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The Dresden Files => DFRPG => Topic started by: namitai on April 06, 2012, 01:58:42 PM
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What skill would a character have to have to be able to mimic accents to a believable degree? If it's not a skill, what would she most likely have to take on her character sheet? She is pretending to be of American descent as part of a fake identity.
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I'll do some more research when i have time, as I'm currently at work, however I'd believe it may just fall under Deciet. Normally, I'd say its just a passive kind of thing, as long as you have a high enough Deciet, and would only go into a true contest if someone where to try to really pinpoint it. Really up in the air though, need to read back up on the book, been a while.
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Languages are covered by scholarship, which probably includes accents, if you learned the language from a native speaker. If your character is trying to pretend to speak the accent to fit in, that would probably be deceit. Or performance, if he is seeing himself as sort of an actor in that situation.
But all that aside, most of the time it will not be an issue. The character probably has an aspect like "an englishman in new york", that describes this fact. Discovering it would probably be the result of a social conflict, using the skills above.
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What skill would a character have to have to be able to mimic accents to a believable degree? If it's not a skill, what would she most likely have to take on her character sheet? She is pretending to be of American descent as part of a fake identity.
I'd make it Deceit limited by Scholarship. I'd also make it a Declaration (invoked for effect) - unless someone was actively trying to spot a fake accent.
Welcome to the boards!
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Performance, too. You're essentially pretending to be a native speaker.
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Thank you so much for the help!! And thanks for welcoming me, Umbra. ^-^
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I'd say purely performance. To quote Master Thespian, it's ACTING!
Look at how well Hugh Laurie fakes his accent.
Now if there was a con job involved as well, then Deceit would be in play... And of course the person couldn't actually speak the language unless they had the scholarship to back it up...
Maybe a Performance stunt...
Performance: Man of a 1000 Voices - Over years of practice, you have mastered the ability to mimic accents. Name the accent and you can fake it believably. You can even do such regional accents within a language (eg: for English you can do Southern, Mid West, Canadian, Australian, etc). Note that this does not actually give you the ability to speak an unknown language. Other than dropping a few loaned words into the conversation (eg: saying "Je ne suis quio" when using a French accent) your lack of being able to speak the language could be a give away that it isn't your native tongue.
Richard
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The reason why I'm tending to not say Performance is because of the character in the show Leverage. She absolutely SUCKS at acting on a stage, but she can BE whoever she wants to be. I dunno. Saying it's PURELY performance would be stretching it a lot, I think.
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You're trying to deceive someone. It's Deceit.
Seems kinda obvious to me.
If you were playing an American on stage it might be Performance, but that's another matter.
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An actor-type character might have a stunt to do it through Performance, though (or just to make Performance roll in place of Deceit when you can be theatrical about it).
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The reason why I'm tending to not say Performance is because of the character in the show Leverage. She absolutely SUCKS at acting on a stage, but she can BE whoever she wants to be. I dunno. Saying it's PURELY performance would be stretching it a lot, I think.
In Leverage, she doesn't do well with a script but can improv like hell. I'd probably assign her trouble as "what's my motivation and the next line?" and give her an aspect that she could use while conning but could be compelled to make her look bad when she tries to act on stage.
Talking solely of accents, I still think it's a matter of performance. Many actors switch accents, seemingly at ease, but I'm not sure if any of them could sell used cars. Hugh Laurie is not a con man but when he is playing Greg House you'd never know that he is British (and a pretty good comedian).
Of course, using an accent during a successful con job is more than just having an accent. I could sound very British but no one would ever believe that I was really the Lost Heir to the British Throne and thus good for a loan of $50,000 (cash please, no cheques). Running a con with an accent would probably be Deceit modified by Performance - depending on the circumstances.
Richard
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You're trying to deceive someone. It's Deceit.
Seems kinda obvious to me.
If you were playing an American on stage it might be Performance, but that's another matter.
So if Performance isn't used to pretend to be someone you're not, then what the hell is it used for?
I literally can't think of a single situation short of literally acting in a play or on TV where Performance would be useful where Deceit wouldn't be just as good.
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You use Performance for art. Which can be useful for maneuvers in social scenes. It also modifies public speaking. And it can be used as a specialized knowledge skill.
Plus, if you for whatever reason want an awesome painting, Performance is good for that.
This is not really a matter of opinion, by the way. Deceit has the Disguise trapping. Performance does not.
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Performance is also used as an extremely specialized Scholarship for dealing with artistic things. It's right under Art Appreciation under the write-up of Performance.
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I think this hearkens back to the discussion about what skill one should use to determine how well a character can cook, and is ultimately going to pan out the same.
Performers, grifters, and regular folks are going to approach accents and mimicry from different avenues, with a variety of strengths and weaknesses. A comedian who does drop-dead impressions of well-known people may have no capacity to replicate an accent unless they studied a speaker of that accent, and then they'd be mimicking that speaker. As with the grifter from "Leverage," someone may have a fantastic aptitude for improvisation and deceit, but be unable to really act to a script.
