Barf Forth Apocalyptica
barf forth apocalyptica => Apocalypse World => Topic started by: bonkydog on January 05, 2018, 08:31:11 PM
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Does anyone else have a mild obsession with collecting NPC names?
They pop into my head at any time of day and I jot them down on an index card or my phone.
Writing them down seems to encourage my subconscious to suggest more and more of them.
Adam Cadre has a game where the main characters are named after cities in Oregon and it's just so good.
Went to look at Wikipedia and dumped about 2/3 of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_Oregon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_Oregon) into my file.
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Cool. I grab bundles of them now and then and randomly sort right before a game, but I often find that it works better if I just grab images and imagine who they are and name that. So I tend to work with random image piles in the hundreds (monochrome) or thousands (colors) instead.
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Oh, yeah! I gotta start collecting character photos and inspiring landscapes.
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I think the ease of naming NPCs in Apocalypse World is one of the game's genius features!
Almost any word will do, so long as it rolls off the tongue in the right way. And, since most names are nouns - in particular, nouns which have lost their meaning in the post-apocalypse - you can use their actual meaning to inspire the NPC portrayal.
Want to have an NPC called "Roofie"? How about "Vicar"? They all suggest interesting things about the character.
I had an ambiguously-sexed medical assistant character in my other AW game, and I named them Toyota. It was the perfect fit.
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OK, now I've collected over 550. Some of these are so good -- I can't wait to find out who they are.
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(OK, obsession appears to have burned itself out at 768 names.)
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Whoops, hell not at all.
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OK, no one asked, but I'ma overshare.
I'm MCing my first game in February and I've been daydreaming apocalyptica, but
mostly what comes out is just names. Over a thousand now. They just sort of
float the the surface of my unconscious and then they're up in exploding neon
like Dirk Diggler.
(Please don't get me started about names for bands or spaceships.)
I wanna say: Leap Forward With Named Characters is genius. Tabletop is a textual
medium. It's spoken text, but it's text. When we introduce a character by name,
we meet them. The name's connotations suggest a whole life behind it. A good
name is generative, a seed crystal around which a living character can
self-assemble.
Many of my names are handles, nicknames, words ripped from their context
according to hallowed Apocalypse World tradition.
(There's also an in-fiction reason for this in my world, a widespread
superstition that Bad Things somehow found people by their names during the
apocalypse. Our ancestors discarded their legal names as a hex against
revelation. I might have more to say after I find out more about this.)
Things that seem to push my buttons: (Your buttons may vary.)
Characters who are referred to only by their last name (Vasquez, Steckler).
Homophones (Case, Bering, Planck).
Place names (Corvallis, Calais, Madras, Arcadia, New Jersey).
Names of tools or machine parts (Mattock, Crowbar, Fanbelt).
Names of ambiguous gender (Cassidy, Schuyler).
Women with feminine names that are shortened to masculine names (Sam, Max).
Men with delicate names (Jasper, Quinn).
Nouns that are also adjectives or verbs or which convey a quality of movement
(Mince, Shear, Hopper).
Evocative animal names (Cormorant, Badger, Heron).
Names of inventors that are used to refer to the thing they invented
(especially Halligan).
Names are modifiable with titles, honorifics, and diminutives from as many
cultures as I can get my hands on. (OK, I also have a list of these.) Also,
colors. A few of these make it into the list (Lord Meg, Trash Master, MC Donald,
Ogrina, Remnant King) but you can hack any name as long as the result is cool
and/or affronting.
(Remnant King is actually the name of a carpet store that was on ran ads on the
radio in New Jersey when I was a kid.)
There are names that I love, but which are too prominent in recent pop culture
or are from content too close in tone to Apocalypse World not to feel corny or
distracting. Finn, Stannis, Corvo, Tracer, Chell -- I adore you and all your
running around and getting shot at, but you're not invited to this party. (Uhh,
unless a player insists on bringing you, all starry eyed, in which case I might
have an awkward time turning you away.)
Once a name from pop culture has had time to ripen and ferment, it feels like
fair game again. Thumper is the rabbit from Bambi, but also the device Fremen
use to distract sand worms, and evokes future slang for a defibrillator. Thumper
may be a dashing young angel with inappropriately perky bedside manner and zero
fear of monsters. A good, kinetic name.
I want to avoid mis-applying names in ways that are too on-the-nose or that are
act as slurs. "Ace" is a fine name, but maybe not for an asexual character? I
think "Spade" is a great name for a Gunlugger, but wow OK it's super offensive
if he's African American. Avoid racist caricature.
I love names from cultures different from my own, but as a white guy, I also
want to be careful about appropriation and representation. I love these names,
but I'm also uncomfortable. I'm OK with being uncomfortable. I'm not OK with
making other people uncomfortable.
Meg and Vincent's names from the threat map and playbooks are fantastic. I've
tried to avoid duplicating any of them, though one or two may have snuck in via
parallel invention.
