Behind the Screen: What’s in a Name?

A surprising amount!

World Building and Player Feedback

I’ve been spending more time than usual doing world-building in my campaign, including fleshing out various aspects of the political structure of my world.  Part of this is just the process that most DM’s embark upon when a campaign reaches a certain point: for me, it’s nearing the beginning of the paragon levels and we’ve all but wrapped Act I of the campaign.  Major aspects of the campaign have begun to tie up and now it’s time to unravel new campaign threads for the group to explore.

I normally enter into Act II of a campaign by taking notes from my players.  I was reviewing some game notes that I had been keeping, and came across a gem.  As I mentioned in my previous post, I was using a random name generator for a few of my NPCs in town including one of the town council-members.  Unfortunately the name that came out of the random name generator made me laugh enough to evoke questions from the group so I had to tell it and of course, that name stuck.

So now I’ve got a town council-member named Horhand.  To quote one of our players: “You really have to make him a bigger character.  I really want to call out ‘You’ve met your match now, Horhand!'”

You certainly can’t beat feedback like that.  Now the trick is going to make organically getting to a place where that scenario can happen.  By taking minor cues from your players, you can really craft the storyline in a satisfying way that they can really interact with.  Do I know what I’m going to do with Act II yet?  No.  Do I know that Horhand is going to play a part, small or large?  Yes.  The trick now is just figuring out the how, when, and why of it all.