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Old 02-11-2020, 12:21 PM   #21
Skarg
 
Join Date: May 2015
Default Re: Eliminate Humanish

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Originally Posted by hcobb View Post
Isn't that exactly the same as Thieves’ Argot?
No, they seem quite different to me in several ways.

How much Latin do you suppose the average church-goer picks up?


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Originally Posted by TippetsTX View Post
I ruled that Streetwise only provides casual familiarity with Thieves’ Argot in my game. Only members of the Thieves' Guild (aka. the Longfinger's Guild) are fluent in the language.
This makes sense to me, and a good example of the "knows some" level I was talking about above.
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Old 02-12-2020, 07:34 PM   #22
malloyd
 
Join Date: Jun 2006
Default Re: Eliminate Humanish

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Originally Posted by FireHorse View Post
Yes, you are remembering correctly. Evidently the local community colleges offered nine different Alignment Language courses, and admission was open to all sentient creatures — all they had to do was present their official, un-forgeable Alignment _X_ Membership Card, to make sure they weren't cheating by learning one of the other eight.
Now nothing says alignment languages are [learned]. Maybe they are granted directly by the gods of that alignment. Though I can't say that makes them much better in some cases. "Congratulations on joining the Church of Chaotic Evil. Hold still a moment while our Dark Masters warp your mind to instill the common language that will to enable you to cooperate better with your co-aligned compatriots - because of course cooperation with your fellows is a big part of the Chaotic Evil philosophy."
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Old 02-12-2020, 08:29 PM   #23
FireHorse
 
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Default Re: Eliminate Humanish

Gods? Don't be silly. Obviously those languages are loaded directly into people's brains with Micromagic SD cards, using the jacks behind their ears. And when someone changes alignment, they just trade in the old language for the new one at the local Instalign store.

Or the Gods thing, whichever. Both those theories are more plausible than the suggestion that every sentient creature in the world participates in a big game of Secret Decoder Ring Wars.
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Old 02-20-2020, 09:48 AM   #24
David Bofinger
 
Join Date: Jan 2018
Location: Sydney, Australia
Default Re: Eliminate Humanish

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Originally Posted by malloyd View Post
In their slight defense, the concept might be based on liturgical languages.
More likely based on the Black Speech, a language Sauron taught his troops so they could all use it as a lingua franca. Which might have been inspired by the way the Achmaenids used Aramaic as a lingua franca. Maybe.
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Old 02-20-2020, 10:24 AM   #25
David Bofinger
 
Join Date: Jan 2018
Location: Sydney, Australia
Default Re: Eliminate Humanish

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Originally Posted by TippetsTX View Post
On Cidri, assuming you accept some default assumptions of its 'creation', a wide variety of human languages makes sense since it is implied that the Mnoren transplanted mankind from various nationalities and cultures in Earth's pre-industrial history.
Not just one Earth, many parallel Earths, probably not including ours unless the setting of TFT is far in our future. And not just humans but also orcs for sure and presumably elves, dwarves, etc. So it would make just as much sense for other races to speak a variety of languages as it would for humans. Though the Mnoren do seem to have liked humans, probably because the Mnoren were humans.

If there's a single language, which everyone speaks, it's probably the native tongue of Jen Mnoren, or some other language the Mnoren taught everyone in their empire.
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Old 02-20-2020, 12:01 PM   #26
larsdangly
 
Join Date: Dec 2017
Default Re: Eliminate Humanish

My Cidri includes a lot of specific 'grace notes' from earths' history, including languages and religions. In this sense it is a bit like the old 3E GURPS Fantasy default setting.
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Old 02-28-2020, 12:28 PM   #27
Axly Suregrip
 
Join Date: Jun 2018
Location: Durham, NC
Default Re: Eliminate Humanish

I too felt like the 1 IQ point per language is steep when considering how those who grow up exposed to languages tend to know several. And knowing well enough to get by in common situations vs being fluent is a big difference. The former being good enough for those adventuring together or traveling about.

What about this:

Whenever a new character is create (player or npc) roll 1 to 6 to see how many languages he knows to start with. Free that is. Or 1 to 3 if you want it more controlled
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Old 02-28-2020, 01:27 PM   #28
larsdangly
 
Join Date: Dec 2017
Default Re: Eliminate Humanish

If this is something that is important to the way you run your campaign, I would recommend putting in the elbow grease to simply define which languages are automatically known by people of various backgrounds, and engineer it so that it makes sense to you. An average educated person from modern Europe will certainly be functional in 2 and in some countries 3. An average educated person in the US probably knows only 1, perhaps in some locations they would be assumed to be fluent in a second. If you are from Canada you know french and english, or english and a little french. But then I would keep in place the 500 XP cost of additional languages, as that is a serious investment in time to master.
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Old 02-29-2020, 01:54 PM   #29
Helborn
 
Join Date: Aug 2005
Default Re: Eliminate Humanish

For simplicity's sake I use "Common", which everyone knows at no cost, to communicate among a group. This is in addition to their own language.

I base it on the same principle as pilots today who have to know a smattering of English to communicate with towers. Common is a trade and mercenary argot. It allows basic communication but not reading or writing (even with Literacy). Literacy is useless for common because it has no written form. You're not going to discuss the philosophy of war in Common, but you might be able to discuss (in a simple manner) the relative merits of camels vs oxen or katana vs. broadsword. Realistically, "Common" should differ in different areas of Cidri, but this is a game, so it doesn't.

This eliminates the requirements as set forth in ITL RAW and in Tollenkar's Lair, but it simplifies dealing with early characters of different backgrounds. EVERYONE knows Common, in one form or another. It also means that a spy, or even experienced adventurer, is going to want to know a number of languages because characters from similar/identical backgrounds will speak their Native language to each other rather than Common.
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Old 02-29-2020, 05:53 PM   #30
Skarg
 
Join Date: May 2015
Default Re: Eliminate Humanish

Having Human be that common language in a campaign, is one way to have there be a natural consequence of choosing a non-human PC (i.e. it'll be inconvenient unless they learn Human), which helps offset that most non-Human races have some practical ability advantages over humans.


Another idea for retaining the opportunity cost at PC creation, without having an illogical negative effect that people who speak multiple languages have "less room in their brains to learn talents", is to only apply the cost during creation, but not have it occupy a "memory point" after creation. This only works if allowing PCs to learn talents through study with no XP after creation ala original ITL (but this is seeming to me like just about the only reasonable thing to do, anyway, so I figure it may be worth mentioning).
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