If someone decided to play a mute character would their only option of "speaking" be tells? Or could they also "speak" over aethers and doing so it wouldn't count it as actually speaking?

Depends on how mute you want to go. If you just dont say anything, and instead tell everything, I would find that lame.

I might need to try and cut off all speaking sometime... it could be interesting. A deaf mute would be hard to deal with, though.

I've considered something similar, going deaf. I would just not cure it, and use my bonded wolf to hear everything.

well, I have considered the possibility to emote stuff of course, but I just want to know how to "speak" by using tells or would it be ok to speak over aethers as well?

It works and can work great until you get a stupidity affliction which makes you say something or someone forces you to say something then it kind of screws up and its like erm I can speak ! wow thats great! I didnt realise that before!

Hmm...would there be a way to pass that off as possibly an illusion?

no, because I don't have illusions anymore, so there isn't anyone to blame them on

Probably run into a few weird problems, though probably do-able.

No because it is in fact a say, which means you would basically be lieing ic. You talked, youve proven your able to talk but your trying to pretend you didnt say it was an illusion, some people may buy this others may not and you see the problem really? Game mechanics really can screw you over if your trying to rp something different, I do remember I think someone asking sarapis to make the a perma mute I cant remember if they got it or not but for some credits id say you could buy it, Hell someone even got a sex change in one of the ire games for about 100 credits or something so id say its doable.

Thanks, I'll look into that.

Moondancers have had a few mutes that I can recall (two to three at the least). One of them didn't speak, but did send tells, which was sorta ... eh. The best rendition was another who did send me a tell a time or two ... with an exclamation point or few. All that did was alert me that something was wrong, so then I had to figure out where she was and get to her and try to puzzle it out from there. That was the best, but also could be frustrating to deal with in a way. And, I haven't seen any of them around any time recently, from which I assume that while playing such a disability might be fun and rewarding a bit, it also might get to be not as fun to have to maintain. It's also, I imagine, difficult to form connections with other characters unless you previously somehow inform them - which might break the mood of getting involved and getting to know others (So-and-so tells you, "Hey, just to let you know my character's mute. So I'll be trying to communicate with you and get to know you ICly anyway, kthnxbye!").

Both Tells and Aetherwaves are telepathic. It would a very odd mute who doesn't even have a voice in their head. So there's no reason why tells or aetherwaves would be problematic to being a mute.

I'm not sure how many people noticed, but Laneth did have a bit of a mental snap at one point and forgot how to/refused to speak common. Not exactly mute, but close enough. I think at one point I made it so he could not even send tells or speak over the aether, since he was thinking in Elfen too and only other Elfen speakers could understand him.

Others suck at roleplaying with a mute or someone who only speaks one langauge though, you get a lot of tells instructing you how to use says or speak in common.

Sorry if I hurt anyone's feelings, but playing a mute, person with a limp, one hand or any other physical handicap screams "OMG look at my leet RP! I'm soo speshul!". Create an interesting character personality-wise instead of giving them weird or unusual physical traits.

Na I understand what you mean, but I still think it's kinda cool. It sucks when everyone does the same thing (every second person seems to have some kind of evil force infesting their body, or something) but it's still interesting and worthwhile.

I tried being a mute character once. Things like that are fun, but they're hard to RP in the long term. Anybody can RP being anything for a day, it's when the RP becomes tedious and a boor that people start to waver and change.

One of my most memorable characters was a tiny character. The prop possibilities were endless. One day I'd be hiding in a rusted out helmet, playing around with people, the next wielding a dinner knife in threatening ways. If you want fun, be a extremely short faeling, buy custom equipment that has been redesc'd to be every day items which you've creatively adopted to suit, and run it into the ground.

Tiny Taz is here. He is wielding a discarded steel jewelers hammer and a cracked saucer shield.

I think we've had a fairly good overview of the pros and cons here.

Things like playing a mute character can be awesome if you do it right, if the people around you pick it up and play along, etc. I've thought about playing a mute or even a blind myself too, but I've always discarded the idea out of fear of running into too many morons who'll go like, well, I can check your affs dood, I know you're not blind, stop acting the fuss, kthx. Or even walk up to you and emote laying their hands on your head and declaring you miracle cured jesus-style, wooo.

Also, yes, keep in mind that such physical disadvantages can be quite annoying in many situations, mainly to yourself. I have great respect for those people who roleplay such things properly, keep it consistent at all times and so on. What I personally really don't like is people who get crazy roleplay and get on my nerves by overdoing it and making interaction excessively difficult, only to drop out of it at the first moment it gets slightly inconvenient for them. (You get jumped or find a raiding team in your villages? Heck with the mute, TELL xy OOC: RAIDERS IN ANGKRAG!!! -> That just sucks)

So basically, if you would like to give it a try, by all means go for it! It can be great for you and everyone involved who're not looking at Lusternia as your default WoW-style grinding ground. But be prepared to meet people who'll make things difficult for you, remember that life as a mute -isn't- easy, and so will be your character's life. If you are ready to invest the effort needed to roleplay it properly, it can turn out great. If you aren't, it won't.

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Strictly on topic: I think it'll depend on why your character is mute, and propably depend on how you imagine a mute's mind to function... you could well imagine that someone who has never had access to language (well, would have to be deaf for that too) doesn't think in "words" at all, and therefore probably wouldn't be able to transfer words via aetherwaves. But that's probably over the top anyway.

As for preventing stupidity from making you say things, has anyone ever tried if those unintended babblings still occur if a god muted you? I know I've seen people who were unable to speak, but could use aetherwaves and tells properly, maybe you could ask one of our RP friendly divine if they could give you a helping hand and make your muteness a bit more "real"...

Oh yes, I forgot... if any of you need equipment like the teacup helm and cracked plate shield forged, send Lomdomian a message in-game, I'm always happy to help out with those kinds of things. I might actually just make a couple of those anyway, that's a great idea. Much better than having my annual design slots go to waste

Like Cuber said, don't overdo it, because then it looks like you're just trying to show off your awesome speshul arr-pee.

You could use write on a notepad with coal and show it off to people.

You scribble furiously with a piece of coal on a canvas, finally flipping it over and revealing "blah blahb lah" to person XYZ.

Tells are fine, since it's more of a mental capacity of aethers than actually talking.

Edit: My character on Achaea once dated a mute.. it was quite a fun experience. If you don't mind putting in a little effort, go for it!