Advice/Help Help me title my plots?

[noil]

Titles and names are the bane of my existence. I have no working title for the one of these and one working title gives away my planned plot twist, so that won't work. Thought perhaps crowdsourcing(crowdfishing?) for ideas might help. Putting up some very brief summaries here, any ideas are welcome! Even if I hate them all they will at least get my brain juice flowing. If you have no ideas specific to these, but still want to help, maybe answer how you come up with titles for your roleplays? And when looking through recruitment boards, is your interest caught by ones with more vague interesting titles, like land names or phrases; or ones that sound straightforward, just stating what the rp is?

Plot #1 Summary:
Modern or near-future superpowers, think like MHA or The Boys where heroes are celebrities. In this setting, there has been only one officially sanctioned hero team, with tight controls on power usage in the general population. The team has finally opened up for new members. Characters have been chosen from applicants and will be going through a press tour and kind of trial period as they are integrated into the team. There's shady stuff going on with the government as far as how they are directing hero efforts to further their own interests, and control on the villain side of things.

Plot #2 Summary:
Medieval Fantasy, set in a kingdom where magic has been outlawed for about a decade following the death of the queen under suspicious circumstances. The story picks up upon the murder of the king and the kidnapping of the princess by a magical beast of unknown origins. The characters must track down the beast and rescue the princess.
I could maybe name this one after the name of the kingdom... but I have no name for it as of yet, haha. Ideas welcome for that as well.

 

[_Exodus_]

I normally do something that rhymes, that alliterates, or is a bit off.
For the first I suggest something extravagant, above the ordinary. Could be akin to Extraordinary Moments? People?
Above The Skyline?

For the second, Royal Remedy, Captured Attention, Prince of Beasts

 

[noil]

Interesting. Alliteration is always fun I agree. What do you mean by a bit off?

 

[_Exodus_]

Where the title is not proper grammar, but still fits in a sense. Takes this one for example:

Only The Good
Romance Branch

Not exactly proper English, but it can be good for a title.

 

[Heatherling]

I find my eyes drawn to contradictory titles. E.g. Black Milk, White as Night.
Also just the theming being clear from it helps to immediately categorize if I'll be interested in it or not.

A good pun will also do the trick, but sets a very specific tone that I doubt would fit either of your plots.

Making up names can be hard - I tend to create names for fantasy or sci fi kingdoms/places by looking at the cultural influences I'm trying to evoke, finding a name in the language that culture has (a name generator set to the countries language does the trick) and then riffing off that until I have a name that flows well.

 

[WolfStar12]

I’ve noticed a lot of people are attracted to roleplays with titles that, admittedly seem less like titles, and more like phrases or song lyrics. You could always abandon the idea of using a traditional title and perhaps using a simple phrase or sentence (pre existing or not) that sums up the core themes and messages or perhaps what the cast of characters are thinking.

 

[noil]

bumping this since I'm working on these again

 

[Merciless Medic]

Plot #1 Summary:
Modern or near-future superpowers, think like MHA or The Boys where heroes are celebrities. In this setting, there has been only one officially sanctioned hero team, with tight controls on power usage in the general population. The team has finally opened up for new members. Characters have been chosen from applicants and will be going through a press tour and kind of trial period as they are integrated into the team. There's shady stuff going on with the government as far as how they are directing hero efforts to further their own interests, and control on the villain side of things.

I would go for something rather simple. Gets the point across but it also leaves a lot of mystery of what this could be. This is particularly eye catching for me because while I read the summary, I'm looking back on the title and it comes off as foreboding or ominous rather than simply factual.

Things like "The Recruitment" or you can be even more obvious like "Owned Heroes" or "Heroes for "The People"". The latter I mentioned gives the feeling of "oh, my efforts and me, myself, and I are going to be owned by the government or we do stuff for the people. How bad can it be?" and then reading through the summary gives them an idea of how heavy those titles actually are. XD Like, why is "The People" in quotations? Are my efforts not actually for the people? Yet, it gives the illusion that it technically deals with the people. Or you can do "Inner Affairs". Not as strong as the other ones in my opinion due to the lack of the feeling of mystery (even if the summary spells it out), but it works. Another one could be "Heroes Turned Celebrities" or the other way around, and that seems like a better option for me.

Plot #2 Summary:
Medieval Fantasy, set in a kingdom where magic has been outlawed for about a decade following the death of the queen under suspicious circumstances. The story picks up upon the murder of the king and the kidnapping of the princess by a magical beast of unknown origins. The characters must track down the beast and rescue the princess.
I could maybe name this one after the name of the kingdom... but I have no name for it as of yet, haha. Ideas welcome for that as well.

This one is a lot harder. I want to convey the era it's in and the issue of the kingdom in as few words as possible, but still giving a lot of interpretation for the title. I was going to say "The Unknown" but that's way too vague for it to be a good title. "Taking Back the Flower" is a metaphorical title as it is comparing the princess to a flower, but while that gets a little of the meaning through, I feel like this title doesn't stand strong on its own and needs the summary for crutches instead of using the summary as context, which we need it to do the latter.

I would ask how the queen died, but I'm trying to do this in one post. XD "For the Queen" or "To the Queen" is like giving a respectful toast (or disrespectful depending on the person) to a person whose death/disappearance is cloaked in mystery. While the start of the story may not be focused on how the queen died, latter portions of the RP will. From my 10 minutes brainstorming, I feel like these ones do it justice. The titles explain the era, and it is vague enough to instill mystery but not enough to feel off-putting. At least, to me. xD While the title can stand on its own, it needs the summary to give more context, which is fine because the summary is there for the deeper context that the title cannot fully give.

If you have no ideas specific to these, but still want to help, maybe answer how you come up with titles for your roleplays? And when looking through recruitment boards, is your interest caught by ones with more vague interesting titles, like land names or phrases; or ones that sound straightforward, just stating what the rp is?

I pretty much already said what catches my eye. Simple titles that give mystery to what is actually happening and what our characters are going to go through. While titles that have large words are eye-catching, they are catching for a different reason and I feel like simple titles do it a little better. But that is dependent on the type of people you are willing to bring in.

Then again, these are my ideas and my interpretation and perception of what is eye-catching. I realized a lot of what I say may be up to conjecture and other people's opinions, but that's why you asked. XD