Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > GURPS

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 01-20-2017, 09:03 AM   #1
johndallman
Night Watchman
 
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
Default [Basic] Skill of the week: Ventriloquism

Ventriloquism is the IQ/H skill of "throwing your voice". This mostly consists of speaking without visible movement, plus stagecraft to hint that the sound is coming from elsewhere. There is no default, and no skills default to it. This skill appeared at GURPS 1e, and I probably should have done it along with Mimicry, but too late now.

On a success, you "fool" your audience that you aren't producing the sound. You get +5 for having a dummy, confederate or other alternative source for the sound, and -3 for a suspicious audience. I'm not sure that adults are ever really fooled by a modern entertainment ventriloquist, but this was more important in the original use for the skill, as a form of divination, used by the Pythia of Delphi, if Wikipedia is to be believed. It was known as gastromancy, which is already in GURPS Magic as a form of divination, based on interpreting sounds from the digestive tract, where spirits were believed to reside. Obviously, if a prophet can make coherent, if inhuman, speech without seeming to do so, this makes the interpretation much easier and more convincing. This practice apparently survived until the Enlightenment era, when it turned into entertainment, along with escapology and stage magic.

Ventriloquism ... isn't exactly a skill that's heavily extended or exploited in GURPS supplements. Alphabet Arcane has an Eternal Clown who uses it, and it's an option for DF Bards, with uses in distracting monsters*, or stage magic in taverns. Horror makes it an option for Charlatan Mystics, and a lot of Dungeon Magic schools include it. The Power-Ups volumes have a single Talent and one Wildcard skill for it, and Psis has modern psychics who use it, for the client's own good, honestly. Thaumatology: Magical Styles and Ritual Path Magic can put enough power behind this skill to make it useful.

I'm fairly sure I've never taken this skill for a character, or seen it used. Have you?

*Elan and Banjo from Order of the Stick would be proud.
johndallman is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 01-20-2017, 09:36 AM   #2
malloyd
 
Join Date: Jun 2006
Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Ventriloquism

Quote:
Originally Posted by johndallman View Post
I'm fairly sure I've never taken this skill for a character, or seen it used. Have you?
Yes, but only in a game where the GM treated it cinematically, as actually moving where your voice is coming from. The difference is it then became useful as a communications method when the character was hiding, he could talk from "nowhere" without giving away his hiding spot.

I'm pretty sure I've never actually seen it's iconic cinematic application - making the idols talk (or its close relative faking ghosts) - in play. It's possible I'm forgetting some ordinary use like job rolls for a stage performance or something.

Getting it to do anything useful outside of a pre-arranged performance, and one where you control the distances and angles of where the audience is relative to the ventriloquist at that, really requires a cinematic treatment. And even then you're competing with microelectronics, and, given that the setting is allowing cinematic stuff, likely with actual illusion or sound manipulation powers or magic.
__________________
--
MA Lloyd
malloyd is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-20-2017, 09:38 AM   #3
RogerBW
 
RogerBW's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: near London, UK
Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Ventriloquism

Quote:
Originally Posted by johndallman View Post
I'm fairly sure I've never taken this skill for a character, or seen it used. Have you?
It doesn't occur on any of the characters in my archive.

It would go on a character I'd like to play, a modern fake magician (fraud/confidence trickster type) who discovers much to his horror that he has developed real magic and is expected to help save the world. This was inspired by the cards I got through the door when I was living in a poorish part of London: https://firedrake.org/roger/jobmag/
RogerBW is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-20-2017, 10:26 AM   #4
CoyoteGestalt
 
Join Date: Jan 2009
Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Ventriloquism

Back in 3E days I built, but never got to play, a character who combined Ventriloquism and some other stage-magic skills with a homebrewed variant magic system based on S. John Ross's Hedge Magic article... the underlying idea was someone who could perform cinematic-to-impossible feats of stage magic by using the power of his audience's belief to imbue them with a small amount of actual magic. (The character was meant to otherwise function as an "occult detective" sort who investigated both real occult mysteries/hauntings and a lot of frauds. The game never got past the planning stage, though.)

I can imagine trying to design a similar campaign today, using ideas similar to how Harmony With The Tao in Chinese Elemental Powers grants access to the mystical/cinematic aspects of some skills. I think that was a neat way to deal with skills like this where their real-world use and their traditional function in fiction/gaming are very different.
CoyoteGestalt is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-20-2017, 01:30 PM   #5
whswhs
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Ventriloquism

Quote:
Originally Posted by CoyoteGestalt View Post
I can imagine trying to design a similar campaign today, using ideas similar to how Harmony With The Tao in Chinese Elemental Powers grants access to the mystical/cinematic aspects of some skills. I think that was a neat way to deal with skills like this where their real-world use and their traditional function in fiction/gaming are very different.
Thanks! I would be happy to see further extensions of the idea.
__________________
Bill Stoddard

I don't think we're in Oz any more.
whswhs is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-20-2017, 03:48 PM   #6
Culture20
 
Join Date: Feb 2014
Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Ventriloquism

useful for spies who have to talk out loud but are worried about lip readers. I've added it to bards and actors for performance purposes.
Culture20 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-05-2024, 06:52 PM   #7
Anaraxes
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Ventriloquism

An old thread, but an appropriate spot for the question:

The skill text says "A successful roll lets you throw your voice well enough to fool your audience." That is, no defense or resistance roll. Should this instead be a Quick Contest, versus Per or perhaps IQ? Or is the relative utility of the skill, especially in the face of possible magic, illusions, telepathy, etc., in many settings, minor enough that the skill deserves whatever edge it can get?
Anaraxes is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-05-2024, 10:47 PM   #8
Pursuivant
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Ventriloquism

Quote:
Originally Posted by Anaraxes View Post
The skill text says "A successful roll lets you throw your voice well enough to fool your audience." That is, no defense or resistance roll.
I've always read that line as "well enough to fool your audience if they wish to be fooled or have no reason to suspect otherwise." That's the only way I've ever used it or seen it used in play.

