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[Koval]

Hi all,

So apparently I'm retarded and/or my limited experience with DnD sucks, and I'm breaking a few important rules (kind of, I am born/raised Southern US so I do have a heavy accent at times... I am of course referring to this article's section on Dialogue:

E.g. An FC would not, even in character, say the following:

"Behold yonder Armageddon piloted by the scurvy knave Gaius Kador, foul Inquisitor of the Praetorian slavers! See how its blood-stained hull is plated in gold to hide his foul deeds? Prithee, direct the full might of your weapons upon him and may the ancestors smile upon us this day!"

He would be far more likely to say something sensible, such as:

"Gaius Kador is primary. Gaius Kador is primary. Gaven Lok'ri is secondary. Secondary is Gaven Lok'ri. Elsebeth, jam that Apoc."

Being in character is not the same as being stupid.

where my character being more sensible would inherit my Southern accent but still say the latter sentence... but apparently that crosses the line? I understand it I just hate being slandered over it* in a subtle manner... and I would type the same accented dialect of English into chat windows as well if the convo is IC...), but in general I am having trouble:
1) IGS yes and no-no's
2) Background material (particularly for Ethnic Gallente miners, who I figured would be more hardy "living off the land" people than "dainty French-speaking" people)

I do apologize for those in IGS that have had to actually read what I've posted so far, I thought (being the dumbass new kid) I could add some color or w/e. I am NOT trying to troll IGS...

It's also by luck I've stumbled upon this forum. I found the other one that has pretty much no one posting in it first.

All in all, glad to be here. Difficult to get here. Help, brutal or not, is appreciated.

EDIT:
*Well... I can't tell if the insinuation that Koval is acting without class or in an uneducated manner and the subsequent mockery is solely an IC insult...

[Ken]

Oh.  http://www.eve-search.com/thread/1507690/page/1#21  I see what you did there.  Welcome to Backstage, by the way.  Trying to convey an accent in text is difficult and you're most likely to come across to your audience in a very different way that you intended.  Based on what I've seen of your IGS activity, I'd say the impression you wanted to give is "rustic", but what most people are likely to see is "simpleton".  Keep in mind that capsuleers are rather well trained and educated people and they have access to some of the finest technology of the age, including near-perfect automatic machine translation that can handle accent and idiom easily.

My recommendation would be to try and find ways to convey the hardy "living off the land" (or asteroid, as the case may be) background of a miner's son without forcing an accent into your text.  Talk about how your view of the world is simple, rooted in the hard work you were taught to value as a child.  Marvel a bit at the high-mindedness of many capsuleers who go on at length about esoteric political and cultural beliefs.  For some added EVE story perspective, may I recommend these two resources:

The Fully Factual Guide to the Federation
The Hitchhiker's Guide to New Eden

I'd also point you toward this blog, which addresses many MMO roleplaying topics.

[Ghost Hunter]

http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Language_translators_%28Chronicle%29

Canon reference to the nature of translators that I can summon off hand.

In general, however, it ultimately comes down to this: Despite the canon 'near perfect translators', if you as a person naturally speak in a slang way, no one should really get bent out of shape about it. Now, if you want to live more true to PF or what have you, Ken makes a good recommendation.

[Bong-cha Jones]

I would type the same accented dialect of English into chat windows as well if the convo is IC...), but in general I am having trouble:

The semi-phonetic typing is a thing that people do from time to time when they rp in text-based mediums.  It's... usually not a great idea.  Decoding it takes time and effort and there's a tendency (for me at least) to have the accent sound very thick in ones head because it's so blatant when typed.  I'd suggest typing normally, but throwing in a few expression that are recognizably slanted towards the accent you want to show, and maybe tagging in-game speech like:  /me says in a rough accent ".  Or something like that.

In short, emphasize vocabulary over diction.

[Esna Pitoojee]

There's a difference between dialect and accent. RPing with an accent can be tricky at best, downright ridiculous at worst. RPing with a dialect is a bit easier.

Here's my advice for posting in a forum-based environment: Make the dialect present if you want, but go lightly on it. Just running with the example you gave, if I were starting with a stereotypical southern accent (since I haven't heard you yet), I'd maybe stick some contractions in here and there - i.e., instead of saying "You people really should..." or "I find this rather horrifying." you might want to go with "Y'all should..." or "That's disgustin'." The trick is to not press it in to hard - use it here and there, but don't saturate your writing with it.

[Saede Riordan]

The way I RP I ask first, Am I in an audible medium, a text medium, or a visual medium.

If in a text medium, I use no accent, and just use dialectal quirks that would be sensible with her upbringing, something like, referring to the Big4 by less then pleasant nicknames, since she might have learned to call them that before learning their official titles, or using the word ain't in normal speech.

If an audible medium, then I go really lightly on the accent, things like droppin' the g off active verbs, combined with the above it works well.

If a visual medium, then I can use a wee bit heavier of accenting since I can then use visual clues to fill in the linguistic gap if I worry there might be one.

A couple universal things: Quietly read over what you've wrote to make sure it sounds good and flows well before posting it. Never sacrifice looks for comprehensibility.* Accenting shouldn't be used all the time, there are times where even people with the most severe western twang or southern drawl to their voice will use the g on words. So consistency is not your aim, don't just go onto autopilot. Your goal is to make it sound good and look good. Everything else comes secondary and is effectively just flavour.

Oh, and grammar and punctuation people, grammar and punctuation.


*A caveat to the above. If the character is drunk, and slurring their words, its okay to make them slightly difficult to understand, since the characters would also have trouble understanding them. But only do this sparingly, it can be taken too far.

[Koval]

Thanks for the tips all.

I'm going to disappear from IGS for a while and read up a bit. And let my rubbish/crappy/etc. posts die.