So OK, here are too many names I've collected:
https://gist.github.com/bonkydog/b4fd2863edae3df5a0145705f74502e2
I've put them in a Gist so I don't break Vincent's CMS, so I can add more names
(send help), and so you can fork and modify it if you are some kind of nerd.
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A fine collection!
I can't imagine what you'd ever need that many names for, though...
A counterpoint to consider:
The post-apocalypse is all about scarcity.
Are people a scarcity? Are there only 200 survivors left in the world?
Are names a scarcity? Maybe only so many have survived, and people hold on to them with greedy fingers.
Would you kill someone if they took your name? Is it the only way to get it back?
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I definitely don't need that many, they just keep showing up.
Maybe they need me.
I like your ideas about scarcity.
What about a world where we are nameless until we take a name from someone else?
(When an unnamed kills a named, they assume the name. This is not a crime.)
What if the number of names are decreasing, like musical chairs?
(When a named kills another named, the name dies with them. This is the only crime left.)
Who do I become when I give my name away as a gift?
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Heh. I just keep a really really really long list of names and images, then tell my computer to put them together randomly until I like what I see. Then I drag it into roll20 and tada. In this type of situation, you can never have too many names--unless they're just bad as names.
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Oh wow that sounds like a powerful technique. Mix & match name and image, then recognize compelling pairs.
Evocative words and images randomized, then subjected to the minds pattern recognition.
That's like, Tarot.
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That's really cool, Ebok.
How does it work, from a technical angle? How did you set this up?
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I hacked together a locally hosted javascript application that could upload images, transforming them into monochromatic black or white and resize / cropping them so they look best. With a database of images, I then added a list of names in the database as well. It's like 2400 names long. Then I have a page that read from the list of names and picks from the images randomly and combines it into the following html:
(https://s3.amazonaws.com/files.d20.io/images/34009691/IP0Y0I92N0PojFr8y6IzIg/original.png?14965612445)
Then, because I saved the generated cards to a specific game instance. When I am logged in under that instance, I have access to all previously created cards... and the used name and image are excluded from the those generated using the button. On the page where this card is created, I have a button that takes a screenshot of the html wrapping the card, so I end up with what you see above. I can then upload that to something like roll20 for my players.
The point is I can quickly generate until some combination looks really cool. So if something is just wrong, one button later and it never existed. Then... I got the bright idea to build an entire web application for it so my players could use it to handle their character sheets and we could track associated history between npcs, and group them into names groups, and place them named (and also generated) locations, and record the triangles created during the history of the gameplay... but then I got busy at work and left off in the middle so atm I don't have working version of this. Haha.
The end goal was to build a custom roll20 with a live map, and shared whiteboard using websockets. One that I had full control over and that didn't pander to the D&D. Also, it would be cheaper. And we could save weapon and item lists (since we recreate those for our custom games anyway) I really want to be able to draw on an Ipad for my players, like it was a piece of paper, too. >_> I got overzealous, and burned out.
Hopefully, over the next few weeks or months, I'll get around to publishing the mini version on GitHub or something. Then I can just drop instructions on how to spin up the server and use it for anyone locally. (though with their own image and name list, because I don't want to be dealing with copyrights)
I also wanted the name to be on the side, so I got a perfect square (or above if a landscape oriented image), because I hated getting stuck working with 2x3 squares on roll20. I have roll20 characters sheets too that are intense... but, they're also hacked per game and not really general enough for common publication. (I also hate roll20 custom character sheets, because I want better control of layouts and also javascript.)
Roll20 example: (slightly malformed because I shrank it to fit as much as possible in this labtop's screen. Everything fits on one line and is legible there <_<)
(https://s25.postimg.org/oxb6x7ugf/Screen_Shot_2018-01-12_at_12.27.06_AM.png)
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Ebok, this is glorious.
I mean understand why you want to build the rest of it and I respect your ambition but, fuck.
Just the bit with the names and pictures, that's an artistic tool I want.
I want it for every game I run.
I want everyone to have it for every game they run.
It's simple and powerful and I can't wait to see what comes out of it.
What can I do to help make this happen?
(I'm also super curious to see your name list.)
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I second all of that!
Wow.
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I'll get it up and running again once work settles down. I might strip out the server and switch to a different method of data storage so I can package it for other people. I won't have much in the way of free time unto somewhere mid-February. I'll be sure to post any updates you guys might want to take advantage of.
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Fantastic, Ebok.
I bet it would be a *tremendously* popular AW resource, if you're at all motivated by that! I know I would immediately recommend it to everyone I know who's interested in the game, for instance.
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I just realized another reason I love this project.
It produces a textual artifact that expresses layers of meaning in homophonic names and weird orthography (e.g. "Ferrous", "III") that may be less accessible in the spoken name.
Once the name has been seen in written form, these layers continue to resonate in speech.
Spelling counts.
