Talk the Talk
Looks like Thief managed to wring a good deal from her former shipmates. No doubt it took a ludicrously complicated series of Diplomancy checks to arrive at “Thief gets to be captain again but Swash/Buckle don’t get murdered,” but here we are. Not the weirdest plot developments I’ve ever seen in an RPG.
Anywho, what say we talk about Roman rhetoricians? I assure you, they’re weirdly relevant to today’s comic:
In my opinion, indeed, no man can be an orator possessed of every praiseworthy accomplishment, unless he has attained the knowledge of everything important, and of all liberal arts, for his language must be ornate and copious from knowledge, since, unless there be beneath the surface matter understood and felt by the speaker, oratory becomes an empty and almost puerile flow of words. —Cicero, De Oratore
Happily, there’s a slight difference between the Roman forum and your gaming table. Even Cicero acknowledges that the monumental task of knowing (literally) everything has more to do with platonic ideals than living orators. And as it happens, our comparatively humble task has more to do with sounding smart than being smart.
Thief may be the butt of today’s joke, but she’s pretty close to sounding piratey enough. If you’ve ever found yourself in a nautical campaign and skimming through pirate glossaries or taking notes from a Master and Commander rewatch, you may be familiar with the process. The idea is to gain a rough and ready knowledge of your subject, picking up enough of the lingo to sound convincing to a layman. While you won’t fool an IRL physicist with your mad scientist’s technobabble, it’s nonetheless a good idea to keep a few key phrases on hand. That’s doubly true when you’re talking about explicitly fictional subjects.
For example, when I was working on a Starfinder adventure featuring biomechanical ships, I made sure to include a little inset intended to give the correct flavor. When players ask, “What’s wrong with the ship!?” they roll 3d12 on the following chart:
| d12 Result | Bio-Systems | Technological Systems | The Problem |
| 1 | Thoracic | Graviton Inhibitor | Is venting coolant! |
| 2 | Pulsatile | Drift Coupling | Isn’t freaking there! |
| 3 | Cerebrovascular | Pulse Regulator | Has ruptured! |
| 4 | Ventral | Grav Manifold | Is half-melted! |
| 5 | Cranial | Heat Exchange | Is full of some weird goo!! |
| 6 | Abdominal aortic | Gearbox Casing | Seems to be growing a tumor! |
| 7 | Limbic | Plasma Array | Has shorted out! |
| 8 | Interspace | Shield Membrane | Looks infected! |
| 9 | Respiratory | Resonance Shifter | Is flooded! |
| 10 | Gastrointestinal | Control Circuit | Isn’t getting any oxygen! |
| 11 | Contiguous Neuronal | Splitter Assembly | Is absolutely filthy! |
| 12 | Anterior | Blowback Chamber | Won’t respond! |
Is this what a “real bioship” actually looks like? I dunno. Ask Moya. But chances are that a PC complaining about an ‘infected respiratory gearbox casing’ or a ‘limbic heat exchange growing a tumor’ will pass the PC sniff test.
So from seafarers to spacefarers, we arrive at today’s discussion question. If you’ve got to portray an expert, how do you prep for the role? Do you actually study up on the subject? Maybe you take the random generator approach? Or do you prefer to handwave the jargon and let your dice do your talking? Whatever your take, tell us all about your own adventures with inexpert expertise down in the comments!
ADD SOME NSFW TO YOUR FANTASY! If you’ve ever been curious about that Handbook of Erotic Fantasy banner down at the bottom of the page, then you should check out the “Quest Giver” reward level over on The Handbook of Heroes Patreon. Thrice a month you’ll get to see what the Handbook cast get up to when the lights go out. Adults only, 18+ years of age, etc. etc.
Today’s page tells us several things:
1. Thief is either woefully out of nautical practice, or her lack of expertise may have provoked the original mutiny.
2. Swash and Buckle didn’t need to maroon Thief if she’s this bad at sailor stuff. They could’ve tricked her into leaving the ship and sent her on a wild goose chase while they sailed away. Easy Bluff check.
3. Swash and Buckle aren’t very smart. Fighter will kill them if they try to mutiny. With Thief alone, they had some wiggle room. Thief + Fighter is a TPK waiting to happen.
Well their Int and Wis scores have been demonstrated to be under avarage before.
I think this is just normal bad luck roll for Thief, she tried to roll for sailing and rolled a 2.
1. Slowly but sure, backstory is revealed through play.
2. Marooning is compatible with this plan.
3. He’s Fighter. There’s better than even chances he’ll kill any given creature.
I have to admit, I haven’t really stepped out of my comfort zone regarding expertise. When my characters have knowledge I personally don’t possess, it’s either “esoteric” stuff that only exist in that setting (thus noone expects me to use proper terminology all the time); or it is discussed with my DM that my character is actually just faking it, and I’ll be using bullshit words – and if the other players or characters catch me on that, well, that can lead to interesting RP.
