ic vs ooc terms

Big T or little T, it means the same thing. If you have special neat tricks you can do, you better fess up.

Heh. You sounded like Ash for a minute there.

What complicates but also could explain matters is that Fallen don’t just speak in English. My understanding is that since the Fallen were never afflicted with the Curse of Babel, they just understand when something is spoken to them. The “intent” is of the word is communicated not just the “sounds” within it.



For example, a fallen from Mexico is giving a recipe to a Fallen from Regina and they say there is Jicama in it. The Fallen from Regina who has never heard of Jicama before doesn’t just hear a number of sounds that he would have to look up in a dictionary like you and I would. He hears the meaning of the word and in that instant knows what a Jicama is. Since ooc, we as players don’t have the necessary superpowers to accurately portray this universal translator effect we continue to speak in English. I have worked under the assumption that some of the Fallen aren’t speaking English but it really doesn’t matter since they can communicate perfectly either way.



Prior to hearing Jill’s ruling on using technique names last year I assumed the same applied to technique names as any other word. So barring supernatural interference, even if a Fallen from Mexico uses a different word for a technique than the one here, the meaning of the word is instantly communicated. The Fallen do use different words for techniques but it doesn’t matter because even if your word for Enslave is garglefruuze, when you say it, I instantly know you mean Enslave. Again lacking nescesary superpowers ooc to duplicate this effect I figured we could just say Enslave. This changed last year when Jill informed us that we would be docked xp if she caught us using technique names.



Now there were two solutions to this problem (other that solution # 3 which was to convince Jill that I was right and she was wrong – not happening) that I saw. Option # 1 was every time I used a technique I would make up the word I use for that technique and then drop ooc and explain to the other player, “when I say this you know I mean x”. Since I hate dropping out of character I rejected this option as anything other than a fun way to annoy Jill. Option #2 was to somehow think up an explanation that could explain how this apparent internal inconsistency within the setting didn’t ruin my suspension of disbelief. So I have just operated under the understanding that there is supernatural interference with the True Voice when it comes to the names of techniques. So, essentially while Fallen are exempt from the Curse of Babel for most words, they are afflicted by it specifically for techniques. This also explains why even if they wanted to Fallen couldn’t come up with a common name for their techniques and have to describe them each time.

What can I say? It's one of Trent's rules that I really like. There are others I really like, too (some from previous versions of the rules, which I've heard about recently). But I'm kind of a jerk about awarding and removing Zeal. I also remove Zeal when players spend time OOC at a game, for whatever reason. Using OOC terms IC is a prime example of being OOC, and so sure! That's a Zeal removal!

I've always been of the opinion that if you're going to play in a LARP, you should spend your time IC.

cenobyte wrote:What can I say? It's one of Trent's rules that I really like. There are others I really like, too (some from previous versions of the rules, which I've heard about recently). But I'm kind of a jerk about awarding and removing Zeal. I also remove Zeal when players spend time OOC at a game, for whatever reason. Using OOC terms IC is a prime example of being OOC, and so sure! That's a Zeal removal!

I've always been of the opinion that if you're going to play in a LARP, you should spend your time IC.

Fair enough on the docking Zeal for spending time OOC - I remember back in SbN how anyone starting to go OOC would see you coming with your little notepad and pencil and shut the hell up and get back in character. I now do it myself when running ongoing chronicles - the combo of telling folks you'll dock XP for that kind of stuff, than wandering around with a notepad really seems to help.

With the terms though - it is just one of those things that is inconsistent. I really would recommend to Trent he either remove that line, or add explicit IC justification for it. Otherwise, it is just going to be one of those things most STs houserule out of the book within the first three months of play, and the more rules like that there are in a book, the weaker a book it'll be percieved as being.

Fair enough.
I'm not the sort of person who needs justification, but I accept that others are.