Languages

[Dalvyn]

"I could see where a person would not GM every single weapon skill, class skill etc, but they could still learn to DO those things, to varying degree's of ability." The same holds true for languages: you can learn several languages and, while I can accept that it is impossible to master all of them, you can still understand those who speak one of those languages and make them understand you.

I have a friend who is a diplomat and knows a dozen or so languages. He does most likely not master all of those languages, but he can still use them well enough. He revises the languages he is going to need for his missions and concentrate on those while he needs them. When he is given another task, involving another language, he then concentrates on that other language, and so on. This shows that this is possible, for a normal human, to learn and speak - not GM, but still use - at least 10 languages. And last time I checked this friend of mine was not able to cast spells and did not have an 18 Int.

As for the interpretation of GM, you misquoted me. I interpret GM as "nobody is better than you", not as "you are better than anybody else". That interpretation does not mean that there can be only one GM: there can be 2 or more GM, who are equally skillful, and nobody is better than each of them.

Anyway, it's like beating a dead horse. It seems that I'm the only one who thinks that limiting the languages but not the other skills does not make any sense (while it really seems obvious to me that it does not), so I'll just try to shut up on that topic from now on.

[Micheal]

First off

Dalvyn, Talos, your back and forth tit for tating only makes me think you would have successful careers in the army as Staff Officers.

Secondly (You want realism)

I knew a guy that spoke 8 languages proficiently. He picked up Itailian in 8 months. He was a language genius and I don't know anyone to pick up secondary languages like that. I max out at 4 at an elementary level and I am what standardize testing would dictate as above the bar in intelligence.

Micheal on the other hand can walk into a shop and walk out with a new helm and a journeyman level of dwarvish in 15 minutes.

Solution? Half the languages learnable, make all mobs only teach languages to novice.

Thirdly (GM skills)

I worked in kitchens for 6 years (maybe more) does that make me a GM in cook? What does that mean in the game? In table top you get those kind of things just as a flavor addition. In the MUD, you do it just so when you are repeatly killing things in Hartsvale, you don't have to stop for anything.

What do I mean? GM in cook, dig, .... other skills really don't equate to much in the MUD. While weapon skills and fighting feats are where it is at. you can always say, "Micheal is a master cook" and rp it out, but when it comes to combat you better have the skills to back up your words. If you just try to RP some clever and new combat manuever the other guy will just, "Um... I avoid that."

Solution? I would just leave skills as they are until we want to change the whole way we handle skills and combat completely to a new system and is nothing like the system we have.

As for people that want to GM 18 combat skills, more power to them. This is how I see that conversation occuring.

some guy OOC, "Dude, I just GM rope weapons and 5th attack."
some other guy OOC, "Rock on, Dude, you are awesome."
A silver haired elf walks into the room.
A silver haired elf says, "Good evening gentlemen."
(several minutes)
A silver haired elf leaves.
some guy OOC, "Dude that was weird, she removed the OOC from what she said."
some other guy OOC, "Well, dude I still need to GM bash and spellcraft, time to go kill feebov 18 times."

[Raona]

As a relatively intellectually challenged warrior with an insatiable curiousity, I have been frustrated by the max languages limit, but perhaps rightly so. (IC, that's exactly how it should feel to not be bright enough to do what you wish to, eh?)

However, there is an aspect of the language limit that does frustrate me OOC, and that's the inability to forget a language. I share my character's difficulty with languages, but have certainly been able to forget some and learn others in their stead.

Perhaps, if the code were not too onerous, the impact of Intelligence could be changed to reflect how quickly one "forgets" a language. There would be no cap on the number of languages one could learn, but if not used, one would forget them, ever more quickly as one is less intelligent. Perhaps the difficulty of learning a new language could also increase with age, but with a concomitant slowing in the loss of known languages. I believe this would more realistically reflect the actual relationship between intelligence and language.

[Rhiel]

Why do I seem to have a knack for languages? I can't explain it. Math baffles me. I can't get my head around the code side of building to save my life... but drop me in a foreign country and I'll quickly be able to ask for a glass of water and find the bathroom!

Agreed. I myself am a student of Modern Language in university. I speak English (native), Spanish (Fluent), German (2nd native), Italian (academic), Portuguese (Fluent), Latin (academic), and Hebrew (academic). The reason I was able to study and become proficient in different languages is due to the fact that they are all related somehow to a language I already knew. I started with Latin, and the rest of the Romance languages just kind of fell into place. And I, like Andreas, have no capacity whatsoever for numbers. This tells me that certain people are more predisposed to varying "right brain/left brain" functions.

So it is in D&D. Perhaps certain "related languages" could be grouped together by language family, and then divvied out according to race/class? (i.e. languages w/ common scripts, or newer versions of older languages.) A prime example would be the drow dialect and elven. Both share common grammatical themes, with a surprising number of similar vocabularies. The verb construction, and sentence structure is almost identical. So perhaps if one were to attain fluency in one language (drow), one would by default be at least partially capable in another similar language (elven).

Just the two cents' worth from a language buff

[Caius]

I've seen some languages use the same written alphabet. I think orcish uses the dwarven alphabet.

[Keltorn]

Yes, Orcish uses the same alphabet as Dwarven, along with Giant, Gnome, Goblin, and Terran. In fact, many languages borrow alphabets from other languages.