In my experience, “the pirate” and the “the hacker” are the two archetypes where this mess comes up. The latter tends to be my encrypted kryptonite:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/the-googles
Less obvious examples are military service (“Why do you call that officer petty ?!”), any kind of camping or hiking experience, any kind of craftsmanship (“as a trained smith, I want to make a new grapper for my sword, and I make the crossing metal bar on it look extra pretty.”), or just any academical knowledge, that has similarities to real world knowledge (especially in “real-world-like” settings, like call of Cthulhu).
She’s entered “Hoist up the Thing!” territory.
That’s pretty hilarious!
My first thought was “Move the thing! And… and that other thing!”
Well now that’s stuck in my head.
The answer is to choose character expertises that align with your fixations.
You don’t have to be an expert IRL, but if you have an existing familiarity with the subject it’s easy to sell it well enough for roleplay purposes
Well now my curiosity is piqued. When did you do this? What was the fixation?
The example I’m thinking of was a ranger in a pirate/privateer campaign who was an educated imperial naturalist. So an animal expert, and having an existing knowledge of animal behaviour, Linnaean taxonomy and the early history of the field helped give her a real enough feeling of expertise. Also got to bring in fun historically inspired details like major debate over whether Whales are fish or mammals, or being able to predict the existence of a species you haven’t found yet because other parts of the ecosystem wouldn’t make sense without it’s presence.
If it is something I have knowledge of, Blood eagle, sailing terms, chemistry etc. I can add it to my roleplaying no matter the dice result. But any subject I lack knowledge off, nobel rank structure, which fork to use for salad and which for steak, engineering etc, I can only rp with failures, successes are either luckily bluffing my way around or rely on character being smarter than I am.
So yeah I rely on dice and flavour with rp if my skills if I have any for succes, failures I can always improvise stupid bollocks.
Met a steampunk cosplayer once who liked to talk about the “actual debunked science” his outfit referenced. I always liked that approach for engineering:
https://gizmodo.com/how-fake-science-saved-lives-in-victorian-london-1795821421
I’ll tend to do a bit of research. It’s amazing how much good an hour on wikipedia and a cue-card of notes can do you, in my experience. Alternatively, if it’s knowledge exclusive to the world I’ll just have a chat with the DM, make up any stuff they let me and take copious notes on their material for the rest.
That poet character I mentioned in Friday’s comic? You better believer that I’m jotting down a few famous poets (that I conveniently just made up) so that I can portray a well-read PC. Love pulling “the notecard” into relevant situations.
Oh hey I remember that flow chart from the recent Judge Dredd game, though it came with 3 if I remember right, mechanical, elecrtronic and medical. Good jargon, worthy of Star Trek itself.
Link it if you can find it! I’d be curious to compare it to mine.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/ZCNs4wabhkzk5kCd6
Theres pictures, I don’t have a hanfdy dandy pdg file
Guess Swash & Buckle better start saving up for the Unnamed Pirate Ship III.
Surprised the rest of the party aren’t suffering sea sickness – it’s mandatory if you don’t have profession (sailor) ranks.
They made their save vs. obscure rules.
Oh noice. Is that a levelable save?
Good for them, and hopefully the setting made it too. I’ve always felt rules in that category were things the GM should be able to adjudicate on their own, which is why I have a system where I allocate/adjudicate things like that based on the situation.
Is Thief’s fabulous hat here to stay?
Only if she takes a dip in Inquisitor.
A comment fit for both handbooks!
Our 4e party recently acquired a boat (i.e. built from scratch). Problem is, none of the PCs are actually accomplished sailors (though we did kind of have a sailing adventure as part of a skill check that tested our nautical prowess), resulting in this kind of shenanigans.
We also spent a ridiculous amount of time naming the ship – eventually settling on the name ‘Lifts-Her-Sail’.
You’ll be happy to know that I’ve recently started my first Skyrim playtrhough. In VR. With standard Skyrim movement.
My stomach has not settled enough for a second venture into Tamriel.
play what you know… mostly.
If I have a character concept that I have to know something I don’t, I will do a basic google search for whatever feels relevant, but I don’t typically go deep on it. If questioned on something specific that I don’t know, I will literally wave my hands (because I am a gesture-y talker), and say “You know, I say something that sounds right.” and then promptly ask the DM what dice I would need to roll as my character knows the things I do not ;P
It also help to not have a DM that is a dick about the players actually knowing how to be suave when they are not, or be informed of the latest alchemic advances from Alchemy Monthly… etc
I have played with DMs that never actually take character stats into the equation and force the player to “roleplay” every detail of their character concept, assigning penalties or benefits to the roll based on that aspect rather than what the numbers on the page say. My opinion is that those numbers are there for a reason, because most of us like to play characters we are not capable of being in reality.
