Help with Literacy

[decker423]

I've been scouring the rules for literacy and such and am coming up blank. Does anyone know of or have house rules concerning literacy or illiteracy?
Reading the various books it seems that some languages have their own written style (Acheronian & Stygian with its scribes) while some (Pictish) may not have any codex or systematic symbol of writing.

The reason I"m asking this is that I have a Nordheimer barbarian in my group (which is fine). I also have a scholar (fine too). It would seem that the scholar is literate and SHOULD have literacy in other languages (how does one go about achieving that?) wheras the barbarian isn't literate and SHOULDN'T be literate in other languages.

How can I determine or what can I do to have skill points reflect time and energy in learning to read a write a language (not just "learn to speak it" as the game most commonly applies)?

Also, in order to properly use decipher script (in the terms of understanding the script itself versus cleaning it up and writing it down on paper for someone else to crack), wouldn't one really need to know the language of that script? For example, a scholar finds some ancient Atlantean script on an old stone cairn. He has read script so he can clean it up, mark it down, draw pictures, etc. but how can he actually understand the meaning without knowledge of the language itself?

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

[Demetrio]

In the first case I'd just let players decide and save a lot of bother. I'd tend to expect civilised types to be literate, barbarians illiterate so a reasonable explanation from the player would be required if they wanted a literate pict or illiterate Aquilonian.

But I don't bother too much about the language rules either, just let players pick them up as seems reasonable.

On Decipher Script, I'd say it reflects an ability to crack codes and draws on knowledge of other languages. Let's say you stumble across an inscription in Ancient Greek. The alphabet is the first hurdle. But so long as the inscription is a decent length, many letters could be puzzled out by someone well versed in cryptology. Having cracked that, the language would be harder. But maybe the decoder knows related modern languages and can apply that and a little eductaed guesswork.

Now fair enough in real life you'd need lots of inscription for the guy to have any chance at all. But this is Sword and Sorcery. the scholar draws on his knowledge of obscure texts, snippets of lost lore and all sorts of stuff. So he works out the meaning without necessarily learning the language in the process.

A (rather feeble) example.

Caesar sum non rex.

We can guess that rex might mean king, because it still has that link in modern day. Non is very similar to the French for not. So let's guess the second half is 'not king'. Half way there. Caesar was a name for Roman emperors, as our history tells us. So maybe it means Emperor ___ not king. Several possibliities for the missing word. The most obvious being perhaps 'me' or 'I am'. So 'I am an emperor, not a king.'

hey ho, hoorah!

except that's a near miss. In fact had my (assumed) history roll been better I'd have recalled that Caesar was also the name of then founder of the first Roman Imperial dynasty.

And in fact it means 'I am Caesar, not a King.' (or words to that effect).

 

[decker423]

I guess I have 2 main concerns:

1. Should a barbarian pay "extra" skill points to justify becoming literate in a language (if he/she wants to)?

2. What about ancient languages (Acheronian, Old Stygian, Valusian, Atlantean, etc.)? Many may know that there are older, lost races, kingdoms, etc. Not everyone may know the symbolism of the language (take Acheronian- how many of its cities and stones were pulled down for new construction?). Some base knowledge of that would be required.

I agree with contributions from Arcana (knowledge). That would help but studying Arcana and studying a language are 2 different things.

Not trying to argue, just trying to get a better handle on the topic at hand.

 

[Demetrio]

I don't think an illiterate charatcer should have to spend skill pts to become literate, no.

not everyone may know the symbolism of the language

Certainly. Which is why Decipher Script is required. Otherwise Decipher Script becomes a much poorer skill. Sometimes realism needs to be sacrificed for gameplay. And knowledge of the written Mayan language, for instance was lost in the C16 or C17. Modern scholars cracked it.

 

[Clovenhoof]

Basically, we can derive from the rules that most characters, including most Barbarians, start the game as literate by default.
Why? Look at the racial descriptions. Only very few races, like iirc the Picts and maybe also Kushites or somesuch have an entry in their description that they start the game illiterate unless they spend 2 skill points to learn to read and write.
All other races, including Cimmerians for instance, do not have this entry and thus, logically, are literate (unless the player chooses otherwise).
Also, by the rules, once you are literate you can automatically read and write _all_ languages you know, in addition to speaking and understanding it.

So the rules are actually pretty clear about your dilemma. You may not find that overly realistic, but they're not meant to be. They're meant to keep bookkeeping simple and not bog down gameplay.

