Hypertellurians, Part 2/3: Technobabble
Today’s comic is once again brought to you by Hypertellurians, a science fantasy RPG set in the future of old. In this episode, we find ourselves on the desert planet of Sonnos, where it appears that an artificial macrostacean has serious objections to the practice of unlicensed xenoarchaeology. While extraterrestrial lobster monsters are a threat to us all, it’s the other hazard depicted here that I really want to talk about. Namely, the apparent lack of player buy-in for setting and tone, because that mess is really hard to achieve.
My own experience with setting-appropriate jargon comes from a Firefly campaign. It’s been a few years since Serenity at this point, but I’m sure you’ll recall all the Chinese “profanity” worked into the show’s dialogue. For a monolingual English speaker who doesn’t know nǐ hǎo from xǐshǒujiān zài nǎlǐ, it is hard to get that part of the experience right. And that’s doubly true thanks to the complex phrases Firefly uses in place of actual Mandarin swearing (gao yang jong duh goo yang indeed!).
It was all down to rote memory for me and the rest of the crew. We weren’t perfect by any means, but we all had our tricks and shortcuts. Some of us wrote out lists of phrases on the backs of our character sheets. Others tried to keep one key phrase to use for all situations. Still others picked a few syllables and swapped ’em around to at least sound setting-appropriate. I even remember our mechanic getting flustered, forgetting all of his studying, and capping a dramatic monologue with, “I don’t care what it takes. I say we take the fight to those… erm… Chinese words bastards!” Dude actually said “Chinese words” out loud.
No doubt any native Mandarin speaker would have been horrified by our butchering of the language. But the reason I bring it up, and the reason I was so proud of my group, was our collective willingness to make the attempt. We’d all seen the show. We were fans. We wanted to try and get it right, even if that was beyond our actual abilities.
Tone is an elusive thing, and conjuring the right feel for a game world takes more than one dedicated GM. It also takes players who are willing to buy into the setting and put forth the effort. If you’re shooting for (as a completely random example) mid-20th century pulp, it’s the little things that can matter the most. You might say “ray emitter” instead of laser, “automaton” or “auto-ambulaton” instead of robot, or “aether ship” instead of space cruiser. These may seem like minor details, but they can make a big difference when it comes to immersion.
And so, for today’s discussion question, what do you say we talk about those moments that break tone? If you’re trying to achiever horror, or cyberpunk, or high medieval, what modern phrases or behavior bring you out of the world and crashing back into the real? Sound off with your negative examples down in the comments! With any luck, that will help us to avoid them in future.
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Yep, had several of those tone-breaks yesterday. First session of Shadowrun5 since the lockdown in April. With two new players, which were friends or possibly just co-vegans of the DM.
One was a 3rd edition grognard, the other was new to Shadowrun, though not new to TRPGs in general I think.
And both were (from my perspective) consistently undermining the tone the DM tried to set. We’re about a kilometer deep in the awakened woods near Bensheim, strange growths pulsate with eerie lights, horse-sized Fenriswolves slowly trap us in a circle, an unbearable stillness permeates the whole area until a voice pierces our minds. Five corp soldiers lie dead before an immense tree, which slowly turns to face us; blood and ripped-out entrails swaying in the wind on its branches like jewelry. The Great Spirit of the Woods speaks to us.
And during this whole 1h scene, the new guy tries to burn down the forest, or make the wolves start vomiting via spells, or tell the Great Spirit that he’s going to attack it, or make really lame RL jokes. To give him the benefit of doubt: he could be assuming that this is how he has to play his Chaos mage. But the atmosphere of the whole session still was all jokes and setting things on fire, instead of Princess Mononoke in 2078.
I think the humor might come as a response to horror. Folks get nervous when the creepy shit goes down, and cracking wise becomes a defense mechanism. A a big part of shifting the tone away from that is to maintain a serious demeanor and act properly freaked out by the situation.
