I usually pull my names from real world societies. The older the better. Gygax's Extraordinary Book of Names is a great resource. As are various websites. And I sometimes mash two or more 'real' names together to get a realistic made up name.
I personally shy away from most fantasy names because they sound to made up for me. Nothing wrong with them and I don't begrudge others for using them, it's just not for me.
Lots of ways you can include Drizzt or other characters. There are seveal variations of the concept of a central otherworldly space that connects different worlds and even realities together. The City of Brass is one, there's another popular one that takes the shape of an inn, though I cannot recall the name right now. I'm sure someone else will. Another idea is that has been used is a cave that opens up in different realities. This one was used in Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories.
There's also the idea that there are just infinite prime material planes, which allows for the same person to potentially exist in more than one location, just a different version of the same person.
I always wanted to have my PCs meet Elminster of Shadowdale, best damn bread maker in the whole city.
I use a lot of random name generators for names. I rarely lift anything off of them wholesale, but I do modify them into something I like. Then I run the name by a native English speaker and see whether they pronounce it the way I imagined, because although I'm even more fluent in English than my first language these days, Arabic sounds (phonemes? I forget the term) still sneaks into words I make up and it's kind of a pet peeve of mine when no one at the gaming table can pronounce the names of my NPCs.
There's also the idea that there are just infinite prime material planes, which allows for the same person to potentially exist in more than one location, just a different version of the same person.
I always wanted to have my PCs meet Elminster of Shadowdale, best damn bread maker in the whole city.
I want to put him in my game so my players can kill him. I think I'll stat him as an insane level 3 wizard with delusions of grandeur and a penchant for dousing himself in oil and setting himself alight.
I really like Tolkien but I try not to use names from his works. If I am creating a PC I try to make the name fit into the world the DM created, if the world is a mishmash or a anything goes circus then I just try to make a name that does not sound silly. For my NPCs I use or create names that fit the culture they came from.
Some worlds I play in are part of the D&D multi verse some are all on their own and some are in a multi verse all their own.
Yes but you need to be very careful, no very very very careful not to railroad your players. Your Novel may be the next Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter and your Game world maybe great also but that does not mean the two will be anything alike even if they are placed on the same world.
I want to put him in my game so my players can kill him. I think I'll stat him as an insane level 3 wizard with delusions of grandeur and a penchant for dousing himself in oil and setting himself alight.
I always wanted to have my PCs meet Elminster of Shadowdale, best damn bread maker in the whole city.
(O.O)
What did Elminster ever do to you?
1. I both steal names from real languages and make them uo depending on what sort of society im creating. As to the concern about names that are made up sounding made up: if your geek level is throught the roof and you have the time it helps to create the basics of a a spoken langiage (pnonemes and alphabet) before creating names that way they sound consistent and less made up.
2. It is my understanding the Pathfinder changed nothing about the 3.5 multiverse except adding golarion to the prime material. Plus its your game so do what you want.
3. Definietly I do it all the time, its more work but alot of fun and it keeps players guessing and its potentially really rewarding. for me the biggest drawback is that when i make a world and story from skratch i get even more atached to my NPCs and it sucks worse if players randomly kill them off.
I want to put him in my game so my players can kill him. I think I'll stat him as an insane level 3 wizard with delusions of grandeur and a penchant for dousing himself in oil and setting himself alight.(O.O)
What did Elminster ever do to you?
I don't really mind the books or stories he's in actually (although Elminster in hell makes the phrase "boring as hell") but I pretty much detest any super powerful character who shows up, mutters either incoherent or useless advice, says he's not allowed to intervene directly and then disappears. I'm playing through Baldur's Gate now and he's done this three times. It's like some dumb way of putting a cap on how much a deus ex machina can actually benefit someone.
I want to put him in my game so my players can kill him. I think I'll stat him as an insane level 3 wizard with delusions of grandeur and a penchant for dousing himself in oil and setting himself alight.
I always wanted to have my PCs meet Elminster of Shadowdale, best damn bread maker in the whole city.(O.O)
What did Elminster ever do to you?
Elminster, and much of the FR DMPC pantheon, are things that are major turn-offs for me with regards to Forgotten Realms. I don't like having tons of high level characters, each capable of saving or destroying the world three times over before breakfast, running around a campaign setting. It tends to make world threatening plots fall flat when the PCs just say "why doesn't Elminster kill the bad guy? Why do we have to run around like crazy, leveling up as soon as we can, to be able to take him on?"
Plus, I do like the idea of messing with people who'd expect Elminster to just be the same in each world. The idea of an Elminster who lived a boring, normal life in some other universe is kind of fun.
I tend to name my NPCs based on the background they came from. For example, my current setting is in a classic medieval kingdom with Germanic influences. So humans have names like Lisa, Kurt, Gretchen, Hans etc. For the more fantastic names, I use either a title (Like "The Viridian Snake" for an evil druid who operates off of the Snake Scale River) or a short series of 2-4 syllables that I pull out of my experienced bunghole (examples: Luthoran, Rankun, Valla, Mashtur). I usually chop up existing names to do this.
