LE Random names for bandits?

[Banana125]

So this has bothered me a bit ever since Oblivion, and I don't recall finding anything to address it, even after a brief search through the forums and the Googles. Every bandit is just named "Bandit," every marauder "Marauder," etc etc. I had the idea for a mod to randomly generate real names for these otherwise generic characters. I'm aware of Organized Bandits in Skyrim, which seems to deal with a lot of the issues with the generic nature of bandits. However, it looks like it mostly does visual and mechanic differentiations--which is awesome--but it looks like most NPCs (the randomly generated ones) are still vexed by generic names (I haven't used it, but I'm about to to check it out). So, my thought: why not giv every bandit a name?

 

I would like, ideally, to have randomly generated names, but that would require either a pretty substantial analysis of the existing names for each race to determine broad rules for name formation (to my knowledge, there isn't a canonical guide of "this is how you make an Orc name," etc). This would allow for minimum probability of the player ever seeing the same character name twice, especially if you allow variation for one versus two names. But this is a lot of work that requires a lot of trial and error to make sure your name generating code (I assume this would have to be coded/scripted) runs as intended.

 

The other option would be to generate names randomly from a list. In the most basic form, you could have a list of different possible first and last names and randomly select a first name, then possibly a last name to go with it. In a more complicated form, you could do the same thing but on a syllable level--have rules on what syllables can follow others and construct a name from there, but again, this would require a good bit of trial and error to make sure that the names you generate all sound reasonable.

 

While I would want to procedurally generate bandit names (e.g., they spawn in and get a randomized name on spawn), it might be a lot easier to take, say, Organized Bandits in Skyrim and basically batch rename all of the new bandits it adds to the leveled lists. This allows for less variation in the names and is rather more tedious (though I can always write a macro to automate name entry), but better guarantees that all the names you pick sound good since you're removing the procedural random variation of them.

 

So: any thoughts on how to go about this, aside from that last option? I would probably have a lot of fun trying to generate rules for name formation, and writing some code to do that, but I don't know how to implement it into the game--I've barely done any real modding, and exactly zero scripting, but I can learn to script (in theory). Also, is there some mod that already does just this?

[Indigoblade]

I understand that you wish to create random names using a rule structure. OBIS also have about 200 named bandits that I named using a tool that take takes the syllable structure of current TES canon names and mixing them within each other. if the name included whole words (example being Ulfric Stormcloak) it would take the whole word structure and randomize that as well. I don't know how to implement it as a mod but you can figure out the structure through the tool.

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/7595/?

 

If you do create this mod that randomized bandits names, I really hope you figure out a better way for OBIS however. Vanilla bandits are okay, but I rather you only use them for bandit lieutenants, chieftans, or bounty bandits in my mod. THere is a reason why I name them generically by class and tier. It's to give the player a heads up of what he is facing and he/she can decide what to do tactically. Of course if you do not mind, I would also am very interested in this and would like to implement it into OBIS properly if you ever get this done. Feel free to PM me if youre interested in putting it into OBIS as a feature.

[Banana125]

Thanks for that link--I'll check it out! It looks like it could be very helpful

 

Don't worry, I wasn't planning to put up my own version of OBIS, heh. I was citing your mod as an example of of one that already has added a lot of new characters to the leveled lists, which could in theory be individually renamed in the CK rather than doing random name generation. I was imagining this being a much smaller project, where the vanilla bandit system is left unchanged except for randomly generated names (and, I suppose, you could easily extend this to other NPCs like guards, if desired).

 

I've gone ahead and started pulling names from the UESP name lists, and I'm going to use this as an excuse to get a bit more experience playing around with Python for the analysis and implementation. My first instinct is to use some sort of Markov-chain like thing, where the most recent syllable determines the probabilities of what the next one will be. But we'll see how tricky that ends up being.

 

I'll be sure to let you know if I get this working. If I do, you'd be more than welcome to implement it in OBIS if you wish! :smile:

Edited January 5, 2015 by Banana125

[jaxonz]

I have something like this in the works... working now for guards but would be easy enough to extend to other anonymous types.

[jaxonz]

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