Image Source: WotC’s Player’s Handbook II
There we are. After 5 weeks, here’s the last player profile of my gaming group. For the other four, have a look here.
What character do you play in our current D&D campaign? (Name, Race Class)?
Nogard Rinevedne, 1/2 dragon Barbarian (Chatty DM: When you read the name in reverse, it means ‘Dragon to Be’ in French…. Yeah, Stef is the silent but clever one)
What Quote would best summarize your Character?
Draconic Philosophy and Wisdom should influence our decisions. (Chatty: Is that where you say ‘ So let’s burn them back to hell!’ right after?)
What other Role Playing games have you played other than D&D 3.x?
- D&D 3.X
- Iron Heroes
- The Dark Eye (French Version)
- Gurps (Chatty DM : Stef joined our group during the last part of our last Gurps Campaign)
What do you look for in a game session to make it a great session?
First thing have fun. Release some stress and hang out with friends. Then focus on interacting with the game and play with the characters. I can have fun in a session without a fight if the role playing is rich and immersive. (Chatty DM: Like the time Eric nearly attacked the Bronze Dragon? That was priceless!)
What do you look in a multi-session adventure to make it a great adventure?
Like my other gaming pals have said: Spending a long time playing with a character and interaction with the other players.
What tends to decrease your fun the most in a single session?
Getting lost in rules issue puts a damper to the evening. Save or die situation is not a challenge at high level and brings the game to a halt. The business of D&D is to have fun with a gang of players, not argue on some rule. I prefer that the DM rules on thing that it is not in any rule book then to have a 20 minutes argument on grappling (Chaty DM: There it is again!)
Tell me about your best RPG memory as a player?
A good laugh with my best friends makes my night, period. Any event where we have a great fight, we have a brush with death and then somebody gets a last spell or critical hit that takes care of the fight and my night is done!
But I remember one of my Evocation Mage burning few protagonists one night…
See you around somewhere, in a dimly-lit dungeon around the corner…
Chatty DM’s take on the player: Stef is our more calm and silent player. The group’s only Casual Player, he’s started showing a growing storyteller streak and some hints of the method actor. Often under my radar, when he does say something, it’s usually to give an insight to a problem to the others. It’s also, quite often, to burn another player or the DM with a ‘bon mot‘. Somewhat inexperienced with RPGs when he joined us 6 years ago, Stef has blossomed rapidly in his own style. I’m happy to have convinced him to go from listening about my games during working hours to becoming a well-appreciated participant in them.
Just to wonder, do you guys play (and go about your daily lives, for that matter) primarily in french or english?
It differs depending on who you talk to in your area, so I figured I’d ask.
I’ve been to Montreal a couple times, by the way. Great city you have there.
And Laval has the ZeStuff Offline Store, so I’m jealous.
Oh well. I’ll be over in Sherbrooke this year. For the Great Northern Concrete Toboggan Race. Fun times.
Our game are in french. With some English one liner/quotes that creeps here and there. Like: “Yield! I’ve got higher ground” or other similar non sense… 😉
As for Montréal and it suburbs, well it as its issue like every other city, but I like its multicultural aspect.
The concrete toboggan race!? Isn’t this a university competition? If I remember correctly the university I graduated from was participating in this. (ETS)
Oh, for sure. The multiculturalism is great. Here in Winnipeg we have a significant french population, too. Less than you guys, of course, but it’s around.
And yes, GNCTR is a university competition. At the Unoversity of Manitoba we’ve competed for years, and ETS has had a great team in the event every year we go.
E-T,
E-T-S,
E-T-S Go, Let’s Go!
(…if I remember their english chant correctly.)
Really fun group to party with. Hopefully they’ll be there this year, too.
Yan’s an EE graduate (but works as a software engineer).
Actually our group is pretty techie:
Me: Quality Management/Microbiologist
Franky: Environmental Technician
Stef: IT Manager(ex: Analytical Lab tech)
Math: Biochemistry PhD and works for a Scientific IP office
The debates could get quite detail oriented… 🙂
As for your 1st question, Quebec is 85%+ French. It’s quite normal for an average Quebecer to go about his/her whole life without learning English.
It so happens that Yan, Eric (Crueger), Math and I are bilingual because we’ve had deal with English clients (and/or went to an English University).
Stef and Franky are pretty good, they just don’t have as many occasions to practice.
Actually our group is pretty techie
Same here.
Me – Civil Engineering student
and to use your names for them:
“Jake” – Computer Engineer, and Master’s Student in the same
“Jill” – Mechanical Engineer
“Will” – Electrical Eng. Tech. student
though we then have:
“Gwen” – works in a bank, trained as a travel agent, but has lived among engineers for years
and “Stan” – Plumber
As for your 1st question, Quebec is 85%+ French. It’s quite normal for an average Quebecer to go about his/her whole life without learning English.
It so happens that Yan, Eric (Crueger), Math and I are bilingual because we’ve had deal with English clients (and/or went to an English University).
Stef and Franky are pretty good, they just don’t have as many occasions to practice.
It can be a bit difficult to get around in Quebec for us anglophones, sometimes. Luckily, the majority of Quebeccers (or the majority that we deal with) are at least decently bilingual.
I originally asked because I noticed some parts of Stef’s writing that made it clear that english wasn’t his first language. The post was perfectly clear, but there are certain quirks of grammar that come from having a different first language.
The cool part is that those grammatical quirks are different depending on what your first language is. And they’re often very similar among people with the same first language. So native french speakers will tend towards certain grammatical forms, while spanish speakers will tend towards others, etc.
It’s sometimes fun to see if I can pinpoint the person’s first language from their typing.
…but I’m kinda weird like that.
Basically it comes down to the language structure.
In French we put the adjectives after the name its referring to, while in English its before the name. This is, I think, the most common mistake when a Native French speaker writes in English. For the English speaker though their is the added difficulty of gender which make no sense even to us. 😉
I’ve had a few Germain course and this is even harder since the verb is usually at the end of their sentences. I just can wrap my brain to say it in the proper order. (Also the lack of vocabulary is a major handicap in this case 😉
Each language has its own words and sounds. But i think the hardest to learn is the structure of a foreign language because its closely related to the way you think. This, I think, is probably the reason that the earlier you learn other language the easier it is.
Lol! Talk about Hijacking! But it’s all right, it is a Community post after all.
I should have my Speech-Language Pathologist Wife read this, she’d love this discourse on language.
Don’t! She’d have me get some course!
Although to think of it, if she’s the teacher… hmmmm…
Lol!