[Basic] Skill of the week: Mimicry and Singing

[johndallman]

Mimicry is the IQ/H ability to imitate voices. There is a general default of IQ-6, and no skills default to Mimicry. Specialisation is required, and the available specialisations have defaults of their own: (Animal Sounds) and (Bird Calls) to IQ-6, and to each other at -6, and (Speech) to Acting -6 or Linguistics-4. Somewhat confusingly there is also a Mimicry advantage, which makes the skill redundant. The main use of this skill is to deceive, and this works vs. animals and birds on a successful roll against the right specialisation. Fooling people that an animal or bird sound is genuine requires a contest against Naturalist-3 or Perception -6; impersonating a specific person's voice requires a roll at -3, in a contest against the IQ of anyone who knows the voice. The last can be bought up for a specific voice with the Impersonation technique. Rules for accents are on B24, and are mildly complicated, especially since the introduction of the Accent perk. Mimicry appeared in Compendium I for 3e.

Singing is, simply, the HT/E ability to sing well, with the quality of the performance measured by the margin of success. It defaults to HT-4, and no skills default to it, although it's a valid prerequisite for Group Performance (Conducting) and Musical Influence. The skill dates from GURPS 1e.

The modifiers for Singing include language modifiers if you're singing in a foreign language, a flat -2 if the audience doesn't understand the language you're using, or -2 for Stuttering, which is also applied to Mimicry (Speech) per Social Engineering. Both skills get +2 from Voice, and are the only two skills that are almost entirely about using your voice.

Both of these skills appear on more templates than one might expect: Mimicry has uses for hunters and other outdoorsmen, and Singing is common for characters who aren't professionals, simply as a form of entertainment, before the advent of music broadcasting and recording. After the End uses Mimicry for adopting groups’ styles of speech. Fantasy requires Mimicry for learning the languages of sapient animals (or those animals learning human languages), and offers Channelling based on Singing. LTC1 has several musical techniques based on Singing. Power-Ups 1, 3, 6 and 7 have examples for one or both of these skills. Powers offers characters with both Mimicry skill and the advantage the chance to use the skill in place of IQ with the advantage, or Singing with Rapier Wit; Enhanced Senses has Voice Profiling, which boosts Mimicry (Speech). Psionic Powers has Electronic Voice Phenomena, which work with both these skills, and Social Engineering has expanded rules for Mimicry (Speech), plus using other skills and advantages to boost both skills. Thaumatology has several ways to use these skills with magic.

Singing is a skill where reasonably realistic, if talented characters can reach very high skills. HT12, Musical Ability 2, Voice and four points in Singing produce skill (Correction!) 18, which does suggests that great opera singers can exceed skill 20.

I think I have to plead guilty to dabbling in Mimicry (Speech). “Doing voices” has always seemed easy and entertaining to me, and I’ve always liked radio comedy. I find it hard to do them while GMing, though; thinking about what people say takes enough concentration that doing the voice at the same time is a problem.