something to say about accents, lol.

I've talked about this with folks I teach or advise -- don't "try to do an accent".

Just talk funny. 'Sposta's point about using figures of speech, switching up between formal and informal words (ain't instead of there isn't), and just trying on Yoda-isms. If you do try an accent, don't think you are going to do it right or well, because unless youa re getting paid to do accents, it ain't worth the effort.

THe point is to have fun, to be a little silly and then just grab that silly and make it seem real.

I add in little mannerisms, as well., and lots of expressions.

Quote from AEDorsay >>

something to say about accents, lol.

I've talked about this with folks I teach or advise -- don't "try to do an accent".

Just talk funny. 'Sposta's point about using figures of speech, switching up between formal and informal words (ain't instead of there isn't), and just trying on Yoda-isms. If you do try an accent, don't think you are going to do it right or well, because unless youa re getting paid to do accents, it ain't worth the effort.

THe point is to have fun, to be a little silly and then just grab that silly and make it seem real.

I add in little mannerisms, as well., and lots of expressions.

 I agree with everything here, but I would like to advocate for accents for a moment! If you can do an accent particularly well then it deserves to be used! But only, and I mean only, for a very important character. If you have that one accent you are highly skilled with then you should pull it out once, maybe once per campaign, but maybe just once. That voice will stick in your player’s heads and that NPC will be associated with being different and important.

Keep in mind you can do “voices” without doing accents too. I make my voice high and ready for a particular little old man NPC I have, or sweet and lilting for a fairy godmother NPC, or low and gravelly for a particular villain, or harsh and raspy for another. Voices are relatively easy, it’s accents that are hard.

Had a wild hair and created a system for figuring out how much treasure is available in a given circumstance. Calling it "Hoards", and the only ting it doesn't account for is the legendary bed of coins of a Dragon, which, really, is super not going to happen, lol. 

My rough estimate of a single encounter with a max CR critter at 20th level comes out to roughly 20k gp as their hoard, more if they come from a different plane or have a lair. Meanwhile, a goblin will have enough coin to maybe buy a night's stay at an inn.

So proud of it I uploaded it right way, lol. Hoards.

So I came to a conclusion finally about Beholders.

A Beholder has a roughly spherical body surrounded by ten tentacles that each end in ten finger-like tendrils. In the center of its front and back on each side is a single large eye situated above a horizontal slit and a many toothed maw. To the side of the Central eyes on each side are two smaller eyes on stalks, much like a snail, and they are considered the danger, though there is much worse.

So my beholders only have six eyes to worry about, but also have up to six tentacle attacks each turn, and pretty nasty bites.

Hontakilas are much worse.

QotD: How do you name things? Do you stick some relevant words into Google Translate and find something that sounds good? Do you string together a bunch of random syllables? Do you steal from pop culture? Do you just describe the things?

Quote from Quar1on >>

QotD: How do you name things? Do you stick some relevant words into Google Translate and find something that sounds good? Do you string together a bunch of random syllables? Do you steal from pop culture? Do you just describe the things?

I've done a lot of the Google Translate method for geography and other significant names. I actually translated all the schools of magic into Greek to get region names (each region in my homebrew continent is based on a school of magic).

Quote from Quar1on >>

QotD: How do you name things? Do you stick some relevant words into Google Translate and find something that sounds good? Do you string together a bunch of random syllables? Do you steal from pop culture? Do you just describe the things?

 I do all those things. I do this for my PCs as well as for my campaign world.

Quote from Quar1on >>

QotD: How do you name things? Do you stick some relevant words into Google Translate and find something that sounds good? Do you string together a bunch of random syllables? Do you steal from pop culture? Do you just describe the things?

Oh my... 

How do you name things? With indecisive insistence and an eye to familiarity. (I am going to pay for this...)

Do you stick some relevant words into Google Translate and find something that sounds good? I have never done this that I can recall. Which is not the same as not doing it -- I probably have, it just wasn't for anything all that important to me. Especially since I rarely use google translate for anything other than actual work situations or some social media post. I'm a some time conlanger, so I wouldn't use google translate for such, I would painstakingly create some weird ass language and suddenly have gēpoukyi thwu vyuthreitlou sâ asã dûwhãfyū ēyân dûwhãfyū. Which btw, is a not accurate transliteration of "a strange sentence or name that is unique". I will spend weeks of 8 hour days on Vulgarlang, lol.

HOwever, that pulls up a point that does have an impact on how I name things: I have a very strong tendency to use the same set of 70 or so sounds. While I used to spend days creating ornate scripts in the 80's, these days a strange sentence or name that is unique try to confine myself to very recognizable in english letter set ups, and one day I will likely get back into creating fonts that will inevitably be used. I just don't want to spend another several hundred dollars for the in depth font stuff I would have to spend, because I never do bit or line design digitally -- I always have to scan it in. One day I will hire an artist to make a couple scripts for me.

Do you string together a bunch of random syllables? On very, very rare occasions. In my new setting, there are only about three times that I did that. I usually avoid it unless there is a particular reason to do so and I can't think around it.

Do you steal from pop culture?  This is mostly the closest to what I do. And of all the stuff, I have to say that noting had a bigger impact on how I approached naming things that Stephen Donaldson's Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. I still remember how reviews ripped him to shreds for using the simplest words -- but there is greater poetry around it, and I have long followed a bit of the same idea and approach in my work. He did a similar thing in his Mordant's Need series, but he went more towards how I do things. I mean, the kingdom is called Mordant. Wonderful word.

Because I love words (she says as she starts her fifth paragraph), my work and my passions rely heavily on words, and I have a strong need for precision and accuracy and intent in my use of words. So, most of my names come from words or from other names that are already in the lager, broader awareness, usually drawn from myth, legend, folklore, and history. 

