Languages... specifically unsupported ones.

[WhiskeyGuy]

How are these to be handled? Are we allowed to rp knowing a language that is unsupported?

What about Common? I thought everyone had it at creation.

Back to unsupported languages again... if a character is trying to use one, and creating [gibberish here] types of emotes... how do I, as a player, deal with this ICly?

I ask due to it occurring yesterday. Essentially, we got nowhere, none of us had enough lore to figure it out, and the character in question never really made much headway. I personally don't get the point of it, but... it's roleplay, so I won't judge them if that's how they have fun.

However, I'm curious what the official stance is being that I'm on Arelith less than 2 weeks.

[Tyrantos]

There will always be elves that dont speak common. I dont know what the policy of it is, but I think thats okay?

About knowing languages thats unsupported.. Eeeh? No idea.

[Nitro]

I'm not entirely sure I get it. Do you mean that someone was typing in a non-english language in the chat? If so, that's not kosher since we've got a language system in-game.

If it's just about adding a [Cormyran] tag yourself before writing something is not disallowed, but it's up to everyone involved whether or not they want to go along with it, since WYSIWYG is the rule on Arelith.

It's perfectly fine for any character RP'ing not understanding common though, even though it'd probably get dry in the long run.

[WhiskeyGuy]

Gotcha on the Common... yeah, it was as Nitro said, mostly though.... using [gibberish] rather than words of any kind. They did give the chance to know the language via lore check....

Brings me to another question! How does one do a lore check? Or any skill check for that matter?

[Mr_Rieper]

The short answer is... If you're looking for a gimmick or unique trait that will make your character seem more interesting, there are a million better options to use than trying to speak a language that is not mechanically supported.

The long answer is the reason why. No player can be expected to be fluent in the same languages their characters are fluent in. Knowing Xanalress is not a requirement to play a drow character, for example. This is why the mechanical system is in place. If your character can speak and understand a language, it will be translated for YOU, the player. If your character cannot, then you can only guess, as a player.

If somebody comes along and starts speaking a mechanically unsupported language and you don't understand it as a player, how can you be sure your character won't understand it? You can't. That's why speaking unsupported languages is against the rules. It drags other players out of the game. And I'm glad things like these are enforced, because once again, there are better ways of conveying the personality, history and culture of the Duck People to others than merely quacking at them. In fact that's probably one of the worst things you can do, because it doesn't encourage people to interact with you. It does the exact opposite.

Here's a great example of fictional culture. You can make up your own.

I intend to make a thread on these sorts of things sometime, but the gist of it is that stereotypes are not a bad thing when they are used properly. Stereotypes are things for OTHER players to bounce RP off of you, when those stereotypes make sense on your character. Sometimes somebody who is playing a criminal or gang member needs a stereotypical guard to make their story more fulfilling, and it will work when there are reasons for that person to be a stereotypical guard.

So make up a few cultural stereotypes for your foreigner character. Amnians love money, haggling and trading. Nothing feels better to them than getting a bargain. Is this a stereotype? Absolutely. If you justify why your character fits this stereotype, everybody else will love interacting with you because you add flavor to their world.

[Nitro]

You can't roll any skill checks on demand on Arelith, nor is there any way of telling how much of any given skill another character has.

[Mr_Rieper]

Seems I got carried away and didn't answer a few things. Unintelligable gibberish can be RPed as mumbling or stammering something to the point where it doesn't make sense. Just RP that your character didn't catch what they said.

The regional language of Cormyr is Cormanthan, which is a dialect of Chondathan. As somebody currently experimenting with conlangs, I'd advise staying away from it. It's incomplete and not really usable as anything other than a Naming Language in its current form.

Useful link for languages.

Common is something that every character in the Forgotten Realms universe would have come into contact with UNLESS they were from an extremely isolated region, like Chult, Maztica or the further parts of the continent of Kara-Tur. Even if people didn't speak Common that often, they'd still have a rudimentary understanding of it. Arelith is far west of Faerun, so nearly every person from Kara-Tur would have travelled through Faerun to get to Arelith, and would have some basic understanding of Common at the very least.

