Baldur's Gate : The Sword Coast Chronicles : NWN2 Persistent World

I feel fairly certain that what NegInfinity meant needed fixing is that it only works if you turn off the auto-colouring, my dudes.

As someone who often plays in the UD, I have to agree with the sentiment to an extent. I think it's fine to use a simple, occasional drow word or phrase for flavour like Vendui, Aluve', etc., but the moment drow pronouns (Dos, Ussta) start to slip in, mixed in with English, then it starts to a headache and a pain to read through it all. Also, those occasions when you have some people who slip in even more rare words that force you to use that Drow translator site.

In the FR novels all drow characters speak a perfect form of English (obviously, so we as the reader can understand what's being said!) that you would expect of someone from an aristocratic background (as the novels that deal with the drow usually focus on those in the top of the social ladder), and they only occasionally slip in a phrase or two composed of drow words. Another thing to put into consideration is that a lot of the words from that drow translator site are made by fans as well. So in a canon point of view, I feel there is little basis for drow PCs to communicate in this psuedo-English/Drow pidgin language

Is the universal greeting still okay? Bah-weep-Graaaaagnah wheep ni ni bong

Flasmix wrote:Is the universal greeting still okay? Bah-weep-Graaaaagnah wheep ni ni bong

Do you talk some TV?

Question : Do my habit of typos equate to non-english?
Answer : As far as the dictionary is worried about, it is not a part of the english language.

Cad mar gheall ar uimh

I am on edge regarding this because I both agree and disagree with certain aspects.

Agree - I hate Drow mixing in Drow words in common/undercommon aka Drowmon. It's annoying aside from the greetings/farewells of Vendui/Aluve, anything more is annoying.

Disagree - I have many characters who speak common but in a broken, poor accent. Like Wirg, his tusks interfere with his speech so he has to intermingle some orc words in with his already broken english.

Ex. "Would you please pass the chicken? I am hungry."
becomes "Wood lat pleez pazz da bok-bok? Me am hungree."

Khazrak wrote:I don't see this as entirely necessary, or feasibly enforced for that matter. Let Drow do their Drowspeech thing. Play a different race, and explicitly RP with others of your race in that language. Mock them in your language that they can't understand without casting Tongues. All's well!

But here is the thing, my character is a drow and with a rather expansive list of known languages. When the Drommom starts to creep in, it is not translated into any sensible language that my character is supposed to know... So what can I do beyond identifying it as some alien gibberish, and make an in character guess that it could be goblin, maybe. Goblin is one language that my character does not know.

But then I think of the translation spells, which do not translate the Drommom either. Which basically means that as far as character sheets are considered, the Drommom is nothing more than alien gibberish. Yet there are people who insist that it is an actual in game language - which in turn creates unbelievably butthurt players if my character has a realistic reaction to these Drommom spouting characters.

So perhaps banning the use of non-English languages is not the right way to deal with these issues. How about a DM ruling that alien gibberish is just alien gibberish?

Flasmix wrote:Ex. "Would you please pass the chicken? I am hungry."
becomes "Wood lat pleez pazz da bok-bok? Me am hungree."

'Wood lat' is alien gibberish but the rest should be easy enough to understand, but I kind of would write it in the following form: "Woold lad pleez pazz da cluck-cluck? Me am hungree."

Lad is a word for boy, lass is one for girl. I think lad is what you went for with lat.

This way, each of the words are similar looking to properly written English, which makes it easier to understand with a glance. Also, English textbooks for non-native speakers usually state that chicken says: 'cluck' - so cluck-cluck might be easier to understand than bok-bok.

"Woold" for would is definitely right out. "Wood" is much better, especially if paired with an recognisable you (I assumed "lat" in this case was a sprinkled Orc word?) like so "Wood ya" or "Wood yu". In my opinion..

Lat is indeed a sprinkled Orc word. If someone knew Orc, cast a translation spell or acted confused, I would send a tell saying what it means or my PC explains what the word means. I've never had anybody ever say they've had a problem OOCly with how Wirg talks, people take a day or two then can understand him perfectly.

chad878262 wrote:

NegInfinity wrote:This seriously requires a fix.

No it doesn't. emotes are not in a language and should be seen regardless of the language spoken. If a player is using emotes to say something in common while speaking in another language that's not really the intended use, but so long as everyone understands what is going on in the RP I see no issue.

Sigh.

scriver wrote:I feel fairly certain that what NegInfinity meant needed fixing is that it only works if you turn off the auto-colouring, my dudes.

Yup. I use auto-coloring. And would want emotes to be excluded from translation when auto-coloring is enabled.

Oh. Oh yes, that would be awesome actually.

Drommon is accurate when speaking common, when I see it in the underarm I just choose not to push my personal opinions on others.

All the while it remains a simple task to shoot off a behind-the-scenes tell and ask for meanings. Most, if not all, players will oblige your request for understanding!

Tsidkenu wrote:All the while it remains a simple task to shoot off a behind-the-scenes tell and ask for meanings. Most, if not all, players will oblige your request for understanding!

There are players on this server that automatically consider tells as some form of RP, even if you see the extra mile to mark them as OOC. Not that you always have enough time to even ask for clarification. Thus alien gibberish is alien gibberish, and I will have my characters treat it as such. If someone elses character does not know how to communicate, their character does not know how to communicate...

And apparently treating Drommon as alien gibberish is something that will make half of the current UD player base unbearably salty and offended. One guy has already come after my character because my then level 14 character managed to defeat a fully buffed up arcanists in the '**' level range by rolling natural 20 often enough, I had less than 60 HP left. I honestly had no idea what that arcanist was saying. Then recently a second guy came after my character for the exact same reason, and the the 'in character reason' he had was entirely spurious. Either he longed for out of character PvP, or desired to inflict some form of drow BDSM, and curiosly enough appears to have the mentality that two wrongs make a right. A part of me really cannot wait to see when the third OOC:ly motivated griefer will materialise.

Israe wrote:Drommon is accurate when speaking common, when I see it in the underarm I just choose not to push my personal opinions on others.

Sure, go ahead, feel free to speak Drommom on the surface. Underdark characters by default speak undercommon though, and alien gibberish that is not translated into anything sensible is clearly not undercommon, elven, or any other language that a character knows.

What is worse is that some of the underdark quests givers have that 'alien gibberish' on them - and hence I will never finish some of the quests. I mean, to spout such gibberish that the priestess of Lolth does implies she is as high as a kite. Someone should check her body for spider bite marks or something.