Accents

[sjanimal]

Rather than derail a certain thread any further, I'm splitting it.

This thread will promote a new addition to the accent system that will
-- probably be easy to code
-- be fun for every single player, guaronteed
-- decrease ethnic violence in Tansania

Okay, so I made all of those up.  But let's take a look at the current language system.  For most characters, you will have your choice of:

Tribal accent
Labrynthian Accent
Northern Accent
Southern Accent

But Rinthers are a small proportion of the world population, so let's cross them off as a novelty.  Same for tribals, who are fun but have coded restrictions and are not suitable for people who don't want to play a Zalanthan redneck.  That leaves us with like a guestimatted 80% of characters who have either

Northern Accent of some variety
or
Southern Accent of some variety

Which...let's be honest, is kind of like the Lord of the Rings.  Instead of the East versus the West, Armageddon has the South versus the North.  I don't want to say anything bad about Tolkein's work, because so many loyal Armers enjoyed the films so much.  But the books tend to have a rather simplistic (good v. evil) theme.  
This does not reflect Armageddon.  Arm is a more adult game.  It covers themes of power, struggle, exploitation, corruption, survival, betrayal, intrigue, murder, torture, rape, racism, etc.  As adult gamers,  we want an RP system that will reflect our penchent for subtlety and nuance.  

As such, behold SJANIMAL's new and improved accent recommended system:

Okay, during character creation, linguists, con-artists and merchants will be presented with the option of having no coded accent.  

Everyone else will be stuck choosing one or two of these accents to flavor their speach:

Possible Accents:
urban
rural
tribal
desert
working-class
peasant
refined
educated
northern
southern
Rinther
Elven
Dwarvish

IMMs will only approve apps where the accent makes sense with the character background.

[Maybe42or54]

Merchant should have accents like normal people. Linguists also.
I only agree to the con artist. Instead of having no Accent, he can have a "change accent Northern"
As for the Elvish, dwarvish, "Working-class" accents should be booted off the list.

And desert should be changed to Thickly. IMHO.

[Marauder Moe]

No coded accent?  How would that work?  If you're sitting at a bar with a southerner on your left and a northerner on your right, both are going to think you're from the same side of the world as them.  Thats a pretty big ambiguity.

I do think some more accent types or layers would be good, but I'm not so sure about choosing them on player creation.  I think it should simply be a factor of starting (birth) location and native language.  Southern-elvish, northern dwarvish, etc.  Special apped characters might have other accents given to them, southern-noble or nothern-merchant, and so on.
[Note: I haven't been following the other accent thread, forgive me if I'm repeating someone.]

[joyofdiscord]

Too lazy to read the whole post.  Summary here:
Social Class =/= (IS NOT EQUAL TO) Accent.

I intended to post this in the other thread, but I felt it was too far gone and not worthwhile.  Now that you have come up with another one, I will indeed weigh in.

Consider your example of the Tuluki prostitute, merchant, street bum, noble, and the Allanaki incarnation of the same roles.  You seem to find it insufferable that they all have a coded regional accent, northern or southern respectively.  However, THIS IS PERFECTLY REALISTIC.  Consider the United States vs. England.  An American street bum's accent has MUCH more in common with an American Senator's than it does with a British street bum's.  Likewise, a British street bum's accent has much more in common with the Queen's than with an American bum's.  A person's accent is how a person pronounces the distinct set of sounds that makes up the phonemic set of their language, in the context of neighboring phonemes.    Accents are very capable of cutting right through social strata.  Sure, certain upper-class Tuluki's/Nakki's might pride themselves on a certain, distinct, probably partially cultivated accent (like the Boston Brahmins, for example), but that would also be easily taken care of with roleplay.

Slang, manners, enunciation, grammar, diction, which often signal social class, ARE COMPLETELY SEPARATE FROM ACCENT.  All of these are also handled perfectly fine with roleplay, better than any code echo possibly could.  An American working-class type speaks COMPLETELY differently from a British working-class type.  Apart from their different accents, they also will use different slang, which is unique to their cultural context.  

