Non-Indicative Name/Tabletop Games

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Examples of Non-Indicative Names in Tabletop Games include:

Board Games

  • Chinese Checkers game was created in Germany. This Non-Indicative Name was induced deliberately when it was brought into the United States, as the marketers thought it sounded more exotic that way. Probably for the same or a similar reason, when the traditional English dice game Yacht was mass-marketed, it was given a pseudo-Oriental makeover and renamed Yahtzee (no connection with this Yahtzee).

Gamebooks

  • Joe Dever was obviously far more concerned about creating an elaborate world and riveting adventures when writing the Lone Wolf series than accurate titles. As a result, quite a few of them are at best very loose fits:
    • Fire on the Water - This refers to the big naval battle where you wield the legendary Sommerswerd, which occurs at the very end of the adventure and is easily the least dangerous part of it. The great majority of the adventure is your quest to obtain the weapon.
    • The Caverns of Kalte - Your mission begins in open wilderness and ends in a fortress; unless you take one very specific branch of one very specific path, you won't see the eponymous caverns at all.
    • The Kingdoms of Terror - The wars between the Stornland kingdoms play next to no real part in your quest, and in any case there's nothing particularly terrifying about any of them.
    • The Cauldron of Fear - Not only is the Cauldron is a completely nondescript landmark which serves solely to get you to Zaaryx, there's a 50% chance you won't even use that route.
    • The Dungeons of Torgar - As with FOTW, the point of nearly the entire adventure is getting to Torgar's dungeons, and you hardly do anything in them.
    • The Prisoners of Time - You don't see the prisoners in question until the very end of the adventure, they don't have anything to do with your quest, and until you meet them you don't even know who they are.
    • The Captives of Kaag - Just the one captive! (There are other unfortunates in Kaag, but the're well beyond saving.)
    • Dawn of the Dragons - An epic, sprawling journey where you face a grand total of ONE dragon, near (yep) the very end. And of course, if you're successful, there is no "dawn of the dragons" ; they're toast.
    • The Curse of Naar - Despite the fact that you're in Naar's domain, not only doesn't he speak to you or attempt to hinder your quest (especailly curious since he does both several times over the course of Grand Master), he doesn't even appear at all!

Tabletop RPG

  • Dungeons & Dragons
    • There's a prestige class in one of the settings called "Lord of Tides". It has nothing to do with the sea; its main purpose is to locate water in the dry desert setting used, and later summon elementals.
    • There's also Turn Undead, which uses an obscure meaning of the word "turn".
    • The Book With No End, a minor artifact; it has exactly 100 pages.
    • Umber hulks are almost always depicted with black or grey exoskeletons, never umber, which is a shade of yellowish-brown.
  • Cyberpunk: The "Scavengers" take augmentations off still-living captives.

War Games

  • Necrons for Warhammer 40,000 have melee soldiers known as "Flayed Ones". Actually, they are the ones doing the flaying. And wearing their victims' skins.
    • Also in the novels, Graham McNeil Ultramarines novel Dead Sky, Black Sun has the Unfleshed, hulking monstrosities with a lot of flesh in the form of muscle. It's the skin they lack (no, it wasn't taken by the guys above).
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