The solution is Dresden should be to figure out what that character *is* good at (lying? improvisation? mimicry? bluster?), buy an appropriate apex skill, and then get Stunts which either:
a) move one or more Trappings to that apex skill to simulate mimicry/etc.
b) provide a bonus when mimicking/etc.
c) allow that Apex skill to Complement skill checks having to do with mimicry/etc.
So if you had an actor as a PC, give them a decent (+2 to +4) Performance, a Stunt to give +2 specifically when using Performance for acting, and maybe other Stunts moving Trappings from Deceit and Rapport over to Performance. There's just so many ways to build it, and different tables may prioritize different skills for these things.
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When it comes to what skill to use, I generally ask the players to 'convince me' if it's not an obvious choice. If one wants to use Performance to display his accent while another wants to use Deceit, I'll allow both as long as they have a logical reason. No real need to draw hard and fast lines between skills in every case, sometimes a reason and willingness to 'make do' should be enough.
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When it comes to what skill to use, I generally ask the players to 'convince me' if it's not an obvious choice. If one wants to use Performance to display his accent while another wants to use Deceit, I'll allow both as long as they have a logical reason. No real need to draw hard and fast lines between skills in every case, sometimes a reason and willingness to 'make do' should be enough.
^ This, exactly.
I would knee-jerk say that performance is what you'd use for faking accents. People suggesting deceit seems reasonable, to me, too, but itsn't my initial conclusion.
What really bugs the shit out of me, though, is everyone saying performance is simply for painting and stage acting and is good for absolutely nothing else. I'm not even an actor and I balk at your small-mindedness. Come on, guys, really?
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What really bugs the shit out of me, though, is everyone saying performance is simply for painting and stage acting and is good for absolutely nothing else. I'm not even an actor and I balk at your small-mindedness. Come on, guys, really?
I don't think anyone actually said that.
PS: The OP here asked about disguising herself as an American person. That's a pretty clear use of Deceit. Acting out an American character on stage would be a different thing.
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What really bugs the shit out of me, though, is everyone saying performance is simply for painting and stage acting and is good for absolutely nothing else. I'm not even an actor and I balk at your small-mindedness. Come on, guys, really?
I don't think anyone actually said that.
There! Right there you did it \/ ... Acting out an American character on stage would be a different thing.
Lying is one thing. Acting is another. Whether or not it's on-stage is irrelevant. It's all in how your character approaches it and how they flavor it.
For example, let us say you killed the Summer Knight in a Canadian train station at noon. On the way out, some gruffs wander through, looking for the culprit. You throw on an Old Glory t-shirt and pick up a news paper. They stroll up and start asking you questions.
If they ask you the time, and you make it seem like your from the U.S. instead of Canada, your answer is covered by performance.
If they straight-up ask you if you killed the Summer Knight, your answer is most likely covered by deceit.
If they ask you the time and you intentionally tell them the wrong time, your answer is covered by deceit.
If they ask you if you are a U.S. citizen and you roll your eyes, gesture to your shirt and say, "what do you think?!" it's covered by performance.
If you say "yes," it's deceit.
Performance is flavoring, deceit is lies. Suggesting performance only applies in an art studio or on a stage essentially makes the skill worthless-- it becomes that cooking skill that has been bantered about for a while now: Far too situational for nearly any player-character to take.
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So, I'm reading through the rulebook, and Performance has a stunt to mimic someone's "mannerisms and voice" instead of Deceit. That would seem to indicate that an accent with intent to fool someone--which Performance is not, as generally the people in the audience know you're not really Henry VIII--would fall under Deceit.
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You use Performance for art. Which can be useful for maneuvers in social scenes. It also modifies public speaking. And it can be used as a specialized knowledge skill.
I most certainly did not say that Performance is only good for painting and stage acting.
Skills do what their trappings say they do. The trappings of Performance are Composition, Art Appreciation, Playing To An Audience, and Creative Communication. None of these include disguise.
Sure, acting is similar to disguise. But there are also arts that are similar to Craftsmanship and Fists. You should not let Performance do everything that's similar to some branch of art.
I've found the skill plenty useful without any such nonsense.
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So, I'm reading through the rulebook, and Performance has a stunt to mimic someone's "mannerisms and voice" instead of Deceit. That would seem to indicate that an accent with intent to fool someone--which Performance is not, as generally the people in the audience know you're not really Henry VIII--would fall under Deceit.
Wow, really? That's surprising. Well, don't I have egg on my face!
I can't look at the books right now, but I certainly feel silly if that's true. It's also a little unfortunate from the design perspective, I think, as it makes the performance skill paper-thin.
Ah, well. I stand corrected. Thanks guys.
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The text of the stunt is:
Impersonator: Given a few hours to study someone’s behavior and modes of speech, you may imitate their mannerisms and voice, using Performance instead of Deceit to convince someone you are that person. Without strongly controlling the circumstances (e.g., impersonating someone over the phone), such impersonations won’t last very long. If combined with the Makeup Artist stunt (page 151) and plenty of preparation, you may use either Performance or Deceit to pull off a full impersonation, using the better skill for all relevant rolls and getting a +1 against Investigation rolls trying to penetrate the disguise.
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Interestingly enough, Makeup Artist is a Deceit stunt.
Richard