Other worlds are generally a matter of preference. I like to have a couple to add background flavor if nothing else. The core setting has these in the form of planes, but other worlds can be continents too. My current setting has a Chinese/Japanese style culture used by the Tengu, who are the dominant race on their section of a larger continent, with humans being one of the minor races. By that same note, another continent has darker-skinned humans who are masters of magic and conquest and their lizardman allies on a large tropical continent.
I would suggest taking as much as possible from your sessions. Make notes afterwards. Use your player's actions as possible actions for the characters. But I wouldn't suggest adapting them to stories.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying your sessions wouldn't be interesting, but often times narrative voice can be easily silenced in a D&D game because of the desire of the players to keep playing their characters, thus trying to foil your encounters.
Since you're obviously quite the FR fan, I can assume you're wanting to do this because R.A. Salvatore claims to have adapted some of his stories from roleplaying games. Unless they weren't playing D&D, the man is a liar. I have great respect for the man, but unless he took tremendous creative license with the player's actions there is just no way. Even great roleplayers don't just lie down and let the bad guy get away. They, most of all, strike back against every trope you throw their way. The plot would have gone differently in many of the books had actual players been playing. I'm not just saying this because I'm jaded and because I don't enjoy the FR books, I'm saying this because I tried something similar, except with a short story. I'd say I stopped before the first page was completed, mostly because I realized how silly my player's characters behaved compared to anything I could write. The characters I could write would be much more believable. I'm confident yours would be too.
RPG Superstar 2013
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Names have always just developed for me as I develop a concept. Either an NPC or PC, they just feel very natural. That makes me happy, because I feel like I come up with pretty good names.
Currently, I run a Pathfinder game set in Rokugan (L5R setting). And while I have never wanted for a unique PC name in Rokugan, constantly developing NPC names that don't sound exactly like last week's NPC names is more challenging. Fortunately this Monday I get to use primarily stock figures from the game.
I don't take names form particular sources or conventions. I get names that just feel right with the character. Usually, I have no trouble with the name fitting into whatver world or culture we need. I think having a good facility for names makes for interesting and three-dimensional PCs. A likable name, in my experience, makes your numbskull players want to get to know more.
The idea of different solar systems in the prime plane was floated around for a while, but found purchase in Spelljammer's idea of crystal spheres. You could actualll travel from one crystal sphere to the next (a great way to get your Golarion characters to spend some time in Greyhawk!).
With due respect to Mr. Greenwood, Elminster bugs me. I ran a three year FR campaign that capped at level 24, and I never once mentioned Elminster or any other super-duper powers. The worlds is rich, the cultures are well-developed, and there are really very few stock NPCs that I think are worth a party's time. Though I wish for more personality for Szass Tam. And maybe a recall of that Unclean series of books.
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Names: I generally think of a character concept before I come up with names. But here's a short list of the names I've come up with so far.
Aramil Amalkir, Lilliana Galanodel, Durik Firebeard, Adlonai Igraria, Adrimaia (for the really interesting/mysterious characters, I generally just use a single name), Havaraksch Ladomine, Geoffrash Laminus, Aglomis Imadrolin, Andrea Livenpear, Cassandra Kel Claioti'th, Dareth Salicorn.
Anyway, I can come up with names fairly easy. And they work for my world pretty well. Just put sounds together that work.
Elves...The glossary in Tolkiens 'An introduction to elvish'
Dwarves gnomes etc...Nordic names
Halflings..Biblical names
Humans/Half elves/Half orcs..any source you care to mention
I come up with names in three ways.
1. I take existing words and either rearrange the syllables, or spell the word backwards, and move/add enough letters to make it feasible. ie. the word "Quality" might become Yitlauq.
2. Gyax's Extraordinary book of names. I pick a category and try to name the majority of an area's populace or people from that area using the same category.
3. I carry a small notebook with me all the time, and when I think of or see a cool name I'll write it down for future use. I guess I've got a weird imagination, because for some reason I just think up weird names at random times...This morning I woke up with the words "Satch", and "The Ramko Stallions" on my mind, so I wrote them down in the notebook.
An atlas is a great source for names. Try the map for Finland or Hungary.
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1) Names are hard for me sometimes. I often use Behind The Name as my main resource, as it provides not only a name but sometimes a bit of seed for character background. Other times, I just pluck something from thin air.
2) Depending on the rendition of the world, yes AND no. Some parts of the established canon for D&D is in one prime material plane and others are not. Eberron is in its own prime and has its own planar conjunctions. Others, like: Mystara, Grayhawk, Realms, Krynn are all in the same universe. Established canon from 2e era establishes that these are all connected by the phlogiston and are accessible to spelljammers. So travel from one to another is definitely possible. Then there's the Infinite Staircase, which transcends and connects all known worlds, planes and other accessible spaces. A sealed demiplane wouldn't be connected, but everything else is.
3) I would say yes. I've done it and had a great time doing so.
