Hey dumpshock.

One of my players recently requested to play a sasquatch, now I am pretty open as far as playing what you want as long as I don't detect munchkinism. So, with my blessing the player in question started work on his sasquatch shaman. Now he came to me with something I can't for the life of me figure out.

Sasquatch apparently can not speak/understand spoken language. The text mentions that there a free programs that work with linguisofts in order for him to use sign language and for spoken words to come out of his 'link, and listen to peoples words and show them as sign in a AR display. which is fine. The expliation they give is that for some reason or another they cannot comprehend spoken lang. as a form of communication.

But then however, when you look at the Mimicry ability that they have things get weird. It says that they use this power to communicate over long distances when hunting/tracking prey. It says they can mimic almost any natural sound to a cougars mating call to speech. That last part has me confused. Apparently they can use mimicry to mimics someones voice and speak. But that contridicts what was said before.

Has anyone ever ran into/resolved this issue?


EDIT: In case someone needs/wants to know the Info for playable Sasquatch are in the runners companion. I think they are described in pages 65 and 84. those may be wrong however

There was an argument about this every six months or so.

Personally, it's all hogwash. Mimicry is an important language attainment tool for learning new languages. Mimics in the natural world can be trained with using language (such as certain types of parrots and birds).

With a sasquatch, a large amount of their brain is devoted to sound acquisition. Mimicry would be perfect for learning all kinds of language as mimicry can denote an understanding of meaning (the ability to sound like a mating call of its prey to draw it in denotes understanding of meaning, furthermore being able to respond to it means a deeper meaning of application of the understood).

I would rule that sasquatch can understand speech if they take the proper language skills (they start with Sasquatch at native), mimicry as an ability is limited to reproducing repetitive sounds they have heard. Or can give a natural +2 to all language skills (capping at 6).

I certainly would let sasquatch "speak" but it would be a mishmash of other peoples phrases and voices to get his point across. The more he hears the more he can mimic, expanding his repertoire over time. You could represent this by buying the language skill, and adding the color of using others voices to speak.

Mimicry is a good start at learning a language in humans, but sasquatch aren't human, and I have to keep reminding people of that even if I beat them over the head with it. When a parrot parrots human speech, or a human apes a dog's growl, they're mimicking the sound effect but have no real conception of the linguistic context of the sound they're making. A sasquatch can see a bum begging for change and mimic the sounds they make and hope for the same result, but they don't actually know what they're saying - their brains just don't connect the sounds and the language concepts that way. It doesn't mean they're stupid, or retarded, or that the person that wrote the section doesn't know what they're talking about ( (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sarcastic.gif) ), it just means that sasquatch are wired differently. They're not just big humans in furry suits.

sadly, AH, there is a elephant in the room there, that a sasquatch clearly can understand human speech, but cant speak it.

still, i have a vision of c3po telling stories to the ewoks, only that its how sasquatches talk to each other.

that is, rather then give some animal a name, they imitate the animals sounds and so on.

so hearing a sasqatch tell about a trip to the city could be a collection of city sounds, mixed in with whatever sounds they use among themselves.

I could definitely see them telling stories in sound. This could make communication with others fun.

EDIT: Waving there hands around rapidly in sign while mimicking important sounds.

It is funny, because in earlier versions of SR, Sasquatch could understand language, but they couldn't speak the language correctly (they had to sue mimicrys to talk (kinda like Bumblebee in Transformers)). That is why I get confused when I read about Sasquatch in SR4. I think I need to read up on SR4 Sasquatch before I can give an informed opinion on this topic.

Thanks for all the replies guys (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

I'm honestly not sure how I'm going to go with this yet, I get that they are wired differently but at the same time some of it seems just odd. It's likely I'll just go with RAW, but I'm not 100% yet, Have a week till game so I have some time to work this out.

See its stuff like this that really confuses me, when things switch from one edition to another without reason. Now certain things I completely understand. Magic changed because of a radical shift in the way its used/viewed allowing for a more uniform use of its power. Matrix changed cuz well that one is pretty obvious after you read the history in the BBB so don't really need to get into that. But why is it that in game 5 years ago or so Big Foot could understand me but suddenly all he gets is a wtf expression when I ask him for the wrench?

Scientists disagree: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_(parrot)

That wikipedia article lead me into a three month literature review on animal communication last year.

The only creature in nature unable to make use of speech is the Mime...luckily the bounty on them keeps their numbers low....(grin)

Please lets not talk about mimes. That PhysAd Prime Runner who made a vow of silence still gives me nightmares. Always in that damn make up never making a sound until he gets close enough to choke you. *Shudders* God he was creepy.

Better than a mage mime with their horrible invisible walls and boxes *shudder*

I'm not going to pretend like I know how the rules for this works but for my 2 cents.

Someone repeating a sound is alot different then knowing the words or language. Parrots to my knowledge have no idea what they are saying. I can hear a foreign language and repeat it (or try to) but it doesn't mean I know what the words mean. In lines with what the above poster said I do think this A+ mimic ability would make languages easier to learn tho.

Shadowkids, consider this: if sasquatches have such an easy time learning human languages, why did they have to invent a sign language just for them?

They didn't, they use existing sign languages such as american and native american

On another random Sasquatch note, does anyone know anything about a lifespan?

Nope, they started out waaay back in SR1 with Perth-Athabaskans, created specifically to communicate with them.

Ah, I'm sorry then (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) I'm new with 4th ed. From what I saw it labeled just established hand signs, maybe I missed something tho

Any way for them to communicate via trode net and translator software?

EDIT: Would have to be a special version of translation software, language going out and signs coming back.

All covered in the RC write-up.

Actually AH, I believe it was Perkins-Athabascan.

That's one of the things I noticed, too, when proof-reading the German translation of RC. I dug out my old SR2 books just to be sure. And indeed, it had been called "Perkins-Athabaskan Sign Language" until RC suddenly called it "Perth-Athabaskan".
I filed it under "continuity error" and changed it back...

Okay, you both get no-prizes. Meredith Perkins' was sued over use of the name by her ex-husband, and changed the name on her publications to her maiden name, Perth, after the lawsuit. Of course, older publications still have the older name...