07-10-2019, 02:39 PM | #1 |
Join Date: Feb 2009
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Translators and Social Skills
Is it possible to use Social Skills through a Translator?
Suppose Alice and Bob visit a French Island where the populace speak French. Alice knows Streetwise and Savoire Faire. Bob knows French. Is it possible for Alice to use her skills with Bob translating? |
07-10-2019, 02:54 PM | #2 |
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Yukon, OK
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Re: Translators and Social Skills
Hmm doesnt seem to be in Social Engineering but I thought I saw it somewhere.
I'd go with the lower of the skill of the translator and the speaker in most cases.
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07-10-2019, 02:59 PM | #3 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Austin, TX
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Re: Translators and Social Skills
I'd use the normal rules for social skills and a foreign language, but treat the acting character as having the language at one level lower than the translator lower level in the two languages - so effectively Accented if the translator is Fluent, and Broken if the translator is Accented. Even the best translator is going to miss some nuances and be somewhat disjoint to the acting character's body language, but it's better than nothing.
If you're using Cultural Familiarity, I wouldn't penalize the acting character for not having a Cultural Familiarity if the translator had it.
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07-10-2019, 04:16 PM | #4 |
Join Date: Dec 2007
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Re: Translators and Social Skills
I note that you've chosen social skills where what you say may be less important than what you do. You don't need to speak French to know how to bow or curtsey, how to use posh silverware and how precedence works between others and the person you are purporting to be. Having a translator with no social graces might be a slight handicap but it wouldn't be much more crippling than having any companion with no social graces.
Last edited by David Johnston2; 07-10-2019 at 05:44 PM. |
07-10-2019, 05:21 PM | #5 |
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
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Re: Translators and Social Skills
That puts the importance on Cultural Familiarity. It would likely be obvious if the PC has it while the translator doesn't.
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07-11-2019, 02:09 PM | #6 |
Join Date: Feb 2009
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Re: Translators and Social Skills
Those two skills were the ones under consideration when it first came up but interested in it also from a more generalized perspective
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07-11-2019, 02:18 PM | #7 | ||
Join Date: Dec 2007
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Re: Translators and Social Skills
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07-12-2019, 09:47 AM | #8 | |
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Portland, Oregon
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Re: Translators and Social Skills
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Take a look at some English words. Coward (why does being a bovine herdsman make you lacking in courage?), Welch (who says being from Wales makes you dishonest), or the above (aside from being biologically impossible, female canines are not subject to human sexual laws and in any event that does not prove that one's mother was not monogamous). Imagine oddities in other language. Other English words come to mind: villain (who cares if your ancestor was a sharecropper) and noble (equally who cares if a king gave your ancestor a land grant). A translator has to know them to be able to smooth troubled waters.
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