Aliens are not human mutants

[Myrrhibis]

Myself as a player, and another player when I GM, enjoy playing aliens, especially those we've based off of some of the various SF books we read. Most of the group are cool w/ that, as he & I play aliens who might speak Basic/Trade 4 clearly but with different syntax or interspersed w/ alien terms, or philosophies.

However, there's a couple that have flat-out asked me about one of my all-time-in-23 yrs -of-play favorite PCs - "Why are you talking all weird? Why don't you have her talk normal?"

Anyone else have players (or GMs) that don't get aliens aren't just Earth-humans w/ different ears/eyes/skin colors?

How do you handle either side of the topic?

[Grell]

I live and let live. Some people are good at voices, others are not. If anyone ever asked me why I put on a different voice or accent, I respond that I am in character and leave it at that.

[Killer Cyborg]

Doing character voices can be fun and good role-playing, or it can be an irritant to those around you.
Or both.

I generally agree with getting into character, though. Whether or not you want to do voices and accents and such, I feel that it's important to get into the heads of your characters, and it's especially important when dealing with non-humans.
Most people seem to just play non-humans like humans, and that's kind of sad.

[Akashic Soldier]

Spoiler:

Last night my players sold over their souls (not literally) to the Naruni because a Uteni had taken the form of an appreciative old man with a funny voice who "shared" one of the characters fascination with pornographic material and indulged the others cocaine addiction. Unfortunately no matter how innocent and funny the old man appeared I couldn't get the bastard Cyber Knight to sign on as another fall guy. Stupid 'no human motivations' Cyber Knight... Anyways, my point is I rarely use voices but they're brilliant at making a serious threat look like a joke.

[Shorty Lickens]

Thats a holdover from star trek. When they wanted to save money (especially in the original series) they had people with just one weird little thing on their face and that qualified them as alien. It didnt help they spoke perfect English in American accents either. So a lot of sci-fi picked up on that as a convention for making alien races and it just stuck. In video games and RPG's we COULD have a wider variety of stuff but since people are so used to it the norm is just a basic bi-pedal humanoid shape and also happens to speak perfect English.

Mass Effect tried to break out of the body mold and I think they did a good job, but they didnt bother with the voices.
Been watching Enterprise lately and even though it stinks I have noticed a few thinks. One of the Xindi races looks almost human but thats deliberate, they too descended from primitive primates. The reptiles are just humans with makeup (really good makeup, but its still obvious they werent trying too hard). The insectoids and aquatics are cool, but since they're completely computer generated they dont do much interacting with the people of Enterprise. And the avians arent even around any more. You see one of their skulls in an episode and thats it. If they ever had to be a part of the show they too would be CGI and probably not interact very often.

Then again, after seeing the new Star Wars movies I think you get much better performances from the actors using real people in masks vs. a green wall and the director shouting commands at them off screen.

[Myrrhibis]

I think that's one thing Babylon 5 did well - while there were plenty of 'humanoid' races, there was well-stated & obvious non-bipedal humanoids as well. As well as reason being 'the less human-like you were, harder for humans & similar to understand & interact with you w/o incidents'. (Vorlons anyone?).

The advances w/ mo-cap + CGI should prove interesting - hopefully we'll see more non-bipedal humanoid type aliens in the future. I want to see how "John Carter" (January release) handles the extra limbs of the .... Threks? (green Martians)

[glitterboy2098]

I think that's one thing Babylon 5 did well - while there were plenty of 'humanoid' races, there was well-stated & obvious non-bipedal humanoids as well. As well as reason being 'the less human-like you were, harder for humans & similar to understand & interact with you w/o incidents'. (Vorlons anyone?).

even the humanoid ones were sufficently alien in mannerisms and culture that it worked though.
the most 'human' are the centauri, but they worked in plenty of references to alternate biology ("look, i'm sorry, here open my wrists" "the centauri don't have any major arteries in their wrists" "of course, do you think i'm stupid?" ) and cultural stuff (the hair being part of social rank, the religious traditions, etc) to make them more alien.
the other races (Narn, minbari, drazi, etc) all had fairly major prosthetic work and even more 'alien' cultures and languages.

frankly i suspect we'd have seen more non-humanoids had CGI been more developed at the time, or if they'd had the budget for better puppets.

