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Gerrtt
2007-11-03, 07:37 AM
Last night I had a hilariously fun experience playing Heroquest with 4 friends. 3 of my friends are not first language English but they do speak the language fairly well due to all being highly academic (I'm in a graduate school and these guys are all very well educated). It was still really funny trying to explain rules and things but they picked up the game really fast.

However, the funniest part was that things that I had always tied in with American culture were showing up in the way these guys were playing this game. For instance, one of my Indian friends was cursing and saying quick prayers in his native language while rolling the dice to attack and defend. My Chinese friend was counting in Chinese when he moved his piece around. I don't really know that these things are American in origin, but it was funny to see them show up in people from other cultures when I imagine them to be part of my own.

No wait, I lied, the funniest part were the things my Chinese friend was saying, as if he was speaking through his character in the board game. Things like "We cannot tarry here!" or "I kill him!" or "You are dangerous now?" (this one meant "Your health is low" I learned) or "You don't need longsword, your sword is already long!" (speaking to the barbarian character, who's sword was indeed longer than the Elf's sword on the model).

Good times were had. Anyone else have similar experience?

UserClone
2007-11-03, 08:04 AM
Yes. Probably the most fun I ever had DMing was with a friend from Peru:

Self (DM): Well, it'll probably take a little longer than that to reach town; Beren (Carlos, from Peru, playing a human ranger) doesn't have a mount.
Greg (Gnome Bard): Whatever. Can't he just ride b*tch on the back of my pony?:smallwink:
Self: Uh, I'm not sure if that's wise, or even possible. *Turns to Carlos* Well, do you want to ride his pony?
Carlos: Si. I am the ranger! I love the animals!

Belkarseviltwin
2007-11-03, 08:12 AM
My Chinese friend was counting in Chinese when he moved his piece around.

That's the best way to find out someone's first language- they almost always count in it.

My gaming group all speak English as a first language. a;though our families are from lots of different places. We did have one Serbian guy for a while, but he's lived in the UK long enough to be basically bilingual. The only thing I notice is who finds what unpronounceable- I can't do Aztec but I have a friend who finds it easy (from somewhere in Central America), he can't do "ks" at the beginning of a word which I'm fine with - e.g. I'd call Xen'drik "Ksendrik" but most people I know would have to say "Zendrik".

daggaz
2007-11-03, 09:09 AM
Yeah, I live in Denmark and speak danish fluently (american here), and my group are always flipflopping midsentence from danish to english. It doesnt help that I tend to do most of the DMing in english, but if they dont understand or we are arguing a point, i switch over to danish as well.

Can't think of any funny mispronounciations/translation errors offhand, but they have happened.

On a side note, it took me two days to teach my girlfriend how to pronounce the Z in zoo. Serious. She could only say it as tSoo. (a hard S with a bit of a T in the beginning).

Roderick_BR
2007-11-03, 12:14 PM
That's very true, the counting thing. I speak Portuguese, and simply can't remember some numbers in English.

Although some of these comments looks more like player's misinformation than a language thing.
The sword thing, for example, is something that a newbie American player could say if they don't know something about the game, like Haley thinking that the archers have axes because they used miniatures with axes to show the archer's position in the map.
Other, like the "You are dangerous now?" are true, tough. I heard people in Portuguese, when playing Vampire with an English sheet, say that they are "injuriado" (that means "upset", not "injured").

Jannex
2007-11-03, 05:49 PM
That's the best way to find out someone's first language- they almost always count in it.

Almost always. I think I'm just weird. My native language is English, and the language I know best after that is Spanish (I took it for several years in high school), but sometimes I'll find myself counting in French (which I only took for a few summers in elementary/middle school) for no apparent reason.

AslanCross
2007-11-03, 05:53 PM
Strictly speaking, English is not our mother tongue, but my players and I all grew up speaking it, so our games are conducted entirely in English apart from the occasional odd side comment.

UserClone
2007-11-03, 06:23 PM
Another memorable one (Beren's backstory includes his sister being killed by skeletons animated by an evil mage, and in fact he chose undead as his Favored Enemy #1):

Self (DM): Three of the skeletons which litter the floor animate and advance towards you.
Carlos (Beren): FVCK A SKELETON! YOU KILL MY SISTER!

Tragically, he was then slain out of hand by two of the three (the rest of the party followed him into the afterlife very soon thereafter). Yes, a three-human-warrior-level-one-skeleton-TPK. *Hangs first-time-DM head in shame*:smallredface:

Kizara
2007-11-03, 09:57 PM
Another memorable one (Beren's backstory includes his sister being killed by skeletons animated by an evil mage, and in fact he chose undead as his Favored Enemy #1):

Self (DM): Three of the skeletons which litter the floor animate and advance towards you.
Carlos (Beren): FVCK A SKELETON! YOU KILL MY SISTER!

Tragically, he was then slain out of hand by two of the three (the rest of the party followed him into the afterlife very soon thereafter). Yes, a three-human-warrior-level-one-skeleton-TPK. *Hangs first-time-DM head in shame*:smallredface:

That's pretty terrible, if your players cant beat 3 CR 1/2 skeletons as level 1 melee types, I think the problem is with them not you.

Maybe actually take the fighter or barbarian class instead of "warrior"?

UserClone
2007-11-04, 05:48 AM
Well, part of the problem was that he was a TWF Ranger, and another part was that his Favored Enemy bonus didn't apply to attacks or damage.
there was a Dwarven fighter about, and the aforementioned Gnome Bard, but I think that was it. Wasn't pretty.

Belkarseviltwin
2007-11-04, 07:09 AM
That's pretty terrible, if your players cant beat 3 CR 1/2 skeletons as level 1 melee types, I think the problem is with them not you.

Maybe actually take the fighter or barbarian class instead of "warrior"?

I think he means the skeletons were level-1 warriors (ie they were human War1s that had had the Skeleton template applied).

UserClone
2007-11-04, 07:13 AM
Yes, I did. That wasn't obvious from the previous posts? Hmm...I guess I could see that misconception. Sorry for any confusion.:smallredface: