Speaking with an accent

[Steve]

If a character is a non-native speaker of the local language, would having an accent be a type of Distinctive Features? I'm thinking it would be Concealable.

 

What about a regional accent, like a person from Ireland in the US?

[Surrealone]

It could be.

 

Another consideration is how the accent is perceived.  For example, attractive females with British or Australian accents are typically perceived by Americans as that much more attractive due to the accent ... something that would add COM to the holder of said British accent (only when speaking -- worth a limitation) in 5ER ... and probably translate to Striking Appearance (also only when speaking -- worth a limitation) in 6e.  In such cases, some GM's wouldn't also let it be taken as a Distinctive Feature, but others certainly would, as it'd be relevant if, say, the authorities, a hit man, or someone else were looking for the holder of the accent.

[Tasha]

If a character is a non-native speaker of the local language, would having an accent be a type of Distinctive Features? I'm thinking it would be Concealable.

 

What about a regional accent, like a person from Ireland in the US?

 

Of course it's a feature of 3 pts of a language instead of 4pts. So an accent that is different from where the PC's are at would be distinctive, but would be easily Concealable, Noticed and Recognizable, though it would also be "Not distinctive in Some Cultures", though if the accent if from somewhere the PCs are unlikely to go or the accent doesn't have a community of similar speakers close, then it may not have that last subtractor. I guess it would depend on the campaign and the accent

 

Most accents aren't going to cause a major reaction. Perhaps having a Russian Accent during the height of the "Red Scare" period or being southern in the north after the civil war (or vice versa). Again it depends.

 

Always keep in mind a Complication is an demand for the GM to make use of the accent in negative ways.

[Christopher]

Most accents aren't going to cause a major reaction. Perhaps having a Russian Accent during the height of the "Red Scare" period or being southern in the north after the civil war (or vice versa). Again it depends.

[Doc Democracy]

As the beneficiary of the accent effect, I would like to extend the group from "attractive British and Australian girls" mentioned by surrealone to unattractive Scottish men. Two years in Nashville did amazing things for my self-worth but it took me years to readjust to my league when I got home.

 

Attractive girls, way out of my league, regularly approached and chatted me up when they heard me talking in stores and restaurants. Once, even when my girlfriend was sitting beside me...

 

Now the value of that in an RPG might be limited but it shows that you stand out, are noticeable and noticed and may gain bonuses to talking with folk well beyond the usual.

 

My wife recently met an acquaintance of mine, a tax attaché in London's French Embassy. I thought I was going to have to help her o a chair as her knees obviously gave way when he was speaking to us.... :-)

[Tasha]

 

Also arguably during the Reagan era and still during the Cold war. Also, they didn't actually react much to his accent. Major reaction would have them be arrested or some other big reaction. More like the reaction Chekov got when he was on the Enterprise (Nuclear Carrier Version) and was caught by the soldiers.

[Steve]

As the beneficiary of the accent effect, I would like to extend the group from "attractive British and Australian girls" mentioned by surrealone to unattractive Scottish men. Two years in Nashville did amazing things for my self-worth but it took me years to readjust to my league when I got home.

 

Attractive girls, way out of my league, regularly approached and chatted me up when they heard me talking in stores and restaurants. Once, even when my girlfriend was sitting beside me...

 

Now the value of that in an RPG might be limited but it shows that you stand out, are noticeable and noticed and may gain bonuses to talking with folk well beyond the usual.

 

My wife recently met an acquaintance of mine, a tax attaché in London's French Embassy. I thought I was going to have to help her o a chair as her knees obviously gave way when he was speaking to us.... :-)

I'm suddenly wondering if this is part of James Bond's charm power with women.

 

British accents can also make a villain sound more menacing in American movies, so it might be worth a slight bonus when making PRE attacks against Americans.

 

I suppose a German accent could offer the same bonus in a Golden Age or Pulp-era campaign.

[Surrealone]

It is highly likely -- but one has to pay points for it if they want that effect in Hero System.

[zslane]

I agree with Tasha that this is highly specific to the campaign setting. Moreover, reactions will vary from character to character, and so there is nothing you can put on the character sheet that is worth a particular point value. Some people will like/love the accent, while others won't. Most won't care.

 

Unless the campaign establishes very distinct prejudices for or against a particular accent, I figure reactions average out and just become a part of roleplaying (not system mechanics).

