I'm gearing up for a DS campaign, and I dled the .pdf from athas.org. On page 17 in the Brute class features it states that "by default, everyone on Athas is illiterate." Does this extend all the other PC classes as well?
Personally, I think that illiteracy should extend to the other classes, except for wizards because they need to be able to write to have spellbooks. What are your thoughts?
Just my 2 ceramics
The question is, how helpful should you be to PCs learning languages? Athas.org's rules say "not very," which I think is fine---it emphasizes how uncommon reading and writing is.
D&D languages are so easy to learn its ridiculous. A bard gains a level, he could learn 6, or more, languages! Not bad for a day of adventuring! Ridiculous. And that's not even far fetched. Even if the DM says that you can't learn a language without being exposed to it a lot, you still go from not speaking a language to speaking it perfectly in an instant. And to top it all off, you read and write it, and in their alphabet too!
And that's another ridiculous thing. Everybody knows how to write! Well no, NPC classes don't actually, aside form the aristocrat, from what you read in FR. But its still completely ridiculous. Fighters and Rogues probably have the same kind of educational background as a Barbarian in the Middle Ages. Anyways, with no schools, no schooling, and no money, people wouldn't simply not learn how to read. There were lots of Kings who didn't even know how to read at that time! And reading takes a lot more time than 2 skill points!
And to top it all: Common: Or how to oversimplify everything so that it leaves more time for hack and slash. FR, for the best ridiculous example, has fearun be a region with dozens and dozens of nationalities, counting the 8 or so human major nations, with a bunch of lesser, and all the non-human races, each with their bunch of subraces. All of these are spread across the continent, and all have their own regional language. Yet somehow, miraculously, they all speak a common language! There's even one passage, when they describe the language, where they say that even the lowly slaves of Mulhorand or the old jungle/aztek empire whose name I forgot, speak common, and can communicate with each other. How ridiculous can you get...
Take medieval europe, around the 12th-13th century. Europe is like what, 1/10th the size of fearun, populated only by humans too. Yet every nation there (not even country, nations) had their own language, and couldn't communicate with others without learning the other people's language! A Common language only exists within the same people, and its not ''common'', its simply the language of that people!
The closest thing to common, which is a little like the way I see it, is Latin. However, almost no one spoke latin at that time, counting the preists that gave mass in latin! Reforms actually had to be made in order for them to pronounce correctly and use the right words! At that time, Latin was already a dead language. However, scholars would use it to write, and learned people could understand most of it, though they couldn't really carry a conversation in it.
Anyways, I'm running out of time to ramble and complain, but long story short:
- Common is never automatic. Its a ''trade tongue'' that allows very basic communication.
- Draconic is the athasian equivalent of latin. Its mostly a dead language, but its used in arcane spellcasting and writings.
- Languages cost skills points, like any other skill, and have DCs and all. I've revised my original draft on this a bit though.
- Automatic languages are Native languages. Characters gain +8 on that language skill, and are considered trained.
- Literacy is a Feat. Its that important on Athas, and it works in a way similar to Track and Survival. You learn one alphabet to, and have to spend 1 language rank to learn another alphabet.
- Wizards are not automatically literate, but learn draconic automatically. They use spellweaving (a craft skill) to encode and hide their messages in writings (working with read magic)
Originally posted by cmrscorpio
Personally, I think that illiteracy should extend to the other classes, except for wizards because they need to be able to write to have spellbooks. What are your thoughts?
Everyone's illiterate by default. In order to read, you need to take ranks in the Literacy skill. One rank == literate in one language. The only PC class that has Literacy as a class skill is Templar.
Wizards do not need to be literate to read. They can't just read a new spell anyway, they're required to cast Read Magic first. Literacy has nothing to do with a wizards ability to learn new spells. And, as many have already pointed out above, many wizardly spells on Athas aren't even written in what could be described as a language...
Originally posted by superpriest
The game uses Common so that we don't have to spend time gesturing at each other if our characters come from another place.
Like I said, less time for roleplay, more time for hack and slash...
The character could actually learn the language of the inhabitants of where he's going, before play. When I play FR, common doesn't exist, at all. Characters speak Chondathan, the language of the Dales, Sembia, Cormyr and most of the western Heartlands. If the plan on going in unnaproachable east, they better have an interpret. Also, those that hail from Damaran cultures, speaking damaran, better take up the language before play if they adventure where chondathan is the native's language, or else, gesture away!
Like I said, less time for roleplay, more time for hack and slash...
Trust me, your game isn't better than mine because you have gesturing PCs and don't use combat. Nevermind that D&D has a focus on combat, I've done the gestures thing. It gets old really, really fast.
Originally posted by Sean Dickson
But that can be part of the fun when you run into language barriers.
Amen to that.
Originally posted by superpriest
Trust me, your game isn't better than mine because you have gesturing PCs and don't use combat. Nevermind that D&D has a focus on combat, I've done the gestures thing. It gets old really, really fast.
