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Sha'ahm'ni- Sard Hand Language

Posted: Wed Oct 09, 2019 4:15 pm
by Erica
We have our basic emotions/gestures laid out, but I think people have already found that some are going to be used less and some common expressions aren't covered that should be in there.

There was also the question raised about whether it is appropriate for smiling to be something that is seen as a non-vulgar display of emotion.

So what do you think? What do we need to add? Should we modify any of them? What about smiling? I'd like to keep the number of gestures to a reasonable number, so no more than double what we have currently. Personally I think we need a gesture for Excitement, which could be a modified nervous or happy, and Amusement.

Erica

Re: Sha'ahm'ni- Sard Hand Language

Posted: Wed Oct 09, 2019 4:32 pm
by Varanus
For amusement, I suggest starting with the Happy gesture, but move your hand in and out like you are patting your side/stomach. The magnitude dependent on how funny something is. Something that is side-slappingly funny is very funny indeed.

I think something for interest/attention would be useful. "I'm listening attentively." Perhaps palm up, fingers slightly down and toward the speaker, as if to say "I'm receiving what you are saying." Another option might be a two-finger point towards the focus of interest. That's a little easier to hold.

Re: Sha'ahm'ni- Sard Hand Language

Posted: Wed Oct 09, 2019 5:26 pm
by gordanit
I used low to mid happy hand as a smiling equivalent and did it a lot, but polite smiling isn't an emotional display so allowing it might make sense. On the third hand I kind of like the effect of "resting Sard face" on people interacting with it.

Re: Sha'ahm'ni- Sard Hand Language

Posted: Wed Oct 09, 2019 5:38 pm
by Maggie
One suggestion I heard that sounded interesting was if being an "emotionless Sard" was more of a generational or cultural thing. For example as an idea, very conservative or traditional Sard stick to the hand language and find emoting vulgar, whereas perhaps younger, more liberal, or city-based Sard have long since acclimated to the melting pot and emote freely, perhaps even exaggerate at times in a way that is seen as stylish as many adopted customs often are. That way, if a player struggles with or simply doesn't enjoy the "resting Sard face" or the performance restrictions on playing the race, they can emote more freely and style themselves as on the other side of that cultural divide, whereas those who enjoy the sign language and the challenge of not emoting can really lean into it. Just a thought.

Re: Sha'ahm'ni- Sard Hand Language

Posted: Thu Oct 10, 2019 7:56 pm
by gordanit
TradSards vs hip young emotive Sards is pretty canonical, I think.

I meant to second the idea of "interested in something." It's something I can't quite think of how to improvise from the existing ones.

Obviously it's too complicated, but this wheel of emotions gives an idea of what sorts of things exist.

https://images.app.goo.gl/vVqUkyDRYNHCAoLf7

I could imagine taking a page from this and Sards who really wanted to express themselves dual wielding -- "drop everything for double happy!" or "I'm so mad I'm going to sheath my weapon to express anger and disgust."

Re: Sha'ahm'ni- Sard Hand Language

Posted: Thu Oct 10, 2019 9:07 pm
by Varanus
On the wheel, the two axes we are missing are interest/anticipation/vigilance (which is already proposed) and admiration/trust/acceptance. Everything else is matters of degree.

Admiration/trust/acceptance could be a signal for "agreement". There's some overlap with attention (I'm paying attention to you vs I'm listening and in agreement), and maybe it's handled by the human non-verbal signal of nodding, but it could also have its own sign. We do have affection but agreement/support is a bit different.

Re: Sha'ahm'ni- Sard Hand Language

Posted: Fri Oct 11, 2019 1:35 pm
by Jairephix
Disclaimer: not playing a Sard

I know sometimes in ASL, individuals sometimes make up signs to express a certain things that isn't in a wider vernacular. (For example, a few folks I know who use ASL when overstimmed and non-verbal came up with "losing spoons" as a sign to explain what happened)

It would make sense that families or certain groups have inside motions to represent something that may not be a wider use thing. This also then gives the Outpost Sard a specific dialect, which then makes sense if Sard from outside the Outpost don't know it.

Re: Sha'ahm'ni- Sard Hand Language

Posted: Mon Oct 14, 2019 3:58 am
by spaige
I used flashing the "happy" sign a few times in succession (from relaxed hand to spread fingers) as a laughter/amusement sign during the playtest.

There was a discussion of sha'ahm'ni sarcasm - my suggestion was gesturing 'stiff', by analogy with the flatter tone of voice used to signal sarcasm in speech.

