How Lists of Names Help Gamemasters

No-prep GMing can be very rewarding. However, one of the biggest pitfalls can be names.

Coming up with exciting people and place names on the spot can be the death of even the best gamemasters.

The main trick to not having every NPC named Bob or every town named Springfield is to have lists of names with you while GMing.

Have a list of names near as you GM

A simple solution is to print out a list of names and keep the list handy as you are running the RPG session. Just keep it in your papers or notes at the gaming table.

A better solution is to have a random table of names. A random table allows you to simply roll the dice for a name and move on.

Always a time when you need a name

Players always ask for names. Let me repeat, players always ask for names. It is important to be prepared.

Not having a name ready to go can break the mood or throw players out of the session. Also, having a name that doesn’t fit the world or time period will break the mood as well.

Do not have NPCs named Bob unless you want to

I ran many sessions where I would be caught without an NPC name and they would always end up being named Bob. This might seem fun at the time but it really breaks the mood of the session.

A random table of names not only gives you a name that fits the culture or the time period in which your RPG is set, but they can lead to fun coincidences that you would not have thought of.

For example, not too long ago my gaming group and I were playing my post-apocalyptic OpenD6 game called Anarchy. I’m running the session and a player meets an insane man raving in the street.

What does the player do? He asked the man his name, because he did not want to engage in combat.

Since Anarchy is a near-future game the names are somewhat fairly common names that we have in the United States today.

Oh, no. This was a random encounter in a session I did not prep for. What was I to do?  I pulled out a random table of names and I rolled on it.

The name I rolled was James.

A very common name fitting the time period and the NPC’s age. Do you know what was really interesting?

The player character’s name was James as well.

Now if I would have just made up a name on the spot I might have chosen Bob as already mentioned, or Peter, or Michael, or Charles, or Travis. I most certainly would not have chosen James since the PC was named that.

Of course, meeting someone with the same first name is a common experience the vast majority of us experience all the time. But it took rolling on a random table for me to think of doing it in a session.

The NPC and PC having the same name led to some very interesting interactions and exceptional role-playing from my player all springing from a random tables of names.

Don’t forget town names

Many books contain names for people. However, there are very few random table books that have names for towns.

If you need a town name quick it is best to have a random table on hand, because a stupid town name has a way of sticking around an RPG campaign for a long time.

Keep a List of Names

Simply add a list of names or some random tables of names to your gamemaster tool kit. You will never be sorry you did.

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