I was reading Radiating Gnome’s article from Saturday (http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?939-Gamehackery-Valar-Morghulis-and-DMing) and it got me thinking about language in my D&D games. I started to write a comment on his article, but then thought I’d be too long-winded to make it a comment and turned it into an article myself. Check out his article to see what I’m talking about.
Language in gaming is hand-waved because players are already dealing with a lot of information intake – they have the rules themselves and any game specific terminology, they have the setting information and any unusual names, and then they have what each player brings to the game that the other players don’t already know. The point of (almost) all rpg games is a cooperative exercise in storytelling, and when the characters can’t communicate, the story bogs down.
Which is why Common is the dominant language in D&D, and everyone in the Star Trek universe has a universal translator implanted in them, and everyone in the Farscape universe is injected with translator microbes. I actually enjoy the invented words like “Frak!” and “Frell!” when I watch those shows, because it speaks to the idiomatic nature of language Radiating Gnome brings up later on – they’re words that have no direct translation, but we infer their meaning from the surrounding context. It doesn’t pull me out of the show, as I gather it does for him and some other people.
If you’re planning on putting up language barriers in your game, you should also plan on making concessions so players can circumvent those barriers. If languages are skill-based like in 3E/3.5E, you may need to allocate additional skill points. You may need to take a look at translation magic and make it broader and more useful than current spell constraints (unless you enjoy the visual of the party wizard running up to the bad guys and touching one just so comprehend languages will work). Or you might make the business of translation prevalent in your game – a great fit for a campaign setting like Eberron, where an entire guild could be based on providing fair and unbiased translations between two or more interested parties.
When discussing language and gaming, I’m reminded of the planar cant from Planescape and the vehemence some players have had in denouncing it. It seems people either love it or hate it. I’m in the former camp, and I use it when I DM, because it’s a context clue to help differentiate between the “Clueless” (characters with no knowledge of the Planescape multiverse) and a savvy planar blood. Even if the players have a planar character, I don’t expect them to use the cant – it’s enough for me that I use it. And I always have mimirs as universal translation devices, just in case there’s a truly alien race the characters encounter, or a conversation is crucial to the adventure’s plot.
While we’re on the subject of Planescape, there is a language in the game that is prevalent, especially if adventuring in Sigil…the dabus Rebuspeak. As a DM, I always had to carefully plan and tightly control an encounter with the dabus, because they communicate through visible thought bubbles that contain rebuses – pictures representing words – and I’m not that quick on my feet to come up with a rebus (or two) on the fly. Also, drawing them out in the course of a conversation bogs down play. Since most of my Planescape gaming is done online these days, I found a suitable substitution – |33+5p3^|< (Leetspeak). It’s alien enough to grab the players’ attention but easy enough to translate, so the game doesn’t slow to a crawl.
There’s a lot of exotic language in each game setting tied to location names, creatures, and concepts. Darksun is different from Greyhawk is different from the Forgotten Realms is different from Eberron. That flavor is usually enough for most players to immerse themselves. I can totally appreciate the DM who goes through the trouble Radiating Gnome did with translations and idiomatic phrases, but you’re then faced with the daunting task of pronouncing what you’ve created! In my youth, I wrote out pseudo-latin verbal components for all the spells in 1st edition, put them on index cards, and required the spellcaster players to say them out loud…that didn’t last too long. In my experience, less is more; a word or phrase here or there is more memorable than a lot of “gobbledygook,” no matter how well constructed.
In truth, we gamers have a language all our own, and non-gamers have a hard time understanding or believing we’re using real words. Adults were always impressed with my vocabulary as a child, because I used words like “melee,” “initiative,” and “somatic” and knew what those words meant. So many of the D&D creatures were borrowed from Greek mythology, that I could entertain adults by talking about cyclopes, hydras, and manticores, and discuss the motives and behavior of the Greek gods. Gaming is a great educational tool.
There is so much of D&D and the various settings borrowed from other cultures and mythology, that I’ve often wondered how gamers in other countries actually gamed. Do they do it in English? Do they use their native tongue, and is everything translated? Or are a lot of game terms, creature names, and setting information just interjected into their normal speech? I’d be interested to hear from any gamers whose first language is not English on how you actually game, and how much you translate into your own language.
My thanks to Radiating Gnome for such an inspiring article…it’s certainly had me thinking all weekend. In the end, whatever makes you and your players happy is good for your game, so if you have the time and energy to put into inventing your own language or languages, then go for it! Perhaps someone who’s put in the effort could share the fruits of their labor for others to peruse. In this day and age, surely someone has a wiki with dwarf and elf phrases and their translations…
Qapla’!
