Big words!

[Samoa]

If every time someone spoke, I was treated to the same, generic (in a thick, uneducated accent) I would eventually want to reach through the screen and strangle them, so it sounds as if we're at an impasse.

Accents have been typed in the game for years. It is no different than using *these* for emphasis, which often occurs. It sounds like a southern hick accent because southern hicks are *uneducated and can't speak well* (which I feel comfortable saying, having grown up there). It also sounds like an illinois hick accent, or pretty much any "middle of fucking nowhere" accent where the general population is unintelligent and possibly inbred.

Like Menos.

This whole, "no, YOU'RE wrong" argument is not going to go anywhere at any point. Maybe let it go.

[maxid]

Sure.  I said more than a few times that people are free to do whatever.  I'm just pointing out that it doesn't logically make a whole lot of sense to do it their way, and it's unsupported by the documentation.

[Seeker]

If someone's word selection or use of odd punctuation seems to be in conflict with the game rules, file a complaint with staff.

Otherwise, stop trying to enforce your own vision of what is "right" on other players' RP choices.  Nonproductive and not fulfilling.  

Agreed. Nothing is going accomplished by this argument. It's one of those areas where many people have many different "visions" on how it should be and what's right and what's wrong. It's all gray area that we're allowed to decide how we want to roleplay within and personally, I'm fine with that.

It's fine, you can Rp it that way, I've said that a few times.  But it is demonstrably incorrect.

At the risk of feeding the trolls, I'll bite:

Maxid, how is allowing the player's the ability to select odd words or use unconventional punctuation for RP reasons "demonstrably wrong", please?  Those were my only claims.

*edit to fix screwed up quoting boxes

[Anaiah]

Please keep things nice and civil and don't argue the same point over and over and over again to get that post count +. There's no need for getting snarky and such.

[maxid]

At the risk of feeding the trolls, I'll bite:

Maxid, how is allowing the player's the ability to select odd words or use unconventional punctuation for RP reasons "demonstrably wrong", please?  Those were my only claims.

I'm not a troll, sorry to disappoint.

An odd word is fine.  A bit of unconventional punctuation is cool.  The issue is that when every other person t'lk l'ke th's, it becomes silly and inconsistent.  There is no way to tell if the person is uneducated, mentally retarded, is missing part of their tongue, is secretly a 'rinthi, grew up with a speech impediment, is having an allergic reaction, or has their mouth full.

People are legitimately strawmanning my argument (unlike the failed call out earlier) into my not wanting any uniqueness to speech.  I'm disagreeing with the assessment that vomiting apostrophes into the ether is, in any way, a valid method of characterization.

[Seeker]

An odd word is fine.  A bit of unconventional punctuation is cool.

This statement is completely at odds with your previous claim that such use was "demonstrably wrong."  You have completely altered your position and contradicted your own assertions.

I'm disagreeing with the assessment that vomiting apostrophes into the ether is, in any way, a valid method of characterization.

I read the entire thread before I responded.  No one has proposed or defended this point of view.  Assuming they had, however, why is the unorthodox use of apostrophes invalid, in any way, as a tool for speech characterization?

[maxid]

An odd word is fine.  A bit of unconventional punctuation is cool.

This statement is completely at odds with your previous claim that such use was "demonstrably wrong."  You have completely altered your position and contradicted your own assertions.

I'm disagreeing with the assessment that vomiting apostrophes into the ether is, in any way, a valid method of characterization.

I read the entire thread before I responded.  No one has proposed or defended this point of view.  Assuming they had, however, why is the unorthodox use of apostrophes invalid, in any way, as a tool for speech characterization?

Odd words have never been mentioned, and unconventional .  And most of my argument has been against people claiming that we should all just talk like southern united states country folk more or less as a total rip off.  I said that them claiming it is valid and documented is objectively wrong.  Because it is.

If you want to wholesale copy an RL regional dialect, you're Rping poorly.  If you want to every once in a while use a strange word (Obsequitous!) or use them wrong, cool.  If you want to have strange sentence breaks where they stop to think or confuse themselves?  Awesome that'd be pretty cool to see I think.

But to claim you're adding an accent to a character by cutting out half the vowels is not legitimate.  Your character already has an accent, and in a city with a lower population than a single borough in New York, that has been crammed together for thousands of years, you're going to sound like the other people who live there.

[Synthesis]

You're over-generalizing about accents, man.  While there is a generalizable "southern" dialect, there are countless subdivisions of it, and each is indicative of a unique subculture, to those who would recognize it.

The use of the additional American "hick" accent punctuation or perhaps British Cockney grammar/punctuation is indicative of the player's desire to portray a member of a different, less polished subculture.

Thus, "southern-acented sirihish" is indicative of a general location.  The player's "custom" punctuation is indicative of a subset of the southern accent.  Imagine it as uncoded "trader-southern" or "alley-southern" or "noble-southern."

This isn't a difficult thing for most of us to understand.

[Seeker]

most of my argument has been against people claiming that we should all just talk like southern united states country folk more or less as a total rip off.  I said that them claiming it is valid and documented is objectively wrong.  Because it is.

