I have an incredibly stupid idea (You have been warned!)

[Jon_Dahl]

We all know joke names, right? I would guess that most of us have had NPCs and PCs with funny names in their games at one point or another.

I'm the DM in our D&D 3.5 campaign. My idea is to create a situation in which the players meet an important figure who is primarily known by his official title, such as "The duke chief advisor", basically no one knows his real name. When the players meet the chief advisor, he will introduce himself: "Hello, I'm Radio, the chief advisor. Be quick about it!" The thing is that most likely my players' concentration will break when they discover that the NPC's name is Radio and they might lose the chance to persuade the NPC. The NPC will immediately lose his cool and go away if the PCs mock him in any way. Naturally I will treat the NPC's name as a challenge and award XP accordingly.

I wasn't going to make a thread out of this, but I spoke about this with a veteran roleplayer and she was adamantly against chief advisor Radio because the name is so incredibly stupid.

What do you think? And please don't forget that the players will get extra XP for the challenge. Furthermore, please note that the word "radio" does not exist in my game world.

[ChaosStar]

We all know joke names, right? I would guess that most of us have had NPCs and PCs with funny names in their games at one point or another.

I'm the DM in our D&D 3.5 campaign. My idea is to create a situation in which the players meet an important figure who is primarily known by his official title, such as "The duke chief advisor", basically no one knows his real name. When the players meet the chief advisor, he will introduce himself: "Hello, I'm Radio, the chief advisor. Be quick about it!" The thing is that most likely my players' concentration will break when they discover that the NPC's name is Radio and they might lose the chance to persuade the NPC. The NPC will immediately lose his cool and go away if the PCs mock him in any way. Naturally I will treat the NPC's name as a challenge and award XP accordingly.

I wasn't going to make a thread out of this, but I spoke about this with a veteran roleplayer and she was adamantly against chief advisor Radio because the name is so incredibly stupid.

What do you think? And please don't forget that the players will get extra XP for the challenge. Furthermore, please note that the word "radio" does not exist in my game world.
I say go for it.

[Anxe]

Radio is an incredibly stupid name? Ooh my sweet summer child...

[Pugwampy]

I love silly names . I specifically called my priestess Elfie because the dnd guide told me not to name someone Elfie.

I do draw the line if a player wants To call their hero Luvs Two Spooge

[Hellpyre]

I don't understand why you would award experience for your players simply deciding not to mock someone in-character about something that's only a joke OOC.

[jdizzlean]

i would go several steps further and give said npc a stupidly long title that if he isn't addressed as, he then walks away

and of course, not use radio but as mentioned above something idiotic to do w/ the race/town as a name


Sir LightBrownstone the Magnificent, Chief Advisor First class Extraordinaire, Lord of the fifth quill pen to the right, Entrancer of thine holiest Budget line items, Master of the third sub-basement storage unit.

or something to that extent. If you're going to award RP XP, make them earn it. But also give them a chance, have them first come upon him being spoken to by a red shirt or other similarly useless npc and being addressed so.

nothing says you can't have fun with them.

[Palanan]

I would avoid this. You’re essentially setting up your players to fail, by creating an out-of-game distraction to cause some rather contrived problems in the game.

At best this will break immersion and trip up the flow of the game. At worst—well, you know your players better than we do, but none of the groups I’ve played in would take this kindly.

Essentially you’re trying to make real-world player reactions part of an in-game challenge, and you’re assuming up front that those reactions will be negative or disparaging. That’s not a good setup, especially if it becomes obvious that the DM was hoping the players would fail to control those reactions.

This really is unfair and contrived. I wouldn’t do this.

[Venger]

well, that's an admirably honest thread title. don't do this.

[King of Nowhere]

I say, do this. There are people who have dumb-sounding names, especially foreign people (that is, a name may be perfectly fine in its native language but actually have an oscene meaning in another language, for example). And people will not like it if they are mocked for their names. So, giving a character a dumb name and have him react annoyied if the players make jokes. it's nothing but realistic, as long as you don't do it too much.

Heck, I created a land where noble name are intentionally dumb, because it is seen as a status symbol that people will hear you introducing yourself and won't burst out laughing because too intimidated by your social rank. The dumber the name, the more powerful you are, and the worse your revenge over any hapless paesant who may show you disrespect. You may take inspiration from that.

[quark12000]

Why is Radio a funny name?

[Nifft]

Why is Radio a funny name?

I'm assuming it's supposed to be funny because it's an anachronism in a pre-modern fantasy campaign.


This sounds a bit like how the movie extras were told they wouldn't get paid if they laughed in the Monty Python Life of Brian scene involving the name Biggus Dickus. (They did get paid.)

[ericgrau]

Go for it and be prepared to deal with groans from players. As long as they are cool with screwing around it's fine and fun. Don't do this frequently. If they are already fed up and/or won't find it funny, don't do this. Otherwise sure, why not?

Oh, and if you do this keep it as a small part of the session, like under an hour for example.

[Deophaun]

Not against this in principle, but the problem I see in this instance is that the humor comes from the anachronistic nature of the name, which means the reaction is all properly OOC. But you are planning on rewarding/penalizing them for this OOC reaction that you are intentionally soliciting. There is confusion there.

My suggestion is to change the name to something that is considered stupid in the game world so that the characters may appropriately respond inappropriately.

If, however, radio is not an anachronism in your world, then go for it.

[Jay R]

Radio is a funny name if it makes us laugh. It's a mundane name if it pulls us out of the game world and back into our own.


Furthermore, please note that the word "radio" does not exist in my game world.

No, but it exists in the language you are playing in.

What is the purpose of breaking immersion and pulling them back to the 21st century?

