24: TRANSLATE
I covered switching systems in Substitute. Translate might fit as well, as it’s getting the sense of something rather than converting word for word.
Most RPGs run like fiction set somewhere else where everybody speaks the reader or viewer’s language, maybe with an accent. If everybody is speaking Latin or Cantonese or Common Tongue or Hyperlac in-character, we assume it’s “translated” at the game table, and only use specific languages when they vary. People from the Outer Rim in Star Wars sound American, people from the core worlds sound English. So no need for thee-ing and thou-ing, and it’s best not to try and improvise that anyway.
There’s a moment at the start of Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl where after largely seeming like a ‘proper’ historical drama in phrasing, Elizabeth asks Will “Are you okay?” which fits the later tone of not worrying about anachronisms so much.
Multiple languages in RPGs are often yes-no skill sets for convenience, which doesn’t reflect how language learning really works. How involved the language rules are often relates to their importance. Call Of Cthulhu has them as part of its percentile skill system, suitable for rolling while reading in an emergency like trying to work out a Latin clue to a deathtrap.
Nowadays you can run text through translation systems like Google’s to present a handout in a foreign language for flavour, although they’re only so reliable.
And what about fictional languages? Most settings don’t have a fully developed language family like Tolkien’s Elvish, so have some ground rules and examples or rely on general agreement for whether names sound Elfy or Dwarfy.
Aurebesh in Star Wars (codified in the classic RPG) isn’t a language, it’s an alphabet which maps directly onto ours. It looks alien in the moment, making signs unreadable unless you’re very practiced, so it works as a visual signifier but not in worldbuilding. Also, ships are named after letters that don’t look like the Aurebesh versions - X in Aurebesh is a triangle. Elvish it ain’t.
SF often has universal translators. How do they lip sync? Don’t ask.
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay’s classic The Enemy Within campaign was set in and around the Empire, its analogue for Renaissance Germany, and had the slight dissonance of German names and terms with decidedly British cultural references. It didn’t help in my case that I was taking French in high school and my players were taking German, so I had no idea why some of the names made them laugh...
Bonus round:
Share - How much you share about your characters depends on table culture (and one’s propensity for cheating...) and separation of player and character knowledge.
Ancient - How I felt when I talked about my favourite convention game with the then Conpulsion organiser and realised it was before he was born.
Solve - Puzzles based on player skill are one of the classic breaks in player versus character ability, along with social conflict. Mysteries are like this but in the longer term, but mystery plots assume characters who are also engaged and ways to add more clues. Solutions to social conflict include boosts based on performance, sharing ideas around the table and narrating general themes. Solutions to puzzles could include those, or just not having them.
Runeslinger on Solve
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