I am trying to develop Theobroma's voice/accent/dialect a bit more, to improve my RP.

I'm wondering:
1) Would be ok to appropriate some Australian slang, if so, how removed should I make it from OOC?

2) Otherwise, how can I go about developing my Character's speech mannerisms?
Any suggestions would be appreciated. I have some ideas of my own, but I'm keeping an open mind.

3) Does anyone have any opinions about how they talk in Shamtota? Theo is from there, so I'd like to be aware of any existing regional dialect/vocab/accents.

Cheers,

Theo

I just wanted to say in regards to all cultural slang is that the rule of thumb should be that we shouldn't use it if it couldn't have developed without the 'real world' as we know it.

So you probably shouldn't say 'out past the black stump' because there is no black stump (which, incidentally, referred to the stump which indicated the end of colonial land and the beginning of indigenous alnd) from which to be out past. Nor would you say "she lives in woop-woop" because there is no woop-woop in which to live. d'ya'reckon?

Stuff like "Crikey" and, yes, even "stone the flamin' crows" probably doesn't rely on anything too real-worldish. I mean, you could argue that as an expression it comes from real world culture but things like "cease and desist" and "more-or-less" are such expressions too that are just an embedded part of language.

Something to keep in mind when it comes to dialects is "less is more". A couple favorite expressions, some specific words you use all the time, special ways to pronounce other words, etc. Making your character have an excessively flamboyant dialect is more likely to just annoy people.

I agree you don't want to take in a full blown tongue... it gets hard to keep up with and are often lost little short sentances or odd prono.. will do

What if your a Troll?

Please. Please change your avatar. I cant look away but I really really dislike looking at it.

Please change it. Please?

Please. Please stop posting. I can't help but read your posts but I really really dislike looking at them.

Please stop posting. Please?

You are not the first to ask

And you are not the first to be denied.

I encourage you to forumsnub me

If my posts are in fact, that bothersome

So why complain about an avatar?

Fixed.

You Aussies say some weird -.

It's really great to see someone taking such an active interest in developing their character. For that, I commend you.

However, I think that worrying too much about speech mannerisms and regional dialects is just unnecessary. For what it is worth, if you want to let people know that you are from Shamtota, just set your accent to it. 9 times out of 10, if a person even reads what your unique accent is, there is always the possibility that they won't be able to translate how you described your accent to anything they've heard in their own life.

As for throwing in Australian slang... I would keep it on a minimum. Palanor's right when he says that half of the things you say in Achaea without thinking are probably idioms and expressions that have been derived from real-world references, but I think you're starting to push it when you use things like "crikey". However, as I'm sitting here thinking about it, I don't really blink an eye when I see someone say "bloody this" or "bloody that", and it's considered slang, I assume. Maybe there is just something about the word "crikey" that just stands out like a sore thumb in Achaea.

Strooth!

Elowen is amazing regarding this. How does she keep up the stuttering without going completely mad ?

Gnaash is a really good example of accent and mannerism development as well.

I've caught myself saying "crikey", and haven't really noticed until someone has giggled at me. "Sticky beak" is another Aussie one I used often until I noticed people giggling at it. I'm not sure why "crikey" would stick out more than "bloody", though, or one of 100 other idioms. I guess it is what you are used to. "Poof" is the one that sticks out for me. I never really heard it in the context people in Achaea use it until I started playing. People would say "I'm going poof now" and I'd be liked "you're doing what now?!?" I'm guessing on that note then "bloody poof" is not acceptable (though oddly enough I can say it on the forums but can't say "-").

Speaking on the aussie stuff, there is a gday emote, IIRC and another aussie emote too

I want a bloody poof emote, now.

Vivienne screams is a John Lawsian voice "Ah, go back to Eleusis ya bloody poof!".

They've been in for a while, as I recall Sarapis mentioning he put them in especially.

And if anything, I want an hooroo emote.

I think it's ultimately a matter of commonsense. WHAT – COMMONSENSE!? ON ACHAEA?! *FORUMBANZ*

If it’s an expression which is going to make someone think; “YOU'RE AN AUSSIE”, maybe give it a miss?
Crikey, fair dinkum, dinki-di, and budgie smugglers are, thus, out.

But there are a number of Australian expressions that I, and other Aussies, will use that they’re unaware of. For example; barrack, bathers, bum, "how are you going?", lollies, ta, tea (dinner), fairly floss, bodgy and whinge. (DID YOU GUYS KNOW THAT THESE ARE AUSTRLAINISMS?

