Confessions of a Game-Mistress

I’m a fanatic about names. My players can tell you, I’d sooner fudge an NPC that give a stupid name. Names have power. Names provide us with a preconceived image of what they’re attached to. Accordingly, I agonize over them.

It strikes me as odd that with my obsession, I’ve never spent time considering the names of my adventures. I don’t often name them. I think that’s a trend I’m going to change. I’ve been considering ways to improve my stories by looking at those writers I admire in the media. Three of my favorite shows are Babylon 5, Firefly, and Battlestar Galactica. In examining those shows I noticed several things that they had in common. The first of these was the episode titles. In fact another show that I’ve basically never watched stood out in my mind for the titles alone - Andromeda.

After that revelation, I began to look at the titles themselves. Why did they stick out in my mind? Evocative words. It’s no surprise to any gamer, especially a GM, that some words carry more weight than others. Which makes a better image in your mind: group or cabal?

Reflecting on that, I took a look at what I was giving the group to look at in the calendar: An endless repetition of the name of the setting, or maybe if lucky, the name of the campaign. When you flip into the TV Guide to decide your evening’s entertainment, are you disappointed when they just give you the show name, and no episode name? I am, and I think that game titles will help set player expectations for the night. Leaving the titles evocative but vague will give me wiggle room for short-notice changes, but give players an idea of what to expect.

Here’s an example: One of my current campaigns is the “Shadow Elite”, an ‘evil’ campaign. The characters are an elite ‘troubleshooting squad’ of the best the Shadow Thieves (Forgotten Realms) has to offer. They are handed missions which fall outside the scope of the usual Guild activities, and are expected to use any means necessary to complete them. (Think of them as the dark equivalent of the ‘Mission Impossible’ team - right down to their being deniable assets with no paper trail to their organization if they fail.)

Their current mission involves infiltrating a city outside of the Thieves’ control, and undermining the thieves’ guild there, in preparation for a Shadow Thieves takeover. Before, this would be one more “Shadow Thieves - 6 PM” line item in the calendar. Now, the name of the next episode is: “The Elements of Decay”. What’s going to generate more interest?