But every group is different.
> assigning penalties or benefits to the roll based on that aspect rather than what the numbers on the page say
You might not like my stance on this one:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/strong-silent-type
Clever play gets rewarded, whether it’s a lowered DC, advantage, or the much sought-after “that’s so awesome that I’ll just let it work.” That’s true whether we’re talking about an athletics check that takes advantage of the environment (I use the dead guard’s spear as a makeshift pole vault!) or a social situation (I use the dwarf’s hatred of light beer to butter her up!).
That said, if you’re talking about 100% replacing character ability with ad-hoc bonuses, then I’m with you. Players, GMs, and mechanics work together to affect outcomes in the game world. That’s how this hobby works. Cutting any one of those out of the equations breaks the experience.
I positively love that table. No bio-ships in our campaign, but replace column A with “Dorsal, Ventral, Forward, Aft, Port, Starboard, Amidships, Transverse, etc.” and a little tinkering to column C and I have a new time-saver. Thanks!
Typically at our sessions, no one calls my bluff on “road-runner/coyote Latin” or “reverse the polarity of the neutron flow” jargon, be it technical, thaumaturgical, or natural. Only occasionally when our gaming group has genuine rocket scientists, NASA engineers, or eighteenth-century scholars in the mix do I get the people’s eyebrow or even the dreaded “um, actually.”
I doubt I’ll ever get the chance to do more work in Starfinder, but I was proud of “Earl Grey, Hot.” If you can get some play out of the table, feel free to appropriate that mess!
“The respiratory heat exchange seems to be growing a tumor!”
First off, why the hell does a living spaceship have lungs?
Second, assuming that a spaceship has lungs for some reason, this…almost makes sense? Ordinary endothermic animals lose heat through respiration, and heat management is important in space.
If the problem is that space air is really cold, the respiratory heat exchange might be something like countercurrent blood flow, but for gas. If the problem is that space blocks heat flow, it might control the temperature and/or amount of air that is released to control temperature. (Never mind where it gets new air, though…)
And obviously, if it’s made of flesh it can get cancer.
I think that’s either the cooling system or allegory for air purifier, takes the CO2, burns the carbon and makes oxygen… What? I’m no extraterrestrial biologist, all I know is that if it bleeds it can be killed.
Aplies to cancer too, after all it’s not cured, it’s poisoned, radiated, cut apart. We kill cancer, not cure it.
Spaceships with AC cancer is a very important issue that affects us all.
Maybe “lungs” is just the closest word for it.
The ship’s ram-scoop could be siphoning stellar dust and various gases as additional fuel for the bio-ship, just like a whale constantly sieving the sea’s water for krill.
“First off, why the hell does a living spaceship have lungs?”
Same reason whales have lungs, they don’t breathe the medium they travel through…
“First off, why the hell does a living spaceship have lungs?”
Well, presumably the crew needs air, so possibly that’s part of the life support system.
“Happily, there’s a slight difference between the Roman forum and your gaming table.”? What? Don’t you normally say at the table: “I roll for diplomacy, also Carthago delenda est”? 😛
But all our quest-givers live in Carthage!
That is Cato the elder will not go to your table 😛
Lex Luthor checks his sundial, then shakes his head meaningfully.
Supermanus delanda est – he scream to the skies 😛
“If you’ve got to portray an expert, how do you prep for the role?”
Research, research, research.
“Do you actually study up on the subject?”
See above. //As a Player.//
As a GM I’m far more likely to get into bullshitium and other unobtainable jargoning (especially scifi tech). Or avoid the subject if it’s not one that lends itself to bullshitium, or if I absotively posolutely need to delve into the weeds, research enough so my bullshitium is the shinest most polished bullshitium ever.
“Maybe you take the random generator approach?”
I actually hate random generators for almost everything. I do use them occasionally (loot generation, random equipment sometimes, Wandering Damage Lists), but mostly I avoid using random lists.
“Or do you prefer to handwave the jargon and let your dice do your talking?”
If I don’t know what I’m talking about, and I can’t even sound reasonably decent, I’ll just “Roll and Shout”.
> Research, research, research.
Got an example where you used this approach?
I know almost as much about Alchemy as the olden days alchemists did. And a fair dinkum about the history of alchemy and the lives of several more famous/infamous alchemists. Despite not being a chemist or alchemist by trade…
Same with gunsmithing, I know enough to call bullshit when I see incredulously wrong things in movies… and learning about gunsmithing actually made one of my favorite movies lesser in my eyes (“The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly” has an egregious scene if you’re a gunsmith, or just know a lot about 1800’s revolvers). Despite owning no firearms, nor wanting to own them, nor being involved with firearms in any way.
