C&S Languages: A Generic System

MINE HOST ASSEMBLING
THE CANTERBURY PILGRIMS.

     After the previous exercise in trying to construct a plausible list of languages used in the authors' original medieval European Chivalry and Sorcery campaign,  I'm now looking detailing a systemic way to determine the cost of learning languages that doesn't "assumes that the character is from a country with a Romance, Germanic or Celtic language that uses the Latin alphabet".

     There are three factors I will use to determine how hard it is to learn a language, relationship to the character's native language; the alphabet the language is written in and means of expression the native speakers of the language use to communicate.

Relationship - does the language being learned belong to the same family as the character's native language?
     For example, my native language is English and when I've studied Norwegian I recognize many root words and sounds, plus the grammar (for example the pronoun structure I/jeg) is very similar. 
     As a counter example, when I study Latin, while I do recognize many of the words (English being a notorious sponge of "foreign" word imports), most Latin words were not imported so they need to be learned.  Plus the grammar is different, with the pronouns being suffixes attached to the root, rather than separate words.

Alphabet - Once you have learned the symbols and sounds they make, learning to read a different language is a matter of learning which symbols are sounded differently, rather than a whole new system. 
     Taking Latin again as our example, 'r' is trilled and 'v' is pronounced like an English 'w'.
      From my long ago summer of studying Russian, Cyrillic uses a completely different set of symbols that often create sounds that would be combinations of letters in English.  And of course, Semitic languages are notorious for not writing vowels, leaving the meaning of the word up to the context within the document.

Means of Expression - as humans we share a common physical means of communicating.  We can all make sounds in the same ranges that we can hear and use our bodies to gesture to provide additional meaning or even communicate without any sound.
     However, not all fantasy races are bipedal humanoids with vocal chords and hearing that matches our human organs.  In Chivalry and Sorcery, the Saurians, including dragons are called out as having extremely difficult languages to learn because of their bodies.  In Runequest, the dragonnewt language requires a human tongue to be physically split in order to approximate it, and I recall that tailed priests (and presumably the Inhuman King) use voluntary body color changes as part of their communication.  In Empire of the Petal Throne, the Pe' Choi language includes making gestures with all four of their arms in normal speech.

Learning to Speak

For learning to speak a language, we have four possible combinations:  Same Language Family + Same Means of Expression; Different Language Family + Same Means of Expression; Same Language Family + Different Means of Expression; Different Language Family + Different Means of Expression.

Combination	Halting	Fluent	Native
Same Language Family + Same Means of Expression	1	3	5
Different Language Family + Same Means of Expression	3	5	8
Same Language Family + Different Means of Expression*	5	8	12
Different Language Family + Different Means of Expression	9	15	25

* I am not certain about this combination - if the Means of Expression are different, how can it belong to the same family?  The use case I finally decided on is for Creole or Pidgin languages - like a Pidgin Draconic, where the language is altered to be uttered by human vocal cords.  This would then be the cost a dragon would pay to learn it, whereas a human would use the cost for Different Language Family + Same Means of Expression.

Note: I'm using 'Halting' as a synonym for 'Minimal Fluency' from Saurians.

Learning to Read

Reading is then dependent on the Language Family and Alphabet.  The cost is for levels of Reading Comprehension.  Poor comprehension allows the reader to pick out individual words and common phrases, maybe work out some additional meanings by context.  Native Reading Comprehension allows the character to read common documents, menus newspapers, wanted posters, etc.  Academic allows the reader to understand the meaning of academic treatises and legal documents couched in unusual terminology or professional jargon.  Magick Reading Comprehension is required to understand the annotation systems commonly used by native speaking Magick Users to indicate pronunciation and associated gestures in that language.

Combination	Poor	Native	Academic	Magick
Same Language Family + Same Alphabet	1	3	5	6
Different Language Family +  Same Alphabet	3	5	8	12
Same Language Family + Different Alphabet	3	5	8	12
Different Language Family + Different Alphabet	5	8	12	15

All costs are cumulative, so if you spend 1 Language Point to learn to read poorly, in another level you can spend 2 more language points and learn to read like a Native.  The same holds for learning to Speak a Language.

Language Points

Saurians provides the following table for Learning Languages for d20 and 3d6 character generation systems.

Intelligence Score (d20)	Intelligence Score (3d6)	Language Points/Level	Ability to Read Well
1	3	1 spoken	none
2	4	1 spoken	none
3-4	5	1 spoken	none
5	6	1 spoken	none
6	7	1 spoken	none
7	8	1/L 1 written	40%
8	9	1/L 1 written	50%
9	10	1/L 1 written	55%
10	11	1/L 2 written	70%
11	12	1/L 3 written	85%
12	13	2/L 4 written	90%
13	14	3/L any written	90%
14	15	3/L any written	90%
15	16	4/L any written	95%
16	17	5/L any written	97%
17	18	6/L any written	98%
18		7/L any written	100%
19		8/L any written	100%
20		9/L any written	100%
21-22		10/L any written	100%
23-24		12/L any written	100%
25		15/L any written	100%

any written - The character can learn to read any number of languages.

