POL Setting: Literacy automatic or no?

[Lanefan]

I voted "other", as I've long felt literacy should be to some extent a function of class. Wizards have to be literate, to read and write their own spellbooks. Clerics are the next most likely, due to their education. Rogues next...a certain percentage will have become literate to help in their chosen trade. Sorcerers and Fighters would have the worst chance of being literate.

If one wants to get even more carried away than that, race could also become a factor...say, Gnomes, Elves and Dwarves are on average more likely to be literate than Humans and Hobbits, with Part-Orc literacy being a rarity at best...but even I haven't gone this far.

Then...and in my games I do this...you need to check literacy for each language the PC knows that has a written form; as knowing how to speak a language is not the same as knowing how to read and write it. (and a character not literate in its native language is not literate at all, for simplicity)

Lanefan

 

[Zweischneid]

Auto Literacy for Players as well as a Common language everyone can communicate in seems fine.

As much as I'd like to see a more "realistic" mediveal take on fantasy gaming, D&D isn't going to be it and with 4e is briskly heading the exact other way, putting gaming convenience firmly above all. Backtracking on the particular issue of literacy would be idiotic if the rest of the system isn't taking a more simulationist route aswell.

Similar issues could be made with currency (in a "real" PoL, every fiefdom would coin it's own currency and travelers would/should be shorthanded in exchanges two-times aday at least)

 

[arscott]

The PoL setting has a unique opportunity in that they can do away with "common" while still having a fairly ubiquitous language. Since the setting is suffering from the recent collapse of a grand human empire, it seems reasonable that most people from the former empire would have some familiarity with it's language, regardless of race. That makes Imperial the de-facto common without making it a language that strange creatures from the other side of the world speak automatically.

 

[The Eternal GM]

While this goes against my preferences for my own games (which lean towards the medieval) and is hardly realistic... I'm just going to say literacy good, even for barbarians...

Why?

Because illiteracy in games is a pain in the arse! That's why.

There's no positive to come from it, not even the usual drag out of 'it's good for role-playing' is going to work on me. I've seen players and DM alike get annoyed by it, or how one or the other insists it works.

And anyway, the barbarian is meant to be Conan right? End of the day he was the basis... And he was damned smart, literate and picked up foreign languages very quickly... So I don't see why my Celt Barbarian can't also learn runespeak or something.

 

[S'mon]

Most of the population should be illiterate, but higher status (eg knight) & scholarly (eg wizard) PCs should be literate without having to spend skill points or whatever on it.

 

[Sitara]

IMO heroic classes should be literate. Including the barby.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I would like more illeterate people, but I am not sure that this needs to apply for the PCs.
Maybe anyone with an Intelligence of 11 or higher is automatically literate?

I think the implied setting makes a good point why there is at least a common tongue - there were several large Empires (the last one apparently a human one) that probably instituted a common trade language.

No common language and no literacy would be a lot easier to handle if the game wasn't class- and level based. You can't (by RAW, ignoring rule-zero) just decide that someone picked up a language after a few days/weeks of training.

Maybe there should be a "Language" skill that allows understanding any type of language if you just try long enough?

 

[Ander00]

It's fine for the heroes to be literate by default.


cheers

 

[Derren]

I voted "other" which means: Literacy for PCs yes, for NPCs no.

 

[The Eternal GM]

No common language and no literacy would be a lot easier to handle if the game wasn't class- and level based. You can't (by RAW, ignoring rule-zero) just decide that someone picked up a language after a few days/weeks of training.

The Conan RPG does just this... It assumes that you pick a language after being exposed to the culture for a time. You just tick off the languages you know as you travel the world. Not saying that this is the way I'd go mind. Just pointing out that one of the major d20 games does do it this way to no ill effect.