Your suggestion, with the cadre of "social-class-oriented" accents (a completely unrealistic system, for the above reasons) is also astonishingly meaningless.  How does a "peasant" accent differ from "working-class", "refined" from "educated"?   What if a former working-class type gets a job around higher-class types.  He can never change his manner of speech?  (Without IMM intervention, of course, and I consider any system that requires constant manual adjustment by IMMs to be of questionable worth.)  As it is now, with social classes being roleplayed, he can change his speech appropriately, as his character would.  He keeps his coded regional accent (100% realistic, in case you've forgotten), but changes his words, mannerisms, and manners of speech to fit in with his new bosses (as best his character can... maybe his character is still somewhat crass... whatever).  Fine.  What's the problem?

So, I'll repeat what I said last time: the current accent system is pretty damned close to perfect.  I'm not going to resort to subtly dropping in blurbs hinting at qualifications I might have to make this determination, but really, the accent system is awesome right now.  If it were to be expanded, it should be with more regional variations.  Coded social-class accents which ignore regional boundaries are, well; pardon me, but they are absurd.

[jhunter]

Your suggestion, with the cadre of "social-class-oriented" accents (a completely unrealistic system, for the above reasons) is also astonishingly meaningless.

[Cuusardo]

Plenty of people reflect all these accents in their speech by typing it out that way.  I really don't think we need any more coded accents in the game.

[wizturbo]

I dont like the idea.

I just want to be able to (with enormous amounts of linguistic practice) speak in a different accent when needed.

[ShaiHulud]

Your suggestion, with the cadre of "social-class-oriented" accents (a completely unrealistic system, for the above reasons) is also astonishingly meaningless.

So, I'll repeat what I said last time: the current accent system is pretty damned close to perfect. I'm not going to resort to subtly dropping in blurbs hinting at qualifications I might have to make this determination, but really, the accent system is awesome right now. If it were to be expanded, it should be with more regional variations. Coded social-class accents which ignore regional boundaries are, well; pardon me, but they are absurd.

[ashyom]

Play nice.  I've deleted a couple posts and edited one or two.  If you can't discuss this idea without flaming people, don't bother posting at all.  

I for one think this idea has some merit, but could use some work.

[proxie]

I think con artists should be able to change thier accent within a reasonable list of choices. Maybe a few pc's who want to play spies specifically. (Trained for a house, merchant group, tribe, criminal organization, ect.) Beyond that, feh. Spend your two years roleplaying learning the new accent and see if you can talk someone into changing your accent.

Proxie

[sjanimal]

Ashyom,

Yeah, a lot about this idea would need to be ironed out.  I wanted to just throw out a framework, and see if any of it could be workable.  Obviously the details would have to be gone over for game consistency and playability.

[Moofassa]

Hm, well the idea has merit, but is it really neccesary? And how often would your average commoner be able to tell the slight difference between an accent from.. lets say.. the slums, and the middle-class... lots of non-pressing coding, and waste of time for the imms i think. If people really want to have their own accents, they can type them in.

[sjanimal]

Moofasa,

I agree with you 100%.  But if you please, have a look at the logic that inspired this post:

First Premise -- Existing accent system is very cool, but not fully developed.  It is oversimplistic and actually constrains people's roleplay

Second Premise -- My idea to turn off accents got shot down.  People seem to insist on having coded accents

Conclusion -- If we must in fact have accents, how hard could it be to let people choose their own accent?  That way it could actually reflect their character's specific background, and the way that their character talks, instead of just reflecting their character's starting location.  

So yeah, bud.  I'm with you here.  I say that accents are unnecessary.  By using Aliases, we could emote our own accents easily.  But since they seem to think we need coded accents, let's at least have the accents make sense.

Now you've got me interested, what would you say about that trail of logic?

-sjanimal

[Maybe42or54]

How hard would it be to code accents like this.