Lore is the mechanical way of representing general knowledge, so it's a very good yardstick for checking if your character understands most things. If you'd like a way to do a lore check, just hit the ` key (next to the 1 key) and type d20. Then add your lore skill to that. You are not allowed to force others to do this check, this is a voluntary thing.

[Gods_Kill_People]

ahh the [gibberish] might be them trying to talk in another language and failing

[Mr_Rieper]

Yeah, sorry, I totally missed what you were asking and went off on a tangent.

*Unintelligible gibberish* happens when a character attempts to speak a language they don't fully understand. The more proficient you are with a language, the less chance this has of happening. If it happens, nobody can understand what was said, not even the speaker. Fluent speakers of a language and people will 40 lore will also not understand what was said, either.

If the text is a different colour, it means it is another language being spoken. Each language has its own color. If that text is in English? Your character either knows the language or passed their Lore check.

*Unintelligible gibberish* is the language equivalent of a misfire. Nobody will understand it, the character who spoke it completely botched what they were trying to say. It's not an unsupported language they are speaking. In fact, it's the opposite. The language translator just backfired on them. If somebody is speaking another language that is in plain white text? Report them. If it's a word or two here and there, it should be alright. But speaking another language in Common is not something people are able to do on the server, because of situations like you described.

[WhiskeyGuy]

It was their version of what our language system does. I assumed they were breaking the rules. I also gave them some benefit of roleplay, but as I said... it didn't get very far. I hated to have to abandon them, but, in the end... if they were in the wrong, not really up to me to tell them so.

So, to be clear, you cannot roleplay a language that is not supported by the system? I'm asking for my own knowledge, though I wouldn't bother trying it myself even if allowed, the language system is just too good.

[Cuchilla]

Since the DMs haven't given an official answer, I mean to remember that it's ok to speak accents of non supported languages, but not entirely in that language. Means, you can't use Cormyran, German, Japanese or whatever language, but you are welcome to speak with an accent, like "I zink zis anzwer is wrongz, you baztardz"

But I might be mistaken. So don't take this answer for a final one.

If you meant what "Intelligible Gibberish" is, the answer is given above.

[Mr_Rieper]

If there's a language you think should be added, you can probably ask the admins nicely and fill in a few spreadsheets for them. I'm not exactly sure how the process works.

Other than that, I'd avoid quacking at people in a "unique" language entirely. It comes across as snowflake-y and ultimately serves no purpose when you can just convey culture instead. Chances are, you're probably butchering the grammar and probably annoying people anyway. Best to just avoid character concepts that rely on gimmicks like that.

Also as a final note, real world languages don't exist in Forgotten Realms. Common is not English. It's whatever language the players speak. If you're playing the German translation of D&D? It's German. For the purposes of Arelith, Common is English because this is an English server. This also means that languages like French, German, Italian, Greek and Spanish do not exist on Arelith, or Arelith's version of Toril.

It's a fantasy world. They don't speak these languages. So unless you're sure what sounds Cormanthan uses (Here's a hint, it's nothing like French), then I'd avoid trying to RP a Cormyrean accent. It probably will not go well.

[Iceborn]

Like everything that is not mechanically supported, it's up to the players to decide whether they want to go along with what you are doing.

Personally, if I wanted to use a language that is not mechanically supported, I'd probably use a [Language] tag at the beginning.

What I do see aggravating is using real-life languages to symbolize not-supported languages, like using French as Cormyrian. That grinds my gears.
Slight accent and wink toward the language: Okay.
Full on real-life language: Not okay.

[Seekeepeek]

[Unknown] xas
[Xanalress] xas
[Xanalress] yes

Same thing said.
with 0 lore you get option 1.
With some lore you get option 2.
With 41 lore you understand and get option 3

[WhiskeyGuy]

Okay, there seems to be some confusion... they were trying to use Calishite as a language, not a real world language, and it was another player, not me. I have little need to use non-supported languages, but that's my choice.

