A Goblin by any other name

I’ve been playing Dungeons & Dragons since the fifth grade, and although it’s a lot of work, I enjoy being the Dungeon Master and running games for friends.

I’m a very story-driven DM, and I frequently bend rules, fudge dice rolls, and ret-con events if it means my players have a great time and we write a great adventure together.

However, combat is a part of the game, and at some point, everyone will roll initiative and start fighting. When that happens, typically, roleplaying stops and tactical thinking begins. This drives me absolutely nuts. How do I get my players to remember that their roleplaying options are available to them once combat begins?

Well, I accidentally discovered a trick to do just that.

My gaming group consists of friends who live in different states, so we play virtually. We talk to each other via Discord and use D&D Beyond for character sheets and battlemaps (along with other online tools I may discuss in later posts). Prep time for me usually includes drawing a battlemap and populating it with monsters and NPCs via D&D Beyond’s token system.

I was setting up our first encounter early in our campaign and was displeased with how the goblins in the encounter were labeled. It made the encounter feel boring and easy to me. I was worried they would take one look and say “meh, three goblin warriors, big whoop.”

So I renamed all the tokens with random names I came up with on the fly. It didn’t matter what their names were, just so long as they weren’t “random goblin.” Maybe it would help make the world feel more real in the process.

What I didn’t expect was how giving these monsters names would completely change how my players interacted with them. They assumed Boss Boggut was in charge of the group and stronger than the rest. And that led to in-game roleplaying where one of my players tried to negotiate with the boss mid-encounter.

Everyone was also immediately curious why one goblin was named No-run, and that inspired me to decide this goblin fought to the death even when the odds were stacked horribly against him. He never ran. It implied a history too. That the other goblins called him that because in previous battles he showed incredible mettle.

Since that night, I’ve named all my monsters and NPCs and let the randomness lead to improvisation that takes the game to fun places.

Some of the NPCs my players have encountered since implementing this new system include: Gleebo, Nib-snack, Gus Chiggens, Glitterpetal, Squeeks, and Cheddar Doom.

Just be sure to write down the names you come up with. For you, they were random and made up on the fly, but when they make an impression on your players, they’ll remember and you won’t. You’ll be playing three sessions later saying things like “Remember when you talked to Glittersprinkle or whatever her name was?”

No good. Takes your players right out of the moment. Remember, being a Dungeon Master is all about making your group think that how things turned out was what you had planned all along.

P.S. Before you go, may I remind you that the entire PvP archive (my Eisner and Harvey Award-winning webcomic) is available for digital download in brilliantly convenient ebooks? It’s true!