I will admit all of my “detectiving” knowledge comes from noir films and books, so it’s complete and total bullsheetium, but it is what is expected for those games, so it’s okay to have no real, actual, knowledge (I do love noir, so that’s less “research, research, research” and more enjoyment of hobby).
To amend the above statement, “I know almost as much about Alchemy as the olden days alchemists did”, ahem, I know almost as much about Alchemy as the olden days alchemists //wrote about and that has survived to today//.
So any super-secret-secret-squirrel stuff that they took to their graves or has been since covered up by the illuminated gentlemen from Bavaria (of whom I am contractually obligated to say I know nothing about) is gone and I, of course, do not know it.
This includes the secrets of youth, the philosopher’s stone, the Sixteen Methods of Achieving Immortality, the advanced tantric arts of ayurveda, the location of the fourth Sankara Stone, and the translation of the Voynich Manuscript.
These things do not exist and if they did, I certainly do not know about them.
010 0000
Anyone with functioning brain can see when guns don’t work as they are supposed to. But hey it’s mass entertainment we are talking of same brain trust that decided to cast a woman as Haakon ErikSON.
If I find myself stumped I tend to just express what I’m trying to accomplish and confirm my character says something reasonable in character that I as the player don’t have to say with my out of character mouth.
Heck, just recently this happened with an interrogation scene where I asked questions, got non-answers, and said something like “Ok yeah, no idea what to actually do here. This is outside my talents as a person. But I feel it’s fair my character does. How do we do this GM?”
Perfectly reasonable. I find that my latent thespian tendencies resist breaking character though. This is a maladaptive practice on my part, lol.
“The Respiratory Grav Manifold is full of some weird goo!”
Translation: It’s cold in space and your biomechanical ship has the sniffles.
This is adorable and now I want to play my own module. The boat was named “Whiskey Jack,” and I always thought it would have been fun to watch him grow up over the course of the adventure.
A personal strategy has been to use different measurements/units of measurement, as well as concocting new scifi components.
PS: How often do you comment on previous posts? Just asking since I noticed that you apparently took the time to comment on some of my entries from several weeks back.
PPS: I’m still working on my custom RPG! 🙂 Thanks for wishing me luck on it, BTW.
Most of my research is done by hastily performed google searches. Playing in a DnD modern, I decided that my character has a urban spelunking background and immediately had to start trying to figure out just what the hell that might mean.
Conclusion?
Don’t break into to places, don’t take shit, and if you’re caught, don’t cause a scene. Use established routes into and out of the building/structure for plausible deniability. In general? Don’t cause a scene. Take pictures. Have fun!
Do I personally plan on taking such an adventure now that I have this knowledge? Absolutely not, but it did help when my party needed to break into an abandoned theatre. Instead of busting down doors, we found a broken window and snuck in that way. Proceeded to take pictures of the whole subsequent dungeon. It was a nice bit of fantasy fulfillment. ^.^
On a tangential note, I do eventually want to run a character that DOES play into my skillsets. Which, is mostly meat. So some kind of butcher who has turned to adventuring in order to make ends… Meat. Think of some knife puns. Really just rib the other party members. Something like that!
I’m curious. What is a DnD modern setting like?
Do you mean d20 Modern or Greyhawk 2000?
Truth be told, it’s nothing quite ‘proper’ as far as a setting goes. Mostly homebrew and frankly a bit combat light. To picture it, picture Onward and maybe dial in a bit more magic yet. The world has advanced to the modern era, but things are actually still pretty damn chill in comparison to say, Shadowrun.
Heroes are a bit like Superheroes, in that they don’t REALLY do the whole law and order thing, but they stop the problems that normal people can’t.
Our characters are not heroes. We just happen to be shopkeepers who have all set up in the same neighborhood that has had no shortage of problems as of late. Kiarin, my drow dude, is the grandson of the owner of Portolo’s Hoarde- a sort of bodega-esque flavored grocery store that specializes in Underdark goods for those who miss a bit of that under the surface flare.
Going out and exploring abandoned buildings is his side amusement. ^.^
I typically prefer to work out the setting more. TBH, The Onward milieu doesn’t really make much sense, if you think about it.
PS: [insert rant on how Cyberpunk Red is better at Cyberpunk than Shadowrun]
Part of the reason why I get so little roleplaying or writing done in practice is that I spend so muchntime studying up on a thing that I never actually get to the thing itself.
Even my latest version of the random generator approach has involved an excessive amount of time, consisting, as it does, of a deep rabbithole of AI training
Now for single word pieces of jargon, like the name of a drug or a planet or whathaveyou, what I like to do is make a big list of existing examples of the kind of word I’m looking for and then feed them into a markov chain generator (I usually use DFLang http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=47332.0 and ignore the Dwarf Fortress related formatting in the output) and that’ll give me a plausible sounding name (or, using DFLang, a list of plausible sounding names) for a drug or a planet or whatever you need