[Lord Liaden]

Whether an accent would count as a Distinctive Feature would depend a lot on where the bulk of the action was taking place. In a large, cosmopolitan city like New York, London, or Toronto, people routinely hear accents from all over the world, so even if noticeable it wouldn't stand out for most people. OTOH in rural areas or countries where the population is more uniform, an accent would probably mark someone as an "outsider."

[Greywind]

[Hugh Neilson]

In my view, much of the above is backwards. If the player has taken points for an Extreme Reaction to the character's accent, then it causes an extreme reaction. This needs to fit with the campaign, of course. But if Chekhov's player took DF: Accent - major reaction, then the guards would react accordingly, assuming his accent indicates he's a (pretty stupid) Russian spy.

 

By taking DF, but only at the "noticed and recognizable" level, the player has said that, as a campaign feature, people will notice and remember the character's accent. If the player takes no DF, then his accent should not cause the locals to mention it in a context that lets some adversary looking for the character locate him more easily.

 

By taking the Complication, the player has said he wants this to be a campaign feature. Unless this is not possible in the campaign setting, that should be the result.

[Nolgroth]

By taking the Complication, the player has said he wants this to be a campaign feature. Unless this is not possible in the campaign setting, that should be the result.

 

And if it is not possible in the campaign setting, it should be a 0-Point Complication. 

[zslane]

If the player has taken points for an Extreme Reaction to the character's accent, then it causes an extreme reaction. This needs to fit with the campaign, of course.

That last sentence is the key point though. Without a campaign "axiom" (to borrow a Torg term) supporting that Extreme Reaction, a player can't put it on the character sheet. Complications are ways of getting PCs to fit into the campaign world, they aren't ways of letting PCs define the campaign world (as GM, defining the campaign world is my job, not theirs).

[assault]

Complications are ways of getting PCs to fit into the campaign world, they aren't ways of letting PCs define the campaign world (as GM, defining the campaign world is my job, not theirs).

 

A little one sided for my tastes. I prefer input from both players and the GM.

[eepjr24]

A little one sided for my tastes. I prefer input from both players and the GM.

I take input as a GM. But the final decision of what fits and what does not is the GM's. If the player prefers otherwise, they are welcome to GM and I will play. =)

 

- E

[Hugh Neilson]

That last sentence is the key point though. Without a campaign "axiom" (to borrow a Torg term) supporting that Extreme Reaction, a player can't put it on the character sheet. Complications are ways of getting PCs to fit into the campaign world, they aren't ways of letting PCs define the campaign world (as GM, defining the campaign world is my job, not theirs).

 

 

A little one sided for my tastes. I prefer input from both players and the GM.

 

 

I take input as a GM. But the final decision of what fits and what does not is the GM's. If the player prefers otherwise, they are welcome to GM and I will play. =)

As we can see, there's a variety of opinions out there. At one extreme, the GM can just hand out pregenerated characters. At the other, the GM can take what the players have written and design the campaign around it.

 

Generally, I find there's some discussion back and forth to find the best fit of the player's vision for the character and the GM's vision for the campaign. Gaming is a social activity, and an excessively rigid GM may find himself running a game for no players. However, a reasonable player will typically be open to modifying his vision or, in extreme cases, shelving that character idea for a game where it will fit better.

 

That unusual accent, for example, can probably be fit into most games. Maybe it can't be Irish, but would fit another nationality well (Russian, for that extreme reaction, in a Cold War Espionage game, for example). At the extreme, if the game is one of random strangers kidnapped and dropped into a bizarre setting, everyone has an "unusual accent" because everyone comes from a different place. Even then, however, one can always bend a little (while most accents tend not to be remembered, that sing-song lilt of the Irish accent sticks in people's minds and the character tends to be easily identified and remembered).

[massey]

Some disadvantages/complications don't make sense for the campaign.  "Hates Klingons" doesn't make sense in a traditional zombie apocalypse game.  The player saying "this means I want the GM to incorporate more Klingons into the game" isn't really fair to the GM or the other players.  On the other hand, letting players help define the game world (or at least the aspects of it that they interact with) is perfectly fine.  Say you have a Star Trek game, "Hunted by Klingons" tells the GM what kind of game the player wants to have.  That'll give a different kind of campaign than one where the players took "Stupidly curious, will investigate all obviously dangerous alien life forms".