Ability to Read Well - when reading a document, the character must roll this or less on a percentage roll to understand the document.  This assumes that the document is written at the same level as the character's reading comprehension for that language.  The DM should adjust as necessary when the levels are different.  For example, a character who reads at an Academic level should have no trouble reading a menu (although they may not be aware of what some of the dishes are); whereas a character with Poor Reading Comprehension may pick out a couple of words on a scroll written in that language (should he find one), but the inflection marks and gesture notations are just so many blots of ink to them. 

Good Reads

Saw these over lunch today and thought I'd link out and give a big Bravo Zulu to The Mad Adventurers Society.  They're postings on handling prejudice against gamers that you might run into out in what we laughingly call 'the real world'.  It's not something that I've run into much in the last couple of decades, of course I was out of gaming for awhile due to life and duty stations, and since I came back in I've been in a stable albeit infrequently meeting group for the last fourteen years.

I do remember the newspaper articles from the early 80's, may even have been the fall of '79 about D&D and devil worship.  When I was stationed out in Virginia Beach, I recall that the controversy was getting so much press that I wrote a letter to the editor myself debunking some of the BS that was being spewed.

So here's  Gaming In The Wild: Culture Shock about people's reaction to gaming based on their past as being addicted to or knowing some one who was addicted to gaming.

And here's The Mad Cleric: Dealing with Intolerance about dealing with people who's religous world view prejudices them against gaming, you know the D&D = Devil Worship crowd.

The recommendations they impart go beyond dealing with prejudice against gaming to general ways to deal with people who don't agree with you due to differing past experience or philosophical assumptions.

Of course I'm a crusty old salt, so my advice is always listen to people with respect for their beliefs and don't expect them to return the courtesy.  They'll appreciate you and you won't be disappointed that way.

Thoughts on Dwimmermount

Dwimmermount, the cautionary tale of this corner of the blogosphere.  I understand that an update has been posted on the Dwimmermount thread on th RPGsite.  I am not a disgruntled backer, so other than the human fascination with train wrecks, I don't have an interest in the situation.

Except, that James M's old Grognardia blog is one of the reasons I became involved blogging.  I always enjoyed his posts on old games and modules and I loved his game reports.  That's one of the reasons I post mine.  His blog was my gateway into the community.

With that in mind, I have to say I feel sorry for James, whatever he's doing now. Not only did he lose a family member as I recall; but he cut himself off from what had been an important part of his life.  The backers suffered a financial loss, albeit on a speculative investment; and we all lost a leader in this community.

Remember, you must be at least 10th level to throw a flamestrike in the comments.

If Lady Dwarves Look Like This

No wonder the male dwarves keep them hidden.  Go see what RPG Booster found on FaceBook.

Blogging from an Undisclosed Location

6:00 am watching and listening to the Pacific. This isn't a new post it's a ' neuva entrada'.  Google knows all.  Yes, I know about never saying you're out of town in social media, but my habitation is still occupied and with luck it will still be standing when I return. In the mean time, I'm reading Clark Ashton Smith and I'll be posting pieces inspired from his writings. The beastiary entries will not have stats as I left my references behind also writing html tables on a tablet is too much like work.

Creative Writing

  I've found over the last week and a half that I only have so much time and energy for creative writing.  In this case it's meant a brief hiatus in blogging as I worked on another project, to wit I was asked to fill in this coming Sunday while the pastor catches her breath before Lent.  So I've had to come up with a coherent 15-20 minutes of talking, an exercise somewhat more onerous than a two hundred word post. 

I deserved getting tapped for filling in as I had shot my mouth off to her about reading Augustine's complete works, she figured it would give me plenty of ideas.

The main reason I bring it up in this forum is that my talk ended up not being related to reading Augustine but was inspired by this post by Mike over at Really Bad Eggs.

Now to catch up on some emails and get the Sixth Expedition write up posted.  

A pirates life for me

Link courtesy of Really Bad Eggs

My pirate name is:

Iron Tom Kidd

A pirate's life isn't easy; it takes a tough person. That's okay with you, though, since you a tough person. Even though you're not always the traditional swaggering gallant, your steadiness and planning make you a fine, reliable pirate. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.
part of the fidius.org network

Of course, in what has passed for real life I would have been on the other side hunting them down.

Any club that will accept me as a member

Probably consists of people as crazy as I am.  I've been notified of Alesmiter's acceptance by the RPG Blog Alliance.  What can I say, it was an honor just to be [self] nominated.