Re: Conlangs in RPGs...

On Mon, 15 Jan 2001, Steg Belsky wrote:

> > Yoon Ha Lee, avid roleplayer
> > http://yhl.freeservers.com
>
> I don't have any resources to suggest, but your webpge is great!  I don't
> remember how my brother and i dealt with language when we made our own
> RPG system a long time ago (which incidentally is the source for
> Rokbeigalmki month names), but more recently, for the LARP group that i'm
> in i devised my own Goblin language (Gáb-we or Tí-Ér'-r'e-we) to chant my
> spells in, because my character, while not actually a goblin, grew up in
> the "goblinoid-friendly" country of Tiere (or Tí-Ér'-r'e in Goblin).   I
> actually considered abandoning it, since it was really annoying to have
> to remember all the rules for what sounds change into when geminated,
> which syllables are stressed, which R-sounds are which, etc.,
> *especially* when creaky-voicing the entire thing, but then people told
> me that they liked it so i decided to stick with it.  (and just practice
Yes, I remember your goblin language post.  <bonking self on head>  It
was one of the messages I tried sending from my requiescat address, which
meant it bounced.  Sorry about that--I liked what I saw and I guess
telling you late is better than telling you never.
'Sides, could the other roleplayers actually *Tell* if you occasionally
missed a geminate or something?  =^)  Seems like a really good
opportunity to practice?

> more).  In the Shadowrun campaign that i was in this past semester, the
> GM was pretty realistic with languages... whenever we ventured into
> Aztlan ( = much of Mexico and other areas) he kept on teasing us with
> "so, do any of you speak Spanish?" until between gaming sessions i
> finally spent however many karma points to learn it :-) so that there
> would be more than just one person in our group who can talk.
Neatness.  The Champions RPG system actually measures game-difficulty of
learning language by how "close" or "far" your native tongue(s) is to the
target language, and considering it's a RPG, not a linguistics book,
their language family trees looked pretty good to me.

Cheers,
YHL