Non Indicative Name / Tabletop Games

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• Some players of Games Workshop's Chainsaw Warrior snarkily note that the titular character should just be called Warrior. That's because the one thing that the Chainsaw Warrior automatically starts off with...is the Laser Lance. Getting the chainsaw is a random roll every time you select a melee weapon choice from your extremely precious supply points. Given that most players will spend almost all their points on non-weapon equipment, having a chainsaw is actually rare. The video game version and its sequel alleviate this by having easier difficulty levels that lets you specifically choose your items (though there's still a Classic mode which follows the board game).
• Chinese Checkers: it's not from China and it's not even technically a form of Checkers. It was invented in Germany in 1892, brought to the United States in 1928, and the Nonindicative Name was induced deliberately because 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 (not that Yahtzee).
• The system used to record games of Chess is called algebraic notation. It has nothing to do with algebra.
• A "nineteen point hand"^note sometimes shortened to just "a nineteen" in Cribbage is not worth nineteen points. It's worth zero points, but is so named because nineteen is the lowest number of points that it is mathematically impossible for a hand to be worth.
• The eponymous Dark Eyes may be powerful clairvoyance artifacts, yet they rarely are present or play any significant role in the official settings.
  • In-universe example: The Nordmarken (Northern Marches) were the first territorial expansion of the Old Empire towards to the north. Within the current New Empire, the province is located in the southwest.
• 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.
  • Turn Undead uses an obscure meaning of the word "turn". Spoofed in this◊ Warcraft comic.
  • When 4th edition delved into the realm of psionics with its third Player's Handbook, it gave us among other playable classes the "battlemind". Which sounds a bit odd and perhaps a little bland, but makes perfect sense for something like, say, a telepathic leader figure who uses their gifts to coordinate their allies and predict their enemies' moves — wait, what? The class is all about front-line fighter types who instead use their psychic abilities to enhance and perhaps even transform primarily their bodies, sometimes even being pointedly too dense to figure out that that is in fact what they're doing? Never mind, then... This owes to them being a rather mixed attempt to give the 3rd Edition "psychic warrior" a less generic name.
  • Something that started in original Dungeons & Dragons and continued into Pathfinder, Hobgoblins. The word "Hob" in English pertains to a shelf or bench for setting utensils down next to a hearth; "Hobgoblin" therefore, was traditionally a tiny household goblin, while true Goblins were human-sized. Since Pathfinder descends from D&D, which was written by people with a tentative understanding of European folklore at best the misnomer stuck, and "Goblins" became the diminutive guys while "Hobgoblins" became the taller, smarter cousins. This is an error that goes back to Tolkien, who described "hobgoblin" as "the larger kinds".
  • Frost salamanders don't resemble regular, fiery salamanders in any real way — they're reptilian and tied to an element, and that's where the similarities end. This is acknowledged as being so in-universe; the two creatures aren't actually related to one another, but share a name because early explorers named the icy kind after the fiery one based on some superficial similarities.
  • Many players will never actually encounter a dragon. Since most campaigns take place at low levels where all but the youngest dragons would easily slaughter the party, so never seeing a dragon is quite common. In particular, some settings like Ravenloft and Dark Sun only contain a single dragon, making both the plural inaccurate and seeing the one that exists very unlikely.
  • In some setting even dungeons can be quite rare. Spelljammer is probably the best example, being a magical Age of Sail in space.
  • The very first supplement to the core rules of OD&D was called Greyhawk. It didn't contain a campaign setting, or any information at all about the Greyhawk world.
  • The Quasi-Elemental Plane of Steam in the 2nd Edition is not a plane of gaseous water caused by boiling. It's a composed of cold, clammy mist and fog, like the type caused by condensation. Although, an in-universe Urban Legend points to boiling water elementals called wavefires that are found there. The legend suggests that eons ago, the Planes of Fire and Water once shared a border and the Para-Elemental Plane of Steam was indeed a boiling sea under hot steam.
  • The "Plant" creature type from 3rd edition onward includes fungal creatures such as myconids.
  • From the Tome of Battle – Book of Nine Sword, the various martial maneuvers and stances have names a bit on the metaphorical side (inspired by real-life martial arts). The great majority are descriptive enough, but some of them... less so. In particular, the "Hydra Slaying Strike" is useful against any opponent that likes making lots of attacks per round — but due to the wording of the hydra's attacking rules, it is the one monster not impeded at all by the move.
  • The Throw Anything feat doesn't actually allow you to throw anything — it merely removes the standard attack penalty for throwing a weapon that isn't meant to be thrown. As if to make fun of this, one class, Hulking Hurler, has a feature entitled Really Throw Anything, which allows the character to throw anything that they can lift without penalty.
  • Dragonborn are not half-dragon hybrids, despite being Draconic Humanoid. In the default backstory, they are only loosely related to dragons, as they arose from the blood spilled when Io, the original god of dragonkind, was slain. They are thus more akin to siblings or cousins to dragons. In earlier editions, however, Dragonborn were the result of dragon-worshipping humanoids who underwent a ritual by which they were literally reborn (or hatched) into their reptilian form, making the name accurate.