Poor unimaginative soul....
Originally posted by superpriest
Trust me, your game isn't better than mine because you have gesturing PCs and don't use combat. Nevermind that D&D has a focus on combat, I've done the gestures thing. It gets old really, really fast.
The same can be said about combat-only, hack & slash games. A balance between the two is usually the best solution.
Originally posted by xlorepdarkhelm
The same can be said about combat-only, hack & slash games. A balance between the two is usually the best solution.
No kidding, been there, done that.
It will be more of a balance for me from now on, with a slight leaning towards more roleplaying, not rollplaying.
And before you play the "you should use another system" card, that's easier said than done when you have players use to the D&D system and not willing to learn a new one.
Originally posted by NytCrawlr
No kidding, been there, done that.
It will be more of a balance for me from now on, with a slight leaning towards more roleplaying, not rollplaying.
And before you play the "you should use another system" card, that's easier said than done when you have players use to the D&D system and not willing to learn a new one.
too true. besides, the d20 system has a great combat system developed, while you can just use roeplaying in your own campaigns as you see fit.
Originally posted by xlorepdarkhelm
too true. besides, the d20 system has a great combat system developed, while you can just use roeplaying in your own campaigns as you see fit.
Agreed.
The same can be said about combat-only, hack & slash games. A balance between the two is usually the best solution.
I never said anything different, and of course I agree. But gesturing to creatures unable to understand your language is not fun roleplaying when you're gesturing to a fellow PC. In a Ravenloft game, another player played a character from an old world of mine who couldn't speak the language. It really got old.
Originally posted by NytCrawlr
more roleplaying, not rollplaying.
Oooh, that's a nice one.
Oh, and my remark on hack and slash was not directed at your game, friend, but at D&D.
While my game may not be better, it is far more realistic, and I always try to make it so when we roleplay. Also note that Medieval fantasy can still be realistic, meaning that magic can work and still be realistic, because the setting is defined as having a weave, for example, that allows magic. However, having a common tongue maintained in such a setting would require magic or divine intervention in itself, and since that is not so, it should go, or else it because a game element, not a setting element.
And lastly, if your players can't figure out that they have to take up the languages of the places they visit, or get an interpreter, I advise them never to travel: They're in for a surprise! :p
Originally posted by superpriest
I never said anything different, and of course I agree. But gesturing to creatures unable to understand your language is not fun roleplaying when you're gesturing to a fellow PC. In a Ravenloft game, another player played a character from an old world of mine who couldn't speak the language. It really got old.
Well, there's a difference between making gestures because of really, realy bad planning on the group's part, or, as Shei-Nad suggested, taking an interpreter with you when you travel, or buying the correct languages. some of the best roleplaying sessions I've played is when there was only one charater who understood the NPC's, and would pass notes back and forth with the DM, while acting out talking some funky language (the notes have the real statement on them), and then translating for the rest of the group. that's just great fun, and an awesome roleplaying opportunity. But, if you don't see it, then oh well. to each his (or her) own, I say.
Originally posted by Shei-Nad
Take medieval europe, around the 12th-13th century. Europe is like what, 1/10th the size of fearun, populated only by humans too. Yet every nation there (not even country, nations) had their own language, and couldn't communicate with others without learning the other people's language! A Common language only exists within the same people, and its not ''common'', its simply the language of that people!
Not quite true: there were two languages that spread pretty much over Europe: French (where the phrase "lingua franca" comes from) and Latin. Those who did a lot of travelling would tend to learn one or the other, or both, and be able to communicate pretty well with the people they were travelling to meet.
However, the proportion of people who actually travelled was vanishingly small. Diplomats, traders, scholars and priests, largely. So they formed their own sub-community, as it were, and adopted languages for that purpose.
The peasantry would be very unlikely to speak these "common tongues", but the noble courts would, to make it easier to converse with delegations from several countries. In many ways, the way things are in the default D&D settings in the reverse of how it was in medieval Europe.
For Dark Sun, and the Tablelands in particular, given that there is apparently a lot of back-and-forth trade in slaves, the development of a "common tongue" that is both "common" in the sense of low-class, and "common" in the sense of everybody knows it, makes a little more sense.
In my campaign, Wizards are literate; it's part of their training. Even if they need "read magic" to actually read their spells, I rule that learning to read is part of preparing your mind for Arcane magic.
If you think about it, if it weren't, I don't see that there'd be much point in making writing illegal, as most of the City-States do. Writing is associated with Wizards.
But that may just be my campaign... :D
Well, there's a difference between making gestures because of really, realy bad planning on the group's part, or ... buying the correct languages.
That's what partly what started all this. My point is that buying the correct languages shouldn't be too costly. If players have to worry about languages to communicte in game, it's just not that interesting.
I mean, it probably wouldn't take that long to be able to learn the complete basics "Food", "Help", "Stop that" and so on. It's the more complex things that takes time...