This player was polite, and roleplayed well, but... they tried to substitute some words that were obviously not common, and [gibberish], [more gibberish], laced with a few words to convey what they were saying. To me... it seemed wrong, since I have no way to know that language other than what the character said they were saying. Since I can't roll a lore check, how would they know I didn't know what they were saying if I claimed I did? It all got very confusing, and I'd love to know the official ruling on these things.

I'm not trying to trash a player or character or idea, merely trying to make sense of a situation so I know how to proceed should it come up again in the future.

[Mr_Rieper]

I'm curious as to what they used to translate Alzedo. Most of the Forgotten Realms languages aren't fleshed enough to be used in conversations, not even the racial languages like Espruar and Dethek. The translator fudges a lot of the words because that's the only choice we have, can't have a lexicon as big as English without dedicated linguists on the job. (This is also why it's generally not a good idea to name your character using the language translator. It's straight gibberish for a lot of words).

Anyway, speaking mechanically unsupported languages is against the rules. Or it should be. It's not something that people should be indulged often. If it's harmless, they probably won't get into trouble over it, but you'd be right to report them if they were being obnoxious about it.

Generally the reason why it's against the rules is because players should be discouraged from doing it. There's very little reason to do it. Most people in Faerun speak Common fluently. From Icewind Dale to Thay, people speak mostly Common.

I apologise if it seemed like I was targeting you, I often try to frame things to the people who are reading and not necessarily replying. So most of the stuff here that I've written was addressed to the hypothetical 3rd person who wanted to "spice up" their character with strange languages they don't really know or understand.

[The GrumpyCat]

I think it is perhaps not a matter of what is being done, but how it is being done.

Let me explain.

Playing a character who doesn't know any common, or indeed for whatever reason doesn't know any of the FR languages is fine. They're effectivly mute- but you can rp them learning common or whatever. That's fine.

Dropping a few RL world language words in a chat, to simulate a certain accent is also fine. (e.g. maybe your Damarran says 'Danke' occasionaly)

Making up a language and dropping a few wierd words in your dialgoue to express something is also OK, so long as it's small and sparodic. The occasional noun, the odd phrase no one else would use. So long as 99% of what you're saying is understandable by most people, that's fine.

However making a language up wholesale and using it to a large extent is not a good idea. If nothing else, what if another person also playing a Calishite wants to chat? They won't know what's going on either, and they really should!

What is NOT ok is using a RL word language entirely and/or making up a language and then using it as an excuse why to characters can talk to each other and not be understood.

So in the case of your Calishite, let's say they met another Calishite character and, being Fiendish Calishite's started to say:

Cal 1: [Calishite] Let us kill this one, it is easy!
Cal 2: [Calishite] Yes lets!'
You: Hay, don't do that!
Them: Oye, we're talking in our tongue, there's no way your character would understand!

Now that is out of order, and unless they're using one of the mechancialy supported language, should be reported.

[Xerah]

So, someone said something like:

Hello there Mister, feddleah, Jim was it? Nice to meet you, I'm Oma yr Asfora el Tenassar yi Almraiven.

Those are all very common terms in Calimshan that if you are RPing as knowing the language, you should probably know. That said if you don't understand you can ask the character to explain them.

Or was it:

Hello there Jim, [gibberish]. Nice to meet you.

That seems pretty odd if that's what it is.

[WhiskeyGuy]

It was...

*points to my character* Nem Calimport

Or... [some strange language]

They did offer us an ooc chance to know the language if we had the lore for it, but.. it felt very forced and there is no real way to know. I found it unfair for both parties really as they couldn't know if we metagamed them, just as much as we couldn't know if they should really speak that language.

I got my answer mostly, and in the future, I'll just try to do my best to let it slide and get away from it. I'm not roleplay police or a DM, though my own personal lawfulness gets in my way sometimes.