Name Wars Options

[James McMurray]

The "they call him Tombstone" thread got me thinking about common names for runners, mafia enforcers, etc. How many runners and wannabes are out there named things like Tombstone, Cutter, Razor, Spike, etc.?

Have you ever had a character with a common (or uncommon) name accosted by another underworld character looking to establish that he is the one true Shadow (or Ghost, or whatever)?

[Demerzel]

Hahaha, I think the Slyder in my game is going to get a visitor.

[NightmareX]

To the OP, "Nightmare" was originally the name of a rigger in Rigger Black Book - when I finally renamed my character "Nightmare" back in the day I made it a point to mention to the GM exactly why, as this unfinished piece of fanfic illustrates:

"So tell me, who do ya want dirt on, Dancer? Who's the target?" She finished her wine and locked Xerxes in a stare that most sharks would envy. "He's an elf. A mage. Goes by the street name Nightmare." Xerxes took a long sip of his vodka as she continued to stare him down. Putting his glass down, he closed his eyes and let out a long, low whistle. A moment passed before he met her gaze, "My brother worked with him on a few jobs in Atlanta a couple of years ago. Aristotle played back up to him, along with one other guy. I don't have any details, but I do know they were a few very nasty pieces of wetwork. Your elf friend" She interrupted him with a killing glower, "He's NOT my friend." Xerxes blinked at the vehemence of her statement, took another drink, and continued. "Anyway, your guy was the hitter. Aristotle and the other guy just did helped with the logistics. My brother was in close on one of the hits though. Retrieving some files or something from the mark's desktop. She was a mid-level exec at some baby corp down that way. Had two kids, or so my brother said. He said she's on her knees, begging him to let her live for her kids' sake, when the fragger puts a round through her head in mid-sentence. Arctic cold, according to Aristotle. I mean, both me and my bro run the shadows, y'know, and I've done some wetwork in my time too, but never anything like that." "That sounds like the fragger." Dancer growled after downing her drink. "Yeah, that's the problem." Xerxes continued, "Lots of things sound like him cause of the simple fact that no one really knows who the hell they’re talking about." She studied him a moment, trying to will the information she wanted from him. "What are you saying? You told me a while back that you did a job with a magician who called himself Nightmare." "Yeah, I did. A big motherfraggin' Amerind ork. He was a shaman, but he seemed to like handguns a hell of a lot more than any treehugger I've ever met. That struck me as weird, so I did some digging on the guy before we did our biz. The slitch of it is, according to Shadowland and a couple of other sources, there's a grand total of eight known 'Nightmare's operating in North America, four of which in the Seattle area alone. And we can only rule out one of them, a rigger that runs the T-bird routes down to Denver every so often." "The one I want is a causcasian elf, but he's a mage. I know he's good with illusions, so he could still be the one you worked with." "Are you sure he's a white elf?" "What?" a look of confusion flashed across her eyes, then deepened as he continued. "He could have been masking his appearance when you saw him, y'know." She never thought of that angle. She placed her elbows on the bar and rested her forehead in her hands. A sigh of frustration escaped her lips. It was already hell trying to find someone who, for all intents and purposes, was a ghost, but the thought of trying to hunt down someone who never existed in the first place was almost more than she could bare. Moreover, what did that say about the feelings she once had for him? "I have to work on the assumption that what I saw was his real self, Xerxes" Her voice sounded tired to him all of a sudden. "Alright." He finished his vodka before continuing. "I can give your the address to the doss of the guy I worked with, but it'll cost you, and I didn't tell you. I wouldn't be doing this for anyone else, Dancer."

[lorechaser]

[eidolon]

I wondered if it was going to come up in a game where I was playing a guy that went by "Doc" in the shadows, but the GM never really made an issue of it.

[Butterblume]

[Demerzel]

[lorechaser]

Too amusing.

My current nom de guerres:

Whiskey
Hoodoo
Yun
Beatdown
Dragon (Yeah, yeah)
Skip (As in Skip Tracer)
Kapow
Magnus
Patches
Raven (A character for my daughter - she wouldn't accept my original offers of Hamster or Tricksy).

[Wakshaani]

Oh heck yeah. Had an Ork Sammi in New Orleans by teh name of Gator ... hwo many Shadowrunners named 'Gator" do you think that NO has? :)

In general, as long as there's a specific indicator, you can get by with someone having the same name (Not Hawk the Human Merc, Hawk the hot-as-Hades Elf Shaman chick!), but if it gets too ugly ... well, one of you gets to be teh Tick, the other's stuck with being Barry.

-- Wak

(PS, Tombstone thread still needs love.) :)

[HappyDaze]

[Ancient History]

They had a joke about this waaay back in the day. 27 elven runners named Nemesis duking it out for the rights to the name.

