Inspired by Aos's best RPG name thread (http://www.therpgsite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2446), I was curious what people thought was the worst RPG name?
I vote for GURPS. 'GURPS' sounds like the noise I make after consuming too much Curry Chicken and Guinness, not a game.
(I vaguely recall a game, from very old Dragon magazines, called 'Spawn of Fashan'. Thats a pretty cappy name too.)
Quote from: Akrasia(I vaguely recall a game, from very old Dragon magazines, called 'Spawn of Fashan'. Thats a pretty cappy name too.)
I own a copy of that game. 4 or 5 years ago at EN World, people were discussing SoF. Piratecat, moderator extraordinaire, somehow tracked down the guy who wrote it. PC arranged for the guy to run off copies of it for those who expressed interest in it. I was one of those. The guy even included a history of the game, and what he's done since. While he seems to have a good sense of humor about it all, the legendary review of the game in Dragon had to have hit hard. Consider: he and his friends were young guys, college age, and became laughingstocks of the RPG community. Pretty unfair. Don't get me wrong; SoF is a bad game. But it pales in comparison to stuff like F.A.T.A.L., and besides, there is a sincere, naive earnestness to the writing in SoF which kinda makes it endearing. But the name is odd.
GURPS is a great choice, and I'll chime in with MERP.
At the risk of being accused of not being a "real" RPG fan, here is a list of games I feel have bad names:
Dogs in the Vineyard
Burning Wheel
Synnibar
My Life With Master
My most amusingly bad would be "Feng Shui" --
or for the lesser well-known, "GruntBuggler!" (the 1995 precursor to "Forge: Out of Chaos").
Quote from: ColonelHardissonBurning Wheel
I don't like that name. Worst name? *shrug* But it is generic system, so i'll say it has at least a bit more flair than "d20" or "Tri-stat". "Savage Worlds" is better though.
And you outlined why you don't like, "Dogs In The Vineyard". A gap in your knowledge furthered by you insistance that you have to know the game by the name before you know anything about the game. But as a
bad name? They must sell some seriously potent crack down there in Cleveland. :)
Synnibar? Now that's pretty damn forgetable, yup. I'll have to think about this a bit though, because the really bad ones are IMO the ones that fall from memory.
worst name?
Gammarauders
although FUDGE always gave me a real bad *visual*
Worst name ever?
Panty Explosion.
I second GURPS, it's almost embarassing to say.
I used to support the name, thinking it was at least honest and unpretentious, but that was back before I lost all reason to cut jackson any slack.
Quote from: AkrasiaI vote for GURPS. 'GURPS' sounds like the noise I make after consuming too much Curry Chicken and Guinness, not a game.
(I vaguely recall a game, from very old Dragon magazines, called 'Spawn of Fashan'. Thats a pretty cappy name too.)
Yeah, it sounds very...gastrointestinal, doesn't it? Not the best name for a system.
And could someone please tell me WTF a Fashan is? I've been wondering about that for ages.
http://www.fallingrain.com/world/IR/28/Kah_Fashan.html ?
Or this Chinese guy from a millenium and a half back. That's what Google has to say on the matter. :) I suppose if you were inclined to attempt to read Spawn of Fashan it might have a hint in there. Probably just some ass-crack spawned name though.
Like Ptolus. How I hate that name, and I even bought the book. I should have bought it in PDF form instead so I could have done a Search-Replace. :)
Universalis and Nobilis.
I'm not sure either is all that bad in isolation, but knowing that both exist gives an impression of a wave of pretention sweeping across RPGs.
Look, both words are just simple adjectives, almost identical in form and meaning to their English equivalents. The only apparent need for the Latin forms is just to "sound a little Latin". AFAIK there's no Roman connection.
Quote from: Elliot WilenUniversalis and Nobilis.
I'm not sure either is all that bad in isolation, but knowing that both exist gives an impression of a wave of pretention sweeping across RPGs.
Look, both words are just simple adjectives, almost identical in form and meaning to their English equivalents. The only apparent need for the Latin forms is just to "sound a little Latin". AFAIK there's no Roman connection.
well maybe they arent the worst names but they may make top of the list in the "most Pretentious"
PANTY EXPLOSION
The war is over. We lost.
I quite like Panty Explosion as a name. It's all highly subjective, of course. I tend to like names that roll around nicely in my mouth, being rather orally inclined. I like names that conjure vague but haunting images.
So I don't like GURPS or CORPS or JAGS or HARP or EABA or anything that sounds so...generic. I don't like most of the ring-the-changes-on-D&D names, because they're unimaginative – T&T, C&S, B&B, V&V, M&M.
I do like Dogs in the Vineyard and My Life with Master and Under the Bed and The Shab-al-Hiri Roach and The Mutant Chronicles and Pendragon and Space 1889 and Burning Wheel. Among others. In some cases I like the name a lot more than the game.
