Naming Guidelines Poll

Going to try to explain why I think at least relatively strict naming conventions are good and why I like seeing them. In a word: Lore.

Beestation doesn’t have much, but I like when people making characters respect what is actually there - I want someone who built a character within the universe we have established and are playing in, not someone who built a character specific only to their own whimsical imagination. I want to see aliens that follow a generally shared culture - not homogenous but also not every other one being a stand-out that doesn’t fit in with their own culture at all.

You have read my primary point, nothing beyond this point is probably worth reading to the average person. It is late and the rest of this post is probably going to be a bit more of a ramble than an organized part of my point.

Why are moths latin when latin is a human derived language IRL? It’s meant as a parallel. Making an actual alien culture and language is possible, but it’s much easier to borrow or take inspiration from an existing culture or mixture of cultures to define an alien species. What comes to mind if I ask you to think of a typical dwarven accent? I’ll bet what came to mind was a mixture of Scottish and Irish despite those being actual dialects too.

There isn’t much in the way of lore on Bee, but one thing all species do have is naming conventions. It is not obscenely restrictive to your ability to RP for you to be asked to name your character appropriately to the given lore. Yes it is absolutely annoying to be told to change a name later, but this can be avoided by simply following the rules from the start instead of hoping not to be noticed.

Good characters do not need a special name to set them apart from others - they stand out because they are good characters. Taylor the QM is a boring human and one of the more memorable faces on the station, for example. You can also still give plenty of meaning to a character name while following the outlined naming formats too.

I’ll close out this rambling with some questions from a DM perspective:

When you’re making a new character in an established setting with other people, do you go along with what the universe and conventions already existing in their universe, or do you insist on re-writing what is already written? (This isn’t to say there aren’t room for improvements, but simply improving the restrictions isn’t what is being proposed or requested)

When you’re choosing a species for your character, is it because of how they look, their mechanical advantages, or because you want to RP someone from an alien race with a unique culture? (This is especially targetted at Jane the lizard and Steve the moth).

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What if you made it an RP gimmick that your character is whatever the species equivalent of a Weeaboo would be. Like, a moth wanting to be human would never speak moffic, want their wings removed, eat meat even if if made them puke, ask questions about what a human would feel in certain situations.

I play a character with that sort of gimmick. It allows you to play out those differences in culture and speices with others and how it can effect your character. Though I follow the guildelines for their name it does mean that their sort of stuck in a loop since they can never progress to having a human-like name.

The problem is that putting all these regulations doesn’t encourage roleplaying at all, in fact I feel it dampers it since it forces players to make characters one way.

I agree with this but I do believe that someone’s name is a big part of their character. If Taylor had to change his name would he still be Taylor anymore?
The only other than their appearance (which on SS13 isn’t saying much) the only thing that establishing a character is their name. Rob that from someone and that character loses a part of their identity.

Lore would be nice, but I don’t believe lore should be something that is forced down people’s thoats either.

Lore should be dressing anyways, something that RPers can take pieces of to work on how their character fits into the universe and not treated like it’s the bible.

This would be a different if Beestation was a super RP forced server with a extended lore but neither those things are true and let’s face it, it never will be.

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Better examples for this would be:

Cordswitch Bos → Cordswitch
Kerlin Lunae Lumen → Kalavi Lumen
Fitz ‘Dave’ Sholl II → Fitz Sholl or Dave Sholl

The First and last, yes I absolutely would still treat them like the same person because the names have barely changed. The middle one, no the name changed pretty dramatically instead of just being trimmed. Lunae Lumen would have still be recognizable as the same person (and also been pretty thematically a “John Smith” among moth names, since it essentially means “Moonlight”)

Cordswitch Bos didn’t change their name to just Cordswitch. In fact the last time I seen them on Bee they went back to being an IPC named CBOS (a name that he choiced himself over something that was forced onto him) and plays Cordswitch Bos on servers that will accept the name.

As for the other examples I don’t know if they changed to the names you have here (I haven’t personally seen the changes in-game), I kind of doubt it since people do really care about the name of their characters for the reasons I said above.

I know if I was for whatever reason not allowed to call my lizard character Forgets-Her-Name I would be devastated and wouldn’t want to change it to something that fits the guildelines since it quite literally would ruin a large part of her character. Eventually I would have to decide to either kill her off or leave to go somewhere what would allow her name to pass. Things that I wouldn’t want to do

That’s how I imagine people who put in the time in Bee would feel when they are told they can’t have a name.

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I know, I’m saying they could have and everyone would have known it was them; they did not have to trash their character as a moth, they chose to. @ValuedEmployee might have some harsh words for me regarding this opinion being so blunt, but that is ultimately my honest opinion about the aftermath of that. They could have continued as the same moth named “Cordswitch” and people would barely have thought twice in general.

Kerlin did

Sholl is still appearance banned as far as I know. I tried suggesting he take the names listed and that he didn’t need to trash the character, but the posts were removed from the appeal for being off-topic.