I’m thinking of another story I told about my Firefly campaign way back in this one:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/creepy-ghost
Lets be fair. Getting it right was beyond the actual capabilities of the cast of Firefly as well, according to several sources. Turns out Mandarin is hard.
Anyway, last session, I was trying for a big dramatic confrontation with a mind flayer. The party had a spelljammer that they won as a prize from a dragon, who had originally gotten it from the mind flayers. They wanted it back, and were willing to ignore that the party were technically thieves themselves if they handed it over. But they like their flying boat, so they fought, which i expected.
What i did not expect, was for the wizard to enlarge the minotaur paladin, and use one of our homebrew systems to supercharge the spell, making him count as even larger and, more importantly, more massive. The wizard also neglected to take this into account. The paladin very quickly broke through the bottom of the freaking ship floating in a harbor, which gave him more room to grow, so he ended up filling the entire room with just his arms, and supported the weight of the whole darn ship on his shoulders. That broke the tone very quickly.
That depends. Was Time Bandits your desired tone? You were thieves after all.
https://i.stack.imgur.com/dPuOy.jpg
Not as such. I wanted them to be legitimately concerned by being attacked by mind flayers.
But, as is tradition, the party continues to be their own biggest threat. They were, at least, deeply upset that the wizard broke their boat. In character at least. Out of character we all thought it was hilarious. There is a certain level of confusion though as to whether the guy is just playing the wizard as being low wisdom, or if he just legitimately isnt thinking things through. We cant tell.
Kind of hard to ask a dude, “Are you just dumb or pretending?”
I kinda feel like the example given is fitting in character. The barbarian looking guy wouldn’t likely have a high int or wis stat (or whatever the relevant game mechanic is in this system) so he wouldn’t know or understand the “technobable” Mr. Minotaur is giving. I feel like, in character, he’d be yelling “Just tell me what I need to break!” while his smart friend is giving off a string of words that might as well be in another language.
I’m actually kinda having the opposite problem in one game I’m in. my character is dumb, kind of a Lenny from Of Mice and Men sort of guy. On top of that, he’s mute. So there’s a lot of shit that I, the player, will realize and connect the dots with, but my character wouldn’t, and I really am not sure if I should talk about these realizations/conclusions I make when talking OOC or not.
The feel of the response is correct for the character, but the problem with Manvil lies in his refusal to enter into the spirit of the setting. When one of your buddies is putting in the effort to use setting-appropriate vocabulary, it’s easy to walk all over that for a cheap laugh. I’m arguing that it’s better in the long run to try and respond in-character, sure, but also in kind: “By the seven sacraments of Arsia Mons, stop your lecturing and help me!”
For your own PC… I’d find a way to give him a voice. The one time I tried to roll up a mute character was after reading The Stand. I thought it could be a fun RP challenge. I made it through about half a session. As it turns out, not being able to speak in a game that’s based primarily on speaking is tough to pull off.
If you want to keep the shtick but actually interact with the party, you could always make him deeply intuitive. If he scents danger he just hugs the thief who’s about to set off the trap, shaking his head in a “don’t do it” kind of way.
First point: I agree with that, though I personally have a hard time getting /that/ into role playing (also no idea how to do italics).
Second point: He gestures a fair bit, and he has a chalk board he uses to write/draw what he says.
The comments here seem to mostly use html code. So, just add “i” in angle brackets where you want to start doing italics, then add “/i” in brackets where you want it to stop doing italics.
For example, typing “<i>Fighter Sucks</i>” leads to “Fighter Sucks“.
You can get different effects by replacing the letter in the brackets with something else (b for bold, u for underline, s for
strikethrough, etc). There’s also plenty of guides and tutorials online, as well as websites that let you test out your code before posting it in a comment (good thing, too — I wasn’t sure until just now how to easily type the code in a way where people could actually see it without it taking effect).Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be setting up a trap maze in case Fighter notices this post.
As if Fighter was literate.
An embarrassing moment comes from when I broke the tone. It also turned into pride later by changing the tone to humor.