But you can't get too up-tight about it; 'all's well that ends well', 'come full circle', 'as luck would have it', 'cold comfort', 'come what may', 'one fell swoop' and even 'elbow room' are in fact expressions invented by Shakespeare! However, they're valuable additions to language and expression so we use them anyway.

Food for thought!

As an aside, I think Elowen does a fantastic job at roleplaying with a speech-impediment too. Five gold stars to her.

I'd agree with that, for the most part. I just never really thought about "crikey" being Aussie - I'd been using it (and stopped using it because of the giggles) on Achaea since before that bastard Steve Irwin stole it.

"How are you going?" never occurred to me as "bad RP" - I use it all the time. It's such an ingrained, natural question. Don't really see it as any worse than "hi". If we are going to cut out all Strine then we need to crack down on the Yank-speak as well, that's far more prevalent.

ETA Just wanted to say, now we actually have budgies in Achaea I think "budgie smugglers" should be allowed.

Oh I don't mean to say that it's bad RP to say "How's it going?" (I'm told Americans hear this expression and say; "It's going..east?" as going only means travel to them whereas for us it means, errmmm like 'operating') I was just mentioning that it's an Australianism that we use that we don't really take notice of. Palanor's said "Crikey!" a couple of times too. I've got no problem with it at all!

Youse are all Grouse!

Thanks for the feedback...and keep it coming by all means!

You have it backwards. Worry about your RP and the voice/accent will follow. One of my big things is the difference between showing and telling. Showing is good storytelling, telling is bad storytelling. If you set an accent to, say, "Theobroma says in a cultured Shamtotan accent..." you are telling us you are from Shamtota. It's a storytelling short-cut. Whereas if you spend a bit more time on it, say, talking about things you learned during your upbringing there or referencing a place or a denizen or an event in your life it's more of an organic growth from who your character is.

99% of accent/voice work is the storytelling equivalent of people taking a hammer and hitting you on the head while shouting "I'M FROM TASUR'KE" or "I'M POSH", or "I'M SHIFTY". Don't tell us you're from Tasur'ke, or posh, or haughty, or shifty, be it.

The only, and I'm not exaggerating, the only voice/accent I like or really think works was Batista's "urbane, Shallamese" accent, because he was so high-profile in Mhaldor it worked -against- who he obviously was and spoke of an interesting backstory.

Gnaash also works well, but not - as is commonly supposed - because of a voice/accent or even his odd phrasings. It works because while roleplaying he thinks troll. And it shows.

Similarly, I find very very strong linguistic traits to be overpowering. If you stutter, you turn into a walking stutter. Who are you? You're the stutterer.

Work on -being- someone and the rest follows. And please don't do the Australian thing. I'm sure there's a version of it that wouldn't make me cringe, but this is supposed to be a high-fantasy environment and anything you are doing should be an attempt to sit in that context.

Palanor, your posting style ultimately makes any logical arguments you are trying to make seem incredibly stupid. Calm down, buddy.

While you're taking advice, Theobroma, make sure you take some from Tenebrus. It's not just that he payed Gnaash a compliment; he's proven himself to be an amazing roleplayer, almost defining the loony-thief character during his era. [-ed. I won't claim to have known other/better thieves before his time, nor will I detract from other great thief characters, who did it slightly differently, e.g. Trance, Profit, etc.]

That said, it's entirely true that you have to change the voice in your head if you want to convey some kind of language trait in your character. I seriously have a hard time speaking normally after a long episode of Achaea, because I'm thinking in troll. In fact, now that I participate in an occassional OOC clan conversation, I think it's detracted to a small degree from Gnaash's speech. Not because I've intentionally changed anything in his character, but because my mind is trying to operate in two languages at the same time.

Ever taken a foreign language in school? I'll never forget my eighth grade Spanish teacher saying that you won't really be speaking Spanish until you're thinking in it. You'll just be translating.

I try not to just "translate" into troll while I'm typing out what Gnaash is saying. I try to think it.

In essence, if you can get inside the head of Theobroma, you won't need to even ASK what you should do to improve your character traits. It will just come naturally.

Brilliantly written. This is exactly what it means to really roleplay and jump into a character. "Show, don't Tell", and to be able to show, "Get inside your character's head". Anyone asking for RP advice should start with these.