I mean, the Seven Cities of my game world refers to Sibola, Akadia, Durango, Dorado, Lyonese, Qivira, and Aztlan. "The seven cities of gold", Cibola, El Dorado, Quivira, Durango comes from not the colorado city, but rather a lifelong fascination with something called "the durango curve", a stretch of I-10/I-17 in Phoenix AZ, lol. Acadia is from the french colony that picked up and left new orleans and moved north and started Quebec (and has an even longer history). Lyonese is even tied to Arthurian legend (and the continent is Avilon, also tied there), and I have places named Shangrila, and more. The DM knowledge only Pirate Island in the heart of the Seven Seas (and all the seas take their name from the mares of the moon) is called Shanghai.

People is whatever name sounds good, and usually has a private joke that may or may not be visible to others (the only surviving child of the Emperor is named Princessa Himesama). I do have a fondness of taking recognizable names and tweaking them a bit. The main "evil god" is a guy named Colonel William Lyle. He went by Bill. He is known these days as Belial.

Do you just describe the things? Names are descriptive in USian culture and history -- this is why there are Taylors and Farmers and Smiths and Iris, and Daisy, and Petunia and the list goes on, lol. The Sea of Showers is known for being gifted by some rainfall now and then, while the Sea of Storms is, well, pretty rough travel during certain times of the year. I pulled the names from the mares of the Moon, but used them descriptively for what they are.

One thing I did this time around was not really name the mountains. Every place has their own names for them, so that I can make it up as I go along. It also allowed me to really go for a strange idea I took from the setting I created and ran a campaign in during the creation of this -- mountains that cannot be crossed. It was a key feature of why a certain historically period was bad (and why there is a long twisty path on my continent map).

So, I use my knowledge of history, of words, of myth, legend, fable, and folklore, of some pop culture, and mostly of direct and pointed reference in an oblique way. I do it because while I can go off and create all the fanciful languages I want, or go back to ones I created decades ago, I still have a love of presenting something just slightly off, using a set way of writing it that is phonological and syllabic, but that's still tells you something in your mind's hind end about what you are dealing with.

Aztlan is the mythical homeland of the Aztecs. On Wyrlde, it is the home of an Amazonian women's kingdom that won a war to take over Sibola and then decided to leave and start from scratch. Most of the names in my world can be found from something like that. The Oloshe are Spirits whose name comes from Tokoloshe. Numen are ancient Greek house Spirits. I have fun, and look to the name as a feel in the mouth and the mind.

drû ãsm ēyân tsãnūnt iðeigyar tû methleqâ vyemēranyïr she mãdrou nyawētsärsper. For what it's worth. 

Quote from Quar1on >>

QotD: How do you name things? Do you stick some relevant words into Google Translate and find something that sounds good? Do you string together a bunch of random syllables? Do you steal from pop culture? Do you just describe the things?

 It depends.

What things am I naming?

My dog?

My kids?

Depends on what things you are asking me that I name.

See what I did there?

Quote from Quar1on >>

QotD: How do you name things? Do you stick some relevant words into Google Translate and find something that sounds good? Do you string together a bunch of random syllables? Do you steal from pop culture? Do you just describe the things?

 
What exactly do you mean? Name what? For most D&D stuff I usually just go with the first thing that pops into my head. I name with my gut so to speak.

Quote from SirTawmis >>

Quote from Quar1on >>

QotD: How do you name things? Do you stick some relevant words into Google Translate and find something that sounds good? Do you string together a bunch of random syllables? Do you steal from pop culture? Do you just describe the things?

 It depends.

What things am I naming?

My dog?

My kids?

Depends on what things you are asking me that I name.See what I did there?

All of the above. How are the little ones, anyways? I heard that Spot got into college.

Quote from IamSposta >>

Quote from Quar1on >>

QotD: How do you name things? Do you stick some relevant words into Google Translate and find something that sounds good? Do you string together a bunch of random syllables? Do you steal from pop culture? Do you just describe the things?

 
What exactly do you mean? Name what? For most D&D stuff I usually just go with the first thing that pops into my head. I name with my gut so to speak.

Anything. Characters, regions, gods, organizations, monsters, Tawmis's dog, Tawmis's kids.

Oh, pets?

um...

I had a teeny tiny poodle named Pixie, a gray cat named Kaenafelis, a white dog that was overly enthusiastic named Hellyeah, and I currently have a dog born in March named April whose middle name changes with my mood.

Sorry, not going to share my kids names, but they are all boringly normal. I wanted to name my youngest Orion, but that was a flat out refusal. We all have our crosses to bear...

All of my fellow canadians/americans... Happy thanksgiving (tomorrow as I'm writing this)

Quote from DoodleCrisp >>

All of my fellow canadians/americans... Happy thanksgiving (tomorrow as I'm writing this)

 happy day of turkeys

Yay! Wanna rp?

Quote from Quar1on >>

Quote from IamSposta >>

Quote from Quar1on >>

QotD: How do you name things? Do you stick some relevant words into Google Translate and find something that sounds good? Do you string together a bunch of random syllables? Do you steal from pop culture? Do you just describe the things?

 
What exactly do you mean? Name what? For most D&D stuff I usually just go with the first thing that pops into my head. I name with my gut so to speak.

Anything. Characters, regions, gods, organizations, monsters, Tawmis's dog, Tawmis's kids.

 Well, for the Characters, regions, gods, organizations, and monsters I would name them the first thing that popped into my head. For dogs I keep throwing names at them until they respond to one, essentially letting the dog pick its name. For Tawmis’s kids I would probably let Tawmis and his SO do the naming.

Happy thanksgiving to all! :)