Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > GURPS

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 02-16-2018, 10:46 AM   #21
sir_pudding
Wielder of Smart Pants
 
sir_pudding's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
Default Re: [DF] Why don't sea elves have Speak Underwater?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
Sure, because it's one of the many things swept under the rug in DF. That was part of my point.
Languages don't normally appear on racial templates at all. What language do all humans know?
sir_pudding is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-16-2018, 11:02 AM   #22
dataweaver
 
dataweaver's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Default Re: [DF] Why don't sea elves have Speak Underwater?

Humans? Humans are the Jacks of all Trades. Elves speak elvish, dwarfs speak dwarfish, orcs speak orcish, and so on. :p
__________________
Point balance is a myth.[1][2][3][4]
dataweaver is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-16-2018, 11:07 AM   #23
sir_pudding
Wielder of Smart Pants
 
sir_pudding's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
Default Re: [DF] Why don't sea elves have Speak Underwater?

Quote:
Originally Posted by dataweaver View Post
Humans? Humans are the Jacks of all Trades. Elves speak elvish, dwarfs speak dwarfish, orcs speak orcish, and so on. :p
In settings where that is true, innate language should probably go on the template, but that's not usually the case.
sir_pudding is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-16-2018, 11:08 AM   #24
Bruno
 
Bruno's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Canada
Default Re: [DF] Why don't sea elves have Speak Underwater?

Quote:
Originally Posted by dataweaver View Post
Humans? Humans are the Jacks of all Trades. Elves speak elvish, dwarfs speak dwarfish, orcs speak orcish, and so on. :p
That nonsense is why I don't have racial languages. My old campaign was set in Greece, and everyone spoke Greek, because civilized people speak Greek?
__________________
All about Size Modifier; Unified Hit Location Table
A Wiki for my F2F Group
A neglected GURPS blog
Bruno is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-16-2018, 11:32 AM   #25
AlexanderHowl
 
Join Date: Feb 2016
Default Re: [DF] Why don't sea elves have Speak Underwater?

Every sapient being starts with one spoken language and one written language (Blind characters receive Braille or take illiteracy while Deaf/Mute characters receive the appropriate Sign Language). The idea that each nonhuman race possesses only one native language is more than a little bit silly (especially since humans had nearly 7,000 languages at the beginning of the 21st century). It would probably be better to have every nonhuman race having multiple languages.

For example, the Iron Mountain Range dwarves would have Old Iron Mountain (their religious language), Middle Iron Mountain (their scholarly language), High Iron Mountain (the language of surface dwelling dwarves), and Low Iron Mountain (the language of underground dwelling dwarves). Each community of dwarves would have their own dialects within their language and the neighboring nondwarves would likely only learn High Iron Mountain because they would be unaware of the other languages.
AlexanderHowl is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-16-2018, 11:58 AM   #26
Kromm
GURPS Line Editor
 
Kromm's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
Default Re: [DF] Why don't sea elves have Speak Underwater?

In GURPS Dungeon Fantasy, the assumption is the same as in the Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game:
Most sapient (IQ 6+) beings understand a common language, imaginatively called "Common." Delvers can do so for free.
The kinds of dwarves, elves, ogres, and whatnot who walk into town, take quests, and party up with likeminded looters are assumed to be cosmopolitan types who speak Common.

You want to meet traditionalists who speak like they do in the Old Country? Go visit the Old Country. People there might even have a completely different racial template: "Yes, all dwarves here have crippling agoraphobia. Only the crazy ones without it ever leave the Iron Mountains!"

You want to play a traditionalist who understands the Old Ways? Ante up 1-6 points for an extra language. Good luck convincing the GM it's "fun" to have Dwarvish or Sea-Elf Sign Language instead of Common like everybody else. Having every game session derailed by sitcom misunderstandings is not fun for most gamers, and is the meta-game reason why Common is common.

Think of "town" as a modern-day metropolis. You don't expect your Jewish friend to speak Hebrew, your pal whose great grandparents left China in 1899 to speak Chinese, and that dude in IT to talk to you in machine code. There might be outliers who do – even people who can whistle to computers through modems – but that's noteworthy and unusual. If our metropolis is in, say, the U.S.A. or the U.K., we'd just assume everybody speaks English.

