askchapo

Also fair. Not writing at all is a bigger wasted opportunity and getting hung up on anxiety about that one specific part instead of glossing over it (including with a generator if that's what the anxious person finds suitable) so they can do the writing they feel more confident about to get their footing makes a lot of sense.

It was a way of obviating responsibility, I think. Like sure I was ultimately choosing the name of a character or a place, but it wasn't "mine" so I wasn't taking responsibility for it and putting something of my own out there, I guess? I never really understood just how that shortcircuited the anxiety that makes me pull back from putting things I create on the line, just that it did let me work around that when GMing, and that things like just copying an entire generated list of names to throw down as a list of notable employees at place the players were going to heist and letting them pick one for me to turn into an actual character they'd try to lean on or steal security credentials from or whatever was extremely useful.

And now I just do whatever because I've had enough experience just riffing on stuff that I'm less anxious about that. Proper characters get referential names or descriptive names, and extras get random bullshit whether from a generator or from me just stringing syllables together in my head till it sounds right. Places get both.