You start off at a level 1 Accent identifier.
All the accents you see are the accent from your hometown or foreign.
As you progress, the accents break down into the various groups.
When a con artist masters this, he can successfully change his accent.

How hard would that be to code?

And if it is possible. make it so you learn each accent.

Eddited to add AC's wonderful idea.

Or we could go. You have a southern accent.
Level 1- your accent and "foreign"
level 10- Your accent, northern, and tribal.
level 20- Your accent, luir's accent, red Storm accent, Tuluki accent
level 30- Your accent, northern poor accent and noble accent, etc.
And so on and so on.

[Angela Christine]

You start off at a level 1 Accent identifier.
All the accents you see are northern and southern.

Actually at level 1 you should only get local accent (ie. you don't notice an accent at all) and foriegn accent.  Ideally anyone with a different hometown than you would show up as "foriegn" even if they are from the same region, so if you are from Red Storm, then Allanak, Tuluk, etc. all show up as foriegn.


AC

[Trenidor]

I like the idea, here's how I'd like to see it:

Add under the linguistic skills section on the skills list: Northern Accent, Southern Accent, Tribal Accent, and Labyrinth Accent.

Add to the change command the section: Accent

And with that, since it's a linguistic skill, it'd work like any other language skill:

Over time you can branch the skill, then you can change your accent and learn by speaking in that accent.

It'll jumble your words up at first, not as bad as learning a language would, but more like:

"So you're going out riding tonight?!"
"Sa yaw're gonig aut rodeon tanoght!?"

And it would have to take a somewhat long time to learn it.

Also, those who naturally speak in that accent would conversly not understand as well what someone was saying:

"Ya, I'm going out riding."
"ay, A'm gonna out riddin."


Naturally, if you were a southerner and went up north to live, you'd eventually decide it's easiest to change your language to match the local so they understand you instead of try to keep your old accent. However, if you had the right character personality, such as a southerner who speaks specifically to anny people, they would keep their accent the same.

I Do Not, agree that any class or guild should start with different accents. Although someone can speak multiple languages, you often have to live in a country where the primary language of the country speaks your secondary language before you learn their accent.

And with that brings up my final note: It would be easy to speak your primary language in the different Accents, however, secondary languages would require a bit more work. If you spoke a secondary language, it would automatically have to be your primary accent untill you learned the language enough to speak fluently. Then you could learn the accents of that language.

So basically you'd have:

Language ------------- Accent
Sirihish ---------------- Northern
Sirihish ---------------- Southern
Sirihish ---------------- Tribal
Sirihish ---------------- Rinthy
Mirukkim -------------- Northern
Mirukkim -------------- Southern
Mirukkim -------------- Rinthy
Mirukkim -------------- Tribal
Allundean ------------- Northern
Allundean ------------- Southern
Allundean ------------- Rinthy
Allundean ------------- Tribal
Cavilish --------------- Northern
Cavilish --------------- Southern
Cavilish --------------- Tribal
Cavilish --------------- Rinthy
Bendune -------------- Northern
Bendune -------------- Southern
Bendune -------------- Tribal
Bendune -------------- Rinthy
So on and so forth

Check out this circumstance:

A Northern Merchant deals with tribals who speak Bendune frequently and is just starting to speak bendue fluently with them and just branched Tribal Accent.

The northern merchant says in northern-accented bendune: "How does two blankets for one necklace sound?"

The tribal trader says, in tribal-accented bendune: "Come naw, ya dan't haft to speak en yur lungauge, beddy."

>change accent tribal
You cannot speak tribal with bendune just yet.

The tribal trader says in northern-accented sirihish: "Come, we will do buisness in my tent."
---

Where as:

The tribal trader speaks both sirihish and bendune rather fluently and branched northern and tribal accents because he goes to the city often to deal with merchants

the northern merchant says in northern-accented bendune: "How does two blankets for one necklace sound?"

The tribal trader says, in tribal-accented bendune: "Come now, ya don't have to speak in our language, buddy."

