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Message: <blockquote data-quote="barsoomcore" data-source="post: 1845017" data-attributes="member: 812">Yeah, I'd want the DM's tool.Leave the "Accents" for the "d20 Drama Queen" supplement.(not meaning to be insulting. Unless you're a drama queen.)In an RPG, lots of things that are TRUE aren't necessarily IMPORTANT.For example, it's TRUE that rotating crops helps soil productivity. It's not the slightest bit IMPORTANT in most campaigns, but that doesn't mean it isn't TRUE.Many things that are TRUE about linguistics aren't necessarily very IMPORTANT to RPGs.Grammar is probably one of those.What do DMs REALLY need? More than anything else, they need good names that provide some flavour and realism to their world. They don't need entire linguistic systems -- they need cool names that sound reasonable and give a sense of place and time to their players.If you're playing on Barsoom, for example, it's a no-brainer to know that Phelan O'Breen comes from Shaer, that Tulan Kith comes from Kish, that Johandaraj Joh comes from Hinsua, that Antigo del Torres comes from Saijadan, and that Kari Morisawa comes from Nahan. That's largely because I steal all my language characteristics -- Shearic is Gaelic, Saijadani is Spanish and Kishak is whatever Edgar Rice Burroughs made up for his Barsoom novels. But the principle holds -- names are far and away the most visible representation of language in a campaign setting.The other extremely helpful thing would be a system for relating languages to each other -- so as to provide logical bonuses or penalties as applicable. It doesn't actually matter much how the internals of each language works -- most DMs aren't going to want to actually invent full-blown languages -- it just matters how one relates to the other.Kishak has a similar vocabulary to Calegrian, but the vocabulary has been completely altered through exposure to Naridic culture. Calegrian-speaking characters can't understand Kishak with all its new words, but to Kishak speakers, Calegrian sounds sort of like very old-fashioned speech with a weird accent.Stuff like that.But really, what I'd want are lots of examples, lots of ideas, lots of fun things for me to chuck into my campaign and make it cooler than it already is.</blockquote>

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