Your "challenge" to them is a meta-challenge - a challenge to the players (not the PCs) to take the situation seriously when you didn't. This won't make the game more fun, or the characters more real, or the world more intriguing.

I strongly urge you not to do it.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Jay R
Your "challenge" to them is a meta-challenge - a challenge to the players (not the PCs) to take the situation seriously when you didn't. This won't make the game more fun, or the characters more real, or the world more intriguing.

This exactly. You would be awarding XP to the characters for something they didn’t do, and punishing the characters if the players fall for your bait. That’s not fair, and it does nothing to advance the game or develop the world.

[Recherché]

Not against this in principle, but the problem I see in this instance is that the humor comes from the anachronistic nature of the name, which means the reaction is all properly OOC. But you are planning on rewarding/penalizing them for this OOC reaction that you are intentionally soliciting. There is confusion there.

My suggestion is to change the name to something that is considered stupid in the game world so that the characters may appropriately respond inappropriately.

This. If you want to make a challenge about responding appropriately to something in game then go ahead but you'll take your players out of immersion and make role-playing harder when you challenge them about something that has absolutely nothing to do with the actual game.

[King of Nowhere]

Radio is a funny name if it makes us laugh. It's a mundane name if it pulls us out of the game world and back into our own.



No, but it exists in the language you are playing in.

What is the purpose of breaking immersion and pulling them back to the 21st century?

Your "challenge" to them is a meta-challenge - a challenge to the players (not the PCs) to take the situation seriously when you didn't. This won't make the game more fun, or the characters more real, or the world more intriguing.

I strongly urge you not to do it.
Actually, you can get a good immersion while filling your world of meta-jokes and leaning on the fourth wall.
My world is full of those, from a wizard teleporting people around at very cheap prices but in awful conditions having named his company ryanether (an obvious spoof of ryanair, for those not familiar with flight across europe) to pervasive mythologies of a being ordering the gods like puppets called the dungeon master, but my players are pretty well invested in the world and never complained. the world is an open sandbox where I put a lot of thought on the interactions between magic and society and different societies and the fact that some individuals are more powerful than armies, and that creates realism. when they see a fourth wall joke (such as this monster (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22501962&postcount=14)) my players laugh and then go back into the game world.

[Jay R]

Actually, you can get a good immersion while filling your world of meta-jokes and leaning on the fourth wall.

But that's not what we're talking about here. This appears to be a single modern reference with the express purpose of trying to pull the players out of it.

Form the original post: "The thing is that most likely my players' concentration will break when they discover that the NPC's name is Radio and they might lose the chance to persuade the NPC."

The goal is to break immersion, to see if pulling the players' attention to our world will make the PCs do something that they could not do (since the PCs have never heard of a radio).

[Khedrac]

But that's not what we're talking about here. This appears to be a single modern reference with the express purpose of trying to pull the players out of it.

Form the original post: "The thing is that most likely my players' concentration will break when they discover that the NPC's name is Radio and they might lose the chance to persuade the NPC."

The goal is to break immersion, to see if pulling the players' attention to our world will make the PCs do something that they could not do (since the PCs have never heard of a radio).

And to add what Jay R says here, the players will have a legitimate complaint if you the DM have the NPC react to the players laughing. Because "radio" is not a word in the campaign world's language the characters won't laugh on hearing it, even if the players do.
Now if your players have their characters start making stupid remarks because 'radio' is an English word, then the NPC has grounds to react, but I would only pull a stunt like this if the players commonly have their characters say silly things because of real-life connotations and you are trying to get them to break the habit (though I would ask them not to first).
If you straight up rule that the characters have laughed because of a prank you pulled on the players it is unfair DMing, and what's more if the players ever manage to make you laugh during a monologue or whilst describing an enemy spellcasting they should be able to claim that the NPC just laughed for no reason too...

[Gandariel]

I actually think it's the *correct* way to go about this if he wants to do an RP challenge. The DM *has* to use OOC knowledge for this to be in any way worth RP XP.

Example:

The name "Mark" is feminine in the game world, and a huge barbarian man just introduced himself as Mark.

Player: "My character greets Mark"
DM: "Your characters finds it SO funny it's hard for him not to laugh"
Player: "Um.. he tries not to laugh and just greets him."
DM: " But.."
Player: "...Do i have to roll something?"
It's not an RP challenge at all, the player just says what his character does.

Example 2:

The name "Poopoohead" means nothing in the game world, it's actually a serious noble name.

During a celebration, Lord Poopoohead of House Number Two is introduced.
If the players laugh or make jokes during the event, they will face repercussions.

Yes, the IC characters don't actually have anything to laugh about (because the name is normal in their world), but in this way you are actually challenging your players to RP and fight their urge to laugh.

[Ashtagon]

You're setting up a joke, and rewarding them for not responding to your set-up.

Imagine how upset you'll be when you set up a joke you want them to find funn, and they purposely do not find it funny, thinking it another trap.

In fact, they'll probably start assuming that any set up for anytrhing is best rewarded by not responding to it.

Don't do it.

[weckar]

If I heard that name I'd honestly think nothing of it. It's a good combination of sounds for a name.

[BWR]

Don't do it. It's stupid and playing gotcha, and not in the good way.
If you punish the players and PCs for something the players do that their characters don't, it isn't roleplaying, it's bloody stupid and unfair. If this sort of thing were to be punished my groups would be literally unable to play together. It would, in fact, be you who is failing the roleplaying challenge by not understanding the difference between player and PC.

Punish PCs for stuff the PCs do, not stuff the players do independently of the characters.

However, if the PCs do find the name funny and show it, have NPCs react appropriately.

[Jon_Dahl]

Ok, I won't do it. Thank you.