No one ever claimed the above position you are trying vigorously to defeat.  This is an imaginary target.

Most people seem to agree that garbling text so much that it is unintelligible  is probably a mistake and doesn't help with characterization.  Your claims just leave me confused.  Please help?

#1:

But to claim you're adding an accent to a character by cutting out half the vowels is not legitimate.

Why is it illegitimate to drop vowels in an attempt to imitate a spoken accent?  It is not uncommon in English literature.  Why would you find it illegitimate here?

and finally #2, you never addressed

I'm disagreeing with the assessment that vomiting apostrophes into the ether is, in any way, a valid method of characterization.

... why is the unorthodox use of apostrophes invalid, in any way, as a tool for speech characterization?

[Rhyden]

What Synth said.

Also, if a character's speech happens to be borderline-illiterate, you can assume they're incomprehensible.

I think everyone will enjoy arm more if they appreciate the unique variety (be it speech or emotes or whatever) brought to the table by our players.

[X-D]

My chime for tonight.

Maxid Is doing a good job arguing a point I agree with.

I see many people seem to be missing the point altogether and are arguing some other point in which I'm not even sure of.

I think I'm going to try though.

Alright, If I type something with my PC, the CODE tells you what language and accent he is using.

So, The tall bearded man tells you in southern accented sirihish, "Hello chum, the weather seems quite foul today."

See, southern accented Sirihish.

Now, What if I type the tall bearded man tells you in southern accented sirihish, "H'llo chum, th' w'thr s'ms quit' foul today."

So alright, again, the code says that I'm speaking in southern accented sirihish, but for some odd reason I decided to make up my own accent/manner of talking. Fine, but Which one is REALLY southern accented Sirihish, Like highlander, There can be only one. And if both are, because code says so, then your just making your PC sound like an idiot and hard for the other PLAYERS to understand. it IS redundant because the code already says language and accent, It is also redundant because you can....GASP....use speaking emotes.

The tall bearded man says, in southern accented sirihish, his words oddly clipped, "Hello chum, the weather seems quite foul today."

Look at that, Anybody can read it without having to study it for 10 minutes AND you explained how he was speaking in southern accented sirihish.

Course, If you actually intend for your PC to sound like a retard with half his tongue cut off...Well, by all means, go for it...If you think you are being clever and adding something to the game by making up an accent...Well, to that, you fail in epic manner.

[Samoa]

If you think you are being clever and adding something to the game by making up an accent...Well, to that, you fail in epic manner.

Keep it civil.

[X-D]

That troll almost got a very UNcivil response.

[jstorrie]

I agree that regional accents are best left to the code.

As to big words versus 'street talk,' I think that if your PC is using unusual advanced speech it's reasonable to assume she's more educated than average, and vice versa. Given that players have varying degrees of literacy, however, and not everyone is primarily an English speaker, I wouldn't focus too much on it one way or the other.

[Synthesis]

There's more to a character's speech than code, just as there's more to a character than his skill sheet.

I think it's pretty reasonable to accept that there might be non-coded sub-dialects of southern-accented sirihish that people can choose to characterize, really, however the fuck they want, because this is in part a player-created game.  Furthermore, as has been stated repeatedly, there is stylistic content and there is literal content, and each is important to generating complete characterization.

You don't have to like it, but copping to "it ain't coded!" is uh...just plain dumb.

That being said, there are pretty much accepted ways of apostrophizing English, and wantonly abandoning vowels is not one of them.

[BleakOne]

By X-D's logic though, emoting in combat is bad RPing because the code is telling you what happens, same for barfights, or when eating... or anything handled codedly really.

[Zoltan]

I think accusing people of typing an apostrophe every other letter is kind of mis-characterizing the majority of the pbase's take on accents. Sure, the sounds that a lot of people are going for could be sort of demonstrated with just word choice and cadence, but what's the big deal about dropping some g's and contracting things? If someone's incomprehensible, write in a player complaint.

[Drayab]

1) "Hello chum, the weather seems quite foul today."

2) "H'llo chum, th' w'thr s'ms quit' foul today."

3) "'ello chum, da wedder seems quite foul taday."

Nobody is arguing for #2! Apostrophe salad/pincushion/wordvomit be damned!

#3 is talking in a subset accent of whatever accent the code grants them. Is this so bad?

[Reiloth]

Complain about my accent IG (or file a player complaint). I'll leave it at that!

[maxid]

The use of the additional American "hick" accent punctuation or perhaps British Cockney grammar/punctuation is indicative of the player's desire to portray a member of a different, less polished subculture.

The problem you run into here has been stated, on this page even.  There is no standardization.  A mock cockney, and a mock hick accent could be used by two people, in the same conversation, who are coded from the exact same IC place (say, Menos, for arguments sake.)  And, in that same conversation, a third person could be using a mock hick accent to portray the fact that their character has a learning disability, and a fourth could be using the mock hick accent because they're actually a secret Northern spy who JUST branched accent – southern. There are no rules,  or documentation to help you know which is which, so it is a failed method of portraying something, because it actually adds nothing identifiable to the scene, it becomes a mishmash of people desperate to stand out, and anyone watching would think persons 1, 3, and 4 were from Menos, and person 2 was from elsewhere, when that is entirely wrong.