  • The small reptilian monster called the "pseudodragon" (= "false dragon") has been classified as a member of the Dragon creature type since 3rd Edition.
  • The spell chill touch in 5e sounds like it's deals cold damage, and requires the caster to touch the target, right? Wrong, it's actually a long-ranged spell that deals Necrotic damage and prevents the target from regaining health.
  • Birthright: Particularly powerful evil-blooded creatures are known as awnsheghlien and are usually titled based on whatever monster they look like. However, there are two notable exceptions to this: the Gorgon is basically a stone-skinned minotaur, not a gorgon, and Maalvar the Minotaur is actually a centaur, not a minotaur.
• Godforsaken: As the game manual notes, the mirrormen's name is a misnomer in every way. They have no sex or gender, and they do not reflect appearances — they steal them.
• Kindred of the East: In the setting, "Kindred" is the term for the traditional western vampire, as seen in the rest of Vampire: The Masquerade. This spinoff, however, is about an entirely different type of vampire, the Kuei-jin of Asia, who function almost nothing like (and who loudly claim to be superior to) Kindred.
• Magic: The Gathering: Originally, the intent was for the game to be but the first of a series of card games (which would have thus been progressively named). However, the first game proved so immensely popular that they abandoned the idea, and simply expanded the first one with more cards. Thus the name became effectively an Artifact Title, and the "gathering" part doesn't really say anything at all about the game. It works in a meta sense, however, as like any trading card game, it requires players to "gather" their cards.
  • The first and only time in the franchise's history that there's a nod to the title is in the novel for the Scourge expansion, where the false god Karona gathers representatives of the five colors of magic from across the planes in a magic circle reminiscent of the game's logo. Ironically, this was also a Continuity Snarl moment leading to Canon Discontinuity.
  • Done intentionally with some card names in Amonkhet block. Amonkhet was conceived as a setting that looked sunny and pleasant, but the culture was optimised to create zombies for Nicol Bolas's master plan, leading to some creepy and Scenery Dissonance. In order to set this up, some cards were given names that deliberately didn't mesh with the usual naming patterns. For example, Final Reward and Deem Worthy are kill spells, representing the "glorious" death that initiates strive for; Faith of the Devoted sounds like it should buff your creatures but actually drains life from your opponents; and Unburden forces an opponent to discard.
• Over the Edge: Although the city it's set in is called The Edge, the characters are far more often in the Edge than over it.
• Warhammer:
  • The von Carstein vampire family are not from any place called Carstein. In fact, there is no place in the Old World called Carstein, as far as Imperial cartographers know. What happened to Carstein, if it ever existed, and how Vlad von Carstein came by the title (if he didn't invent both it and Carstein itself) is unknown, and quite possibly lost to the mists of time.
  • The Warriors of Chaos has had thirteen 'Everchosen', who, in spite of the title, are not very permanent about anything given the erratic whims of the Chaos Gods.
  • One of Morathi's titles is "Hag sorceress". despite being a strong contender for World's Most Beautiful Woman. In her case, "Hag" is technically accurate in that she is milennia old and is incredibly skilled in Black Magic, even if she doesn't look like the typical image of a hag as an ugly old woman.
• 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).
• In the Yu-Gi-Oh! game, the Gradius card, the first card in a very long line of monsters based on spaceships and enemies from Konami's Gradius series, is a misnomer; the space fighter on the card is actually the Victory Viper ("Gradius" is the name of the planet the craft defends). Although, they do have another more appropriately named card depicting the Vic Viper. (This is only non-indicative in translation - the Japanese name for the Gradius card is Chōjikū Sentōki Vic Viper, which translates as Super Dimensional Fighter Vic Viper. The Victory Viper XX03 has the same name in both regions.)
  • Red-Eyes Black Chick is a baby dragon, not a black baby chicken with red eyes. This is a translation issue, as the card's Japanese name is Kokuryū no Hina, which means Black Dragon's Hatchling. It would eventually be renamed Black Dragon's Chick.
  • Black Magician and Black Magician Girl are not black, they're white, and they don't even wear black - Black Magician wears purple or red, and Black Magician Girl wears blue and pink. The name refers to black magic, which is one of the reasons why they were renamed to Dark Magician and Dark Magician Girl when the series was translated. Black Magician's attack, Black Magic, was also renamed to Dark Magic Attack to keep in line with the renaming.
  • The character on the artwork of Buster Rancher (a Spell Card) probably doesn't own a ranch. The name is actually Buster Launcher and was mistranslated.
  • Seeing the name Injection Fairy Lily, you might think the monster is Fairy type. You'd be wrong. It's a Spellcaster.
  • The Six Samurai archetype has had way more than six members even when they were first introduced in Strike of Neos, although it could be argued that they're named that way because they consist of named groups of six and a handful of supporters. Also, due to the table layout, there cannot have more than five members of the team present on the same side at any one time until a rule change in 2017 introduced the Extra Monster Zone.

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