(And my French teacher said the exact same thing, too. )

No we don't.

"How's it going?" is a pretty familiar phrase here in the States.

I've heard "How's it going?" frequently, it's common at least in the parts of Florida, Missouri and Michigan I've been to.

The only time I've ever changed my voice/accent was to a Cyrenian accent from a baritone voice when I quit Cyrene after being there for Rynn's whole time adventuring.

Maybe I'm emulating Batista and Dyzanru, but I feel it only makes sense that Rynn has a Cyrenian accent anyway.

It's popular in Canada too. With the required addition of, "How's it goin', eh?"

For a long time Quoren had an Atavian accent, since I figured having lived in Arcadia until age 18 he'd have an appropriate accent, and because I wasn't sure how else to describe it. Then that changed to a Shallamese accent. Now I don't use accents at all, and only use voice for when there's something affecting his voice (for instance, when he was afflicted with a parasitic, evil Mark thingy I had the voice set to 'weakened,' and after he bawled his eyes out because of personal issues he had a 'slightly hoarse' voice.

Someone told me once that it's more common to hear "How are you doing?" rather then "How's it going?". Is that true?

How's it hangning?

Low and lazy?

Both are extremely common. "How are you doing?" sounds slightly more formal, "How's it going?" is more casual.

I thought you and Palanor seemed a little distant that day.

You two didn't have to let Silas do that to you, you know. There is always a chance to go back.

... Always.

I used to have an Ashtani accent set on Amunet. Then I became annoyed because I couldn't really pinpoint what an Ashtani accent sounded like-- if it was anything like the way Ashtani spoke, I didn't want my character to be perceived as such! So I changed it. She now has a "chic, liquored" voice, which seems to work better. It probably reveals a bit too much about her, but her speech and mannerisms generally coincide.

The worst voice I'd ever seen has to be Bair's "roguishly sexy" voice, and the one that made me laugh the hardest was Khalid's "creepy pedo" voice. Even though it was a complete abuse of the mechanic, seeing him say, "Hey there, little boy. You want some candy?" to an orphan before handing it a lollipop had me giggling in real life.

The best advice I can really give the OP, though, is to listen to Tenebrus and Gnaash, and when you do decide to set a voice, please use a thesaurus. It drives me insane to hear so many sultry, seductive voices when there are billions of unused synonyms out there.


EDIT: And another thing! Learn to use punctuation! The correct placement of an exclamation point, or emphasis hyphens, or a question mark, or the ever-abused ellipsis can make or break the mood of your speech. Emotes and expressiveness, as hardcoded into the game, are good tools to use as well, and one that many of us (myself included) tend to neglect.

All I would say is if you do have an accent or trademark way of speaking, please make sure that others can get the majority of what you are saying and please don't just use lazy english.

Ashlog, lots of but when you speak it makes me die inside a little.

Decan's "your best friend" voice is definitely worse than that.

You know, after reading through this thread it's made me wonder if my own set accent is acceptable/bad/terribad.

I quite using them entirely not long ago, because I often use the expressiveness adjectives (sarcastically, bluntly, quietly) and/or switch languages at the drop of a hat, and this is the result:

Aerek says sarcastically to you in Atavian in a smooth, Cyrenian accent, "He must be telling the truth."

This is not only long and ugly, but the key points, that I'm speaking sarcastically and to a selective audience, can easily be lost in the long string of description.

The fact that many voices and accents are badly phrased or just outright terrible shouldn't discourage players from using them, it should encourage them to be more responsible with them. (Yes, yes, ideological, spare me your cynicism.)

I think the accents and voices abilities tend to cause some problems for a lot of people.

I recently heard:



I personally find the ones where you can just do *EVENLY, *COMMANDINGLY, *CALMLY et cetera to be a whole heap more useful.

Of course, some voices are designed to deal with this problem. If you’re speaking with a Shallamese accent or with an upper-class voice, most likely that’s going to carry on into most situations. I speak with an Australian accent (in real life!) and that is true whether I’m whispering or bellowing. If you speak with a quiet voice all the time, it’s going to make it awfully difficult for you to shout, scream, exclaim or yell.

Using the VOICE option and then using those expressiveness options is where you hit a wall. Can you really say something forcefully, sarcastically etc in a cute, quiet voice? You can using ACCENT, someone can have an <insert nationality here> accent and still say something forcefully, sarcastically, angrily etc