Anyone had any success with class, profession, or organization secret signs/runes,cant?

[aramis erak]

It seems like every rules set/setting that isn't historical has some group, class, race, organization, etc with secret runes, symbols, cant, etc which are intended to allow members to warn each other, kind of like hobo symbols from the 1890s-1950s.

I've always been interested in the idea/concept, but I've never really been able to put it to work in a campaign.

Has anyone made good use of them?

If so, how?

I've used them in both WFRP and D&D... the thing is, they're just codes.

The secret signs mark relevant places. Ranger signs tell of good hunting, bad hunting, good camping, bad camping, bandit hideouts... and I mention signs but not their meanings if no one knows them. Thief's Signs? mark areas of low observability, direction of a sewer access, direction to the city gates and guardhouses, and marking which capo owns the local turf. Likewise, certain signs worn mark a thief as "undercover" or as "casing a joint" - two situations to avoid contact, while others indicate certain other professional situations.

The secret languages come in several flavors...

• Thieves' Cant is, much like modern gang slang, normal words used in unusual ways to avoid comprehension by outsiders.
• professional jargon - like modern police Ten-codes or fire-departmental casualty descriptors (Stay-puffed, Crispy.... ), or specific tool names (Fire: Pulaski, SCBA, pike, hook, ay-tripple-eff; Medical: 3-oh silk, 3-oh nylon, 10-blade, Vee-fib), but in an era where guilds forbid using the jargon when outsiders can hear, they are a code.
• alienated languages - such as a Jewish community using Hebrew, or a Polish community using Latin or Polish, to avoid "outsiders" understanding. It's not that the language is a secret so much as they use it to exclude others.
• Pidgins and Creoles... languages derived from mixing two languages, but which have become unintelligible to outsiders of either... Jamaican Patois, Hawaiian Pigin, Yiddish.
• Religious languages: many who use them don't understand them. Those who do understand them can use them for privileged communication...

In game, ouside WFRP and Ars Magica, I avoid religious languages.
Traveller had a table for pidgins/creoles intelligibility in a JTAS Article. I used it a few times, but it breaks the Space Opera feel I want.

The Guild Tongue for the Engineers is just engineering jargon - renaming things to keep the guild's secrets secret.
The wizards' guild tongue is their language of annotation of spellbooks... etc.

It usually is best to treat it as a key & lock kind of thing, IME.
A: I'm looking for any secret signs...
GM: you spot 3 groups on the building.
A: Do any of them make sense in Merchant Guilder?
GM: No, not really. Unless the guild has started marketing Mayoral Entrails...
B: How 'bout Physiker's guild?
GM: Surgery Forbidden - that's the middle group
C: Thief's Signs?
GM: Watchmen not bribable. And the other group, Sewer access in alley.

 

[John Dallman]

I've seen a RuneQuest GM develop a thieves' cant with one of his players during sessions. There was early confusion, because we'd just arrived in a new city and nobody was going to teach the newcomer the local dialect, but he caught on after a while.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Used them in games off and on over the years, nothing too extensive.

• Rangers/elves would use trail signs, rock marks or topiary.
• Thieves would have their guild markings. Under the protection of, this is a safe place, guild meeting.
• Wizard would write on everything, the blue potion is a mis-colored healing potion, I think, damn label came off.
• As ruins were dwarven, used runes a good bit inside them, just some I found on the internet, players got good at understanding some words.

I later just to roll for the players and then proceeded to give them the information.

 

[Lanefan]

It seems like every rules set/setting that isn't historical has some group, class, race, organization, etc with secret runes, symbols, cant, etc which are intended to allow members to warn each other, kind of like hobo symbols from the 1890s-1950s.

I've always been interested in the idea/concept, but I've never really been able to put it to work in a campaign.

Ditto, and ditto.

In 1e, while I did away with alignment languages almost the moment I started DMing I did keep Thieves' and Assassins' Cants around for ages...and they were never used.

So, out they went. Since then I can think of maybe one instance where they were missed.

Has anyone made good use of them?

If so, how?

The nearest I've seen is when several members of an adventuring party happen to know the same obscure language and use it for (what they hope will be) private communications between themselves e.g. yelling out tactics mid-combat or for asides during diplomatic scenes.

 

[MNblockhead]

What I'm using is to designate a font for the signs. When the player learned the signs, give him the font, and then MS doc with the signs he's spotted.

For secret codes I often use the Masonic cypher: Pigpen cipher - Wikipedia

But you can may a variety of grids (Z shape with a line down the middle, etc. to get different types of glyphs) and instead of letters have each spot represent a general warning or notice to those that learned the cypher. I find you can make some symbols that fit within a fantasy setting, but also feel more real as they would be easier to remember without having to have anything written on paper.

Another trick I use is to take chinese characters or radicals and stylize them a bit. Just look up the character for a word and made some stylistic changes. Too obvious if you have players who read Chinese, and it might be problematic for published material, but is another shortcut for making symbols on the fly. Even better, use ancient Chinese oracle-bone script (a/k/a shell-bone writing). Oracle bone script - Wikipedia. I know there are fonts out there for it, but I just copy them with my poor penmanship, which is fine for representing something that's supposed to be carved into wood or stone. For a list of some: Oracle Bone Script (甲骨文). I don't stick with the actual historical meanings, just use for inspiration.

For real-world burgler symbols, this Daily Mail article from 2013 gives some modern, and also includes examples of older hobo symbols for comparisons. These are real-world examples that could be easily be used in just about any setting: The secret language of crime: Police reveal symbols used by burglars to help fellow criminals target rich and vulnerable homes

Also, here is a very recent article from China Daily with examples used by modern thieves in China: Burglars leave their 'mark'|Society|chinadaily.com.cn

Of course, in real life, groups of thieves would be changing their marks fairly frequently. In game, that could mean a history check as well as an investigation check. Even back in the day, I didn't treat thieves cant and symbols like alignment language or druidic, or even like the secret symbols and phrases used by cults and secret societies. They are far more fluid. If you are not actively part of the group using them, a thief (in 5e) would get advantage on deciphering them in my games, but would not automatically be able to understand any thief symbol.

 

[aramis erak]

I had a thought about alignment languages...
They may represent liturgical languages.

 

[ichabod]

I had a thought about alignment languages...
They may represent liturgical languages.

I could see that. But liturgical languages were not always liturgical, they just became so as the natural language evolved and the liturgy stayed the same. So the alignment languages would have to have been commonly spoken at some time in the past, or the liturgy would have to have been set down in those languages by divine beings that commonly speak them.

 

[MNblockhead]

I had a thought about alignment languages...
They may represent liturgical languages.

I imagine it starting a mix of etiquette, how polite/impolite, level or prescriptiveness in the grammar, taboos, etc. that evolve into very different ways of speaking. But instead of one language, every language would naturally evolve different dialects based around alignment. But while I use alignment in some of my campaigns, I've never used alignment language in the sense of a language that two people of the same alignment can have a secret conversation among those of a different alignment. Rather, I treated it as you are more comfortable communicating with those of the same or similar alignment, which can give advantage/buffs on various social skill checks.

 

[aramis erak]

I could see that. But liturgical languages were not always liturgical, they just became so as the natural language evolved and the liturgy stayed the same. So the alignment languages would have to have been commonly spoken at some time in the past, or the liturgy would have to have been set down in those languages by divine beings that commonly speak them.

Which would fit perfectly with the idea that everyone of alignment X shares them... especially in the original 3 alignment system. They're the tongues used by the gods of the setting within their pantheon.