We were playing in one of the most confusing rules games ever: Old World of Darkness mixed template. The vampire, hunter, werewolf, and changeling putting aside our differences to stop a necromantic cult. In this session, the GM told us we would be helping her NPC, as each person went to talk to our own people. The Hunter (me) was on Hunter-net looking for information, the werewolf was navigating their politics, the changeling had a freehold meeting and the vampire was trying to navigate the tricky politics of California in the oWoD.
For this, each of us was given an NPC write up or idea. The most detailed was the vampire meeting, as we had an actual book to work off of. I was given Louie, a French Canadian Ventru with the largest herd in the area plus a desire to know everything that was happening. I don’t have a french accent as I never took french in school (7 years of Spanish instead) but I did my best. Things became heated as I played him as I was told. Finally, the moment reaches a cresendo and the DM asks me a question angrily. Not thinking, I responded with a furious “Si!” (spanish for yes).
The entire group just stopped and fell out laughing for like 4 minutes. It had been so tense as these political rivals squared off that the release broke the tone forever.
Another time was more of a joke. Maybe 2 sessions later, the vampire player made a phone call that took like 20 in game minutes. The rest of us were just watching and listening and I absent-mindly opened my hand and placed it against my ear as if I was on the phone. When they finished talking I waited five seconds and then said in my best Louie accent “Hon hon hon, how very in-ter-esting.” Once we stopped laughing, the GM just ran with it. To this day it still occasionally comes up if anyone is on the phone for too long ICly.
I like Louie. I imagine him with an old-timey phone in hand, just waiting for the switchboard to click on so that he can start eavesdropping.
Exactly! Though in this case, it’s one of his minions at the switchboard; he has far too many important things to do. If a conversation is interesting enough though, he’ll listen himself.
So, given my d&d group use a fairly standard fantasy campaign setting, I sometimes try to spice things up with fantasy versions of normal sayings; like the “Hold your Hippogriffs” page on tv tropes. Especially given I am slightly uncomfortable swearing (Mostly, for some reason I am fine with words like “Bollocks” or “Bugger”, probably my British showing), I will use “fantasy swears”. Things like “son of a bugbear” and stuff. Anyways, the point is, now I genuinely unironically find myself saying “by the gods” in real life. I just own it now, and if someone mentions it I say “Just keeping my options open”
It was the sequel to the Firefly game, and I was playing a southern dandy. Very much this guy:
https://samuraijack.fandom.com/wiki/The_Gentleman
I did not know that I knew that many southern expression. Between asking for a “dipper of water” and referencing the “back 40,” I think I found a character that I could really dig into. It’s just so easy to put a little twang on everything!
“Gods Above” has gotten into my lexicon. So far no one has called me on it but I might steal that explanation.
Yeah, I too swear “by the gods” at exasperating students. They’ve never called me out on it either, probably because by the time I’m aiming curses at a specific student, they are already on thin ice.
I also gave a character in a post-apocalyptic campaign the habit of swearing by Newton, Darwin, Curie, or whichever (to him) perhaps-mythical scientist seemed most relevant to the situation, kind of like one might invoke a different patron saint for each situation. That habit, too, leaked over into real life. Sagan willing, I’ll revive that character someday in a future game…
My current group and many groups I have been involved in, in the past, have always tried to be “setting appropriate”, but sometimes the setting itself has stupid conventions that no one would, should, or could actually use with a straight face (Rifts, and a lot of other sci-fi, I am looking in your direction. “DeeBees”… indeed).
I think buy in to a setting is fine, but there is also the concept of “table” buy in. The idea that each group has to decide for themselves if they plan to buy in to a particular level of both setting and RP.
I have been at the table with the guy that thinks RP means old English “thees” and “thous” and the same table then became a half joke as no one corrected this player and we all bought in to their version of an RP setting like that. Or the spell caster that makes up fake latin (not the Harry Potter style baloney, but I have also been at that table).
