Languages
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As Rith said earlier, I think I'd rather just log out if I came to the gate and saw two Elves speaking in Elven, and could hear only garbles. Considering how OFTEN this is the case, I'd be against language tokens with garbling. I know it helps with subconscious metagaming (believe me, I avoid that like a plague), but most people would say that speaking aloud, even if it's in an obscure tongue, is not a reliable method of concealing your message. Assume anyone can understand you anyway.
I like to read the conversations too, if only oocly, though for the most part, my character will understand because the language in question is Elven and Havon is an Elf.
I'm too tired to go on, but I'll just reiterate that I'm wholly against garbling.
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@58e3ef2443:
Don't forget that you can "spend" skill ranks on speak language by leaving them unspent in character generation and levelling (and that Speak Language is a cross-class skill always except for bards and requires two points [one for bards]). Also don't forgot that in most cases you know a regional language, a racial language (if non-human) and common, not to mention bonus languages from intelligence. You can generally assume, at character generation, that you have the means to learn any language listed here. However be reasonable. Don't assume that your barbarian who grew up in the wild with animals can know Seldruin, the ancient high magic tongue. When learning new languages after levelling up, you need a teacher, except for the dead languages; to learn these, you will need a lot of history books and most likely a far more learned scholar at your disposal. Under no means are you forced to use this system. You can spend your whole time on Narf speaking common if you wish, and many will. If, however, you have an eye for the fine details and enjoy such things, I feel this a comprehensive guide to languages in Narfell and Faerun.
Knowing and using languages other than common is optional. I don't think languages are a big enough deal that they need to be rigorously checked. If a DM sees some 8 intelligence Barbarian talking in abyssal, they're probably going to get told that they can't possibly know this language.
I notice for the most part people follow these rules, and, I don't think you'll get slammed for accidentally using sign language for four years anyway.
Regarding Thieves Cant, my PC Daveth knows this and I have spent the point on it from creation. People should, and hopefully will spend the point on it. Rogue is a very wide open class and it wouldn't make sense RP wise for all rogue classed people to suddenly know Thieves Cant (especially most fighter/rogue barbarian/rogue combos).
As for the language token system, I care not either way. It'd be neat, but I don't see it as being essential at all. I often have a lot of fun reading conversations even if I can't take part. Not being able to read what people are saying at all is, well, just kind of annoying and they may as well just be whispering to each other. Though I'd certainly be willing to give it a try, it'd be interesting to see what happens. Though I do wonder the same things as Fraoch.
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I'm not sure that knowledge of languages would be checked rigorously enough before tokens got dropped. I'm not aware of anyone been challenged on whether they've actually paid for one.
Case in point, I've been using sign for 4 years having apparently not paid enough for it. No-one's ever asked me how it was learned or whether I'd paid. I used to advocate recording languages known - on the forums, and where they can't just be changed on the fly.
Someone who has rp'd knowing a particular language for however long suddenly learns that they actually never knew it because it isn't an automagically gained language (thieves cant eg) - how does that get dealt with? I've also had people say that their pc knows a language because x dm said so because of y event.
Do they get a forced rebuild (taking an absolute age for the dms to check all skills and feats are otherwise unchanged) or will they end up just getting a token dropped. In which case we're left with a situation where people have illegal languages which have been legitimised.
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Compressed both posts into one. If a DM wants to delete this one feel free.
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If those language tokens happen, I'd like Tongues spell implemented ingame simultaneously. I know Rith at least will always have it prepared.
Here's a couple of PnP spells related to languages that would make sense to implement if there's dev time being put into making languages more realistic:
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Could we use something like Craft Weapon as a generic skill dump?
If so, I wonder if you could automate the process somehow with an NPC that would give you your choice of language tokens based on your intelligence modifier and your race. You can then buy a new token for every 2 points you have in craft weapon (or in the case of bards every 1 point). It would simply check how many tokens you have and compare it to what your total number possible is (race + int mod + points in craft weapon) and if the number of tokens is less you can buy more.
You could even allow DM dropped tokens to be done by doing something like [elven] for normal and [granted, elven] for DM dropped and just have the above NPC check for ones without the granted. That way if say, a Celestial bestows upon a PC the knowledge of its language for a period of time they can speak it without the need to spend skill points.
I imagine you'd see a clamor before long for the ability to cast "tongues" and "Comprehend languages" if something like this happened though. I wonder if you can script a way to give or take away items based on a duraction of time. Since we don't have .hak spells, perhaps if push came to shove you could give classes that could theoritically cast those spells a 1/day item that casts it which would drop an "all languages" token on them which would work with any of the <language>markers they'd type and have it last for a short static period of time before it removes the token. Wouldn't be perfect, but would at least be something to represent that there is magic out there that can make people understand you.
Sorry, now I'm just musing.</language>
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@4542acc04c=Zyphlin:
I absolutely loved the language tokens on another server. It enhanced the RP of situations, both in the possible "rudeness" of speaking in a foriegn tongue in the middle of a large group of other people as well as the benefits of knowing something others don't.
