That old flash lingo. Thieves' Cant revisited.

[RangerWickett]

Thieves' Cant was an element of D&D that I never really got into. It was mentioned in passing in many 2nd edition books, but no examples were presented, and at the time I wasn't familiar with the sorts of fantasy stories that used it, so I didn't particularly care.

A variant form of cant was deployed in Planescape, and again, I didn't really appreciate it at the time, but I was intrigued. In years since then, I've developed a mild appreciation for cant, since it adds flavor.

Enter Wikipedia.

Browsing around this font of much interesting knowledge, I discovered a series of articles on cant and other similar cryptolects, and it piqued my interest anew. There were mentions of gypsy tongues and slang developed by all manner of professions, like butchers or boatmakers. There was a treatise on the history and linguistic capabilities of 1337 (leet). And there was a link to this dictionary of Cant: http://php.iupui.edu/~asimmon/thief.html

I doubt I'd ever use cant in great quantity in a game, except perhaps when it was written down as code -- I just am not familiar enough with it to use it on the fly when roleplaying NPCs -- but I'd like to play around with it, maybe adopt some of it in my writing.

I have a problem, though. It's so damned British. I mean, geez, listen to this:

"I nipped the oak's onion, but that long-tongued nose of a fagger made me a gudgeon, and if m'dear bene fen hadn't roused the mobility, I fear I would've died of hempen fever."

It just demands to be spoken with some sort of cheap Cockney-esque accent. Compare to:

"Shorty, I ain't playin' no more. I done told you, get yo' that crackwhore badunkadunk up out my face, 'fo' me and my nine here bust a cap in that nappy head of yours. Me and my homies gonna bounce, before I lose my temper. I won't just get medieval, I'll get f***in' O.J. on yo' skanky little b**** a**!"

Not quite 'cant,' but slang nonetheless, and a distinctly different variety. Try reading that with a Cockney accent, or the previous cant sentence with a thug voice. It's kinda cool, but provokes a bit of cognitive dissonance.

Or a more crafted example:

"There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie, and Dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar trying to make up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening. The Korova milkbar sold milk-plus, milk plus vellocet or synthemesc or drencrom, which is what we were drinking. This would sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of the old ultra-violence."

I'm wondering if perhaps we could develop some inspirations for new Cant that doesn't sound British, without coming across as ghetto slang either. Any ideas?

 

[DreadArchon]

Any ideas?

Let players take "Thieves' Cant" as a language choice and don't make up any actual words for it at all.

If you actually want players to speak it, though, I suppose you could work something out with a dictionary and a random number generator. Just start substituting things willy-nilly and memorize the result.

Edit: Warning: This post is now silly.

I'm wondering if perhaps we could develop some inspirations for new Cant that doesn't sound British, without coming across as ghetto slang either.

Wait, so l33tsp34k and AOLspeak are acceptable forms of vulgarity?

Hell, just find a list of 4chan memes and talk with them. It'll be ridiculous and incomprehensible to most people, but you could feasibly learn it and use it to actually communicate, even if only with a little bit of extra hidden meaning to some parts.

Let's take a conversation between thieves in a bar as an example.
What people hear:
Thief 1: "Ugh, long cat is looooong."
Thief 2: "So long is long cat."
Thief 1: "Hey guys, am I doing it right?"
Thief 3: "I see what you did there..."
Thief 2: "Do not want."
Thief 1: "O RLY?"
Thieves 2 & 3: "YA RLY!"
Thief 1: "Sage?"

What the thieves are saying:
Thief 1: "Guards are coming. I came across them on the way here."
Thief 2: "I saw some too and agree with your statement."
Thief 1: "I laid a few traps near the door."
Thief 3: "Your current action is dangerously obvious. (The traps aren't hidden well, in this case.)"
Thief 2: "Remove those, they'll be more trouble than they're worth."
Thief 1: "Are you sure?"
Thieves 2 & 3: "Yes, we're sure."
Thief 1: "Should we just run, then?"

 

[Roger]

You can use Bluff to get a message across to another character without others understanding it. The DC is 15 for simple messages, or 20 for complex messages, especially those that rely on getting across new information. Failure by 4 or less means you can’t get the message across. Failure by 5 or more means that some false information has been implied or inferred. Anyone listening to the exchange can make a Sense Motive check opposed by the Bluff check you made to transmit in order to intercept your message (see Sense Motive).

This seems like a pretty good approach to cant, in my opinion.



Cheers,
Roger

 

[painandgreed]

Well, most examples are British. Rhyming slang for example. However that's just a substitution code. This code would change as once it got too well known, it wasn't a code anymore. The same problem with any theives cant. Once it becomes common slang, it stops being a theives cant, so the theives cant has to change to stay useful. THerefore, should probably be done just as another language choice and handled 'off screen' so to speak.

Another idea would be taken from espianage and things like signs and counter signs. Person A says a phrase, person B says a counter phrase, and Person A says another coutner phrase. the phrases are common enough to not be regcognised as suspicious but unusual enough that they would never occur naturally between two people. This is a way of identifying people in the same group and figuring out who is safe to talk to. Similarly, they could use secret society stuff and have handsigns and such that are only taught to the initiated. Varying levels of initiation provided various handsigns.

The Yakuza in Japan apparently had hand signs and stances that designated rank. Sure, somebody could just preform them as most yakuza knew them, but once you were uncovered as a fraus, you'd get whacked.

 

[Huw]

I liked David Eddings take on it in The Belgariad. His thieves' cant was essentially discrete sign language and facial expressions which you could communicate with at the same time as talking.

 

[Delta]

Have you seen the Thieves' Cant dictionary in the old issue of Dragon? Perhaps that's along the lines of what you're looking for.

 

[DM-Rocco]

Holy God you have a ton of posts

Hey, what a great find. Thanks.

Gygax did a thieves can't too a while ago. I can't remember if it was a pdf or a real book but it was very large and in depth.

 

[lukelightning]

I liked David Eddings take on it in The Belgariad. His thieves' cant was essentially discrete sign language and facial expressions which you could communicate with at the same time as talking.

Often used to communicate to your wife who, despite being one of the most powerful mages in existence, loves to wash your socks and dirty underpants by hand to show how much she wuvs you because that's her wifely duty.

 

[Clueless]

I think one of the more amusing examples I've heard of thieves cant in use was between a DM and Player who both spoke sing language.... talk about passing notes at the table.

As a side note - there's a number of cant expressions that have worked their way into normal English. "Bread'n'butter" for example. Cant isn't that hard to master if you put your mind to it.

For Planescape, there's a reason our cant is British - the tone and atmosphere of Sigil is very much London in the Industrial Revolution - it just fits that setting. I'd love to see more accents for other areas though (it's not like a guy from the Tir is going to have the same accent as one from Sigil). It's somethign I've been trying to encourage but it can be hard to come up with cant on the fly - dialects tend to evolve for a reason...

Y'know - the fastest way to start a cant in a game may be just to, you know, *start* it. Add the words in slowly enough that those around you can understand it by context and add on it... and 'fore too much longer y'speakin in the clear....

 

[heirodule]

Theres a good example of not so obviously cockney cant from the character of Auk, in Gene Wolfe's Long Sun series (nightside the long sun, etc).