Nominative Determinism in Dungeons & Dragons

Exciting title, right?

Nominative determinism is the theory that people are subconsciously drawn to professions or places that match their names. At a simple level, it is how people with a surname like Baker sometimes end up running bakeries.

This blog post isn’t about any of that, thankfully.

Instead, I want to talk to you about how I will often see a name on screen, on a sign, or simply recall a famous person and think:

“I wonder what they’d be like as a Dungeons & Dragons character”

For anyone unlucky enough to have been subjected to it, I love a pun. I self-imposed a ban on playing a Bard, after far too many characters inspired by musical icons. It might sound fun, but shoe-horning Queen song lyrics into my Freddie Mercury Bard's dialogue quickly got tiresome for the group.

GM: "How does that spell work? Freddie: "It's a kind of magic"

You get the idea...

Goose Willis, my Aarakocra Rogue, was received a little better; Sneaking about, shooting people, and occasionally saying "Yippee-kay-ay". For me however, it is not always even about playing these characters, but learning about subclasses and abilities through constant creativity.

My Dndbeyond.com account is littered with this kind of stuff, with some examples above.

• What if Henry Rollins really was that angry?

• Would Wallace be an effective healer?

• What do you call a Warlock tied to the sea but with an artistic streak?

• What if the child star of the sitcom The Wonder Years was to start advertising aftershave?

• Would the German film maker's morose and confusing dialogue lend itself to a Grave Domain Cleric?

Having this creative drive isn't for everyone though. The 6 character limit for the free D&D Beyond site was exceeded quite some time ago, and I am up at 212 characters and counting. It can be fun however to see a name or a combination of words and just wonder what that could become.

As a final example, I was recently playing in our regular Call of Cthulhu game when I noticed the Character Sheet has a condition called "Major Wound". A few hours later, the former Soldier and Blue Dragonborn Fighter who had retired from the army and become a blade for hire was born.

Who will be your inspiration for your next PC?