To the extent you are capable of dealing with a thing, such as unique setting words and of course the classics of fantasy and sci-fi naming conventions (why are their so few Bob’s, or Tim’s in fantasy, and what makes Q and Z and X such a popular letter in sci-fi?), then I think you just deal with them on a table and group basis. But sometimes, you MUST speak in game terms, because let’s face it, it is hard to try and come up with a really good way to explain some of the mechanics in a game when you are trying to strategize so you can kill the Zorblxian Qrzlblrg before it kills you and the DM has only given you 30 seconds to think (because it is more “fun” that way).
Table buy-in is very much a thing. The real trick comes in deciding how to proceed when there’s a difference of opinion.
For example, I remember doing a Vikings game. Being me, I tried for a Norwegian accent. Since I was the only one at the table making the attempt, it came up flat. It brought up the distracting question of, “Why doesn’t anyone else talk like that?” It was a case where, in trying to increase immersion, I was actually the one breaking the setting since there was no narrative reason for me to be the accent guy.
It was a short-lived campaign, so I wound up carrying goofy Swedish Chef shtick to the end. I probably would have phased it out in time though.
I had a similar experience… many times. Prior to Critical Role taking off to such huge success, I was always more “into” my characters than anyone else at the table, so I would try to do an accent, but very quickly, no one else would even make the attempt and I would feel embarrassed to have ever attempted.
I was young then, and now I don’t care what anyone else thinks, I am going to be as into my characters as I can be, but I think popularity of a thing can have a big impact in what people are willing to try. Since the CR effect has happened to the game and TTRPGs are at an all time popularity in the public now, more people are at least willing to try. The last few tables I have been at, a couple people dropped their attempts when they thought they were so bad they did not want to continue, but at least they are making the attempt and not giving awkward looks to the one remaining person that is trying.
I think stigma has a huge effect on the experience, and without the old stigmas, people are more open to new experiences… but trying something new or different with a new group of people is still a pretty awkward experience.
I think what you’re saying is generally true. But in my specific case, being the only one to do a Norse accent while every other viking we met spoke with an American accent actually broke the suspension of disbelief. Counterintuitive as it may be, I was actually the one breaking immersion.
Imagine a bunch of Americans doing Shakespeare where only one guy attempted the English accent while everyone else had decided to handwave and stick to their natural speaking voice. The one guy may be more authentic, but he’s working against the overall transparency of the illusion.
On our table we got this rule, we could call it the Babel Convention: No matter what we say, it’s a translation. If something sound odd from in-game perspective it’s for a bad translation, if something sounds odd from out-game perspective it’s for a bad translation. Anything a pc or NPC says, they say it perfectly context-based and with the best and most appropriate language. We just hear a translation of that 🙂
By the way, who is the sci-fy loincloth guy? The guy from John Carter… i don’t remember how the protagonist was called. Or are they new characters for the HBoH? o_O
You know how I always insist that the Handbook is a rough translation from Common? Yeah. Same deal.
As for our planetary romance hero in today’s comic, that would be Manvil (or possibly Anvil). They’re recurring characters in Hypertellurians. The bull-headed fellow on the left lives on the book’s cover.
Well in any case the guy is tough, considering where the lobster is crushing him, or squeezing him more correctly. Laurel, girl 😉
I crossed my legs uncomfortably when she showed me the art.
XD
Hope she isn’t jealous 😛
But thinking about it. Will this guy appear on the HBoEF? o_O
I’ll have to check the fine print in (M)anvil’s contract.
Warhammer 40k campaigns are ALL about this kind of stuff.
You don’t have walkie talkies, you have vox-comms. Your armaments are a bolter, a lasgun, a melta bomb. Your equipment isn’t a computer, it’s a machine spirit that needs to be placated by a Tech-Priest.
Daemons, xeno, chaos, mutants, heresies are often tossed about. Lots of latin is sprinkled in, e.g. ‘Adeptus Astra Telepathica’.