While I've never known a huge amount of metagaming to come about due to the <e>or whatever other language symbol, it does play into the thing I used to talk about often which was subconsious metagaming. Its something every player does, even the best, because its simply whats goes on in my mind. If OOCly you know the big main villian is actually the friendly farmer down the road and his sons are actually the assassins out to get you, then even if you're trying really hard not to metagame various things that previously may've gone unnoticed to you now suddenly may seem more devious in your mind not on purpose but simply due to it now subconsiously being more hyper aware of certain things. This could work backwards as well, with you konwing something making you shy away from a clue you find because you're afraid you only thought it a clue due to your OOC knowledge (when in reality you would've realized it anyways).
I think in general if something can help alieviate a bit of the potential for such subconsious metagaming to occur and can have a net positive effect on the game (which personally I think the garble would) I think its worth while to do if it wouldn't hurt the server stability</e>
I think it might also help to avoid the situation where 2 [dwarves/elves/hins] are speaking dwarven/elf/furryfoot and the 18 year old human girl walks up and says [d/e/h] "I speak dwarven/elf/furryfoot too!"
Its always been annoying to me–and I think that using a system like this would at least require people to "prove" that they actually can.
Would there be an opportunity to test this?
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I absolutely loved the language tokens on another server. It enhanced the RP of situations, both in the possible "rudeness" of speaking in a foriegn tongue in the middle of a large group of other people as well as the benefits of knowing something others don't.
While I've never known a huge amount of metagaming to come about due to the <e>or whatever other language symbol, it does play into the thing I used to talk about often which was subconsious metagaming. Its something every player does, even the best, because its simply whats goes on in my mind. If OOCly you know the big main villian is actually the friendly farmer down the road and his sons are actually the assassins out to get you, then even if you're trying really hard not to metagame various things that previously may've gone unnoticed to you now suddenly may seem more devious in your mind not on purpose but simply due to it now subconsiously being more hyper aware of certain things. This could work backwards as well, with you konwing something making you shy away from a clue you find because you're afraid you only thought it a clue due to your OOC knowledge (when in reality you would've realized it anyways).
I think in general if something can help alieviate a bit of the potential for such subconsious metagaming to occur and can have a net positive effect on the game (which personally I think the garble would) I think its worth while to do if it wouldn't hurt the server stability</e>
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People who are missing both their hands likely have more problems to worry about.
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@99debc0e7b=cardamon:
Lip reading is handily defeated by whispering with your hand in front of your mouth.
((assuming you still own your hands, of course))
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Lip reading is handily defeated by whispering with your hand in front of your mouth.
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The thing you have to consider is where realism gets in the way to enjoyment. When I pnp in all my long years of pnp'ing, never had the DM take the players that are holding a conversation in another language away from the others. They just know what they can understand and what they can't.
Personally, if I find a group of elves speaking with the usual <e>I'll stick around to enjoy their conversation from an OOC point of view. If they're speaking gibberish, I'm logging off, or going to hunt some bugbears for gold.
I'd personally be very sad if we needed to put a wall between east and west germany instead of just asking and trusting that people will be fair about it. If you get what I mean.</e>
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I like the idea of the tokens if doable…
As to Lip reading I will try and find out, though I expect it would be a very hard thing to learn..maybe a 4 or 3 point language.
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I played on a server that used it, and it was great. It added so much atmosphere, and stressed the importance of speaking the local tongue. It's rather nifty to walk by a bunch of half orcs sitting in a circle and speaking –
"Ur vlig commok!"
"Va! Iristch vlig pa"
snicker-- and not knowing what they are saying, but then having one of your party members burst out laughing because he does.
It's like not having the levels of the characters displayed. It makes it far harder to metagame.
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I played on a server that used it, and it was great. It added so much atmosphere, and stressed the importance of speaking the local tongue. It's rather nifty to walk by a bunch of half orcs sitting in a circle and speaking –
"Ur vlig commok!"
"Va! Iristch vlig pa"
snicker-- and not knowing what they are saying, but then having one of your party members burst out laughing because he does.
It's like not having the levels of the characters displayed. It makes it far harder to metagame.
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Same as Eluriel. Rith only really knows Celestial besides common, which I use as flavour in some ocassions, and it'd be silly if only I understood it and the rest saw gibberish.
I trust players to not metagame the information, but at the same time feel part of what is going on.
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Any word on lip reading?
As a total aside - if we were giving garbling tokens - in the vast majority of cases I'd use a different sign to denote the language and avoid garbling.
I usually use a language because people do prefer to communicate using their native tongue. If I'm at the south fire sitting talking to my elven friends there is absolutely no reason for to talk common for strangers to understand. Think of tourists in a city centre, or a group for foreign students at university.
When I do use language to exclude someone it's to exlude pcs. I don't want to exclude players.
Unless of course it's secrets, in which case I'd be using whispers anyway.
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Very cool. Thank you for the response, Will.
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With regard to language tokens, we hadn't implemented it previously due to the CPU issue - we were trying to avoid adding any additional load.
Now that the CPU issue is resolved, we have been discussing it. Once we determine a course of action, there will still be some dev time required before we can get it IG.
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@3da22f5d82=EodenValmer:
With regards actual language translator type things IG, as I recall they spam the DM channel…. which is not good.
And again, not necessarily anymore for the same reasons above.
