and monuments. It's a movie filled with a sense of wonder. In my games I don't like epic fantasy, but that doesn't mean that there hasn't been a location from the movie quietly cribbed for use in my games. 

And that's that. Looking at it, I realize that there's a good bit of old books up there, which makes sense. The only modern fantasy writer that I particularly enjoy is George R.R. Martin, whose works, I think, one has to enjoy or resign one's Fantasy Lover badge and shred it up.

The Town As A Character

I know, I know, two posts in one day? But hear me out, an insane idea flitted through my head.

Reading the Chatty DM blog, somebody mentioned the term "burning wheel", where two or more forces are vying against each other. Often, no thought has gone into what happens when the players lose, and of any ideas to get people back into the game. This is especially important in old-school games, one would think, as character mortality rate can be high, and if the entire party is slain, then what makes the new characters obligated in the least to continue on where the old characters left off? How many people can be realistically imprisoned in the Temple of the Plague Orcs to replace fallen characters with new ones?

That's when it hit me; take an element from the "endgame" of old-school play, that of fiefdoms and the political control of lands, and make it a central element. What if your players came together and created a town, city, or village as though it were a character, with nebulously defined characteristics (NOT game mechanics). For example, a party could be from the town of Helmsford, a river town with a healthy economy, ruled by a benevolent and elderly Duke who lives in a great tower-keep that is open to most. The guards wear blue and green checked hauberks as identification, and the town is known for its hard-working, honest population as well as the rare fish that spawns in their riverbed and few other places.

When the party leaves to combat Threat #6, they are slain. But the heroes aren't alone in a vacuum, nor is the mission over. When the heroes die, perhaps the Drow slave-raiders take slaves of many of the people of Helmsford, but maybe Old Brian, the blacksmith and Gilgar the Rotund, and Limlo the horse thief band together in this horrible time and defend the town from attack; in other words, each and every hero is tied into the game as a whole by a single city. As the game goes on, each new hero is better and better defined, as the more brave people become the new heroes and are possibly related in some obscure way to the heroes. For example, Old Brian's steel had armed the mighty Poltroon, slayer of ghouls, and seeing his weapons used in such a way inspired him, aged though he may be, to become something better than he was, to try and make the world a better place.

This sort of thing may not work in a more sword and sorcery oriented tale, with each and every character being more vagabond than hero, but then again, look at the Elric series and the other writings of M. Moorcock. The mythical city of Tamelorn was as detailed and interesting as any city, with heros banding together to defend it from threats throughout time. Maybe the Home City as character requires a similarly important and passion-inspiring place for heroes to call its own, and perhaps not.

Certainly, though, it's worth a thought, which is why it had to be written down in such a long and winding blog post.

Inspiration and Daily Diligence

There are a great many writers in the world whose writing is a matter of clockwork, it seems. They put their Writing Hat on, get out their quills and parchment, and produce prose that flows, sentences that ebb and cling, and allusions that spark the interest of every man, woman, and child who's blessed with seeing such works.

Unfortunately, I personally am not that kind of writer. Like all things, interest in writing (and blogging) ebbs and flows, and comes and goes. It goes where it will, when it will. Sometimes it's no problem to sit for six hours and attempt to re-write the entire magic system, with all the spells fleshed out from level 0 to level 7, and sometimes even collecting thoughts to smash into a 200 word blog post is the utmost torture. 

So I ask anybody who read this: How do you get inspiration to keep writing? If you're one of those people who produces 1000+ word blog posts every single day, how do you maintain the dedication? The drive? Are you a mutant? Or am I?

Epic Pooh

As in, the Moorcock essay of the same name. I've long since been critical of the Lord of the Rings and it's insane influence amongst the fantasy faithful. It's one of the reasons that every campaign setting and fantasy story from here to sundown has beautiful elves, taciturn dwarves, cruel orcs, and a small band of men valiantly fighting against overarching evil, winning through due only to the pureness of their heart and of their mission.

I've disliked it for a long time, preferring the more earthy, brilliant, and much more well-written works of both R.E. Howard, Terry Pratchett, and Micheal Moorcock, and I recommend those three writers to anybody who makes the mistake of mentioning books to me.

But today I discovered something; Micheal Moorcock has actually sat down and written a criticism of exactly the same things. What are the odds, one must wonder?

Epic Pooh

Changing Magic Around

The more I look at the magic in the basic Labyrinth Lord game, the more I want to change it. It's not that the spells aren't evocative enough, or effective enough, or that they're terrible. Really, it's not.

Ditching Elves, Dwarves, and Halflings

A thought struck me.

To be entirely honest, it struck sometime last week, but this is the first time I've really put any thought into it. That is, the thought of ditching or changing entirely the demihumans. See, it came about when I was explaining to one of my players that he doesn't have to be an "Elf" if he doesn't want to. He can take the class and be a half-dragon dude, or a humanoid rhinocerous or whatever it is he likes. He eventually decided to play up the elfiness of it all (not the least of which was because he fully expected the elf to die before the night was over), but the short conversation in my head left reverberating echoes in my noggin.

See, I've never really liked other fantasy races, at least not in D&D and other games where I'm the one having to make up the entire world. They're either played for laughs, or they're basically skinny/short/beautiful/ugly/hairy/goofy humans who live in places where humans normally don't. There's no real sense of alien-ness to them, which I think is a huge part of life.

To use a real-life example, I was watching  a show about some african tribesmen where the women paint themselves red and have all these interesting beliefs and omens and tribal shamans and whatnot. It was absolutely fascinating, but their worldview was entirely alien. I mean, I'm a middle-class college student in a fairly secular society, and they're all hunters and farmers living in a world of spiritual contact with spirits or whatever it is they believe. If me and them had a talk on the streets (assuming we could speak the same language) I'm not sure we'd get anywhere at all.

And so it would be with elves, dwarves, and halflings, at least. Their world-view, their ideas, their senses of duty and self preservation and everything about them would be different, if for no other reason than that they live in relative isolation, with their own languages and cultures and, hell, lifespans.

So I think that, next time I run Labyrinth Lord, I'll have the elf turned into a human Spell-Sword, the dwarf into a Dungeoneer, and the Halfling into, I dunno, a Scout, with their bonus to armor class explained away as quickness and their inability to use big weapons as a fighting style. Or something.

This way, there can still be dwarves, elves, and halflings, just like there are still ogres, orcs, demons, and kobolds, but they're potential enemies and roadblocks instead of Grumpy McBeardybeard, greedy, stout, and loyal face-hammerer.

I think any other treatment is unfair to the source material that the demi-humans come from.