Shattered Kingdoms

Hello all.

Didn't really know where to put this, so the Newbie Help seemed like the best option.

I rolled up this character and so far I'm loving it. But I just want to ask something for clarification before I find myself on the opposite end of an OOC tell saying I shouldn't be doing that.

My character is from Zhenshi. Now, from what I understand, Zhenshi is a culture that mixes real-life Chinese/Japanese cultures and real-life Arabic ones. And players have the option of playing characters influenced by either, or something along the lines of a "western" culture if they feel like it. For example, from a Samurai (or ronin) or a Dervish, to a traditional western fantasy Knight.

So, I picked to rely heavily on the chinese/japanese aspect of the culture and started playing my character borrowing heavily from that source of influence and I'm planning to integrate this in his social behavior. So far, I'm thinking of using some japanese words when speaking anything other than Zhensh, and just a few yes/no, or typical words when speaking Zhensh. Would that be appropriate, or is it something I should avoid, purely from an OOC perspective?

For example, would it be an OOC-rule-breaking problem if, when speaking Taslamaran/Sylvan/Uxmaln/Whatever, I use words like Otosan/Otosama, while when saying the same thing in Zhensh I just say "Father"? Or is this fine by the immstaff?

Thank you in advance,

"Aze"

P.S. One last thing. Aside from a "couple" of words, I can't speak Japanese, but I am quite motivated to do several google searches for words and phrases to make this sound more "original".

While I don't want to rain on your motivational parade or sound like an RP etc. nazi I would have to give a resounding no to this for a few reasons that I will state.

1) This is a text based roll playing game. The text being in English. Sure we have quite a few players fluent in multiple languages, however they all use English because not everyone else is going to understand Greek or Danish, or Japanese or what have you and quite frankly it is a pain and annoying to have to ask someone what they mean. There are plenty of words in the English language being thrown around in this game that a lot of people, myself included need to look up. I don't think people want to try to figure out what language you are speaking to then google your word to see what you mean. It disrupts the flow of RP for both them to have to do it, and you.

2) It is very out of place to have such a mixture of languages within one sentence and generally speaking the sentence structure you would use for Japanese versus the sentence structure one would use for English are quite different thus making the inclusion of certain words grammatically incorrect.

3) Personally, as a speaker of Japanese, I can tell you that there are intricacies to the language, and to any language for that matter, that you are not going to get by googleing it. There are also, just like in any language, multiple words for the same thing and it depends upon the context and who you are talking to as to which word is used and how it is conjugated.

I suppose ultimately if you wish to go for a more Japanese authenticity in your character do so through their behavior. Read up and understand the Japanese culture from the basic time period you wish to use, i.e. Edo Period (if you are going for samurai style) and base your character around that rather than tossing in a few words, both yourself and perhaps more than half the pbase will have to look up.

~Thyki

EDIT: P.S. I jsut realized this may sound a little harsh and I don't mean for it to come across this way. Welcome to the game, I hope you continue to love it as much as the rest of us do! And good luck. Zhenshi is an interesting place to start these days.

Well, if I may say so, generally flavoring your roleplay is encouraged and what you aspire to do isnt new. I've encoutered the same behaviour and the IC reasoning was that this was the ancient zhensh tongue, but personally, I think it's a bit overacting and quite frankly a bit frustrating sometimes to speak the zhensh while no compatriot of yours will be able to understand. Still, the above IC reasoning does sound valid. After all, there are still dead languages that very few or no people understand, yet they were spoken at a time.

Edit: Just read Thyki's post and that's a healthy proposition. Flavoring the behaviour of your character to resemble the general idea of the culture of your choice is far more imposing.

Having read both posts, I guess I need to clarify that I do not intend to write entire sentences in japanese. I understand very well what Thyki says and this has never been my intention. Merely, like you said, a flavor. But, I guess I was not clear enough.

So, just to clarify. I never intend to make what I type impossible to understand or to change important words so that what I'm saying just doesn't make sense. Instead, just like some people color their text to show their "dwarven" accents, I was aiming to do the same by using a few specific words.

Now, like I said, if that's a problem I can simply not do it. Or something.

Thanks for the feedback so far. Looking forward to any more

Additionally, what I'd like to add:
Using words that comprise of 3 syllables or more doesn't mean it's good RP. It just means you are using big words. Big words that even very clever people, or very sophisticated people would avoid using in their common parlance, in order not to confuse the ones they talk with.

So, in my opinion I agree with you wholeheartedly in the points about communication, and both using foreign words or difficult words to say something -important-, is tiring.

