Gaming in French
Jul. 31st, 2005 11:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eveglassI have been a gamer for (more-or-less) six years now. However, last night was my first experience gaming entirely in French. I went to a 50+ person LARP, out in the woods. The ambiance was amazing: everyone in costume (it was a Dark Ages game), tikis to light the path, and everyone really got into the medieval mindset. Lots of private politiking, lots of philosophical discussions on the nature of Where We Fit In Society.
If there was any problem with the game, it was with me. You see, normally I understand French pretty well. I'd like to think I'm relatively bilingual. However, I was having a lot of problems at the game. I think this is because everyone was speaking very softly and mumbling. I'd be able to figure things out if it was English, but it was just too much for me sometimes in French. Occasionally I'd ask someone to repeat something they'd said louder, but I couldn't do it every time I didn't understand or I'd annoy the hell out of them. Or, if they weren't speaking softly and mumbling, it was a huge scene with lots of fast cross-conversation. Also no good.
It didn't help that as I got tired late into the evening, I seemed to lose my ability to speak French. Nor that the carefully-worked-out deal I had with Yan (ie: that I'd follow him around everywhere so he could introduce me to people and explain stuff I wasn't getting) got fucked in the first minutes of the game by another elder dominating him into not bringing me into private meetings.
It was kind of frustrating not being able to play my character the way I felt she should be played because I couldn't keep up with the language, sometimes. In fact, someone else appeared to be playing my concept (polite but occassionally hot-tempered Spanish noblewoman) better than I was!
Despite all that, I had a great time. Some of the people at that game are REALLY good roleplayers. End result: gaming in another language is VERY humbling. I thought I was both decent in French and a relatively good roleplayer. I'm not sure that's the impression I gave last night! I hope I made a decent impression despite the language barrier. Yan, Frank, what do you think?
If there was any problem with the game, it was with me. You see, normally I understand French pretty well. I'd like to think I'm relatively bilingual. However, I was having a lot of problems at the game. I think this is because everyone was speaking very softly and mumbling. I'd be able to figure things out if it was English, but it was just too much for me sometimes in French. Occasionally I'd ask someone to repeat something they'd said louder, but I couldn't do it every time I didn't understand or I'd annoy the hell out of them. Or, if they weren't speaking softly and mumbling, it was a huge scene with lots of fast cross-conversation. Also no good.
It didn't help that as I got tired late into the evening, I seemed to lose my ability to speak French. Nor that the carefully-worked-out deal I had with Yan (ie: that I'd follow him around everywhere so he could introduce me to people and explain stuff I wasn't getting) got fucked in the first minutes of the game by another elder dominating him into not bringing me into private meetings.
It was kind of frustrating not being able to play my character the way I felt she should be played because I couldn't keep up with the language, sometimes. In fact, someone else appeared to be playing my concept (polite but occassionally hot-tempered Spanish noblewoman) better than I was!
Despite all that, I had a great time. Some of the people at that game are REALLY good roleplayers. End result: gaming in another language is VERY humbling. I thought I was both decent in French and a relatively good roleplayer. I'm not sure that's the impression I gave last night! I hope I made a decent impression despite the language barrier. Yan, Frank, what do you think?
