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The one that comes to mind is the night when they were raiding a temple complex and they ended up referring to the NPCs by the look of the mini I was using for each (what I had on hand). There was Stabby McStabby (carrying two daggers), Droopy (miniature with a wilted longsword), Drow Chick (a drow female), and Casper (a spectral warrior).
There is a joke in a very obscure anime, which found its way into our gaming table a few times.
That guy over here. This guy over there. That guy over there. This guy over here.
Japanese language jokes, crazy, but sometimes it crops up when words escape us, and the group gets it and goes with it.
"The guy" also features, with the question of does anyone dare to be... the guy.
No, but at one point we had the bard Talisker trying to find out what happened to Lagavulin the Archdruid.
Lagavulin the Archdruid? Didn't he team up with Geordi LaPhroaig to Kill Choman? *scnr*
Longest running nickname in my group was in a game of Exalted, where the name of Chejop Kejak mutated to something like Kejak Chopek... until the group agreed to refer to him as 'Ketchup Chopstick', much to the GM's annoyance.
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Next time I play Kingmaker, the DM won't have to worry about my character giving nicknames, because said character is going to be mute.
When houstonderek was running his super-pretty "face" rogue Cadogan, he was hamming it up one session and we started calling him "Derek Zoolander." If he couldn't get into position for a sneak attack, he'd threaten them with a Blue Steel look!
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I've never had any problem with any nicknames my players have given any of my NPCs. In fact I view that as a good indication that they are into the game so, if anything, I encourage it.
What sometimes does cause some table consternation is when the other players (or worse, the GM!) gives a PC an unflattering nickname. In our current game we have a player whose wizard is a rather uppity and pushy fellow with an unfortunate name that I can't remember, but I remember that the rest of the table has decided to call him "Lord Testicles".
My own halfling detective is named "Sparky" but due to an unfortunate misreading of my handwritten character name, is now being referred to as "Spanky".
For the most part though, it just adds to the fun.
Back in the mid-'90s, I was playing in a Champions superhero game. Our team (called "H.E.R.O. Squad!") once ran up against a team of super-villains that we'd never encountered before. They didn't introduce themselves when we fought for the first time. (And they totally kicked our collective a$$-- mainly due to bad tactics on our part and lucky dice rolls on thiers.)
Anyway, before we learned their real names, we referred to:
...the masked woman in black body armor who used two automatic pistols as "Gun Girl".
...the heavily-muscled guy who punched so hard he could send you flying off the map as "Whomp Boy".
...the martial artist who used a bo staff in melee as "Stick Dude".
...and the guy in power armor who could shoot lightning bolts as "Mr. Zappy."
We did eventually learn their real names, but whenever we encountered them, we always called them those nicknames to their faces, in an attempt to be insulting.
20 years later, I have no idea what those characters' names really were, but I can still recall "Gun Girl, Whomp Boy, Stick Dude, and Mr. Zappy!"
Honestly, if the players feel the need to customize their relationship with each NPC by giving them a nickname, that's probably a good thing.
It's when they forget who you're even talking about that you should worry.
Embrace the nicknames. Perhaps you will discover they only enjoy it to get a rise out of you, so cease rising, and maybe you can all get back on track.
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Honestly, if the players feel the need to customize their relationship with each NPC by giving them a nickname, that's probably a good thing.
It's when they forget who you're even talking about that you should worry.
Embrace the nicknames. Perhaps you will discover they only enjoy it to get a rise out of you, so cease rising, and maybe you can all get back on track.
I don't like people who enjoy getting a rise out of the guy who did a lot of work for them to have fun.
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I don't like people who enjoy getting a rise out of the guy who did a lot of work for them to have fun.
Where I come from the main mark of a good friendship is to laugh at yourself along with the others at the ribbing and then retaliate.
It's all in good fun, nobody should get their undies bunched over it.
I don't like people who enjoy getting a rise out of the guy who did a lot of work for them to have fun.Where I come from the main mark of a good friendship is to laugh at yourself along with the others at the ribbing and then retaliate.
It's all in good fun, nobody should get their undies bunched over it.
This was one of the things that took the longest for me to adjust to after leaving my hometown to go to college - my future sister-in-law and later one of my closest friends and gaming buddies was raised in a family where it was the norm, and it took quite a while for that to sink in for me, since I grew up being picked on and made fun of as *the* target nerd in my class.
Where I come from the main mark of a good friendship is to laugh at yourself along with the others at the ribbing and then retaliate.
It's all in good fun, nobody should get their undies bunched over it.
As I said earlier in the thread, there are serious games and there are light-hearted games and what is appropriate in one might not be appropriate in the other. Both styles are fun, though.
Similarly, I enjoyed the movies "Schindler's List" and "Bridesmaids" and I don't think more diarrhea jokes would have improved the former nor would more gas chambers have improved the latter.
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Ah, we have ribbing. Some that would probably get us into a fight with anyone who is not a close friend. But if they make up nicknames for my NPCs just to piss me off, that's stupid. I'd just stop GMing for them. Now if they make them up out of habit or because they like to, that's another matter. I'm still not a fan, but...
Any horror/funny stories, nicknames from you?
I have no problem with my players giving nicknames to the NPCs. For many people, it's a memory trick and a way to remember the name.
I problem I always have is how to determine the repercussions of using that name in front of a (previously) friendly NPC (King, Queen) or enemy NPC (that could destroy them).
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I don't like people who enjoy getting a rise out of the guy who did a lot of work for them to have fun.Wait, you mean people have motivations OTHER than spite?
Why wasn't I told about this???
I don't care what their motivation is. If they know it annoys me to no end and then they do it to get a rise out of me because they find annoying me funny, I'll boot them out of the house and never invite them to game again.
We have a friend for whom saying that we 'fart' when we channel energy breaks immersion in a big way. He asked us to stop with this and, of course, people did it even more. So he picked up his stuff and left mid session. After that, imagine, we didn't 'fart' any more. We channeled energy. You have to respect people you game with.
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Haha, fart.
In all seriousness Hama, it sounds like you take it very seriously, and there's a type of person who just can't resist pushing buttons.
When people do something like that and I want it to stop, the best thing to do is smile, say "yup" and then move on immediately to whatever it was you wanted to do. If I respond sternly, I'm just giving them what they want; a straight man.
You are not wrong, constant disrespect is something nobody should tolerate. But being able to bend rather than break is a very valuable skill for GMing. It takes practice, but you can learn to resume command of the came quickly before things become a problem, and how to deflect certain players from pushing other players' buttons.
After all, class-clown players are there to have fun too, they just need some extra help to focus their hilarious energy in a constructive way. First-rate GMs can bring them around without anyone realizing it's happening.