It's not that I don't understand that it's an attempt at an uncoded trader, noble, alley, etc. southern accent, it's that there's no way to tell that because they're spasming violently at the ' key they mean to be portraying a trader, noble, or alley accent.

I'm disagreeing with the assessment that vomiting apostrophes into the ether is, in any way, a valid method of characterization.

... why is the unorthodox use of apostrophes invalid, in any way, as a tool for speech characterization?

I once asked my teacher, in 10th grade, why I couldn't write my story with accents like Mark Twain did.  Her response was simple, and to the point 'Because you are not Mark Twain.'  The attempted utilization of accents in creative writing is, in fact, frowned upon pretty severely by the scholastic community, unless you have the writing chops, as it were, to be able to ignore convention (You don't.  This is not me being mean, this is my stating a fact.  You are not the next great American (or wherever) novelist.)   The fact that there is a convention to defy is one of the reasons that writers like Twain, who do accents –well- and use them to serve a purpose, are so well received, they shake it up.  I understand your desire to be different and unique, I do.  I even understand your desire to add to your character, hell I want to add to MY characters.  But the way you are doing it doesn't actually add anything.  I know you've dug in your heels, and you refuse to see it, but the method you are using to add characterization is indecipherable, without standardization being made in a helpfile (southern hick = Menos/allanaki villages, cockney = lower class Tuluk, etc.) with a full breakdown of how to do that sub-accent.  And that is way, way, way too much work, and beyond the writing skill of the entire Armageddon playerbase.  I don't mean that rudely, but this method of adding accents is one that must be used carefully and with purpose, if it is to have any impact at all.

[X-D]

By X-D's logic though, emoting in combat is bad RPing because the code is telling you what happens, same for barfights, or when eating... or anything handled codedly really.

Really? I find that most the code is pretty open ended.

And your statement is approaching silly anyway, I never said anything was bad RP first of all, Your words not mine.

As to barfights and combat, Hopefully you are not emoting against the code, That would be bad RP IMO, but explaining how the coded action happened is a good thing and what I see most doing. And your logic is comparing apples to Hand grenades, Sure, they are both round...

I think accusing people of typing an apostrophe every other letter is kind of mis-characterizing the majority of the pbase's take on accents. Sure, the sounds that a lot of people are going for could be sort of demonstrated with just word choice and cadence, but what's the big deal about dropping some g's and contracting things? If someone's incomprehensible, write in a player complaint.

First, Player complaints are lame IMO, and the fact that people want to use them for every little thing even more so.
And what exactly would the complaint be? They are not breaking any rules that I know of.

Also, the people that do it don't just drop a few Gs, they drop them all and replace all Os with AH and add in ' for every missing letter along with conjoining words with them. I don't care if your PC is too lazy to completely sound out every word and drops the G on anything with ING, Small and simple speech quirks are not the same as trying to come up with a new accent combined with what seems to be a major speech impediment.

As to the rest, Hey, if you wanna do it, fine, but I will simply squelch your PC client side.

PS, #3 is almost as bad...mostly for the made up nonsense word, If I saw "wedder" (or any number of other made up words) without the translation post above it, I'd be like, "What the fuck is a wedder?" Tell dude What the fuck is a wedder?"

Actually, I've done that dozens of times IG, till I figure out they are making up words and ignore them.

[Drayab]

"Strawberries and such truck," I says. "Is that
what you live on?"

"I couldn' git nuffn else," he says.

"Why, how long you been on the island, Jim?"

"I come heah de night arter you's killed."

"What, all that time?"

"Yes -- indeedy."

"And ain't you had nothing but that kind of
rubbage to eat?"

"No, sah -- nuffn else."

"Well, you must be most starved, ain't you?"

"I reck'n I could eat a hoss. I think I could.
How long you ben on de islan'?"

"Since the night I got killed."

Speaking from my experience, insofar as portraying an accent, I'd say we've got players that aren't too far off from this level.

Not that it even matters. Nobody is born as a perfect roleplayer, writer, or anything.

[X-D]

But for one thing...Twain did not make the accent up.

[maxid]

But for one thing...Twain did not make the accent up.

And Twain's accent is easily identifiable as representing a specific place/location/mannerism.  Arm "accents" are not.

[BleakOne]

By X-D's logic though, emoting in combat is bad RPing because the code is telling you what happens, same for barfights, or when eating... or anything handled codedly really.

Really? I find that most the code is pretty open ended.

And your statement is approaching silly anyway, I never said anything was bad RP first of all, Your words not mine.

As to barfights and combat, Hopefully you are not emoting against the code, That would be bad RP IMO, but explaining how the coded action happened is a good thing and what I see most doing. And your logic is comparing apples to Hand grenades, Sure, they are both round...

So it is ok to emote how you are hitting the tall muscular man in the neck for unspeakable damage (which is codedly self-explaining), but not to spell out how the rinthi accent (which, in the same way, codedly explains itself) you have sounds?

As far as not saying its bad RP, well, you did say it was epically failing, which I thought was pretty similar to 'not good RP'.