renaming The Rustbelt?
David Berg:
Most of my inspirations run along the lines of "setting's impact on the characters" and derive from the original title:
Rusted Out
Rusted Away
The Rusted
Rusted Lives
Rusted Fates
Rusted Gates (like, y'know, the gates between each individual's core humanity and the situations that threaten to erode it)
Marshall Burns:
Hey David, thanks for starting the thread for me! 'Cause I almost forgot.
So, anyone reading, here's the deal.
For reasons made abundantly clear in the playtest thread that Ron started, the Rustbelt needs a name change. Those reasons are, basically, there's a real region called the Rustbelt, and the game isn't about that region (at least not necessarily; you could use it for that), and I have to explain that to people who misunderstand.
I've been contemplating "The Rust Age," but I haven't made any decisions.
For a little bit of background: the game has gone through a few name changes in the past, mostly due to changes in style and thematic content. Earliest on it was Misadventures in Nowhere; a while later it was The Frontier; and there's a few others, but none of them are important. When hit upon The Rustbelt, it felt like a real breakthrough, because the name was so atmospheric (at this time I was unaware of the real Rustbelt), and because it finally gave me a name for the Rust (which had gone unnamed as a concept in previous versions). Calling it "the Rust" was huge, because the metaphors of corruption and dissolution just fell into place so damn well.
I want to preserve that. Whatever I change the name of the game to, the Rust has to make sense as a game term.
Mikael:
Well, given the importance of the concept in the setting, why not just "Rust"?
DWeird:
I've never really play(test)ed the game, but I have been planning to for ages now. Don't really have a group, and have never hosted a game that wasn't over the 'net in some way, so that's sort of what's been stopping me... This is a game that has to be played with everyone actually sittin' in one place, staring at my cold, dead eyes, as I have half-rusted, turret-less soviet tanks drive over their characters' legs. Pretty damned sure of that!
But that's very much irrelevant, I guess.
Anyway. For my game, I'm going to pretty much ditch most of the setting that's provided with the rules. I come from a post-communist country, and after reading your stuff, I went "Cool! But why does there need to be some sort of magic cause to make life an awful, awful, grind? There's been plenty of that 'round already."
I *will* be adding heaps of... "oddities", mind, but they will be tied in more with a mythology of different... Well, not origin, seeing how I'm leaving it with the "strange&dangerous&out of who-knows-where", but rather colour. For instance, I'm planning to use roaches as the symbol for a world in permanent decay. Everywhere - in people, in between the walls of buildings of grey cement (put your ear against the wall and you're hear a silent rustling of thousands and thousands legs and carapaces grinding against each other, and maybe if you listen in *real* good - something that sort of sounds like a crowd of squeeky little voices).
My point (I do have one!) - as far as I could tell, your game is not about the Rust, or what it does, or any of that hoohaw. Your game is about people in tough spots, doin' what they have to do... And dying. Or maybe not doing what they have to do, which means dying sooner. If the name of your game doesn't convey that... You fail at name-giving. Mind as well call it Matilda. :D
Now, for an actual name suggestion! I'm pretty sure you'll still want to keep 'Rust' in the name one way or another, so... How's about "Rust and Bruises"? I like the vibe of "you're broken and ruined and probably infected... and alive, for now" the two give out together.
Make any sense to you?
Lance D. Allen:
The first thing that jumped to mind was "Tetanus".
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