Language in gaming is hand-waved because players are already dealing with a lot of information intake – they have the rules themselves and any game specific terminology, they have the setting information and any unusual names, and then they have what each player brings to the game that the other players don’t already know. The point of (almost) all rpg games is a cooperative exercise in storytelling, and when the characters can’t communicate, the story bogs down.
Which is why Common is the dominant language in D&D, and everyone in the Star Trek universe has a universal translator implanted in them, and everyone in the Farscape universe is injected with translator microbes. I actually enjoy the invented words like “Frak!” and “Frell!” when I watch those shows, because it speaks to the idiomatic nature of language Radiating Gnome brings up later on – they’re words that have no direct translation, but we infer their meaning from the surrounding context. It doesn’t pull me out of the show, as I gather it does for him and some other people.
If you’re planning on putting up language barriers in your game, you should also plan on making concessions so players can circumvent those barriers. If languages are skill-based like in 3E/3.5E, you may need to allocate additional skill points. You may need to take a look at translation magic and make it broader and more useful than current spell constraints (unless you enjoy the visual of the party wizard running up to the bad guys and touching one just so comprehend languages will work). Or you might make the business of translation prevalent in your game – a great fit for a campaign setting like Eberron, where an entire guild could be based on providing fair and unbiased translations between two or more interested parties.
When discussing language and gaming, I’m reminded of the planar cant from Planescape and the vehemence some players have had in denouncing it. It seems people either love it or hate it. I’m in the former camp, and I use it when I DM, because it’s a context clue to help differentiate between the “Clueless” (characters with no knowledge of the Planescape multiverse) and a savvy planar blood. Even if the players have a planar character, I don’t expect them to use the cant – it’s enough for me that I use it. And I always have mimirs as universal translation devices, just in case there’s a truly alien race the characters encounter, or a conversation is crucial to the adventure’s plot.
While we’re on the subject of Planescape, there is a language in the game that is prevalent, especially if adventuring in Sigil…the dabus Rebuspeak. As a DM, I always had to carefully plan and tightly control an encounter with the dabus, because they communicate through visible thought bubbles that contain rebuses – pictures representing words – and I’m not that quick on my feet to come up with a rebus (or two) on the fly. Also, drawing them out in the course of a conversation bogs down play. Since most of my Planescape gaming is done online these days, I found a suitable substitution – |33+5p3^|< (Leetspeak). It’s alien enough to grab the players’ attention but easy enough to translate, so the game doesn’t slow to a crawl.
There’s a lot of exotic language in each game setting tied to location names, creatures, and concepts. Darksun is different from Greyhawk is different from the Forgotten Realms is different from Eberron. That flavor is usually enough for most players to immerse themselves. I can totally appreciate the DM who goes through the trouble Radiating Gnome did with translations and idiomatic phrases, but you’re then faced with the daunting task of pronouncing what you’ve created! In my youth, I wrote out pseudo-latin verbal components for all the spells in 1st edition, put them on index cards, and required the spellcaster players to say them out loud…that didn’t last too long. In my experience, less is more; a word or phrase here or there is more memorable than a lot of “gobbledygook,” no matter how well constructed.
In truth, we gamers have a language all our own, and non-gamers have a hard time understanding or believing we’re using real words. Adults were always impressed with my vocabulary as a child, because I used words like “melee,” “initiative,” and “somatic” and knew what those words meant. So many of the D&D creatures were borrowed from Greek mythology, that I could entertain adults by talking about cyclopes, hydras, and manticores, and discuss the motives and behavior of the Greek gods. Gaming is a great educational tool.
There is so much of D&D and the various settings borrowed from other cultures and mythology, that I’ve often wondered how gamers in other countries actually gamed. Do they do it in English? Do they use their native tongue, and is everything translated? Or are a lot of game terms, creature names, and setting information just interjected into their normal speech? I’d be interested to hear from any gamers whose first language is not English on how you actually game, and how much you translate into your own language.
My thanks to Radiating Gnome for such an inspiring article…it’s certainly had me thinking all weekend. In the end, whatever makes you and your players happy is good for your game, so if you have the time and energy to put into inventing your own language or languages, then go for it! Perhaps someone who’s put in the effort could share the fruits of their labor for others to peruse. In this day and age, surely someone has a wiki with dwarf and elf phrases and their translations…
Qapla’!
