02-10-2020, 06:25 AM | #1 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Pacheco, California
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Eliminate Humanish
The other humanoids call this the Human's "Curse of Babel". While Orcish is the same everywhere (Praise Rhakk!), there's a dozen different human languages to learn. French isn't humanity's "Lingua franca", instead you need to learn Latin, and Chinese, and Hindustani, and Spanish, and Malay and Rhakk knows what else just to communicate with a random human.
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02-10-2020, 07:51 AM | #2 |
Join Date: Sep 2018
Location: North Texas
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Re: Eliminate Humanish
There has to be a balance... languages add depth to the campaign world, but they shouldn't become a barrier to playability or unreasonably frustrate the narrative flow of the game.
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.
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“No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife between the shoulder blades will seriously cramp his style.” -Vladimir Taltos |
02-10-2020, 08:46 AM | #3 | |
Join Date: Oct 2015
Location: New England
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Re: Eliminate Humanish
Quote:
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02-10-2020, 11:25 AM | #4 | |
Join Date: May 2015
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Re: Eliminate Humanish
This is not a house rule, except the part where you say non-human languages wouldn't have different versions.
Quote:
Language barriers can lead to some interesting situations if players and the GM are up to playing them out. Some GMs though are not up to (or not interested in, or just don't feel like) playing them out. Last edited by Skarg; 02-10-2020 at 11:29 AM. |
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02-10-2020, 12:00 PM | #6 |
Join Date: Apr 2018
Location: Idaho Falls
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Re: Eliminate Humanish
In my settings, everyone speaks the same language.
It's the dialects that will get you killed. |
02-10-2020, 01:33 PM | #7 |
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Dayton, Ohio
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Re: Eliminate Humanish
It's not really random, though. The available language(s) will be dictated by the territory, and that's not random.
If you choose a human at random off the entire planet of Earth, sure, you might get almost any language. (Although Chinese has a better chance than most as the random person's first language, and English a very high probability of being their second language, if they have one.) In Southern Elyntia though, there may very well be only one human language, because the place just ain't all that big. (Only about half the size of England, really.) In the 'active map' area of my own world (which is quite a bit larger than the Southern Elyntia map), there are four human kingdoms, each with its own language — and there is a fifth (from an 'off-map' origin) that is frequently used by sailors and merchants as a trade language. And yes, I too used the Babel Curse thing to explain why only humans have multiple languages. |
02-10-2020, 02:25 PM | #9 | |
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Dayton, Ohio
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Re: Eliminate Humanish
Quote:
To avoid that, I used a European model:
Last edited by FireHorse; 02-10-2020 at 02:30 PM. |
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02-10-2020, 03:11 PM | #10 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Pacheco, California
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Re: Eliminate Humanish
Example of cross-language understanding from a guy you'll are following anyway, right?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2T5edAGu1s
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