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

Didn't know assassins had their own language. Some kind of cant like for rogues?

Kind of. It seems like face twitching and similar minor things.

another movement and slight 'twitches' meant for small signs likely 'like on my mark, kill commands' and small things not walls of texts. Subtle movements kinda like drow sign flailing your hands and making faces would draw attention to you then trying to be all unnoticed assassin movements.

It's kinda like the Thief sign from Quest for Glory...

QFG wrote:The sign consists of placing one's thumb on the end of one's nose and wiggling the other fingers on that hand while simultaneously rubbing one's belly with one's other hand.

*puts a hit out on chad for giving away guild secrets*

*rolls a high Spot and notices weird thumb movements*

Assassin language looks like baseball signalling.

Yeah, I never use it because it's a dead giveaway that your character is either a Rogue or an Assassin. Almost an open invitation for other players to RP suspicion of your character.

I think some people forget that languages like Assassin, cant and Animal are not designed to hold entire conversations. They are designed for simple things like "Attack" "follow" "target sighted"

It is possible to have a conversation with someone in Thieves Cant although it takes about four times longer to say something.

Might as well be deleted. I don't think there is any language translator active.

Wolfrayne wrote:I think some people forget that languages like Assassin, cant and Animal are not designed to hold entire conversations. They are designed for simple things like "Attack" "follow" "target sighted"

It is possible to have a conversation with someone in Thieves Cant although it takes about four times longer to say something.

Agreed. I can attest to the animal part, I've even had DMs in the past hold full conversations in the animal language (and I've never had a DM treat it like animal empathy). It can get a little awkward, since you don't want to be the one telling everyone else to "sthap". You know the old "if you see the grass as green, and everyone else says its purple, then you are probably crazy".

At this point, I've just joined in when it happens to be honest. There is no other way to deal with it, since some of them react all strange when you use animal "properly" or at the very least you get gimped out unless you use it like it is a proper language.

Despite the rules, I've kinda accepted it as an unofficial house-ruling, since it seems like everyone else treats the animal language like a real language (instead of animal empathy). Might as well stop myself from being elitist, join in on the fun, and play by the rules everyone else seems to be following (despite the written DM ruling).

That said, I'm perfectly happy treating the animal language like animal empathy, as per the ruling/OG setting. I tend to start out treating it as animal empathy, and seeing where it goes from there. I'm suppose I'm just not happy going against the flow of the RP, to adhere to a rule in a one-sided manner.

Who knows. Maybe if a rule isn't followed, but the sky doesn't fall down and everyone is happy, then the rule doesn't need to be there. After all, its next to impossible to make someone RP something that they don't want to (Nore should you. Its a game.). And if the (seemingly?) majority of people don't want to RP that animal language according to how its written, you can't exactly make them.

I picture a DM at a table, telling a bunch of players "but that's how its written" and the players saying "well, we like it this way better" when I think of the animal language scenario, at-least how I've experienced it in my time here.

My anecdotal 3 cents :-3

metaquad4 wrote:[...]At this point, I've just joined in when it happens to be honest. There is no other way to deal with it, since some of them react all strange when you use animal "properly" or at the very least you get gimped out unless you use it like it is a proper language.[...]

Admittedly, it could be handled by changing the Language Tool algorithm that translates the input text. It could be made to choose 3-5 words at random from what is spoken in 'Assassin' or 'Animal' and only translate those, while discarding the rest. For example, if someone were to say "follow me", it would correctly read "follow me". However, if you were to try and say "just follow me for a bit, until we reach the corner of the road, and then we can part ways", it would instead deliver "me bit we then", or some other subset of the initial text. By extent, that would then limit the use of those languages to their intended purpose.

Svabodnik wrote:

metaquad4 wrote:[...]At this point, I've just joined in when it happens to be honest. There is no other way to deal with it, since some of them react all strange when you use animal "properly" or at the very least you get gimped out unless you use it like it is a proper language.[...]

Admittedly, it could be handled by changing the Language Tool algorithm that translates the input text. It could be made to choose 3-5 words at random from what is spoken in 'Assassin' or 'Animal' and only translate those, while discarding the rest. For example, if someone were to say "follow me", it would correctly read "follow me". However, if you were to try and say "just follow me for a bit, until we reach the corner of the road, and then we can part ways", it would instead deliver "me bit we then", or some other subset of the initial text. By extent, that would then limit the use of those languages to their intended purpose.

That would be interesting. Maybe limit it to 5 words, chosen randomly. Though, someone

Could just
Speak
Like this
To other people
In order
To bypass
It
Rest in
Pizza

Still though, cheekiness aside. . .its not a horrible idea. I can't see any real bad rammifications to using the language legit with it. I'll think more about that though.

Admittedly, it would be easier to implement a simple character limit, but the few random words would serve two purposes, as I see it. One, it would make the translation stem from the intended message and the result may still convey some meaning. However, the more complex the message, the less of the original meaning remains. