POL Setting: Literacy automatic or no?

[IanB]

I like illiteracy, but you have to be careful with it, as it does take a lot of plot tools out of the DM's hands when nobody can read the killer's name scrawled in blood by the dying victim and such.

 

[bgaesop]

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

I voted "literacy is fine" for the same reason, except I thought the poll was about PCs only. I also think that it should stay the way it is currently with Barbarians being illiterate, though I wouldn't really care if it changed.

I don't even like the idea of NPCs not being able to read. It means you can't justify having signs over the inn, wanted posters in town, or any number of other things because they wouldn't be worth the effort without people being able to read them.

The way I've always done it is to have signs over inns and stuff be simple illustrations. For instance, the inn The Hog's Head has a picture of a severed hog's head with Xes for eyes, tongue lolling out, "drunk bubbles" above its head, and a smile on its face, with a glass of wine on one side and a hunk of bread on the other. A wanted poster has a picture of the wanted person, a GP amount* for the reward with a symbol representing "wanted: alive" or "wanted: dead or alive" and then a paragraph of extra text for those who want to and can read it.

*I play it that (nearly) anyone, regardless of whether or not they can read, can work numbers. That way an illiterate shopkeep can still sell you things and keep track of his earnings and figure out how much he owes the King. Maybe an assistant pig farmer can't read or work numbers, but the head of the farm can at the very least make sure he's getting a fair price for his hogs

 

[Kahuna Burger]

If literacy only costs a single skill point (assuming there is some corresponding currency in 4e), then illiteracy as the default isn't much of a burden. It's just interesting.

I've also gotta speak out against Common, although I admit that's a much riskier thing to remove. I just think it might actually be fun to have language barriers that actuall mean something, so that the PCs occasionally have to resort to things like gestures, drawings, and ritualized trading procedures.

"He's asking us to come with him."

"How do you know?"

"Um, because he's..." *copies sweeping gesture* "...asking us to come with him."



When it comes to languages, I preferred Stargate the movie to the TV show....

 

[The Little Raven]

When it comes to languages, I preferred Stargate the movie to the TV show....

Word. That movie effin' rocks. The show... not my cup of tea.

 

[Lurker37]

Quick answer? "As benefits the plot."

But for the defaults I work with:

Literacy roughly depends on Wealth level, and size of settlement. Poorer families are unlikely to have spared the time and money for their children to learn literacy and numeracy, whereas any family of merchants or noblemen is likely to have made such education a priority. Of course, the available supply of education is just as important. A large town is far more likely to have teachers than an isolated village of a dozen huts.

Those too poor or too isolated to gain access to education will be generally be illiterate.

Having said that, there can always be exceptions - the poor, isolated family who educated a single son by sending him to the nearest village for a year (he was delivered with one annual crop and picked up after delivering the next year's), or the rich family who didn't bother educate the youngest child.

But above all, it goes by plot. If the plot requires a note, letter, bill of sale or whatever, then the NPC's involved will have the required level of literacy to have produced it (And may in fact become indignant if any PC expresses surprise). By the same token, if an NPC needs to not be able to read a letter, then either their education was overlooked or else their eyesight is failing.

And, of course, the PCs have all had specialised training - that includes literacy. (Even fighters need to study their Agrippa, so that Capa Ferro will not be canceled out by Thibault when trying to penetrate Bonetti's Defense in rocky terrain... )

 

[mmadsen]

I don't even like the idea of NPCs not being able to read. It means you can't justify having signs over the inn, wanted posters in town, or any number of other things because they wouldn't be worth the effort without people being able to read them.

In the real world, inns had signs over them, even though most people could not read -- because they could recognize the picture on the sign. Wanted posters don't make much sense until you have printing presses -- but a town crier works fine.

As for PCs, if each party has a wizard and a cleric, then that's two folks who can read.

 

[Raduin711]

Ditto. I hate played the "and I tell the other PC's what it says" game.

I, too find that annoying and a waste of time.

I think illiteracy worked in Dark Sun because the assumption was that everyone was illiterate, with the exception of a special few, because being able to read was illegal, thus it mattered, and was actually kind of interesting when one of the players picked up the note and read it...

 

[Xethreau]

Undicided

I am really not sure whether literacy should be a default. I think it might be interesting if your primary langauge and the written form of it were considered two different languages. This way, the default commoner might not have the intelligence to write, while the average eladrin would be able to read, write and speak their own language with no problem.

Just a thought.

 

[jester47]

I think you should have everyone speaking a common tounge, but have few be literate.

"Wizard! What do these markings say?!"

 

[Arkhandus]

Even if an ancient empire established the Common tongue, I couldn't see it surviving recognizably in the Points of Light. Every burg and city-state would develop its own linguistic conventions and variations on the old tongue, eventually, especially with the various different races (of different sizes and origins and such) being around and occasionally entering the communities or something. Heck, that's even before considering what effect the various tieflings, dragonborn, and such might have on speech patterns.

It'd be like me taking a trip to Scotland, visiting a very traditional fellow's home (as opposed to entering a big city where they might have lots of tourists or other exposure to foreigners speaking American English or British English), then trying to have a conversation on various topics. I'd barely follow anything they're saying, and they'd probably have trouble understanding many of my own words, pronunciation, and the occasional bit of American slang that I might use without realizing it. We'd know we're both speaking English, but very different, mostly incoherant English.

Without a more traditional D&D setting, I can't see there being enough trade and other interaction, or even just a few widespread guilds/organizations, that would maintain a reasonably-widespread understanding of the same Common tongue, with only minor local differences in dialect.