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I have two ways of getting names. One is to use a random name generator. There are some really good ones out there that give you great names. The other is the telephone book. That is an almost unlimited source of names. If you live in places like New York with large ethnic piopulations you can lift names wholesale from there. If you are like me I just randomly select a page and a name and begin to play with it until it has a sutible fantasy feel. For example I just selected the name Mellisa Wilson out of the phone book. So what can we make with that? Well we could go with Sallime, or Lisalem, or Malsile, or a few others and that is just from her first name. We open things up even more if we start mashing the last name in so we could have Wilslam or a few others there as well.
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Since you're obviously quite the FR fan, I can assume you're wanting to do this because R.A. Salvatore claims to have adapted some of his stories from roleplaying games. Unless they weren't playing D&D, the man is a liar. I have great respect for the man, but unless he took tremendous creative license with the player's actions there is just no way. Even great roleplayers don't just lie down and let the bad guy get away. They, most of all, strike back against every trope you throw their way. The plot would have...
Then you don't believe Ed Greenwood has done this as well with a lot of the Realms fluff?
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Then you don't believe Ed Greenwood has done this as well with a lot of the Realms fluff?
"Ed Greenwood did it" is never a reason for anything. Even breathing.
And I apologize for the tone of that, it is ire from having recently read his 'ecology of the maedar' article. Wherein there ARE male medusae, and they are butcher than the female version. And they have a (to my perception) STUPID name of "Maedar"...
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1. I don't have any one place to go for names. When playing Vampire, or a game with lands that are kinda/sorta like earth cultures, I go Search for Kate Monk's Onamastikon (Dictionary of Names). It moves around, but is always a great resource, particularly for names that fit certain cultures, and, with languages like Chinese and Old Norse, you can make names with the exact meaning you want, like Hrafngeir (Raven-Spear) or Min De (Sensitive Virtue).
I used to hit up the elven dictionary for elven names, but these days I'm more likely to make up my own, or use names of cultures whose language, IMO, 'sounds elf-y.' Elves named Siobhannon or Uinseach or Airgitlamh are common, when I'm playing them in online games (in tabletop, I prefer humans, for that sexy extra feat), even 'though those names are more-or-less Celtic.
2. There are tons of discrete settings, which, as of 2nd edition AD&D cosmology all reside in great spheres of crystal that float in a sea of flammable phlogiston. Spelljammer vessels can move from one setting to another, with some exceptions (the Ravenloft, Dark Suns and Dragonlance settings being closed off for various reasons and at different times).
I generally pick one setting, Greyhawk, the Realms or the Scarred Lands, for instance, and then port over anything I want (like the pirate city of Freeport).
3. The number one thing to be wary of when using a story you've designed as a base for an adventure setting / storyline seed, is that the players may actively want to go in directions that the story you written doesn't account for, or may attempt to kill off someone that you regard as important to the developing story. If the storyteller-turned-DM goes through hoops to push the characters along a certain pre-determined storyline, it's called railroading (as the players aren't allowed to make any decisions that take them off the rails, and must go exactly where the DM wants them to go) and tends to be unpopular, as gaming is more interactive and flexible than just reading a story passively. Ideally, the setting and storyline should allow for some variations. No one NPC should be utterly indispensible. They say that an author must learn to murder his children, and that a character or location or event shouldn't be sacrosanct and immune to change. This is especially true in a game, as it's a group activity. Forcing the PCs to follow along a pre-written story, perhaps being more observers than participants, *especially* when they are tagging along with an NPC who has 'plot immunity' and ends up being the linchpin for the story (leaving the PCs feeling like that NPCs cheerleaders or flunkies, instead of themselves being the heroes of the story), is kind of like inviting your friends over to play chess and then telling them a story about a chess game, instead of allowing them to move pieces and actually *play* chess.
This is a worst-case scenario, obviously. You may be delighted to have PCs running around in your carefully crafted setting and making radical changes that you'd never imagined. (And, it's not like you can't then promptly ignore any changes you don't like for your novel!)
1. I'll usually draw a character first and give them a name that suits their appearance. Failing that, I'll pick a letter to start with, and browse a name meaning registry until something catches my eye.
I love using exotic real-world names for characters, or at least as the basis for them. Dwarves definitely seem apt for Teutonic/Norse nomenclature, Celtic and Greek names for Elves, I went with Finnish for Gnomes, English or French for Halflings, and Hungarian and Slavic names for Half-Orcs, as a rule of thumb.
For examples:
Dwarven Fighter, Elke Sigsdottir
Half-Elf Sorceress, Una Bebhinn
Elf Ranger, Laertes Makhiara
Gnome Illusionist, Ansa Pellervo
Halfling Rogue, Luc Renard
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I love using exotic real-world names for characters, or at least as the basis for them. Dwarves definitely seem apt for Teutonic/Norse nomenclature, Celtic and Greek names for Elves, I went with Finnish for Gnomes,
Oh wow, Finnish Gnomes. I love that. (So much more than the trend of giving them silly names like Finklepuff Puddinpooper or whatever.)
Just an FYI note to Wolfthulhu, the Inn you are looking for is the World Serpent Inn. It floats around the various planes and attaches its door to other ordinary doors. To enter you should say, "I will enter" or something similar
Just my 2 cp.