I found myself wanting a sign to indicate "I'm under stress/preoccupied" distinct from anger or fear - possibly relatedly, I found the nervous & fear signs redundant (though nervous is my favorite of the two ever since Marek sailed it up past eye level like a little rocket ship after the Augur deal.) If one of those got repurposed to a generic "I'm stressed out" sign, I wouldn't mind.

I think some development of slang amongst the Outpost Promise Sard is realistic, and players extending shamni inevitable, but I also think backporting a reasonable set of extensions (simple, popularly-used) to the sha'ahm'ni documentation so that new Sard players aren't totally adrift will do a lot for versimilitude.

Re: Sha'ahm'ni- Sard Hand Language

Posted: Mon Oct 14, 2019 10:07 pm
by Varanus
Afraid as the flat palm, woah, back up, feels very natural to me. Whatever the sign is for afraid, it needs to be almost instinctive, since a LARP is a game played with real fear.... :)

There are some implied gestures. Holding an object says either "I'm busy" or "this is no time for emotion". To spin off of that, picking something up and putting it down repeatedly says "my hands aren't really full, but I've got something better to do."

Re: Sha'ahm'ni- Sard Hand Language

Posted: Tue Feb 25, 2020 10:41 am
by JBerner
Super sorry for the delay on this! Hi folks, I’m Jess, I wrote most of the Sha’mni signals we have.

I’ll start this by saying that you all have more of an edge on this than I do - I couldn’t make it to the playtest, so you all have more of an opinion on how these signs work in real time than I do. If you all tell me that my view of things doesn’t match the gameplay, I am fine being overruled on anything that I am putting in this reply, as long as we can come to a general consensus.

I thunk sarcasm should be a variant on the signals we already use - it’s a tone change more than a separate emotion, and saying you’re sarcastically happy or sarcastically scared makes sense to me. The first idea that I came up with is over dramatically sticking out your thumb while signing whatever the emotion you’re altering. This doesn’t work so well for happy, since the thumb naturally spreads out with the rest of the fingers, but would something like that work?

Smiling/laughing - on a simplistic scale, smiling is happy. I don’t feel the need to do a separate signal for smiling; a polite smile that means nothing isn’t an emotion, and a genuine smile can be a happy signal. I like the idea of pulsing the fingers in the happy sign for laughter - it feels more natural to me than the “side-slapping” idea, as much as the visual pun makes me happy. As with everything, doing a laughter sign higher up can signify laughing harder, so I think that works fairly well.

Interest/attentiveness - I think nodding is still something that is ok to do - it indicates neutral attentiveness in a way that doesn’t connect with emotions, so I don’t get the feeling that it’s something that would be frowned upon. I’m having trouble thinking of a simple sign for “please tell me more, I’m interested” that could either be held for a decent amount of time or easy to flash quickly - I’ll keep thinking on it, but please throw ideas my way if you have them. The two-finger point feels like the easiest way to do this, currently.

Admiration/trust - this feels different than acceptance or interest in a discussion. Part of me feels like this should be something more like earnestness - the wording is what shows the admiration or trust, the signal adds the tone of voice that shows that you mean it. If that makes sense to anyone else, I can start brainstorming a sign for that, or whatever idea you guys can throw at me.

Fear/nervousness/stress - in my mind, apprehension and fearful terror are different things, not necessarily two ends of the same spectrum. If in practicality this wasn’t how things were used, I’m fine with adjusting one to general stress, if that’s what folks would like.


Again, sorry for the delayed reply, please let me know what you think!

Re: Sha'ahm'ni- Sard Hand Language

Posted: Sat Jun 26, 2021 10:45 pm
by Varanus
Since you wanted to revive this discussion...

Stepping back for a moment, what is the purpose of sha'ahm'ni? Is it intended to convey the whole range of emotional experience? For that matter, would it be considered appropriate or inappropriate to discuss one's emotional state? In other words, is it ok to communicate emotional state and intensity, where the only thing that is inappropriate is to let it color your facial expression? And perhaps tone of voice?

Or would a strong expression of emotional intensity be considered improper regardless of the modality? In which case sha'ahm'ni serves not so much as a replacement for facial expression but only for the kinds of expressive non-verbal cues that support communication?

So, for example expressing "happy," does that mean "my internal state is joyous" or "your statements are pleasing to me"? Is a signal for "laughing" "I'm overcome by joy" or "I recognize and praise the humor of your statements"? Is "sad" "I am lost and alone" or "I am in a negative state and request support"? Is "disgust" "there is something which has repulsed me" or "I reject what you offer me"?

Re: Sha'ahm'ni- Sard Hand Language

Posted: Mon Jun 28, 2021 1:55 pm
by dcltdw
I wasn't at the playtest, so I have no feedback from that.

