River, city and area with the same name

[eponette]

Hi,

In my game, I have a river, a city and a geographical area that have the same name. From your experience, what is the best way to put it into RW?

[Exmortis]

Introducing True Names
A common occurrence in RPGs is the NPC that is first introduced in a shroud of mystery. For example, the “Shadowy Figure in a Black Cloak” is how an NPC might be described when first encountered, and only later will the PCs learn the NPC’s real name of Oliver Aristrand. Meanwhile, the GM wants to see Oliver’s name everywhere instead of “Shadowy Figure in a Black Cloak”. To handle this cleanly, we’ve introduced a special type of alias called a “true name”.

Every topic still has its normal name, which we now refer to as the “public name”. However, when a true name is defined, it behaves specially. For the GM, the true name is always shown as the main name of the topic within both the navigation and transitions panes. The players only see the public name until the true name is revealed. Once that occurs, the true name behaves the same way for players, being shown in place of the public name within the navigation and transitions panes. Basically, the true name is how the topic is always viewed, unless the true name hasn’t been revealed yet. The public name is displayed like an alias when the true name is visible.

Another way to do it is:

Example: Misthaven Crossing

Territory: Misthaven Crossing
Village: Misthaven Crossing Village or Village of Misthaven
River: The River Misthaven Crossing or Misthaven Crossing River

You can then use the new True Name feature if needed to sort it out.

[Exmortis]

Also by using different topic categories you get a easily defined result.

See my attached.

[eponette]

Could suffixes and prefixes help on that? I tryed tu use it but I am not totally happy with the result right now

[MNBlockHead]

Suffixes and prefix help somewhat. They help differentiated different names when prompted to select links (though I would look into the new link-preference settings for names to more elegantly handle this).

I mainly (almost exclusively) use suffixes for adventure/module/quest names. Prefixes, if I use them at all are for room numbers when using maps where locations are numbered.

I learned very early on to name my topics in a way to avoid ambiguity. For example, in my first village that I entered into RW, I would just use "blacksmith", "temple", etc. I realized the issue with that the next village I entered that had a blacksmith, temple, etc.

Initially I relied on suffixes to differentiate but realized it was much more convenient when it came to creating links to just name the topics more uniquely. "Blackacre Blacksmith" or "Blacksmith at Blackacre"

Same with larger place names. I have the Khakunun Khaganate as one of the realms in my world, but there is also the Khakunun Sea. If there were a city by the same name, it would be named Khakunun City. Simple. No need to play around with prefixes, suffixes, or true names.

[eponette]

Hi MNB,

I thought about it too. But then, when I write my story, I have the specify every time 'X river' or 'X city' for the system to make the link. If I write 'the PCs must cross the X' or 'when the PCs enter the X', the link are never made.

But I imagine, one way or another, there is no miracle.

[AEIOU]

If you have one link that would be predominant, the latest update allows you to turn off linking for specific names or lower their priority so that you can ensure the order for link selection remains the same. This would work well if the city was normally the usage. You would need to consciously manually link the exceptions (highlight, right click, assign link).

You could use X city, X river and X area as the names and then when you are done, change them to X, X and X. This would make changes to all links to rename them all BUT you'd have to open and edit each item. There was talk of a universal search for new links in the future which would make this option much more appealing.

[kbs666]

You could name each location uniquely, i.e. Misthaven River, but then give all of them the alternate name of Misthaven. When you edit and the linker does its thing you'll have to manually tell it which one to link to as it will obviously find the multiple Misthaven's inside each of the other names. I tested this and it works.