Many litanies are screamed at the top of your lungs during a furious battle, some more or less useful than others.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/689378974282940427/736221366860120124/unknown.png
There’s so much lore and fluff for a W40K game that you either take it completely seriously and have an AMAZING atmosphere of grim tidings, like a very militant and ‘trigger-friendly’ Call of Cthulhu game…
…Or you don’t, and you treat it as the meme-tastic grimdark setting it is and go out of your way to goof it up a few notches. Just look at the ‘Warhams’ tabletop games on youtube as an example of the ‘goof’ part.
Makes me wonder if there’s a middle-of-the-road options for 40K? Or is trying to combine setting-appropriate terminology with the lols only going to lead to a muddy sort of experience?
Warhams does that I think. It’s set in the ‘If the Emperor had a Text-to-speech device’ universe, so it’s an inherently more goofy Warhammer 40k setting… But the players/DM also have extensive knowledge of the lore, terminology and setting since they were involved with a show that mocked the W40k universe (I.E. they did their research).
https://youtu.be/WkLu2RFLV8I
It deffo can be muddied. It’s the kind of setting that Wizard would thrive in, it can get weary. It’s inherently non-humorous so the players might poke fun at it OOC I guess to relieve the drearyness? Or mock the sheer amount of grimdark and terrible things that can happen to you (e.g. traveling on a starship through the warp is ludicrously dangerous so players might joke on whether they survived session 0), amplifying it to comical degree or playing the zealous fanatics most PCs are.
I wouldn’t say it’s inherently non-humorous at all, it did start out as a parody and black comedy after all. The first inquisitor to get named in the franchise was called “Obiwan Sherlock Clouseau” after all. The setting has generally taken itself a bit more seriously in recent years, but not universally and stuff like Brazil style errors where the Administratum loses an entire planet to a misspelling, or “the guardsmans uplifting primer” is still mentioned as happening.
In terms of tone, I find that players will drift in the opposite direction of what the DM intended, be it goofy or serious.
The way I’ve found to keep it consistent is to have everything in-universe be an Erfworld-style pun, but have everyone in-universe take everything very seriously. “The warrior formerly known as ‘prince'” genuinely wants to reclaim his homeland so he might don the purple robes and reign over his people. The Dwarves of Hard Rock are at odds with the Dwarves of Progressive Rock over how much Dwarven society should change, while the Dwarves of Glam Rock don’t care so long as they get paid.
I imagine that the dwarves of pop rock are still in the midst of their never-ending census.
Back in the high school days, I was blessed with a fairly serious player group… apart from one boy. He left the group shortly before our 3rd year, probably with good reason, but he will forever be a source of in-group humour.
The main sample of this humour came from his wizard, Charles Xavier (a name we chose after I vetoed “Harry Potter.” Amongst other things, this fellow:
– was an abjurer, with a strong focus on offensive spells because “defensive magic is lame.”
– attacked the giant guardian statues protecting HIS HOME CITY, with a dagger.
– tried to borrow a dagger from the rest of his party.
– had his relatives killed to assume leadership of his noble house, then quit.
But most tone-shatteringly of all…
– responded to an Elvish queen’s statement that “you’re rather intelligent for a human” with “yes… I have intelligence 16!”
In retrospect, I feel a bit bad for him. He fell in with a bad crowd after he stopped playing with us, and I’ve always suspected that we forced him away somewhat. I mean, PvP within reason was very much allowed, but the human shield AND the blast-furnace incidents were a bit much. Nobody else in the group liked him as much as I did, and even I found him annoying, but still I feel that there was a failure on my part to attempt to bridge our differing expectations: his of casual, humorous play and mine/the other’s of at least an early attempt at grittiness.
Anyway, that went unexpectedly melancholic. Remember, people – solve clashes of tone together with the players, always have a session zero, and don’t lose friends over bad wrong fun.
For me, it’s as simple as people not playing along. It’s really hard to keep up roleplaying or acting in-character when nobody else is doing it, they’re all just describing their mechanical actions or having metagame discussion.