I think there are a lot of ho-hum names, which aren't really bad but don't have the same mystique – Sorcerer, RuneQuest, Prince Valiant, Superworld, Spycraft, Traveller.
My vote for worst title: (thank you)... Mythic Russia!!
It's new, it's a labour of love, it's a beautiful book by all accounts – it has the name of an undergrad textbook.
Quote from: Elliot WilenLook, both words are just simple adjectives, almost identical in form and meaning to their English equivalents. The only apparent need for the Latin forms is just to "sound a little Latin". AFAIK there's no Roman connection.
Except, you know, that in the canon of the game the Roman "gods" by and large
were Nobles, and even the PCs tend to be rather like the folks on Mount Olympus. Besides, of course you could always replace the word with, say, "the Nobility" or "the Aristocracy", but that might lead into confusion if you needed to talk about both them and the mortal society at the same time. It's better to have a slightly more distinctive term.
Well, they could've called Nobilis "The Aristocrats". But that would've been just wrong...
Quote from: GrimGentExcept, you know, that in the canon of the game the Roman "gods" by and large were Nobles, and even the PCs tend to be rather like the folks on Mount Olympus. Besides, of course you could always replace the word with, say, "the Nobility" or "the Aristocracy", but that might lead into confusion if you needed to talk about both them and the mortal society at the same time. It's better to have a slightly more distinctive term.
That's still not really anything more than apologetics and justification after the fact.
Are you denying that "nobilis" was chosen for the name because it was something pretentious-sounding? Are you really going to make your stand there, with a straight face, and tell me and everyone else here that "Nobilis" was really something very well thought out for in-game reasons and was the best choice for some reason other than that it made the black-turtleneck-wearing art-fags at the local liberal college wet their pants with excitement?
Any excuses you could make are bullshit. I know they're bullshit, everyone here knows they're bullshit, hell, YOU know its bullshit.
Nobilis is designed to be pretentious. Start by admitting that and everything will go down better.
RPGPundit
Trollbabe may not be the worst, but the name has kept me from ever looking at it. When I hear the name I get a mental image of a big ugly troll (actually I picture an ogre from the old Gummi Bears cartoon in a party dress.
Dog in the Vineyard didn't click with me either. For a long time I thought it was actually about dogs.
FUDGE and GURPS are also pretty bad.
Quote from: RPGPunditNobilis is designed to be pretentious. Start by admitting that and everything will go down better.
Of course it was always intended to be pretentious, in that
fin de siècle dandies-on-the-boulevard sort of a way. It was also never meant to be taken absolutely seriously. The dinosaurs died out because one angel couldn't handle a bit of toilet humour? The florists are secretly one of the greatest powers on the Earth? Come
on.
And there
are in-game reasons for the name, of course: in the history of the setting, the Nobilis have always been called that, and the term later entered into Latin when that language developed from the True Tongue of Heaven. In the game, the word "noble" was originally derived from the description of the Nobles, not the other way around, just as entropy was named in honour of Lord Entropy. It ties in with the rest of the game world.
Out of curiosity, what non-pretentious title would
you have for a diverse society of demigods? "The Endless" and "the Exalted" are already taken, sorry to say, and you couldn't call them gods or devils or any such thing because
those are something else altogether...
Indie games and bad names seem to go hand in hand, neh?
Quote from: droogI do like Dogs in the Vineyard and My Life with Master and Under the Bed and The Shab-al-Hiri Roach and The Mutant Chronicles and Pendragon and Space 1889 and Burning Wheel. Among others. In some cases I like the name a lot more than the game.
I like Pendragon and Space: 1889. The former is because I know what it refers to, and I'm an Arthurophile (so I understand if others think it's a bad name, especially if they don't know the reference). The latter is instantly evocative - I had an idea of what it was before I ever saw it, and it fits the game perfectly.
Quote from: blakkieI don't like that name. Worst name? *shrug* But it is generic system, so i'll say it has at least a bit more flair than "d20" or "Tri-stat".
True. I hadn't thought of d20 or Tri-Stat, but they are, indeed, pretty awful. They evoke nothing.
Quote from: blakkie"Savage Worlds" is better though.
Yes, it is. Without even really knowing anything about it, it tells me the game is about pulp-style adventures. I like pulp-style stories and games, so I have a predisposition to liking the game, and know to check it out just from the name...I just checked out the site for the game, and it looks like the title did, indeed, tell me what I needed to know.
Burning Wheel, though, could be anything. The only thing that leaped to mind when I first heard the title was, oddly enough, something from the book of Ezekiel in the Bible, where Ezekiel witnessed a burning, wheel-shaped flying something-or-other.