Regardless, like I said, I appreciate any and all input

Hi, its me again...

I believe understood what you wish to do and my original response was to that ends, but let me provide a couple of examples of what I believe you wish to do so that you can tell me if I am right or wrong.

Your Character speaking in Zhensh tongue: Hello/Good Morning/Good evening.

Your Character speaking Taslamaran tongue: Konnichiwa/Ohayo Gozaimasu/Konbanwa

Here is the issue with this. Most of the Pbase is going to have no clue what you said, and if they are not perfect and you are not perfect at the other language you are speaking. There is little to no way they are going to understand what you said or be able to look it up.

Your Character speaking in Zhensh tongue: Greetings I am *insert name here* my Father is *insert second name here*

Your Charater speaking in Uxmaln tongue: Greetings I am *insert name here* my Otosan is *insert second name here*

Here is the problem with that as far as the Japanese language goes. It is all fine and well to call your father Otosan or Otosama to his face or to call another person's father Otosan/Otosama. But when you are speaking to someone else about your father, you do not use Otosan, you use Chichi.

That is just playing off your one example. But if you were really trying to color your phrases with Japanese words you would need to do a lot of research to see what words (and again I just mean single words) you would use to a mentor, elder friend, friend, family, leader, leader of another country etc. The Japanese language has entirely difference conjugation systems based on seniority and how well you know a person. There is even a specific way to speak when you would be addressing the emperor and a specific way he speaks when addressing everyone else. There in lies the problem. You want to color your phrases to make it more authentic, but truly it is not really authentic because, and no offense, you do not know the proper way to be so (through no fault of your own, google just cannot provide these sorts of things and when it can it is not in a timely fashion)


I mean all of this only with the highest of regards for your trying. I think it is a great thing to do to give your language a little flare, but perhaps instead of actually using the language, use an accent. There is a huge difference between using an accent for flare and using a completely different language.

And really, my biggest suggestion as I already said is coloring your character with cultural aspects. This, in my opinion, will be much more rewarding in the long run and help you build a stronger character than looking up random words to toss in.

~Thyki

*crawls back under her rock*

While the idea is neat in concept, it's probably not a good one to follow through on, if only for the fact that it would confuse the crap out of the vast majority of the playerbase: I for one have enough trouble figuring out what all the freaking imperial armor is without putting it on.

Really, it's just awkward and counter-immersive for people to be interacting with another character, when that character keeps introducing words that are foreign to them. The language system works well enough as it is without introducing -actual- foreign language into things.

As others have mentioned, I think that making your character have traits and physical features/customs similar to the culture you're trying to imitate would be much more enjoyable for everyone.

If you were to replace words like father with another languages form of father, it would be fine as long as your sentance helped explain what it ment. I don't know any other languages so an example in english would be:

My "father", the great parent that he was, taught me a lot of things growing up.

If you used something along those lines, with the proper wording being used to help interrept what you are saying, it could work just fine.

If you wanted to use any language but english for more then a filler word here and there, I wouldn't recommend it because you could leave who ever you are talking to completely confused and they could take your message the wrong way.

Eff these nubs, do it anyways.


Its just like real life (and I think the OP realizes this): if someone speaks a little spanglish and you don't know the spanish word:

"Hey Bato, whatup?"

You can either pretend, assume or ask! In esskay people will ask you:

"WTF are you talking about? My autosans?"

or

"Heh ya, that autosans was delicious...."

or

emote nods sagely.


All of that can be rp'd and dealt with. Also, don't forget that both you and the rest of the characters in pyrathia can, gasp, change and develop! If after a while people just arent understanding you maybe it frustrates your character forcing him to either clear up his speech or feel like he's better than others or feel like its his new purpose to educate people etc. Likewise other CHARACTERS may choose to write yours off as crazy/incoherent, or they may want to learn what the hell you're talking about or they may think you are someone or that you believe something totally opposite to what you do (lost in translation).

DO IT

I tried so hard not to touch this one, but I just can't help myself.

I will however, limit it to just a resounding NO. SK is in English and there's a reason why we have different coded languages, and why even though you're speaking Taslamaran/Zhenshi/Uxmaln or whatnot, you should still be writing in English.

It sounds to me like you have a very solid base of concept for the character you have in mind here, and I would hate to see you throw it away with just putting NOGUKE SAMURAI KONICHIWAH in your title and being done with it.

Sorry if it sounded harsch, but this is a personal peeve for me.

Ignore them and go with it. People make characters with annoying ways of talking all the time.


Kawl.