The advances w/ mo-cap + CGI should prove interesting - hopefully we'll see more non-bipedal humanoid type aliens in the future. I want to see how "John Carter" (January release) handles the extra limbs of the .... Threks? (green Martians)

Tharks. and i'm curious too. Avatar pretty much ignored the hexapod bauplan for it's blue cat-people, andd it's hexapod fauna cheated like hell and were basically quadrapeds with some fake limbs strapped onto the front limbs.

[Noon]

Uhh, it's probably social as in they have to deal with you, not an alien, and the you they have to deal with is acting weird.

Just remind them that they probably do some stuff that would sound weird (like planning how to kill guards, for example) when they roleplay.

Generally how I think things work is if you tone it down a bit and they tone up their tollerance a bit, it kind of meets things half way.

[Myrrhibis]

Uhh, it's probably social as in they have to deal with you, not an alien, and the you they have to deal with is acting weird.

Just remind them that they probably do some stuff that would sound weird (like planning how to kill guards, for example) when they roleplay.

Generally how I think things work is if you tone it down a bit and they tone up their tollerance a bit, it kind of meets things half way.

But isn't that what we're trying to achieve when "role" playing our characters? When your character is talking to an NPC, or another PC - yours just talk like you do everyday? If that works for you, ok.

But for me & (most of) mine, being someone or something else for a few hours a couple weekends a month is what got us into RPGs. If I just wanted to 'play' something different w/o really 'being' it while at the table, I'd only play MMOs - most of which seem to have discarded any "role playing" servers.

[drewkitty ~..~]

Any one who does not speak the same language as you, as a milk tongue, will think alien to you.

So it is not a small step from this difference in human thinking, to see that someone that is an Alien, to think differently from humans.

[DhAkael]

I think that's one thing Babylon 5 did well - while there were plenty of 'humanoid' races, there was well-stated & obvious non-bipedal humanoids as well. As well as reason being 'the less human-like you were, harder for humans & similar to understand & interact with you w/o incidents'. (Vorlons anyone?).

The advances w/ mo-cap + CGI should prove interesting - hopefully we'll see more non-bipedal humanoid type aliens in the future. I want to see how "John Carter" (January release) handles the extra limbs of the .... Threks? (green Martians)

Tharks actualy

[TechnoGothic]

accents are a great way to make aliens different to me.

[the Captain]

One of the things I dislike in the Phase World setting is the complete goof ball aliens. Intruders or the Space Hives, and parts of the Thundercloud Galaxy book read like it's the Lion King on ice.

I don't have as much of a problem with humans in alien makeup, as long as they are original. When I do anything in the Three Galaxies, all the cartoon stuff gets redacted. I like my Phase world setting to be VERY gritty, rather than Roger Rabbit with a plasma gun. I usually make elves a little more alien in my setting, instead of the typical fare, mine are a little gross aesthetically. The same goes for the Wolfen and every other "fantasy" style race in the books. When I add races to my home setting they are usually not bipedal or remotely human like.

[Shorty Lickens]

Its up to you to make your universe as silly or gritty as you like.
Most of the really dumb stuff I dont even use in my campaign. I say it doesnt exist or at the very least I never let the players encounter it.

We all know what happened when George Lucas inserted digital rabbits into his movies.....

[the Captain]

We all know what happened when George Lucas inserted digital rabbits into his movies.....

Oh yes, I know.

[glitterboy2098]

CGI tweaking can be done well. look at Star Trek The original Series Remastered. they replaced lousy models on poles and reused matte paintings and a few of the more glaring prop and FX gaffs with CGI.. the end result is the original show, just better!

[Noon]

But isn't that what we're trying to achieve when "role" playing our characters?

If your not paying attention to what the other people you game with are doing, then we're not doing anything together at all.

You can't exactly make an appeal to what we're all doing, whilst ignoring what we (ie, the guys at your table) are all doing.

But for me & (most of) mine, being someone or something else for a few hours

I already am someone else!

[the Captain]

CGI tweaking can be done well. look at Star Trek The original Series Remastered. they replaced lousy models on poles and reused matte paintings and a few of the more glaring prop and FX gaffs with CGI.. the end result is the original show, just better!

Sure, but re-mastering OG trek isn't a problem, they did it right, ruining the entire SW franchise is. I refuse to touch anything star wars now, the re-releases and the prequels left a really bad taste in my mouth. GL will not get another penny from me.