Discussion on name change

[Edge]

Jul 5, 2015 14:29:36 GMT -5 theshobit said:

Jul 5, 2015 14:03:15 GMT -5 Edge said:

.... really? O.o

Yep! She introduced herself as Krix and they called her Vel. It happened enough for me to LETO. How sad is that?

Wow. That's... Yeah I never had a problem getting people to say Lia instead of Cyrillia, so it kind of baffles me, I guess.

[Fire Wraith]

To some degree it's a personal comfort thing. I do think that if the spoken/used name isn't clear, it should be in (single) quotes. That's not to say it's mandatory, just my suggestion. I prefer to avoid situations where one player at worst gets accused of metagaming, or even simply just disrupts the flow of RP by having to OOCly correct someone. We're human (most of us at least) and we make mistakes, forget that Robert always goes by Bob, -NEVER- Robert, and call him that because his name above his head displays that.

In cases like my PC, where a name is used interchangeably by the character (Eve or Evelyn) and is a common (RL) shortening, I don't find it necessary. If her name was something more exotic, such as with the obligatory fantasy apostrophes, umlauts, and other oddities, I'd probably put the 'used' name in quotes.

For instance:

Jackson, who goes sometimes by Jack, wouldn't need it, but Jaktherius 'Jack' Takmeretrix might.

These, of course, are merely my suggestions.

As regard name changes, I'd say they fall into the similar category with most major changes to a character. We aren't opposed to doing them, but we want them to be for good reasons and not simply on a random whim. This isn't to suggest anyone has, merely stating that because of the impacts it has on our systems, we give them a little more scrutiny than most garden variety LETO requests.