Linguistics / Languages

[Atom Mlatom]

I haven't run across anywhere how one might handle a multi-lingual campaign world within WOIN. There is a "Linguistics" skill mentioned in the playtest doc, but I haven't spotted any other references to how that might be used ala D&D/Pathfinder. How do you mediate how many languages a character knows? How do you judge when communication is clear between characters who speak a second language poorly?

 

[Sniperfox47]

None of this seems to be implemented yet. It was something that came up with my group too because we're thinking of moving our previous campaign to OLD temporarily for play testing.

The way we resolved it was to treat languages as bonus skills. You get a number of free language skills equal to your INT dice (INT/2+1). These are your basic languages, which are always proficient. You may also take a new language for the cost of 100XP for basic comprehension and an additional 150XP (250 total) for fluency, so long as you have personal experience with the language.

 

[Morrus]

I haven't written the languages section yet. Basically, linguistics is a category for individual languages. Everyone starts with their basic languages (common, plus a possible racial/species language) for free. Understanding something in another language is an INT check. You can have skills in specific languages, making you better at understanding them. The difficulty benchmark is challenging for conversation, difficult to sound fluent, and strenuous to be able to use it like Stephen Fry. It means a very bright person can usually manage to communicate at a basic level.

In N.E.W. you'd use translation devices a lot, of course.

 

[Atom Mlatom]

I like it! Both ideas seem entirely reasonable / workable. Fluency levels would be especially awesome (though I guess it would depend on the competency of the GM & players' roleplaying). The Pathfinder language system of just "knowing" multiple languages always kind of irked me a little when given thought. I took a couple of semesters of German, does that mean I can write it down on my character sheet?

 

[Khaalis]

I've been thinking about this myself as its an important topic for my game world where there is no classic D&D "Common" but the languages are more like real languages. I like the start for this. As it stands I can see the system as easily adaptable to modify the necessary skill checks for similarity as well as to split out say Reading from Speaking.

For instance:
* Speak your native language: no roll
* Read your native language: Challenging [13]
* Speak a common-root language (i.e. Spanish vs. Italian): Difficult [16]
* Read a related language: Difficult [19]
* Speak a non-related language (i.e. English vs. Chinese): Strenuous [21]
* Read a non-related language: Severe [25]

Linguistics (X Language): +1 die per level for Speaking/Reading that language


Hope that made sense. Past sleep time.

 

[LucasC]

I have to get in the habit of letting untrained checks stand-in when there is no one w/a trained skill. We've been having the only character w/linguistics make checks to understand other languages. Didn't set an actual DC, tend to call it on the fly.

 

[Sniperfox47]

For instance:
* Speak your native language: no roll
* Read your native language: Challenging [13]
* Speak a common-root language (i.e. Spanish vs. Italian): Difficult [16]
* Read a related language: Difficult [19]
* Speak a non-related language (i.e. English vs. Chinese): Strenuous [21]
* Read a non-related language: Severe [25]

Linguistics (X Language): +1 die per level for Speaking/Reading that language

I love how you put reading as a dc 13 check so the average human in the average situation had to struggle to read. After I thought about it out makes sense for OLD but for some reason my brain jumped automatically to NEW xD

When I first read Morrus' system I was iffy on it. There are quite a few "dim" people who fluently speak more than one language, but I guess they are the exception to the rule.

Will there be explicit restrictions put on it or will that be left to the group?
Eg. The human monk who lived a secluded life in a monastery hears someone speaking elven and joins in in fluent elven, even though he's never been exposed to the language before...