Having watched Jess' demo video (which is GREAT, thank you!!), I just wanted to note that crossed fingers (nervous) is a metasignal I've seen in parlor larp settings, for "I'm speaking OOG". I only encountered this at one game, where it was mostly used as an elide. "So I was speaking to the Headmistress about (holds up crossed fingers at sternum level) the thing in your character's past which my character accurately recalls but I don't (drops fingers) and I told her that she should quietly bury the investigation."

I think the idea of crossed fingers is that it's more subtle than hand/fist on head.

Insofar as whether crossed fingers should be used or not, I have no idea, as I have no insight into the venn diagram overlap of people use who use it and people playing at ToV.

Re: Sha'ahm'ni- Sard Hand Language

Posted: Wed Jun 30, 2021 3:39 pm
by JBerner
Pulling from the lorebook:

"Sard value privacy and prefer to reveal strong emotions only in the presence of their families or those they hold in close regard. Extreme or sudden emotional situations can also bring expression to color their face and speech, but they often find such incidents rather embarrassing once they’ve gotten control of themselves again. They use a lexicon of simple hand gestures to inflect tone into their communication as opposed to relying on their face and voice as a matter of respect for their own privacy and that of those they are speaking with. Children are allowed to express themselves as they will as they are taught the values of the Sard people and the sha’ahm’ni."

The Sham'ni was created as a way to put distance between one's feelings and those around them, as a way to increase personal privacy. The way I see it, it was a way for the user to deliberately think about and choose how much information they wished to provide on their current emotional state, almost as a hyper-reaction to trying not to publicly grieve the loss of Zehreik and their people. I would say that discussing emotional state would be more acceptable that displaying it, as that is a step removed from uncontrolled, spur of the moment facial expressions; Sham'ni is designed to help communicate emotions, I don't think the two would be considered terribly different.

There's a nuance to your questions that I'm trying to think through, as I don't think we've officially thought about that distinction before. I would think that the Sham'ni developed as a way of controlling who did and did not have "access" to the user's deeper feelings - almost as if openness about such things were considered oversharing- depending on the relationship of those involved, this is either perfectly acceptable, a bit socially awkward, or completely out of line. Those who know and understand what the signals mean - other Sard, close friends, etc - can read what information is being given and react accordingly. Much like our Customer Service Faces or the expressions we use in polite company, Sham'ni use can be done in a way that masks the depth of what its meant to convey - just like you wouldn't necessarily glare at your boss when he makes you angry, you might not choose to raise a fist to show your anger as a Sard in Rhiven. Whether it's being used as a way to communicate a need or just a signal for someone's general reference I would guess depends on the people in the discussion, and the discussion itself- it could be a tonal flavor so you know that I'm generally in a good mood, or it could be a sharing of joy that I wish you to partake in with me. Just like how I wouldn't want any random person I happen to know to hug or comfort me when sad, the distinction between "I'm letting you know that I am very upset by the news I'm giving" and "I want you to know that I'm devastated because I need you to be there for me" is a very person-to-person, relationship-based decision.

Does that make sense?

Re: Sha'ahm'ni- Sard Hand Language

Posted: Wed Jun 30, 2021 4:29 pm
by Varanus
It's a subtle distinction that we don't normally bother to make. If I laugh, it's not just "I feel joy" or "I praise your humor" but both of those things. So I guess I was just asking whether, for the Sard, they were trying not to express the former. But from what you're saying, it's ok to communicate your emotional state, the intent is merely to reduce its emotional impact. Either answer would have made sense, just clarifying what we're aiming for here.

It's funny because during game I actually felt like the conscious involvement in your emotional communication ended up intensifying rather than softening its impact. But people doing things that are counterproductive is totally realistic, so that's ok. ;)

Re: Sha'ahm'ni- Sard Hand Language

Posted: Thu Jul 01, 2021 2:35 pm
by JBerner
I would say that when the Sham'ni was first developed in the game world, it was probably done more to hide the emotion itself as a smaller way of signaling to those within the Sard community what was happening without it becoming an outward, public-to-everyone thing.

Over the last fifty years, though, since the Sard DON'T live in an isolated city/community where non-Sard can't see and learn what their communication means? It's probably shifted a lot culturally, since it's fairly difficult to expect non-Sard to not pay attention or not ask about what they're doing.

At this point, the purpose could be any number of things. For some, it is a habitual way of acknowledging a cultural loss, for others, a respectful way not to overburden others with their emotions. For the younger generation or those who were not as close to those in the lost city, it's just what they were taught (which is why there is a movement leaning away from it). It can absolutely be used to support a conversation or relationship, depending on the relationship between speakers and what they feel is needed in the context.