How to play a mute character

[wlmartin]

I have a character that I am keen to create a build for but intend to Roleplay him as follows

: Does not talk to people

I can play him as a snob that is adventuring to prove things to his family but will not talk to those without wealth or station

I can play him instead as some kind of Monk or other spiritual class that has a reason to be silent.

I can play him as someone who has no pyshical ability to talk (not from intelligence but more from missing a tongue or no vocal cords)

I do however see the major game playing problem of a character that doesnt speak. The only way I could consider getting around that would be telepathy and a way for either a direct telepathic conversation or to talk telepathicaly through another object / creature.

Shardmind : Talk telepathicaly
Psion : Talk telepathicaly
Ranger (with beast) : Talk through the beast (unsure how that would work)
Shaman : Talk through spirit companion

I don't want to create a new class or race just for the purpose of being able to remain silent but will do so if I can't think of another course of action.


It is just playing someone with no ability to talk, something that you take for granted in D&D is quite a nice twist on Roleplaying.

Anyone got any ideas?

 

[fba827]

I have to say, based on the possibilities you wrote up above, the snob approach seems the most unique and fun (to me anyway -- i may have to steal it for a PC of my own sometime).

My reasoning is this:
The monk idea is pretty much what i've seen countless times before except it was loss of sight or some other basic sense.
Similarly with the person physically unable to speak - it is just a twist on not having one of the other senses, and i've seen the blind pc and the deaf pc before.
But the snob approach isn't someone who lost one of his senses or speech, it is instead someone who chooses not to speak in certain situations, so it leaves an opening to have some variety in future scenarios such as you can have a political meeting where you get a chance to be a bit more talk-y than you have the rest of the campaign, and then you have the question of what can a fellow PC to do earn 'status' in your eyes and eventually have you talk to him/her, and so on.

as to how to handle it game mechanics wise, you could ..........
a) not go the telepathy route and instead always give a simple hand gesture with a look of disgust for yes/no/go/clean this up and then leave the rest up to the consequence of not choosing to speak and yet giving them looks of disgust if not doing what you want them to (like trained servants should!)

b) you could take shardmind (or be a PC from some really exotic culture) and could justify your roleplay choice as a cultural difference for the unique race/culture. which in turn could make telepathy and easily justified alternative

ranger/shaman don't seem like classes that are right for a snob approach unless you're able to take a little creative reflavoring of the class.. for instance, what if the shaman is simply a type of caster (and not necessarily as nature oriented as implied) and that the spirit companion is a ghost servant/guardian that you command to protect you and do stuff for you and so on (I did something similar once but it was for a one-shot, but it worked out well). Thus you could talk to the spirit companion, and the other PCs can overhear (technically i don't think your spirit companion can talk, but your DM may be willing to house rule something such that your spirit companion can relay messages/instructions that you give him to give to other PCs).

in any case, sounds fun.

 

[Nullzone]

If you take any route that limits your ability to communicate at the table, make absolutely sure that the other players are okay with it first, or are prepared to simply be swept aside in all conversations.

 

[hipnotode]

i once rolled a human monk/wizard who had a raven familiar who spoke for him.

 

[whiteheadw]

Drow sign language or variant could be fun to use.
WTW

 

[DracoSuave]

Playing a mute character is an interesting roleplaying challenge.

However, I don't think it means much if you're telepathic and just not speaking. That's not really mute.

One solution is to communicate through another PC through sign language. Basically pass them notes to read for you. If you can find a PC willing to be your accomplice with a tied backstory, this can actually prove to be very rewarding roleplay and provide some good party cohesion.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

There is a line in the Charlie Hunter song "Desert Way" about a man who carried a jagged stone in his mouth to learn how to be silent...

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPLVVbS1tsQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player]‪Desert Way‬‏ - YouTube[/ame]

The snobberry angle is cool.

So might a simple linguistic barrier.

 

[Ryujin]

There's a feat called "Elan Heritage", that gives you telepathic communication with a range of 5. It also changes origin to Immortal and gives a damage reduction power.

Were it me then I think that I'd play him as a genetic mute (inherited inability to speak), with limited telepathy, who's a snob who sees himself as being above 'less evolved' creatures, who communicate by making noise. He might deign to communicate with the party, on rare occasion, as lesser creatures who have proven themselves to at least be useful.

 

[wlmartin]

Playing a mute character is an interesting roleplaying challenge.

However, I don't think it means much if you're telepathic and just not speaking. That's not really mute.

One solution is to communicate through another PC through sign language. Basically pass them notes to read for you. If you can find a PC willing to be your accomplice with a tied backstory, this can actually prove to be very rewarding roleplay and provide some good party cohesion.

First, It wont let me +1 you as I must have done it recently, so let me just say +1 on the above

You are 100% right, Telepathic whilst avoiding physical mutism does cheat based on what my core motivation is, which is to not talk (they would hear me talk in their heads)

I do like the other ideas posted about having someone speak for me.
The reason I got the idea in my head is from watching an Episode of Babylon 5, watching the Gaaim talking in their Breen-Stylie suits and it translated for them... the idea that the Gaaim COULD learn the language but chose not to is an interesting idea.