 

[Magister_Ordo_Lyrae]

I am afraid I would have disagree I think many of the more "barbaric" races may have a simple runic script (Ogham for the Cimmerians, Nordic runes for the Nordheimr) that are really more symbolic or religious than they are an actual written language. I also think illiteracy provides for some excellent roleplaying opportunities. I think the Noble, Scholar, Temptress, and maybe Thief, Soldier, Pirate, Borderer and commoner (not really a PC class I know) (depending on the race, region and circumstance of these classes) should be considered literate. Nomads and Barbarians should generally be considered illiterate (although I would give it to nomads before barbarians). Most people not of an upper class in medieval society were illiterate. Most signs for merchants had some form of symbolism that indicated what they were for their illiterate customers (wine merchants and taverns had a stake with a grape vine on it for instance outside of their shop). I am personally of the opinion Illiteracy should be more common for the reasons listed above. Also characters should be able to to "purchase" literacy for 2 skill points.

 

[Apple]

All other races, including Cimmerians for instance, do not have this entry and thus, logically, are literate (unless the player chooses otherwise).
Also, by the rules, once you are literate you can automatically read and write _all_ languages you know, in addition to speaking and understanding it.

Can you quote that? I had this question too and I couldn't find where it said you were literate in the languages you'd picked up. Considering you pick up a language every odd level you could literally be learning a language a week, which is much faster than it suggests is required to learn a language. On top of that often the characters will not come in contact with anything written at all during their adventure. Being on a ship for instance, it's reasonable to say you can pick up some languages from the crew, but the written form?

 

[Ichabod]

It's not a matter of quoting since I don't think the book is explicit on everything. It's an inference made based on the fact that three race entries have rules for illiteracy and those rules don't address being literate in only some languages.

Our GM has made it so that someone starting out as a barbarian is illiterate for flavor reasons. It has mattered.

If you are going to have a house rule to take something away, then there should be some compensation, like +2 skill ranks.

 

[rabindranath72]

Clovenhoof has it right. All characters are supposed to be literate since Kushites and Picts are defined as illiterate by default, unless they spend 2 skill points to learn to read and write. Actually, this rule is taken from the Barbarian class in d20 D&D. Also, the Speak Language skill in the d20 SRD specifies that literate characters can read and write any languages they can speak.
Probably it should have been specified, but it can be deducted from the above racial entries anyway.

 

[rabindranath72]

I am afraid I would have disagree I think many of the more "barbaric" races may have a simple runic script (Ogham for the Cimmerians, Nordic runes for the Nordheimr) that are really more symbolic or religious than they are an actual written language. I also think illiteracy provides for some excellent roleplaying opportunities. I think the Noble, Scholar, Temptress, and maybe Thief, Soldier, Pirate, Borderer and commoner (not really a PC class I know) (depending on the race, region and circumstance of these classes) should be considered literate. Nomads and Barbarians should generally be considered illiterate (although I would give it to nomads before barbarians). Most people not of an upper class in medieval society were illiterate. Most signs for merchants had some form of symbolism that indicated what they were for their illiterate customers (wine merchants and taverns had a stake with a grape vine on it for instance outside of their shop). I am personally of the opinion Illiteracy should be more common for the reasons listed above. Also characters should be able to to "purchase" literacy for 2 skill points.

The game is not about real medieval society (and in fact, the Hyborian Age is not literally medieval), so any reference to "real" facts can be contested.
Conan is a Barbarian, and he is described as being capable of reading and writing in more than one occasion, and to be capable of speaking more than one language (and even of understanding magical symbols!)
Another explanation which might be given is that most of the languages of the Hyborian Age are quite similar to one another, so learning them is akin to learning a dialect.
I do not think it makes for very heroic games worrying about these details, that's the reason why the rules about multiple languages were devised (and in fact, IIRC, it was uniformly agreed during playtest that it was a very good idea).

 

[Demetrio]

Yeah the Hyborian age has as many ancient elements as medieval and many pre-medieval societies (eg Rome, Greece) had high rates of literacy.

I think unless the GM needs a language to be unknown for plot reasons, players should be able to have their characters pick them up very easily. We never see Conan conjugating Nemedian verbs...

 

[Hervé]

In my campaign most everyone is illiterate by default. Literacy is justified by background in our games.

 

[Clovenhoof]

In my campaign ...

In my previous games I had worked out that there was one common, ideographic script used by most languages - sort of like Chinese. The languages don't just share a common "alphabet", but all (or most) symbols are the same in all (or most) languages. So a text written by a Nemedian could be read without problems by, say, a Shemite even though they could not talk to each other.

It was an interesting twist, but I admit we sometimes kept forgetting about it, so for the new game we dropped it.

 

[kintire]

Most people not of an upper class in medieval society were illiterate

"Medieval"? That depends. In 1000AD this was probably true, but by 1200AD the ability to read was widespread, and written texts and fiction were widely availiable. The ability to write was much rarer. The two didn't go automatically together until later.