Realistically, a successful Ventriloquism roll lets you perform a ventriloquism act or make it seem as if your voice is coming from a plausible location within a few feet from your mouth (e.g., the mouth of a hand puppet held near your head or dummy in your lap). Anything more is cinematic.

You should also get skill bonuses if you've got a prepared ventriloquism routine, since that allows you to avoid using words which require obvious lip movements and practice routines which draw the audience's attention away from your mouth.

Even a great ventriloquist will have some mouth movement when they speak, however, which can be detected with a Vision roll. Roll a Quick Contest of Ventriloquism vs. Vision if you've got some way to partially hide your mouth.

Hearing rolls to detect the origin of your speech might be trickier. Roll a Quick Contest of Ventriloquism vs. Hearing or suitable skill, with usual range modifiers, to detect the true origin. You automatically lose the QC against people with augmented hearing like Parabolic Hearing or Discriminatory Hearing, people operating equipment which gives similar abilities or any sort of supernatural power which allows mind reading or knowledge of a sound's origin.

No roll to determine true sound origin is allowed unless the listener is physically present or has suitable sensors in place. Seeing a ventriloquism act on video doesn't allow Hearing rolls.

Maybe substitute IQ for Hearing or Vision against people who've never encountered a ventriloquist before or who are mentally prepared to believe a ventriloquism-assisted lie. (e.g., the voice of mystic oracle is actually coming from the sacred well, not the priest's mouth).

Realistic Ventriloquism is probably most useful as a method of defeating Lip Reading. In that case, a successful Ventriloquism skill roll disguises your speech sufficiently that Lip Reading is impossible. If a Lip Reader is close enough that they can detect tongue motions, they're probably close enough to hear you.

Cinematic ventriloquism can be whatever the GM wants it to be. I'd allow a ventriloquist to realistically mimic voices and sounds and make them seem to appear from a distant location with a successful Mimicry + Ventriloquism skill, shout while using Ventriloquism (possibly at a penalty), or truly "throw" their voice to a distant location. No lip motions are required and there are no limits on what sort of words you can use; use all the P's and Q's you want. Apply range modifiers for spells or standard Range/Speed modifiers as penalties. Skeptical observers can roll a QC of Ventriloquism vs. Per (or an appropriate Sense or Power) to detect the illusion.
Pursuivant is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-06-2024, 04:46 AM   #9
Ashtagon
 
Ashtagon's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: UK
Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Ventriloquism

Prepared routines, coupled with a an understanding of phonetics, helps greatly.

"Say Dada"

"Dada"

"Say Mama"

"uh-uh"

"Oh come on, say mommy"

"uh-uh"

"Say papa"

"uh-uh"

"Say daddy"

"daddy"

"Who's your daddy?"

"You are."
Ashtagon is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-06-2024, 08:13 AM   #10
Anaraxes
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Ventriloquism

Quote:
Originally Posted by Pursuivant View Post
I've always read that line as "well enough to fool your audience if they wish to be fooled or have no reason to suspect otherwise." That's the only way I've ever used it or seen it used in play.

Realistically, a successful Ventriloquism roll lets you perform a ventriloquism act
Makes sense for the strictly realistic version.

Though I'm not sure I would have put the skill into Basic at all, if it's just good for an entertainer making a monthly job roll. Just a kind of Performance, then, though Performance is specifically stage/screen acting, with its specializations (like Musical Instrument) often given their own skill names.

I agree I've never seen the skill used in play, probably because the realistic version isn't useful in most adventuring situations, so no player ever "wastes points" on it. Outside of a fantasy bard in a game with the Enthrallment and Musical Influence skills, it's just background color, perhaps collecting a single point just as a characterization quirk.

I'd always give the mundane act the -3 for "suspicious" audience, if that mattered. They're more than suspicious; adults are pretty darn certain that it's just an entertaining trick. An enterprising adventurer might even figure out a way to make that assumption work to their advantage, should they have some sort of more cinematic auditory illusion ability, and get a bonus for letting the audience believe their natural inclination.

Which leaves a very narrow gap for a cinematic Ventriloquism that's not Illusion (Auditory Only). That Advantage is only 8 points (25 -70%), which doesn't leave a lot of room for putting points into a skill from the cost-effectiveness point of view -- unless that skill were essentially the same ability. (And Illusion does call for a QC vs Per, which is one of the things that started me wondering.)

Ventriloquism and/or Mimicry could be used as the mandatory skills in a Skills For Everyone implementation of Illusion, instead of Artist (Illusion), for illusionists needing audio effects.
Anaraxes is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Tags
basic, skill of the week, ventriloquism

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 02:50 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.