Yours Truly

Unless it is specifically requested in their search comments, I have to respectfully disagree with sending a PM to someone before engaging in open-world RP (within reason, of course). The whole idea of open-world RP is that it is spontaneous; anything could happen. If someone is to put themselves in a hotspot like Ul'dah to seek out walk-up RP, I would be shocked if they honestly expected every encounter to be a good one. If someone does not want their RP session to have random characters join in, it would make sense to avoid a melting pot for exactly that. I roleplay a character who is naturally confrontational. He is no stranger to punches in the face for acting like an ass. He's a big goof, really, and makes a daily habit of embarrassing himself by acting like an ass. He thinks of himself as the guy who says what everyone else is thinking, although he's rarely correct. It adds a fun dynamic to RP, but it inevitably causes hurt feelings. While he isn't 'evil' or 'villainous' by any stretch of the imagination, people aren't expected to like Allister at all. What troubles me is how people's dislike of the character consistently bleeds into an OOC dislike of me as a person. I'm troubled because, for so many people, the line between IC and OOC is nearly indistinguishable. I agree that the line between IC and OOC should be as free and clear as possible, and that characters with the potential for hostility and conflict bring a much needed dynamic to RP in general. But... the thing is, there's also a world of difference between a well-played adversarial character, and a schmuck who just spews garbage that sounds like shitty, re-purposed real world rhetoric. Some people are capable of dealing with that mundane sort of hate and having fun with it, but some aren't - and I don't think it's necessarily a poor reflection of them. Certain forms of bigotry cut too close to home for some people to want to deal with in their pretend fantasy writing time, and if you're particularly insistent or mean-spirited in how you bring those themes to their character, is it really that surprising that you'd leave a bad OOC impression? Just because they're not comfortable tackling certain topics with a random writer they don't know and it leaves a bad taste in their mouth doesn't mean they're incapable of separating themselves from their character. I'm having fun playing up the refugee angle on my Au Ra, for example. I would genuinely enjoy bumping into a racist asshole IC; it'd be a fun chance for me to wring some development or angst for my character out of it, whatever. Someone else might not be in a place where they're alright with tackling that subject, though, and that's okay. I don't know you, or your character, and I'm genuinely not trying to get on your case here - but I do think it's disingenuous to put the blame entirely on the people who take offense to that sort of RP. I'm not saying that you have to ask someone's permission on an OOC level before you say or do anything contentious, but like - if you're gonna drag in painful real world bigotry that doesn't even seem to really have a basis to exist in-game (homophobia, for instance) without feeling out whether the other writer might be comfortable with sort of thing first, don't be surprised if you get a bad reaction from them.

"What kind of issues could an LGBT person face in an online game?" This is a weird example, but... well, WoW's Moon Guard is kind of a weird place.

http://i.imgur.com/8zvSjUG.png[/img]http://i.imgur.com/e2QRhr2.png[/img] I'm over the moon at finally getting my character just the way I wanted her, tbh.

You're not lying! The Raen conventions paint an interesting picture of their lore and I love the inherent poetry of their names, but it's definitely very challenging as a non-speaker. Japanese is complex and multifaceted enough that, in retrospect, my scatter-shot approach is a little embarrassing. Understanding the correlations and differences between the different writing styles, as well as how the words change in context and how they relate to English, is absolutely brain-melting to me. I'm starting to realize that I'm genuinely out of my league here, haha. Since I'd still prefer to be as compliant with the conventions as possible, I think I'm just going to have to take allgivenover's suggestion: mash the generator and google the results until I find a combination that strikes my fancy. Oh... and earlier, I found a website with a big list of various nature-related words and phrases if the OP is in need of any more Raen-related links: http://www.2hweb.net/haikai/renku/500ESWd.html I'm completely unqualified to say how accurate it is but I actually noticed a few names from the official conventions in here, so it may be another decent place to start if you'd prefer to come up with your name independently of the generator. EDIT: Another possible resource - http://www.issendai.com/japanese-courtesans/oiran-tayu-names.html Though it's a list of "courtesan" names, many of them are appropriate to the Edo period with a fittingly poetic structure. Some of them are also from the Tale of Genji, which the existing Raen NPCs have borrowed a few names from.

I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who's been posting thoughts, advice, and resources since the naming conventions came out, in this thread and others. You've been an enormous help! This is tricky, and I'm fairly clueless. I've been bumbling through the lists linked here and I've come up with a few potential names that I like, but I really wanted to double-check with the more knowledgeable people here before I proceed, just to make sure they're from the right era and grammatically sound. Do Kanehana and/or Yasuhana function as names? How about if you wanted to have a name that involves the words for "princess" and "bird", would Himetori or Torihime work? Aside from those, if anyone has suggestions for other names that invoke concepts like warmth, gentleness, dance/music, gold, or white/paleness. Basically, anything that a traditional Raen of the warrior class might name a doted-on daughter. Secondly, the surname - does anyone have any ideas for something that roughly translates to "spearman", or what have you? If I can't find anything better I'm thinking of just going with Kamayari, but I'm not fond of how literal it is to have the surname just straight-up be the name of a weapon. I hope it's okay to ask questions here; if not, I can edit out my post. Thanks again for the links.