>Change accent northern
Ok.
>Change language sir
Ok.

The tribal trader says in northern-accented sirihish: "Come, we will do buisness in my tent."

----------------------

When you change your language from your primary (the one you have more exp in) to a secondary language, it would automatically change to your primary accent. Then if you wanted to speak in that accent as well, you change your accent to the accent you want.

However You'd have to have so many exp in the secondary language, to use your secondary accent in that language.

This would require you to learn how to prenounce words in the native accent of that language as well as learn the language.

And now for why I don't think con artist or linguist should get special stuff:

A linguist could easily learn the accent because they have such a high skill at the language it's in, and the con artist would probably want to learn the native language first before they speak the accent. Really it's a matter of what's in your background, but since background can't be applied to skills........If you learned the accent and language from someone who doesn't use it as their primary language, you wouldn't learn the accent as well (unless they were really good) but on the other hand if you learned in your background by actually being there then you can easily learn in anyways. And there's also the choice of emailing the staff.



The skills would both:

A) Make it so even smart people can't read a language they don't know
and
B) Make broader roleplay of gathering information about people.

(I don't want to be told someones sdesc when I roleplay, just their most important feature, and then what they sound like, and then special habbits they might do and other notable traits. )

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I have to say, I'm all for the langauge revision Tren endorses, with the learned sirihish.

[Ghost]

I have to say, I'm all for the langauge revision Tren endorses, with the learned sirihish.

I second that.

Something like:
>change language sirihish_northern
>change language sirihish_southern

Would be cool.

[Xamminy]

You start off at a level 1 Accent identifier.
All the accents you see are the accent from your hometown or foreign.
As you progress, the accents break down into the various groups.
When a con artist masters this, he can successfully change his accent.
...
Level 1- your accent and "foreign"
level 10- Your accent, northern, and tribal.
level 20- Your accent, luir's accent, red Storm accent, Tuluki accent
level 30- Your accent, northern poor accent and noble accent, etc.

Okay...just to add another possible take on this...

Everyone gets a skill.  Maxes would be determined by class, some subclasses having it at a different max for whatever reason.  Possibly require someone to get a certain skill to branch to this skill for some classes, but when they get it, they're better...that or they just really are horrible at it unlike everyone else.  I mean, all sorts of fun possibilities...

...and you get a skill check whenever someone speaks to see their accents.  Make it so that some accents are harder to identify than others.  Any language flagged as 'hometown' you automatically succeed with.  Anything else is foreign and must be checked on the skill.  (Note that I'm assuming that having an autosucceed on a language check would work even if you have a 0 score in the skill.)

Like/dislike?

Editted to add: Oh, I don't think that who gets what accents should be changed up that much, but adding other dialects could be interesting.  Possibly include language scramble code if you aren't good enough at some skill, etc etc.  I don't think we need quite as many as has been suggested.

[Dracul]

Nah Xammiy.

I don't like the level one.
See for example..I don't know fuckall about accents in rl.  but...


Foreign and your own is too great. I dont think we should all start at a skill that low.

Probally be a lot of extra code...etc.

[Xamminy]

I don't like the level one.

Neither do I...that's why I suggested a skill...with skill checks...and nothing relating to levels.  It feels to D&Dish to me.  Woo!  I'm a level 7 con-artist!  Uh, no thanks.

[Dracul]

Wow...see part of why my post reads like it does is because I skipped over half of it.  Heh...read it like you posted what you quoted...eh...yeah.

Anways I dont think he even meant levels too much, just as a general guide.


Minus the language scrambling...since thats what languages do. I like that way of adjusting the skill.  Although who knows how that would be handled.

[Xamminy]

Oh, hey, I was just brainstorming possibilties to see what people liked/didn't like.

[Maybe42or54]

Yea. I didn't mean level persay. Just a guide as to what come before what.
Depending on your guild and subguilds, you would start with a much higher (Or lower, or unchanged) language skill.    
Xamminy's sounds good to.