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Sam Kabo Ashwell's Apocalypse Fuel (http://samkabo.com/ApocalypseFuel/) has a great name generator -- mostly list based, but with a little bit of procedural transformation and great combinations. A sample:
Urm
Rat
Bo Shotgun
Lupin
Dump Bounder
Velvet Lark
the Gorgon Lord
Granola
Wicked Lupin
Bomb Sev
New Sig
Dragon Basher
Autumn
Squicky Squicky
Bog Partner
Sinclair Trembly
Pleasure Boris
Saffron Mo
Badluck
the Crusher Madame
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I don't create specific lists for the first session. I use the one on the threatmaps.
Then after the 1st session, I build a list for the players, and I take it from the feeling of the session. Here's an example from my last game.
2 players couldn't make it so we started with 2 players + 1 MC (me). Playbooks are Hardholder and Brainer.
The players wanted an old school wasteland madmax/fallout type of game. The Hardholder chooses a broken aircraft carrier lost in the wasteland as a holding. We play the game and create a bunch of NPC with the game's list: Roark, Spicey, etc.
Then after the 1st session I googled "aircraft carrier", "naval glossary", "military glossary", looked for illustrations and maps of aircraft carrier, to get an idea of what could be found there, and imagine some names, sometimes twisting them to give a "forgotten" feeling.
I ended up with : Amiral, Commander, Torpedo, Sonar, Control, Tower, F16, Deck, Dock, Enola Gay, Prop (for propeller), Mess, Lunchbox, Ballast, Avera, Starboard, Ironclad, Mayday, Bisco, Brick, Vietnam, Cean, Titude, Royal NAvy, Pothole, Watch, Iceberg, Turbine, Lash, Moor, etc.
I made another list, with evocative names but without a shared theme. I voluntary mixed the order randomly so when one reads the list, he founds mixed themes, and not a logical chain between them. Molly, Demon, Venom, Iggy, Shazam, Blizzard, Chili, Viper, Motorhead, Crowley Aaron, Ven, Bomber, Melody, Rage, Atrium, Mars.
I do this second list so the player will have choices in evocative themes.
I gave these lists to the Hardholder, with these stuffs from Hatchet City, plus specifications from the game.
Dear Hardholder,
Choose your gang :
- Border patrol. Leader : _________. Others : Taboo, Maniac, _______ and others.
- Personal security. Leader : _______. Others : 47, Mr. Whamma, _________ and others.
- Hit & run. Leader : __________. Others : Karkass, Screw, __________ and others.
- Defenses. Leader : __________. Others : Kick, Smash, ____________ and others.
- Enforcers. Leader : __________. Others : Roark, Franz, ____________ and others.
Some of these blanked spaces are already fit with names, because we played it during 1st session. I add the following part, depending on the hardholder's choices of holding options.
Choose your population :
- Doc. Leader: Kash. Two assistants : Krass, Tumor.
- Armory. Secured by ____________.
- Stewardship. Overseer : _______. Others: Coyote, Axel, _____ and others.
- Factory. Leader : GrandMa. Overseers : White, Lala, Pellet. Workers : Tao, Groum.
- Harem. Overseer : ________. Women : Ouija, Blanche, Spicey, ______ and others.
- Crude farming. Overseer : _______. Others : Mex, Popcorn, ________ and others.
- Hunting. Leader : Roadster. Others : Crispy, Koko, _________ and others.
- Scavenging. Leader : ________. Others : Skiff, Solo, _________ and others.
I ask the hardholder to fill names in the blank. Last time my PC (new to AW) was really excited and wanted to make plans for NPC between sessions. I politely refused and I send my name list with this part, writing "Would you fill this list with names during our next session, while I explain the game to the 2 new players. If you're really excited, you may do it before the session, but don't make any description or backgrounds for NPC. Just fill names into blank spaces. Remember, there is no statut quo in Apocalypse World."
During the session, I asked some provocative questions to the Brainer. Something like this.
"Brainer, who is haunting your worst nightmares. Pick a name on the holding's list of name. It can be an unused named, but I invite you to use used names in the gang or the population part." Then I continue to ask provocative questions, inviting players to pick names from the Hardholder's choice.
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Those are great techniques!
I've been thinking a lot about designing approaches to RPG play (and this is particularly suited to AW) where you start with a list of names for NPCs, and then "target" them in various ways in order to create a starting situation for play. (You can see some of that here: http://apocalypse-world.com/forums/index.php?topic=9096.0)
I very much like how you're doing that in your game. (Again, it's very much in line with some tricks I've been thinking about myself lately.)
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Ebok,
I wonder if anything ever came of sharing your picture+name generator for NPCs? That would be glorious! Please share, if you ever get around to it.
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Haven't got around to putting the app back together yet. Partly because my AW game which was the driving motivation has shifted into a DW type of thing for awhile. I'm planning to put it together, though don't expect it to be done soon, unfortunately.
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I understand! If you ever get around to it, though, I think it will be very warmly received. An excellent idea.