Topic by skluttrell 2019-05-24 15:57:17 (edited by skluttrell 2019-05-24 15:58:44)

  • From: Versailles, KY
  • Registered: 2017-06-22
  • Posts: 94
  • User Karma: 22

I was trying to write a procedural fantasy name generator and found that creating a believable name from scratch is harder than it sounded when I first started. It seems that names aren't just randomly crammed together vowels and consonants after all.


Some names are words that mean something going back generations, and sometimes from dead languages. They are place names, old malformed nicknames, and career paths. Even if We don't know the meaning, there's an underlying pattern to them that makes sense to us on some unconscious level.


I tried different things: choosing random letters, choosing them with rules that varied in complexity which just got more useless and convoluted as I worked outward, and finally I just built a giant list of three to five letter words that was a combination of nonsense letters and real words and names.


That last one seemed to work the best, but being the best turd in the toilet is a relative thing.


Anyone have any suggestions? I've kind of hit a wall here.

***
You can follow me on twitter @s_luttrell and an almost never used Facebook account at skluttrell.

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Reply by magurp244 2019-05-24 23:49:26 (edited by magurp244 2019-05-24 23:52:34)

  • Registered: 2015-05-30
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Words have meaning depending on the context and circumstances in which they are used, it can simply be a matter of constructing a fictional scenario or situation to define its meaning by giving it context. This sort of thing also happens to existing words being redefined to have new additional meaning or contexts.

For example:

The Florbiglast is an alien creature found in the shallow depths of argon vapor on LV723, it typically subsists on impurities in the argon vapor awhilst free floating around, like a terrestrial jellyfish. When agitated however, the Florbiglast tends to constrict itself, resulting in it falling to its unfortunate death on the surface below. When researchers observed this, they took to using the phrase "Florbiglasted" when someone would become agitated and do something that made a situation worse, often resulting in physical self harm, like getting upset at some scientific readings or glitchy equipment, hitting the instrument, and causing themselves harm. "Jim Florbiglasted himself on the scanner yesterday, and ended up in the med center".

So now i've just defined a new word by giving it context, but this could also apply to an existing word by applying a new meaning to it. If the words you put together don't seem to sound right, consider generating flavor text to give them context. Dwarf Fortress in particular does this to a rather extreme degree, generating entire mythologies and civilizations. As an aside, you might want to try mining the Roguelike Genre for ideas, they typically make heavy use of procedural generation, things like the 7DRL competition, Cogmind, Ultima Ratio Regum, etc. There's also a few resources [here] and [here] that might be useful.

-BrushTone v1.3.3: Accessible Paint Tool
-AudiMesh3D v1.0.0: Accessible 3D Model Viewer

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