Tomb of the Alchemist

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• damn

• Is that being drunk in charge of a review, or did the review drive you to drink?

• I also get annoyed by the laziness of people taking historical names of characters (Assur, Sargon) and using them in random ways. You presumably wouldn’t say “ the tomb of Lincoln, master alchemist of Franklin” either. Lazy is what it is.

  • It can work if it's not a super well known name. Hitler or George Washington might be a bit too on the nose but Pharnabazus, Iskander or Arcesilaus is acceptable surely?

    • Hm. I see your point. But while RPGs were born in the American Midwest, the idea was genius and grew to be global. And for a global audience, some of the names that may be acceptable to the context of origin might turn out awkward. And and vice versa. I once played soccer in the Peruvian rainforest against kids named Hitler and Lincoln. They had presumably been named as such because their parents knew that these were famous people. They did not apparently have a clue about the history those names carry.

      Iskander is a similar case. To you it might be excotica. To around 622 million Arabic and Turkic speakers it is “Alexander” (the Great) with all that this carries of connotations. What may not be super well known to a group in Oklahoma is not necessarily unknown to the larger world that one publishes into. So there is a difference to me in what one does at home and among friends and family, another when one takes a piece of writing to (global) publication.

      • Perfection is the enemy of good enough

      • I don't like using common or historical names in adventures because an NPC named 'David' or 'Susan' or an official named ‘Archimedes’ or ‘El Cid’ tends to take me out of the moment. Similarly, it’s like using a name such as 'Middletown' as the name of a D&D village. I agree that it’s a lazy approach to naming, unless you’re creating a setting that is explicitly based on a real world culture, then it’s expected.

        If I’m visiting a real world place I might encounter David in the local Cumberland Farms but I don’t want my PC experiencing the mundanity of encountering David, the bartender of the tavern in the medieval D&D village of Middletown while on his way to bash in some orc heads. I like to think I'm playing D&D here and not adventuring in the State of Rhode Island.

        However, if we're going to eliminate that and we’re going to eliminate historical names that sound exotic to us but might not to someone, somewhere in the world, what does that leave us with? Not everyone is creative enough to whip up lots of believable place and people names that don’t sound like shit, or sound goofy as hell.

        @ Gopsie, what's your solution to this naming "problem"? I'm all ears.

      • I'd suggest striving for a global product is actually the fallacy. You cannot escape the context of your environment, and I doubt there's any value in trying to do so. Works of fiction have a context associated with the writer. We should also accept that fact when turning a critical eye on historical works as well.

        Sorry, I think it simpler and best if the burden is on the foreigner (or future reader) to adapt it. Perhaps something will get added in the translation.

        It's we that must adapt to the world. Not visa versa.

        • Not mention that striving for a global product on everything you produce for commercial consumption would be very time consuming. Not saying it couldn't be done and if that's the desire, then go for it but I'd prefer not to gnash my teeth too much over what names sound like and how they might come across to RPG'ers that potentially could be from any country in the world. As I said above, PCs in any campaign I run will never encounter "Bob" the Blacksmith or run across a frontier family named "Cartwright." I'm putting in more effort than that. If someone doesn't like my names, they are free to change them to something they do like.

          A former boss of mine once used a phrase that I liked when describing the practicality/impracticality of accomplishing a task, basically was it worth it or not based on a variety of factors. She said, "I'm not sure the juice is worth the squeeze."

          Life is full of compromises and everyone has to decide which hill(s) they are going to die on.

        • Nice turn of phrase!

    • A point well made; in the OSR striving for universality is hubris at best, and denying oneself the richness of ancient history as a fuel for fantasy for fear of imaginary offense being taken is the path to certain mediocrity.

      • I did not mean to suggest that cannibalizing names had much to do with offending anyone. It's a game. I highly doubt anyone would be truly offended if they found the name of their city or their cousin in a RPG module.

        Rather, Mr. Middle Finger put his ... finger right on the spot. To me this is all about "users not being drawn back to David in the local Cumberland Farms" – ideally irrespective of where those readers are.

        Now, are there exceptions? Yes, I would say so. If you’re creating a setting that is explicitly based on a real world culture. Again, Mr. Vecna points ... his finger in the right direction.

        Yet, even in such cases I would strive to come up with altered forms in the style of e.g. Bruce Heard when he wrote his adventures on the Savage Coast for Dragon Mag. Or what Gabor Lux did so well in his Helvéczia.

        Do I realize that it is a tall order? To constantly to come up with new names? Yes, but I do think that there are great tools out there to help, from the 1978 JG "Treasury of Archaic Names" to plenty of random name generators online.

        The best names to me are those that mean nothing and still resonate and evoke mental imagery. Words like "horcrux" or "quidditch" are great examples. Rowling is a master, but we can all do it, and there are countless examples in which the way storytellers use names to add dimensions of richness to their writing. The best RPGs are full of that.

      • Point well made, yet it comes down to what should be called the M.A. Barker problem; coming up with nonsense names that have the same harmonious resonance as real life names and manage to fit into the extant english lexicon is tough, so most people attempting this technique will fail.
        Using extant but quasi-obscure historical names has the advantage that those names have already been 'pre-loaded' with those properties.

        So borrowing names --> beginner
        Making up not-shit names --> King

• I also tend to take the easier way out when I’m at home. But if I were to publish an adventure/ module/ scenario some day, I’d like to think that I’d invest some time in getting the names right. I really think it’s an important element of dungeon design - not vital, obviously, but on par with some of the other parameters our host regularly writes about. To me names form an integral part of good fantasy writing alongside evocative writing, exciting NPCs, factions, and so on (it’s arguably part of evocative writing). And since our host tends to lament imperfection, I suggest that names could perhaps also form part of the overall consideration of quality. I not sure whether I’m overstating things, but I still think we can all produce examples where good names have provoked emotional response, driven association, etc.

  Thanks for your own blog, btw. which is bloody excellent!

  • My thanks, if that last part was meant for my own efforts.

    • It was indeed - not sure why my reply went back to the thread!

• "My takeaway is that alchemists are the new go to for evil bad guys. I chalk this up to an anti-science attitude prevalent in society today." - that's a funny line, right there, Bryce.

  Thank you for sacrificing your liver and sanity in the name of regular adventure reviews, no matter how non-adventure they turn out to be.