Quote from: blakkieAnd you outlined why you don't like, "Dogs In The Vineyard". A gap in your knowledge furthered by you insistance that you have to know the game by the name before you know anything about the game. But as a bad name? They must sell some seriously potent crack down there in Cleveland. :)
I'm
from Cleveland; I haven't lived there for years. And my criteria for a bad name includes one that either evokes nothing, or is so obscure it evokes confusion. So I stand by my assessment.
Quote from: blakkieSynnibar? Now that's pretty damn forgetable, yup. I'll have to think about this a bit though, because the really bad ones are IMO the ones that fall from memory.
Synnibar is bad, in my opinion, because it sounds too much like Cinnabon. I like fresh, hot cinnamon buns to eat, but I have no interest in a game based on them ;)
Quote from: RezendevousAnd could someone please tell me WTF a Fashan is? I've been wondering about that for ages.
Let me see...Fashan is the name of the planet upon which the setting for the game is located.
Quote from: ColonelHardissonI'm from Cleveland; I haven't lived there for years. And my criteria for a bad name includes one that either evokes nothing, or is so obscure it evokes confusion. So I stand by my assessment.
Care package from mom then? :mischief:
Quote from: TechnomancerDog in the Vineyard didn't click with me either. For a long time I thought it was actually about dogs.
:confused: :confused: :confused:
What we have here is a pronounced lack of exposure to culture. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105236/) Seriously, you actually thought someone made an RPG about literal dogs? So you thought Reservoir Dogs was a Disney flick?
Quote from: blakkieSeriously, you actually thought someone made an RPG about literal dogs?
Yeah, cuz nobody would ever make a game about literal animals *cough*bunnies & burrows*cough*
Quote from: blakkieWhat we have here is a pronounced lack of exposure to culture. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105236/) Seriously, you actually thought someone made an RPG about literal dogs? So you thought Reservoir Dogs was a Disney flick?
What's so strange about that? I own a copy of a game about prairie dogs and there are tons of anthropomorphic rpgs.
That said, I think the name's quite good, for me Trollbabe is an easy winner here. It's just a bit sad.
Dogs in the Vineyard a bad name because it is an evocative name, but it evokes the wrong images. It sounds very much like a Reservoir Dogs setup, perhaps in a more rural setting. What it doesn't sound like is a bunch of gun toting preachers in the old west, or a Judeo-Christian Deadlands. I never would have guessed that's what it's about if Google hadn't told me.
Quote from: ColonelHardissonLet me see...Fashan is the name of the planet upon which the setting for the game is located.
Thank you for answering a 25+ year old question for me. :)
Quote from: AkrasiaThank you for answering a 25+ year old question for me. :)
Hey, no problem. That's what the internet's for.
Quote from: blakkieCare package from mom then? :mischief:
:confused: :confused: :confused:
What we have here is a pronounced lack of exposure to culture. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105236/) Seriously, you actually thought someone made an RPG about literal dogs? So you thought Reservoir Dogs was a Disney flick?
Cat: A Little Game About Little Heroes (http://www.wicked-dead.com/cat/)
It's a Dog's Life (http://www.geocities.com/dogs_life2003/)
Tales From the Wood (http://www.geocities.com/talesfromthewood/)
Bunnies and Burrows (http://www.panix.com/~sos/rpg/bunny.html)
And don't forget those damn ducks in RuneQuest.
Now who has a lack of exposure?
Quote from: ColonelHardissonI like Pendragon and Space: 1889. The former is because I know what it refers to, and I'm an Arthurophile (so I understand if others think it's a bad name, especially if they don't know the reference). The latter is instantly evocative - I had an idea of what it was before I ever saw it, and it fits the game perfectly.
Yes, both of those are great titles for name, because they instantly create a mental image of exactly what each game is about, and those images are correct.
Warhammer is a good choice for the same reason, at least if you run it as Sigmar intended.
RPGPundit
Rifts: Dog Boys in the Vineyard
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and other strangenesess.
With all due respect for Mr. Wujcik, of course.
Quote from: SunBoyTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and other strangenesess.
With all due respect for Mr. Wujcik, of course.
But I LOVE that title!
And the game as well, of course!
-clash
Gurps for me. I was so turned off buy the name that I never looked at it. by the time I recovered my tolerance for super complex systems was long gone...
Quote from: TechnomancerTrollbabe may not be the worst, but the name has kept me from ever looking at it. When I hear the name I get a mental image of a big ugly troll (actually I picture an ogre from the old Gummi Bears cartoon in a party dress.
Dog in the Vineyard didn't click with me either. For a long time I thought it was actually about dogs.
FUDGE and GURPS are also pretty bad.
Someone should really do a parody game called "Hey, Ma! There's Dogs in the Vineyard!"
