Accent impersonation help

[namitai]

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.

[jybil178]

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.

[Haru]

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.

[UmbraLux]

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!

[Ghsdkgb]

Performance, too. You're essentially pretending to be a native speaker.

[namitai]

Thank you so much for the help!!  And thanks for welcoming me, Umbra.

[Richard_Chilton]

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

[namitai]

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.

[Sanctaphrax]

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.

[Mr. Death]

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).

[Richard_Chilton]

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

[Ghsdkgb]

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.

[Sanctaphrax]

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.

[namitai]

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.

[devonapple]

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.