All of which is much to complicated to bother modelling in Conan...

 

[Hervé]

I don't use any "fixed" rules for languages, but I tend to split them in broad categories, mostly based on culture and geography.
For instance I ruled that all hyborian kingdoms share a common language root, so it's much easier for an Aquilonian to speak with a Nemedian than with a Stygian (who would want to talk with them anyway?:wink. The same goes for the written form.
On the other hand, Kothians, although of hyborian stock, have been heavily influenced by the southern cultures over the centuries and thus would probably be more at ease with shemite than the average hyborian.

 

[decker423]

Clovenhoof has it right. All characters are supposed to be literate since Kushites and Picts are defined as illiterate by default, unless they spend 2 skill points to learn to read and write. Actually, this rule is taken from the Barbarian class in d20 D&D. Also, the Speak Language skill in the d20 SRD specifies that literate characters can read and write any languages they can speak.
Probably it should have been specified, but it can be deducted from the above racial entries anyway.

I was looking for that part and I agree with it, for simplicity's sake in running a game and having fun as a GM/Player. That's what I was looking for for the 1st half of my question.


Now, I do think that the rules covering learning new languages (length of time, etc.) are really for "contemporary" languages, that is- languages being spoken TODAY (In the Conan world)- Aquilonian, Cimmerian, Shemite, etc.


For languages that aren't contemporary, like Acheronian, Old Stygian, perhaps shards of Valusian, etc. then the PC could still learn the language but would DEFINITELY have to find someone who 1) knows it and 2) is willing to teach it. That in and of itself should be an adventure.

Learning "lost" or "old" languages would resemble going to today's college and taking courses and practicing with one's tutor/teacher. You would have to work for something from the "old world".

My two cents.

 

[Apple]

It's not a matter of quoting since I don't think the book is explicit on everything. It's an inference made based on the fact that three race entries have rules for illiteracy and those rules don't address being literate in only some languages.

I've seen NPCs stated that have had "literate" in brackets beside some of their languages and not others, which to me implies that only your starting languages are literate and later languages aren't. I haven't seen rules for that though.

 

[Ichabod]

It's not a matter of quoting since I don't think the book is explicit on everything. It's an inference made based on the fact that three race entries have rules for illiteracy and those rules don't address being literate in only some languages.

I've seen NPCs stated that have had "literate" in brackets beside some of their languages and not others, which to me implies that only your starting languages are literate and later languages aren't. I haven't seen rules for that though.

Which book?

Then, there's the commoner class. As I couldn't care less about the class, I had forgotten that commoners are illiterate unless they spend 2 skill ranks. Given that the merchant in the back of 2e is not illiterate, it's possible the character spent 2 ranks on being literate, started as a scholar, or got literacy from taking a level in scholar. Whichever is unimportant to me but may be of interest to someone who thinks this subject is interesting enough to dwell upon.

 

[Apple]

Which book?

Trial of Blood. The older books I don't even see languages listed for NPCs. ToB has a much better NPC writeup.

 

[Magister_Ordo_Lyrae]

While I agree I should not make broad generaliations about medieval literacy. It varied significantly both on chronology and geopgraphy (even in ancient cultures it varied based on geography, chronology and class). In the early middle ages during the reign of Charlemagne there was significant spike in literacy as he provided money for schools. It then began to decline after his death. It then began to increase again when urbanization of Europe began at the end of the high middle ages and beginning of the late middle ages around the early and middle part of the 13th century. Even during the 12th century Richard I of England (and presumably much of the aristocracy) were literate as Richard owned a copy of Vegetius' De Re Militarii. Once again I think the noble and scholar classes should automatically be literate. Others should be judged on a case by case basis, but at most it should only cost 2 skill points to gain literacy.

While the Thurian continent is not an exact analog for any particular era of medieval Europe or any other part of the world I would say that generally characters from more advanced civilizations and urban backgrounds would most likely be literate. Those characters from more "barabaric" races and more rural backgrounds would most likely be illiterate. I think these details actual provide good roleplaying opportunities and I think it can be fun to provide details of how merchants and others display themselves for illiterate characters. I also think that for barbarian cultures such as the Cimmerians and Nordneimr it would make sense for them to understand magical symbols and runes as their written languages are primarily symbolic. Like I said the Cimmerians according to the book are pseudo Irish so Ogham seems perhaps somewhat appropriate for them. The Nordheimr being pseudo norse, runes seem appropriate for them. These are mostly symbolic written languages and weren't used extensively to write records, which is why we have very few written records from those cultures prior to their conversion to Christianity (the Mabinogion and Beowulf being written most likely by monastic scholars).