Naming Nations/Oceans/Etc.

[CcMuffins00]

I was just curious so here it goes....

As a huge nerd with tons of fandoms my friend and I in the world we've built have occasionally used names from Video games, comics, shows, books, etc that we've liked because well it's our roleplay world. Do you guys find that you do that too. I made a pretty detailed map for our world, with regional and political borders, but didn't want to post it for fear that the response would be "You stole that." Any thoughts on the matter?

[Hermit]

Hi CCMuffins,

I, also, am a huge nerd (not physically speaking though). I play several d20-based and RPG-style games as well as tabletop homebrews and have run into exactly what you are asking about. I find that, generally speaking, using names or ideas from other series' or fandoms can be fun but it can distract from what you are trying to create.

For instance, I enjoy Lovecraft and have named several oceans some form of "R'lyeh." Whenever I do this I enjoy the nod that I am making to my inspiration, but what inevitably happens is a player or spectator becomes aware that a quest associated with this place will be Lovecraftian in nature or have the system's version of Lovecraftian. This is why I think it is a double-edged sword.

In the first place it is nice to have inside concepts and references to make among friends. This reinforces your group identity and makes you feel safe and connected to them. However, in the second instance, you are being somewhat lazy in relying on your references to build a sense of place or a feeling about a particular landmark. I am not trying to be preachy, I also fail sometimes and am very lazy most of the time. But if you can take the initial idea or inspiration that comes from a reference you want to make or a name that you would like to use and then BUILD off of that idea into your own concept and feel, that is where you actually want to be. Because then, your world is truly yours and while you can list influences and inspirations, the content was created by you.

All of this is to say I think using referential names in map-making (and gaming in general) is like playing with lit dynamite. It can go off in your hand and ruin your day, or it can blow a hole in that mountain and make your day way easier. Overall, I'm not going to judge you if you named some stuff on your map after things you like. We all do similar things, and I would like to see your map anyway.

[Sifu]

Good info, thanks.

[CcMuffins00]

Oh you're absolutely right. I think that when world creating you can easily get a bit too distracted by the inspiration for such a world. It's a valid point.

Definitely not preachy!

But yeah, I think the good thing about our roleplay is (well it's not traditional table top rp it's really just interactive story telling between the two of us), that we're both really excited about going beyond just what we see or have and usually our fandoms don't interlap. He's a huge fan of FFXIV which (due to computer situations) I haven't played. While I'm a huge fan of XII and Star Wars two fandoms that played a huge part in the building of two specific nations.

[krinnen]

Being a huge nerd and conlanger myself, I go the other way. I have created several language families from scratch, and use them for naming, both on mymaps, and in my rpg settings.

However, for some campaigns I have a couple of dictionaries at hand, ath look up words for quick naming. In the last Burning Wheel campaigns I ran, I had spanish-mapudungun, spanish-quechua, and spanish-guaraní dictionaries at hand for flavor.

[Zavael]

I sometimes stole names from games/movies/works that I like, but I always changed a few characters to create something similar but not same
krinnen: I found some african lang translations appealing too bay - baai, town - dorp, tall - hoog etc

[Tenia]

Hi,
Personaly I don't think that one person on that forum will say that "you have stolen it", there are so many and so damn good tribute maps here. Call it a tribute or fan map and that should be ok. Of course, if someone or a company sues you, I won't pay your legal fees

[GSEC]

Deleted by user.