The Naming Game

(Credits to: Order of the Stick for the image http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1030.html)

One of the best yet the funniest moments while playing Table Top RPG is what my friends and I call "The Naming Game".  We've played a bunch of RPG systems from DND type, GURPS and of course, our favorite the White Wolf and all of them gives us the freedom to name people, places, weapons, things, fighting style, etc. There are those moments when it was easy to name something as it would be pretty obvious.  Other times, it's really hard, there were moment of discussion that sometimes becomes a heated debate followed by voting on the best name.

We've enjoyed "The Name Game" so much that it was our go-to side game whenever the campaign is taking too long for an episode to finish, or a debate on an action that has both GM and player reach a stalemate.

My favorite Name Game moment was that time we've actually called a place "The Plateau of Sunken Meat". It was a location that my GM have so vividly described for us.  The place was so full of fictional history and culture with dazzling stories of battles in the location, a story of love found and lost, a poetry of nature and man in perfect harmony.  He narrated it with such detail and clarity, all of us would just close our eyes and we could see the place as if it was really there.  But when we asked what the name of the place was, he just stared at us blankly and said that he didn't think of a name for the place yet.

It was the biggest mistake on our GM's part of not naming the place.  The un-named location was the placed in our Name Game pool and already discussions were being done.  Name suggestions were voiced out by the members and the debate started, putting our main campaign aside so that we can have a go at naming the sacred place our GM described.

The discussion lasted until there were only two names: The Land of the Moss and The Plateau of Sunken Meat.  I really forgot how the two-name givers gave their spiel on why their name should be chosen. But I remember thinking that "The Land of The Moss" was so similar to "The Land of the Lost" that I personally voted for "The Plateau of Sunken Meat" mainly because it sounded unique.

For whatever reason. Maybe it was also the same reason for the others, we've voted for the Plateau and the name won and stuck and still after so many years of playing the same campaign, we still go back to that majestic location of epic battles and deep seated lore with the funny name.