stoat (11/25/2009)

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2 - Roleplay ability. I have had high horse rants on this before, so won't over do it here, but *yes* I am a trained actor. I spent three years at drama school, and my major was in vocal reproduction.

stoat (11/25/2009)

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To be honest, I think accent and use therof will depend on two factors more than anything:

1 - Character's education. if you're playign a very well educated scholar/scribe/well tarvelled soldier, you have a good chance to be reasonably adept at other languages. Especially if you are a diplomat. Your accent could be slight, or your tones well modulated enough to speak to your opposite numbers in their own language without a foreign accent.

2 - Roleplay ability. I have had high horse rants on this before, so won't over do it here, but *yes* I am a trained actor. I spent three years at drama school, and my major was in vocal reproduction. It therefore makes me cringe at times when I am in LARP situations that are historical. I name no names, but half the people I talk to at maelstrom (for example) seem to feel that in order to give authentic speech for the period, they need to declaim like truly bad impresonations of Olivier reading Shakespeare. I know not everyone is good at acting, and don't hold it against them (which is why i never let it influence my dealings with them, even if it sets my teeth on edge). But most of the people (not all) probably aren't actually good enough to stick with accents or unusual speech patterns, especially in high stress situations. Now, I will probably feel the need (now and then when struggling for a word when talking to a foreigner IC) to perhaps throw in the occasional word that is accented or in an ancient language. But mostly I won't be doing so, as I really am not sure it could work with a large player base. I've read both ancient greek and middle egyptian at university for various reasons, and while my greek is VERY rusty, my egyptian is pretty good. Well, enough to be able to know the right word in egyptian for thw words i plan to stumble over. That should add the verisimilitude needed. I don't really like the idea of people who can't do accents trying to do so, especially if some of them don't really want to. For me, Larp is more about what you say, not necessarily how you say it.

I also appreciate that anyone who has ever met Nedjem from CUTT is currently pointing at me as a hypocrite. Ned's accent is MEANT to be that appauling, it's just another way he tries to annoy people. *8-P