User:Azya/Sandbox1/Names, Naming, and Flavor

A little rant about flavorful naming, and how I intend to go about it.

What's in a name?
One of the weaknesses of the Oriental Adventures Online supplement (so far the only published campaign setting, if it can really be called that, which is India-inspired) was its decision to change all the names, be it classes, weapons, armor, or items, to names more appropriate for the setting. Names are important, and culturally influenced names can help immerse both the PCs and the DM into the game world, but it is useful only to a point.

That point is when the name changes adversely affect the game itself. Changing psion to "yogi," or fighter to "kshatriya," or even longsword to "kanda," seem like a pretty good idea. And, in principle, it is. However, it is a given that the players and the DM will be unfamiliar with the new names, and in that way changing everything to be "appropriate" can take people out of the game, or even grind the game to a halt as someone looks up what class "brahmin" is supposed to be. That is not optimal.

Some features do not require an Indian sounding veneer. Clubs, axes, knives, and others all exist in India, and they have their own words. But there is nothing that separates an Indian club from a European one, both mechanically and physically. Similarly, "fighter" is a profession that is ubiquitous, no matter the culture. And, certainly, there are Hindi terms for it. But there is no reason to needlessly confuse both DMs and players alike by changing its name.

However, there are certain classes, weapons, and other aspects of the game that require an Indian name, even though they are mechanically indistinguishable from a Western counterpart. When that occurs, the Indian name will simply link to the original article. In most cases, there will be a description of how the class, race, weapon, etc. operates/looks in an India-inspired world, which will be different than the original flavor it had. I do not intend to create a bunch of mechanically identical "variants" when I can simply rename them (and easily direct readers to the original mechanics).