I think I need to determine what sub-set of this mutism I want to follow

a) Selective mutism, acts like a snob and either refuses to learn the language (knows only his race language, not common) or refuses to speak to people not worth it.
b) Natural mutism, either through injury or born with. I would need to figure out a clever way to talk to people as the NEED to talk will be there but the ABILITY to talk would be unavailable.

I think roleplaying the first option is far too CE for my liking. And since we arent ALLOWED to be CE , doing my impression of Edwin, the Red Wizard of Thay from Baldurs Gate probably wont cut it with my fellow players.

I do think that the natural mutism would work. I would have to ignore the idea of shardmind, as whilst they a naturaly mute - since their telepathy bypasses the need for it I wouldnt be playing a disadvantage, i would just be playing a Shardmind!

So... now I am torn between 2 things

1 : Having someone to talk for me
2 : Having a way to communicate non-verbally

If I want someone to talk to me, I am going to have to rely on semaphore, sign language or some kind of visual rather than aural cues and mannerisms. I suppose this is doable but considering that I would still need to SPEAK to the players IRL, telling them that I am waving my hands around and you understand that as "I will flank them from this position" seems a bit redundant.. cute for the first session but massivly annoying after.

However if I can find something to talk through, that would mean I would just be saying things like "Salvon's blue magic says - I, Flank, here"

So narrowing that down further I am torn between the method to do this.

1 : Shaman, spirit guide is linked telepathicaly to the Shaman and talks for him
2 : Beastmaster who has 2 creatures, a talking bird and the normal attacking animal. The bird talks for him (just like a pirates parrot!)
3 : A device that talks for me
4 : An NPC that accompanies me everywhere and talks on my behalf using telepathy (Just like Tok, the servitor from the Babylon 5 episode where Ivanovva has fake sex with the Diplomat from the new civilization). He is unwilling to attack and during battle will hide. He can die and would basically be a (enter my level here) minion for combat purposes but does not fight. Should he die, I will no doubt find another hireling who will do so for me... there must be some kind of ritual I can perform that allows me to impart a pyshic link between me and this other person.... perhaps in instances where I am without the servitor, I can perform the ritual to become linked to another PC

I do like this last one, to make it seem like I am losing something for the value of having a servant walk around with me (even if he wouldnt fight for me, others may see it as some kind of special treatment... why can't "I" have a lacky!) --- to make it seem fair, I would sacrifice 10% of my gold to pay for his services, it is assumed that he levels as I do or is replaced with a new servitor of higher level each time I level... so although 10% of my gold at 1st-2nd level is not much, at 20th it may seem like a fortune but the trade off is that I have a stronger minion to accompany me.

I suppose some advantages of this, considering he won't fight may be that occasionaly he will be attacked by monsters and this distraction could be seen as unfair, so the gold penalty seems a good counter



I am conflicted and could use some further suggestions?!?!

 

[Wednesday Boy]

I love the mute character idea and it can be an interesting roleplaying challenge as long as you go into it with the proper expectations and your party is on board and helps promote the idea.

I've played two mute characters one was an L5R samurai whose backstory had them consciously choosing to be mute (out of frustration because my own verbal blunders got two previous characters killed) and the other was an R2 unit. And I've played in another SW game with a gamorrean PC.

I should first caveat that if you want to play a mute character, you should go into it full bore and not give yourself an out. To echo DS:

Playing a mute character is an interesting roleplaying challenge.

However, I don't think it means much if you're telepathic and just not speaking. That's not really mute.

That's not to say that playing a telepathic character who never speaks aloud isn't cool but I presume you're making your character mute for a roleplaying challenge. If you create a perpetual work around for being mute (telepathy, device/animal who talks for you) you ruin that roleplaying experience.

My three mute experiences taught me that for a mute character to work well the major expectations you need to accept is that your character will not be a social character and you will only be able to convey minimal ideas. When I played my samurai I would use rudimentary sign language to communicate to the other PCs. If a mob was getting out of hand and someone was in trouble, I'd respond whistle to get the attention of the party, point urgently towards the trouble, and lead the way. On the other hand when that situation happened in our SW game the gamorrean tried to pantomime the cause of how the mob started to get out of hand and what he tried to do to quell it. That resulted in the RPG devolving into a game of charades and caused frustration for everyone.

Another expectation is that your character should be dynamic. Since your character's personality and demeanor can't be vocalized, you need to display that through descriptions of your demeanor and what your character is doing while others speak. And you should be willing to "move the conversation forward" by being more proactive. Since your character cannot contribute to lengthy discussions, you often have to be ready to act in order to get your point across to the others. Note that I'm not advocating being reckless or an instigator, but often you can contribute to a deliberation by physically doing something.

And lastly it's good to have buy-in from the other players. Personally I don't think it requires very much effort on the part of the other players, nor does a mute character interfere with the fun of the other players. But it helps to have the other PCs play off of the mute character to help promote the character concept. My R2 unit character flopped as a mute character because some of the other PCs spoke binary (droid) and wanted to speak normally together (circumventing the purpose of playing an R2 unit). Likewise, the R2 unit didn't have an established owner so there was no PC to riff with by speaking for the droid at times.

Sorry for the long post but hopefully there's some useful advice in there!