Tuesday, January 17, 2017

Starting Language Skills in DragonQuest

DragonQuest incorporated languages better than many of the other RPGs around at the time of its release and it still compares favorably to those that came along later.  Though brief at 2/3 of a page, the rules section on spoken and written language still manages cover in sufficient detail what it means to have Ranks 0 thru 10 in a language, touches on dialectic differences, mentions changes to language over long periods of time and which creatures would be expected to have their own language.  Many of the other Skills available have minimum language skill requirements including Thief and Spy.  The rules also detail what language skills a player character starts with.  For humans and shape-changers, they start with Rank 8 in both Speak and Read/Write Common.  For non-humans they start with Rank 8 in Speaking in their native language and Rank 8 in Speak Common.  To me this is where the rules are a bit unfair to humans as well as a bit too restrictive and boring.
I say unfair as the rules state that if you already speak a language, then learning to read and write in that language only costs half as much [49.2].  This means that the starting human PC has 11,575 experience points worth of language skills.  That's 7400 ep for Speak and 4175 for Read/Write.  Non-humans however get two spoken language skills at R8 which would be 2 x 7400 ep or 14,800 ep worth of language skills.  No discounts.  The non-humans start with 3225 more ep right off the bat.  Even more when you account for the racial ep multiplier.   Just another slap in the face to the player whose luck failed him when rolling for a different race.  This also means that non-humans start out with no written language skills which just seems weird for some of the long-lived races.
There are a couple ways to address this clearly egregious situation.  The first method is to give the human character that additional 3225 ep worth of language skills.  The second is to change non-humans to starting out with Speak at Rank 8 in their native language and but only 4175 ep worth of additional language skills.

Humans Get Additional 3225 EP in Language Skills

With that extra EP human characters could start out with one of the following options in addition to their Rank 8 in Speak and Read/Write Common.
  • Speak language @ R5, Speak language @ R3, R/W language @ R3
  • Speak language @ R5, Speak language @ R3, Speak language @ R2
  • Speak 3 languages @ R4, R3, R2; R/W 2 language @ R3
  • Speak 3 languages @ R4, R3, R2; R/W 3 languages @ R3, R2, R1
  • Speak 2 languages @ R4, Speak 1 language @ R3
  • Speak 3 languages @ R3, R/W 2 languages @ R3, R/W 1 language @ R2
  • Speak 3 languages @ R3, R/W 2 languages @ R3, Speak 1 language @ R1
  • Speak 4 languages @ R3, R/W 1 language @ R3
Not all of these use all 3225 EP as not all combinations will combine to that exact value.  Some leave a few EP on the table but I would just write that off as lost.
All R/W language skills would be for one of the other chosen languages which is at the same or greater Rank.

Non-humans Drop Back to 11,575 EP in Language Skills

This means that instead of Speak Common at Rank 8, they instead get 4175 EP worth of language skills to go with their Speak native language at Rank 8.  Adventuring characters are assumed to Speak at least some Common and the best you can do with 4175 EP is Rank 6.
  • Speak Common @ R6, Speak 1 language @ R3
  • Speak Common and 2 languages @ R4, Speak 1 language @ R2
  • Speak Common and 2 languages @ R4, R/W Native @ R3
  • Speak Common and 4 languages @ R3, R/W Native @ R3, R/W 1 language @ R2
  • Speak Common @ R4, R/W Native @ R4, R/W Common @ R4, Speak 3 languages @ R3, R2, R1
  • Speak Common @ R4, R/W Native @ R4, R/W Common @ R4, Speak 5 languages @ R1
  • Speak Common @ R6, R/W Native @ R3, R/W Common @ R2
  • Speak Common @ R5, Speak language @ R2, R/W Native @ R5, R/W Common @ R3
The same comments given under Humans apply here.

Eeeny Meeny Miny Moe

As non-humans already get a lot of benefits – with very few negatives – the second option doesn't feel quite right to me even though it does give non-humans some written language skills.  For me, bringing the human player characters up in their skills seems the more equitable choice.
For a simpler solution, humans could just start out speaking one additional language at Rank 6 which would be very close to the 3225 EP after adjusting for racial multipliers.

2 comments:

  1. Another change to language might be something along the lines of a difficulty modifier. For example non-humans might find it far more difficult to learn a human language and vice versa. Now since there would be more human than non-human societies then non-humans are going to have to pay more experience points in general to learn a language.

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    1. Technically non-humans already find it more difficult to learn languages as they have a racial EP modifier that increases all EP costs by 10% to 100% depending on race and 2nd ed or 3rd ed rules.

      Would there be more human than non-human societies? Certainly that is the assumption in most RPG settings but why would the Elves and Dwarves not have spread out over broad geographic areas just like our human ancestors? Did they just pop up as fully formed homogeneous societies? Possible fodder for a future blog post.

      Thanks for the comment!

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