[Lucius]

Some disadvantages/complications don't make sense for the campaign.  "Hates Klingons" doesn't make sense in a traditional zombie apocalypse game.  The player saying "this means I want the GM to incorporate more Klingons into the game" isn't really fair to the GM or the other players.  On the other hand, letting players help define the game world (or at least the aspects of it that they interact with) is perfectly fine.  Say you have a Star Trek game, "Hunted by Klingons" tells the GM what kind of game the player wants to have.  That'll give a different kind of campaign than one where the players took "Stupidly curious, will investigate all obviously dangerous alien life forms".

One could take both, on the grounds the Klingons are an obviously dangerous alien life form that may take exception to being investigated by the stupidly curious.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

And an inobviously dangerous alien palindromedary

[bigdamnhero]

My usual take on Distinctive Features is that it's generally not enough to be identifiable as belonging to a certain nationality/race/group/whatever, it should be something that identifies you as an individual. Of course that's heavily campaign-specific, as others have noted. And if the character is going to be the only person from that group in the campaign, that's another story. But "sounds like any one of several million Irishmen" isn't normally going to be worth a lot of points in most modern games.

 

re Nuclear Wessels: as hysterical as that scene was, it also drove me nuts at the time because Russian doesn't have a W sound! In fact anything with a W they pronounce as a V, so Checkov had things exactly backwards...at least based on 20th/21st Century Russian.

[dmjalund]

Chekhov is a Russian with a speech impediment

[Hugh Neilson]

Some disadvantages/complications don't make sense for the campaign.  "Hates Klingons" doesn't make sense in a traditional zombie apocalypse game.  The player saying "this means I want the GM to incorporate more Klingons into the game" isn't really fair to the GM or the other players.  On the other hand, letting players help define the game world (or at least the aspects of it that they interact with) is perfectly fine.  Say you have a Star Trek game, "Hunted by Klingons" tells the GM what kind of game the player wants to have.  That'll give a different kind of campaign than one where the players took "Stupidly curious, will investigate all obviously dangerous alien life forms".

 

One could take both, on the grounds the Klingons are an obviously dangerous alien life form that may take exception to being investigated by the stupidly curious.

Sure - that simply suggests the campaign will not focus exclusively on either the Klingons or investigation of dangerous life forms, but will have more variety, including both. If all the PC's have Klingon-related complications, then the game will presumably focus a lot on Klingons. We could pick lots of other ST races to focus a campaign on as well. If we have a wide range of complications, like Hunteds or Hatreds ranging over Klingons, Romulans, Orions, Cardassians, the Borg, the Gorn and the Maquis, it's going to be a very diverse campaign. If the GM wants more focus, maybe he gets a bit more detail on the WHY behind each Hunted, and discusses whether a different race/group might work just as well, to focus the campaign.

 

 

My usual take on Distinctive Features is that it's generally not enough to be identifiable as belonging to a certain nationality/race/group/whatever, it should be something that identifies you as an individual. Of course that's heavily campaign-specific, as others have noted. And if the character is going to be the only person from that group in the campaign, that's another story. But "sounds like any one of several million Irishmen" isn't normally going to be worth a lot of points in most modern games.

Again, I see it from a different perspective. That DF: Irish Accent means that, despite sounding like one of several million Irishmen, when it matters, a witness noting an Irish accent always leads the opposition to link the accent with that specific Irishman. How many people wear a uniform? How many dwarves are running around a typical fantasy setting? That's two of the three examples in 6e V1 p422. Both are Noticed and Recognizable, and the Unifom is easily concealed.

 

Ask the player how he envisions the DF operating as a hindrance.

[bigdamnhero]

Again, I see it from a different perspective. That DF: Irish Accent means that, despite sounding like one of several million Irishmen, when it matters, a witness noting an Irish accent always leads the opposition to link the accent with that specific Irishman. How many people wear a uniform? How many dwarves are running around a typical fantasy setting? That's two of the three examples in 6e V1 p422. Both are Noticed and Recognizable, and the Unifom is easily concealed.

 

Ask the player how he envisions the DF operating as a hindrance.

I agree it all depends on how the player & GM see it playing out. The point is how often it comes up and how inconvenient it is, not strictly speaking how unique it is.

[Mister E]

Darth Vader is Transatlantic Radio.

[Christopher]

re Nuclear Wessels: as hysterical as that scene was, it also drove me nuts at the time because Russian doesn't have a W sound! In fact anything with a W they pronounce as a V, so Checkov had things exactly backwards...at least based on 20th/21st Century Russian.

That was propably just a mistake of the guy writing the title and he actually said V.

Mostly because the English W sounds like a U (it is called double-U).

 

I.e., Windows XP is spoken more like a fast "Uindous XP".