[Kyoto Kid]

...got an email from someone also calling themselves Kyoto Kid. Turns out it came from a completely different game system. They must have been browsing different forums when they came across DS.

Also have seen Kid Kyoto a while back on this forum.

[Fortune]

[Konsaki]

[Mistwalker]

We usually try to go for something a little out of the ordinary.

Mistwalker
Smoke on the Water
Four
Mr Wong
Cargo
Runt (for the very large ork)
SilverFang
Red Rose

:D
Well, at least we think that they are original and out of the ordinary.
If your going to burst my bubble, please do it in a kind way :P

[Fortune]

[Sir_Psycho]

Raven (A covert ops specialist, not a shaman)
Master Blaster :silly: (female decker - Jane McMaster)
Nines

My partner in wasting time had:
Ragnor (minotaur mage)
Fast Eddie
Jack (His name was actually Daniel)

[ornot]

NO! I'M SPARTACUS!

[PlatonicPimp]

I'm Batman.

I don't think any runner I've ever worked with has gone by a handle. I mean, they've all had multiple Identities, and so just used the name that came with the sin they were using. The dumbest one was my runner who actually had a SIN. All the other runners knew his real name. Most of them had a real name different from their runner name, but their runner name was a real sounding name.

I mean, do you think you could honestly refer to me as platonicpimp in casual conversation? All the time? without laughing?

In the last game I GMed, all the players were friends in a circus before becoming runners, so there was no need for anything other than their real names among them anyway. Most of the Johnsons also figured it out eventually, but if you don't have a SIN to begin with, how is your real name any less secure than a handle?

[Demerzel]

When you die and become a Free Spirit of Man someone can say your real name three times and make you appear.

Biggie Smalls
Biggie Smalls
Biggie Smalls

[Butterblume]

[Lilt]

The most generic probably-copied names I've seen used in SR games I've run/played in were:
Hunter
Rusty (that one's mine)
Fingers
"Black Widow"

[ornot]

I kinda feel that a character's handle should make some kind of sense. I remember a character who was named 'Joanna Blackwood', and her runner handle became 'Ebony'. There was also once in an SR3 game a troll adept who'd lots of ranks in running and became known as 'Flash'. This led to lots of "Flash! Aaahaah, saviour of the universe" jokes.

One character I had actually acquired her runner handle in the game. Being rather naive she didn't realise she needed one until the runners that adopted her (for their own selfish reasons, it must be said) insisted. The rest of the group had great fun coming up with all manner of really dumb names, while we all got progressively drunker (IRL and IC).

[Konsaki]

All the runner handles that my characters have has something to do with the character.

Angel - my technomancer who had just submerged and in the process her avatar changed to one of a six winged techno angel. Angel is also shadow speak for a benefactor who works from afar, perfect for a hacker. (You can find a picture in the link in my sig)
Neko Mahou - a half-japanese shaman who underwent SURGE as a young age, coming out as a cat-girl. 'Cat Magic'
The Wanderer - an ex-lonestar bounty hunter who had lost his family to a gang. After dealing with the gang in the backstory, he felt like he had nothing left in life but to wander the city, pulling in enough money just to survive.

I have a few more, but it might spoil some stuff.

[Kyoto Kid]

...Actually the name "Kyoto Kid" sort of came out of the runner group she was with. The original SR 1 character had an entirely different (and pretty cheesy) street name, but everybody in the group simply kept calling her "The Kid" (she was a street kid of 15 at the time). Since she practised Kendo her name first morphed into Kendo Kid and then finally Kyoto Kid after she was revamped when SR 3 came out.

Since then I tended to use pretty simple street names, often common names such as Gracie, Jill, Violet, and Kat (short for Katya).

Leela's intended street name as a runner was to be "Ace" (originally she was based on the character of the same name from the Beeb's Dr Who series). One night while finishing the character I was watching The Fifth Element. I immediately was taken with the concept of the lead character Leeloo and her child like personality. Thus, "Ace" hit the discard pile and Leela Groznek (the last name taken from an episode of Enterprise) was born. I still used the old street name on occasion, since as part of her MO she would always leave an Ace of Diamonds card near the scene of a successful demo job (part of her "Distinctive Style" flaw). Everyone else in the group pretty much referred to her by her real name.

The only times I used more "colourful" names which stuck was my decker "Diamond ICe", my seductive spy girl, "Night Angel" my archaeologist "Lady Sterling", and my Cajun Pugilist "Hurricane Hannah".

The oddest one I came up with was Dr Zanzibar, for a dwarf medic and paranormal "big game" hunter. No particular reason other than it sounded good.