If we look at policy to the exact letter your name does break it, but it’s far from the only lizard name that does and it seems to be “close enough” not to bother anyone who does care a lot about policy, myself included.

Other notable examples of names being against policy to the exact letter include the dozen or more oozelings with gemstone names instead of colors, and Moths with single names that are just names instead of Single word object, concept or event of some importance , such as Hapi, Meta, Moona, and StarShot. Moona got permanently banned for other reasons though, so I only know of the other three as active players.

inb4 I get a bwoink for techinally not following the guildelines after you just mentioning that. :pensive:

Didn’t really want to continue discussing on this thread but here goes:

You’re right, a lot of people would have barely noticed the difference. But it’s not their character’s development, it’s mine. A major reason why I don’t like the naming guidelines is because someone gripped my character and told me “No, they cannot be who you developed them to be even though it was genuine and didn’t break any lore or immersion.”

What I dislike about some of the arguments put forth being made for the naming guidelines is that they want other players to roleplay how they want. As a roleplayer myself, please leave my character alone. They’re not yours, stop telling me how to roleplay if I’m not lowering the roleplay standard of the server. People can whine about lizards named after humans all day but they’re not your character, hands off.

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If the server wants everyone to have average joe names that fit their chosen species convention, and it’s clearly stated that this is desired in the rules:

  1. You either missed the rule and made an honest mistake. That sucks, but it’s still breaking the rule and expectation.
  2. You read the rule and intentionally ignored it and I’m definitely not the one in the wrong for wanting it corrected because I wanted to play on a server that has naming conventions enforced.
  3. You were given a special exception by staff, which causes confusion and turmoil down the road.

I can understand how it can be painful to let a character name you have grown attached to go and I do agree your name had a good reason behind it, especially if we could get clearance for some sort of character flavor text to be added to explain deviations.

And herein lays the major problem with Bee and its Naming Guidelines. Roleplay standards are heavily enforced and strict while having some of the fewest RP mechanics and aides in any server. As well, every round has to be treated like it’s a not a normal shift (Things aren’t usually this crazy) but that means referencing past events isn’t supposed to be allowed. This means character development isn’t happening once again by the rules. I do not like Bee’s roleplaying rules, I think they stifle roleplay and that’s why I’m not playing on Bee anymore. Maybe if it improves in many roleplay areas that will change, but only time will tell. In the meantime, many competent roleplayers will leave the server as they have in the past and are now. And yes, there are many competent roleplayers leaving this server.

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Likely never going to happen… Been shut down numerous times already. Also if “my name doesn’t fit because of these IC reasons” worked we probably wouldn’t be here…

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While I do agree with most of that, I do also like a negative continuity setting for RP where everything resets after each “episode” and disagree that you can’t build a character in that environment. You can’t build continuity, but you can still build a consistent character that others grow to recognize and know without referencing specific past events like that time some asshat killed Kenny.

Yes, I had to google what this is called and I’m not 100% certain if it’s the right term for RP or not

That said, I also wouldn’t be against actual continuity of story, but that would have to come with a whole host of new rules to actually work: Most notably permadeath of anyone that has ever been an antagonist in pretty much any round… and also powergaming would have to shift because now everyone is used to being under constant threat and has very much a good reason to be armed to the teeth at all times.

This is another crazy extreme that isn’t necessary. Servers that don’t have continuity problems for things like this simply have rules stating that being an antag wasn’t canon and whoever did something to you as antag in a previous life was something that happened, but you forgot who it was. Loose rules on this kind of thing is just easier for everyone involved.

Oh right we’re talking about servers with whitelists which guarantee a pretty decent level of player quality on average.

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Oh yeah, most roleplay servers do have that…

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I’m honored to be referenced in this conversation, even if the whole naming convention thing is a “uuuugh” topic for me.

Now go pop open a Scrabble Dictionary/Thesaurus, A to latin translator, and the largest collection of Moth jokes you can find, because Kalavi Lumen can literally be translated to “Proclaim Lamp” from latin, You know what to do, Go forth and do it.

(additionally, it is serendipity that provided me such a good name, from the begining it was “kerlin lunit” trying to make a lunatic joke, it just so happens that K and L are also used as the starting letters of my current name.)

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I’m one step ahead because I took latin in high school.

I don’t remember much of it though tbh, so I sure didn’t recognize Kerlin and I definitely don’t recognize or remember how to properly gender or use most words

Kerlin was a “given name” so yeah it got nixxed in favor of Kalavi

smh just let me be called Big Dick Johnson already :pensive:

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I do feel as though if the naming guidelines are kept tight around our necks the server will die though. Nobody is going to flesh out a character and be 100% willing to throw them to the curb. Like if it were up to me, the oozelings wouldn’t have a specific last name, and “color name” would be a little more vague to allow say

Braun
Or Lapis, or Shamrock

Or a felinid named Raised-By-Lizards, whose whole gimmick is they don’t naturally hiss they just draw out any 's’es to sound more like the lizardpeople that raised them.

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