A trollbabe:
(http://www.adept-press.com/trollbabe/images/bw-with-axe.gif)
Quote from: flyingmiceBut I LOVE that title!
And the game as well, of course!
-clash
The game's great, now that's for sure. I still laugh at The Four Sparrows, or the idea of the big handless mutant elephant. But the name's just... strange.
Quote from: SunBoyThe game's great, now that's for sure. I still laugh at The Four Sparrows, or the idea of the big handless mutant elephant. But the name's just... strange.
Thus the "and other strangeness." Truth in advertising! :D
-clash
I'll give you that. :D
Quote from: droogA trollbabe:
(http://www.adept-press.com/trollbabe/images/bw-with-axe.gif)
I just think it's lame.
What really fucked me off was when I said on rpg.net I thought the setting was lame Chris Lehrich suggested it was because I was sexist and was objecting to having to play a female character, which was fucking offensive.
Not the game's fault of course, but my objections to the setting are because I think it is incredibly lame and sad, not because you have to play someone female which is not to me a particularly big issue.
Of course, I have serious disagreements with Ron's views on gender politics which I think are founded largely on bad sociobiology, so it's not surprising I have little time for a game in part predicated on them. That and I thought Heavy Metal was sexist shit to be blunt, and thus have little time for a game celebrating it.
Well, each to his or her own, I guess. I think it's good fun. The chicks seem to go either way, so I don't think it's all about gender.
You're not keen on DitV either, are you?
Quote from: droogWell, each to his or her own, I guess. I think it's good fun. The chicks seem to go either way, so I don't think it's all about gender.
You're not keen on DitV either, are you?
It's like DnD 3/3.5e for me, I think it's a great piece of game design but I don't personally enjoy it.
Trollbabes shorn of setting I have more interest in, so I'm watching for games that use the engine and I think there are one or two on the way.
Dogs for me, the mechanic was too intrusive and too counterintuitive, but that doesn't make it a bad game. Just a game that's not right for my tastes.
Mortal Coil is probably my next indie purchase, My Life with Master easily the best one so far for me.
My least favorite names are from the OGL series that Mongoose put out:
OGL Ancients
OGL Horror
OGL Wild West
OGL Cybernet
OGL Steampunk
I guess they're descriptive, but anything with the term OGL in the title just sounds goofy to me.
Quote from: el diablo robotico... I guess they're descriptive, but anything with the term OGL in the title just sounds goofy to me.
Just read 'OGL' as 'ogle'.
So 'OGL Ancients' becomes '
ogle Ancients', i.e., looking at Athena in a lewd manner.
:drool:
Quote from: AkrasiaJust read 'OGL' as 'ogle'.
So 'OGL Ancients' becomes 'ogle Ancients', i.e., looking at Athena in a lewd manner.
:drool:
*laugh* You may have something there.
PS - I like your avatar at RPGnet better... ;)
Quote from: el diablo robotico... PS - I like your avatar at RPGnet better... ;)
Ahhh yes, the eternal debate: should I use an avatar that accurately represents my actual personality (viz. Black Adder), or an avatar that accurately represents my, er, um, ...
:mischief:
... that appeals to many
other RPG fans.
Dead Inside: the roleplaying game of loss and redemption.
I actually LIKE THE GAME.
But never looked twice at it for almost a year.
Because of the title.
If I ever write "Bad Game Marketing 101" I think I'd call it "Dead Inside Part 2: How to make your game sound really depressing".
Chuck
Quote from: AkrasiaJust read 'OGL' as 'ogle'.
So 'OGL Ancients' becomes 'ogle Ancients', i.e., looking at Athena in a lewd manner.
:drool:
So OGL Horror becomes...Old One tentacle porn?
Quote from: RPGObjects_chuckDead Inside: the roleplaying game of loss and redemption.
I actually LIKE THE GAME.
But never looked twice at it for almost a year.
Because of the title.
If I ever write "Bad Game Marketing 101" I think I'd call it "Dead Inside Part 2: How to make your game sound really depressing".
Chuck
I've never even given it a look solely based on the title. It makes me react thusly:
(http://www.hetemeel.com/haha/40093.I+just+ran+over%20AN+EMO+KID!!!.jpg)
Quote from: RPGObjects_chuckDead Inside: the roleplaying game of loss and redemption.
I actually LIKE THE GAME.
But never looked twice at it for almost a year.
Because of the title.
If I ever write "Bad Game Marketing 101" I think I'd call it "Dead Inside Part 2: How to make your game sound really depressing".
Chuck
Agreed there. Dead inside is a beautiful game that is actually full of hope, but it sounds like a game about sociopaths.
-clash
Quote(I vaguely recall a game, from very old Dragon magazines, called 'Spawn of Fashan'. Thats a pretty cappy name too.)
I've been trying to get a copy of Spawn of Fashan forever.