D&D General Languages suck in D&D.

[Micah Sweet]

Ogma is a Celtic deity of writing.

Does he sponsor divinely-inspired literacy programs to promote the Common language around the world?

 

[Sorinth]

Does he sponsor divinely-inspired literacy programs to promote the Common language around the world?

At the risk of breaking political/religious posting rules, he doesn't actually exist. In a fantasy world where gods aren't just made up stories we tell each other and actually do exist then why would we think a god of knowledge and writing wouldn't promote literacy?

 

[Lanefan]

To be fair, though I've never heard of such in any official setting nor do I have one in my homebrew, the design space certainly exists for a deity of literature and-or writing in some pantheon or other. Hmmmmm.....

 

[pemerton]

Doesn't the FR use Oghma?

Greyhawk has Boccob, Delleb, Lir and Lydia.

In 4e D&D, Erathis is "the god of civilisation . . . the muse of great invention, founder of cities, and author of laws"; and she hangs out with Ioun, "the god of knowledge, skill and prophecy . . . revere[d by] . . . all who live by the knowledge and mental power." Erathis's tenets include "defend[ing] the light of civilisation against the encroaching darkness"; Ioun's include "Pursu[ing] education, build[ing] libraries, and seekin out lost and ancient lore." So to me it seems that, in the world of 4e, the degree of literacy tells us much more about the reach and standing of those two gods, than about social and economic processes among human beings naturalistically understood.

 

[Hussar]

If you could clarify? D&D may not have rules for running the game as a total sim, but it certainly has "in-setting logic"...

or I'm not understanding how you mean it....

D&D in virtually every single aspect fails to simulate anything other than itself.

The entire magic system is in service to the game and is not meant to actually detail how magic works in the world. That's why none of the D&D worlds make any sense. There have been endless discussions on how the impact of D&D style magic would make a D&D world utterly unrecognizable. The existence of D&D magic makes any notion of an "in game logic" sit in the corner and cry.

And that's not going into things like the level system, the complete and utter lack of an economic system, the lack of any sort of health system beyond nebulous hit points which no one can actually define in any satisfactory way.

At every step of the way, trying to use D&D to define "in game logic" fails. That's what I mean. It utterly baffles me that people who value "in setting logic" would use D&D for their game.

 

[Hussar]

High literacy rates presume a mass education system that even in a magic-based setting likely wouldn't exist. Education, including literacy, would still be largely restricted to the elite societal class and by no means do all adventurers have that in their background.

That's only true in European style settings. Other places, like the Middle East and East Asia had much, much higher literacy rates even in the medieval period.

 

[Hussar]

To be fair, though I've never heard of such in any official setting nor do I have one in my homebrew, the design space certainly exists for a deity of literature and-or writing in some pantheon or other. Hmmmmm.....

!!Deneir Deneir has entered the chat.!!

 

[Minigiant]

Isn't a base D&D setting assumption for a stereotypical setting

Every elf is a trained archer, swordsman, poet, linguist, arcanist, and basketweaver.

Every dwarf is a trained smith of some sort, warrior, and regular hater of their swore enemy.

So those races would have literacy programs.

 

[Hussar]

Heh, the basis for high literacy even goes back into the early days of the genre.

Bilbo wrote a book after all. And, apparently the hobbits were all literate. They could read invitations to parties.

 

[Minigiant]

Heh, the basis for high literacy even goes back into the early days of the genre.

Bilbo wrote a book after all. And, apparently the hobbits were all literate. They could read invitations to parties.

And every gnome is a tinker or biologist. They have to read books too.

It's more that D&D forces you to make an excuse why someone doesn't know how to read and speak 2 or more languages.