Originally posted by Korvar
Not quite true: there were two languages that spread pretty much over Europe: French (where the phrase "lingua franca" comes from) and Latin. Those who did a lot of travelling would tend to learn one or the other, or both, and be able to communicate pretty well with the people they were travelling to meet.
As you say, not quite true! ;)
Latin was not commonly spoken, in fact it hardly was, even by those who understood it. Latin was linked with liturgical ceremonies and texts, and was usually only used in mass and writings. You would have been able to understand a monastery's library, but its doubtful you could have spoken to most of the monks there in latin.
As for the lingua franca (which is my own) it became the ''language of the court'' only in the late middle-ages and through the renaissance. In any case, only western european Nobles learned the language, and they used it only within the courts. Very few commoners, other than the French, obviously, could speak french between each other. In any case, however, I'd point out that this ''common language'' was simply the language of the proheminent court at the time, the French one, and was there language, not an ''invented'' universal language. In faerun, the ''lingua franca'' would probably be Chondathan, not Common.
For Dark Sun, and the Tablelands in particular, given that there is apparently a lot of back-and-forth trade in slaves, the development of a "common tongue" that is both "common" in the sense of low-class, and "common" in the sense of everybody knows it, makes a little more sense.
I agree though, and I'm keeping the common tongue, or trade tongue, in the Tyr Region. However, aside from slaves who are born slaves, traders and some nobles, nobody speaks common.
Originally posted by Shei-Nad
As you say, not quite true! ;)
Latin was not commonly spoken, in fact it hardly was, even by those who understood it. Latin was linked with liturgical ceremonies and texts, and was usually only used in mass and writings. You would have been able to understand a monastery's library, but its doubtful you could have spoken to most of the monks there in latin.
Well, my understanding was otherwise; that the educated and the ecclesiastical were capable of conducting conversations in Latin, and this allowed monks from Britain and Italy to communicate. However, even if I'm right, only a small fraction of the actual population could speak Latin - but they were amongst the small fraction off the population who actually would travel more than a day's journey in their lifetime.
As for the lingua franca (which is my own) it became the ''language of the court'' only in the late middle-ages and through the renaissance. In any case, only western european Nobles learned the language, and they used it only within the courts. Very few commoners, other than the French, obviously, could speak french between each other. In any case, however, I'd point out that this ''common language'' was simply the language of the proheminent court at the time, the French one, and was there language, not an ''invented'' universal language. In faerun, the ''lingua franca'' would probably be Chondathan, not Common.
True enough. I doubt "Common" is an invented language either, just the one that became the most used, much like English has basically become the "common tongue" of today. The languages invented for that purpose have basically dissapeared - you'd almost be better off with Klingon or Elvish than Esperanto...
And again, although there was a "lingua franca", it was only the tiny subset of the population who moved in those circles - who actually went to other countries - would learn it for that purpose.
However, my original point is that, with a bit of stretching, you could make a "common tongue" that wouldn't be that unbelievable.
I agree though, and I'm keeping the common tongue, or trade tongue, in the Tyr Region. However, aside from slaves who are born slaves, traders and some nobles, nobody speaks common.
The fact of the matter is that the "common tongue" is a convenience, designed to get characters able to speak to each other with a minimum of fuss. I think a "common tongue" amongst the lower classes is do-able, if we allow for a lot of inter-city trade in slaves. Either one existing language will predominate, or a pidgin will become a creole and they'll all speak that.
So if you want a common tongue, so that you don't have to bother with the confusion of languages, one can be provided without seeming too out of place. On the other hand, if for you part of the fun is that everyone has their own language and they have to work around that, then the "common tongue" isn't as prevalent.
Fanagalo was a language used by mine owrkers (who moved around a bunch) and was made up of Zulu, Sotho, Pedi, Venda, etc., etc. (Hell we currently have 11 official languages here, and not dialects languages). Sadly fanagalo is no longer in use as most mine owrkers now comminucate in either English, Afrikaans, Zulu or Sotho.
Some fun things in fanagalo
yes - ehe
no - cha
please - yabolisa
thank you - inkomu
excuse me - sori
How are you ? - kunjani?
Fine. - kulungile.
I want ... - Mina funa...
good morning - sawubona
goodbye - hamba gahle
Cheers
Tell us more, my South African friend!
Is it a language that was actually made up at that time, or more of a variation of one specific language, incorporating a few words from the others? How far spread was it? Did only workers and such use it, or did it spread to the general population?
Please, do tell!
I'm not a big guru on fanagalo, it is never spoken now-a-days, and in the dark days of south africa it was sort of spoken only by mine workers and those who were in contact iwth them mostly.
Don't think the language has seen much use for about 25 odd years.
It did see use when a lot of african workers moved to south africa during the republic times when work was plentiful, and many immigrants from central southern africa moved further south to start a new life for themselves, so a lot of their languages were incorporated into the language, it was basically a hodge-podge of different languages thrown together and used in a seperate and closed community.
Hope it helps, haven't actually had to do a lot of history things for the last 15 years.