Language House Rules

[Richard_Chilton]

Long story short; translators lie, mess up, don't know the language that well, or are for some other reason unreliable.

They can also smooth things over...

There's some old Doonesbury cartoons where someone (Duke) is an ambassador and his translator is speaking for him.  You read the stuff Duke is saying, and the translator is saying: "He is bragging about the US Economy." "It seems that he is beginning to tell a joke.   Yes, and it is a very offense joke.  He has reached the punchline and will expect everyone to laugh" - and the entire audience laughs.

If language difficulties are important to your game then I can see translations like that happening.

I can see language being important when dealing with a close-nit community or if travelling, but today most places have someone who can speak a little English.  As long as you cover the imperial tongues (the English, French, and Spanish languages spread because of their empires) you should usually be able to find some level of communication.

Richard

[toturi]

I'd allow a character to know other languages without higher Scholarship if he has an appropriate Aspect to know those languages.

[Drachasor]

I'd allow a character to know other languages without higher Scholarship if he has an appropriate Aspect to know those languages.

What?  You don't think complicated rules for an aspect of the game that hardly ever matters is the way to go!?


More seriously, that's an interesting idea, as was the idea someone had about a Fate Point per language you had an aspect related to.  Invoke for Effect might work well here.

[Tbora]

For a supernatural I'd go with a Gift of Tongues aspects with which for a fate point you could invoke for effect to speak any language for a scene regardless of scholarship. this seems the best way to represent it for creatures like Mab and Lea.

[Drachasor]

For a supernatural I'd go with a Gift of Tongues aspects with which for a fate point you could invoke for effect to speak any language for a scene regardless of scholarship. this seems the best way to represent it for creatures like Mab and Lea.

With Fae I think a straight Supernatural minor abilities, 0 cost, that lets you speak any (human?) language.  Or perhaps just lets you speak in the language of anyone you are conversing with.

[Blackblade]

How about changing the linguist stunt to something like:

Linguist
You know a lot of languages.  If it ever becomes important to know a language, as long as you can justify knowing it, you can spend a fate point to have knowledge of that language.

Keeping track of what languages you've already spent fate points to know is left as an exercise for the player.  And no, you can't spend your fate points just before your refresh rolls around to 'stock up' on known languages; you have to spend the fate point when the language shows up.

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And it's brother:

Street-lingual
It's been joked that almost everyone on earth speaks 'American Dollar' and you know that language very well.  You can make yourself understood in any language well enough to transact simple commercial exchanges.

I like this idea.

[newtinmpls]

"Dakota and Lakota are different. Don't forget the Nakota either.  Souix definitely isn't a language, it is the perjorative name for a branch of the Lakota."

The Lakota woman I studied with called herself "lakota" and also called herself "souix"; So I'll call folks whatever they say they want to be called. The Anishinabe woman I studied with called herself Anishinabe, really disliked "Cherokee" so I didn't use it.

All that being said, I do like interesting justifications for weird languages in campaigns.