Same thing with Common, even if you're a sea elf or an IQ 6+ fungoid or color out of space.
__________________
Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch <kromm@sjgames.com>
GURPS Line Editor, Steve Jackson Games
My DreamWidth [Just GURPS News]
Kromm is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-16-2018, 01:07 PM   #27
evileeyore
Banned
 
evileeyore's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: 100 hurricane swamp
Default Re: [DF] Why don't sea elves have Speak Underwater?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kromm View Post
"Yes, all dwarves here have crippling agoraphobia. Only the crazy ones without it ever leave the Iron Mountains!"
I think you mean: "Yes all proper dwarves refuse to go above ground. It's only those crazy agoraphiles that that do so!"

Quote:
Think of "town" as a modern-day metropolis. You don't expect your Jewish friend to speak Hebrew, your pal whose great grandparents left China in 1899 to speak Chinese, and that dude in IT to talk to you in machine code. There might be outliers who do – even people who can whistle to computers through modems – but that's noteworthy and unusual. If our metropolis is in, say, the U.S.A. or the U.K., we'd just assume everybody speaks English.
I'm not sure what metropolises you're familiar with Kromm.... but I routinely meet people in Central Florida that cannot speak English*. And they were born and raised in the US.**



* And no I don't just mean "proper English". i mean they are Native Spanish speakers. Most however do at least have English to Broken, but I've run into more than enough that weren't. Self-inflicted ghettos are terrible.

** Noting that I routinely meet foreigners who barely speak English. Which is different (which can make for an interesting side quest - Sahudese Fire Drill anyone?). But then Florida is a tourist trap, with Orlando being the most baited.




That said however, I tend to agree with you that everyone in the group should have the lingua franca at at least Accented, or some means to get to that point.

In Gwythaint's Northport game none of my four characters have the Common Tongue above Accented, three cannot read it, and one of those three can't even speak it! (but magic covers that last deficiency)
evileeyore is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-16-2018, 01:43 PM   #28
Bruno
 
Bruno's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Canada
Default Re: [DF] Why don't sea elves have Speak Underwater?

I've played that one character that didn't actually share a language with everyone else - it happened a bit by accident almost 20 years ago, and we decided to roll with it. The first session was made rather more exciting by the communication problem, and we immediately fixed it before the second session.

I really don't recommend it unless your group is face to face and your players like to play Charades second hand, via Gesture rolls.
__________________
All about Size Modifier; Unified Hit Location Table
A Wiki for my F2F Group
A neglected GURPS blog
Bruno is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-16-2018, 01:53 PM   #29
AlexanderHowl
 
Join Date: Feb 2016
Default Re: [DF] Why don't sea elves have Speak Underwater?

In DF, you have to have a common language to avoid horrible consequences (thus the reference to Common). That being said, I think it would be hilarious to have the all of the signs in the dungeon written in Old Iron Mountain because the dungeon is an abandoned city once inhabited by the ancestors of the Iron Mountain Range Dwarfs before they were forced to abandon their home due to monsters. Would the party go back to town and hire the only dwarf in town who knows Old Iron Mountain? Will they attempt to go through the dungeon without knowing the dangers of the abandoned city?
AlexanderHowl is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-16-2018, 01:54 PM   #30
Kromm
GURPS Line Editor
 
Kromm's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
Default Re: [DF] Why don't sea elves have Speak Underwater?

Quote:
Originally Posted by evileeyore View Post

I'm not sure what metropolises you're familiar with Kromm.... but I routinely meet people in Central Florida that cannot speak English*. And they were born and raised in the US.
When I talk of English-speaking metropolises, I mean something like NYC, LA, Chicago, DFW, or Houston in the U.S.A.; or Toronto or Vancouver in Canada; or London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, or Liverpool in the U.K.; or Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, or Perth in Australia. If you walk around a place of that scale in the anglosphere, you can reasonably expect to function in English all day. Just as important, you can't reasonably assume that clothing style, religious symbols, skin color, and other visible features mark someone out as likely not to understand you. There are always exceptions, but DF pretty much assumes that "town" = "place where Common is the lingua franca regardless of how people might look." That is, DF is set in the commonsphere and its towns are melting pots.
__________________
Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch <kromm@sjgames.com>
GURPS Line Editor, Steve Jackson Games
My DreamWidth [Just GURPS News]
Kromm is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 03:53 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.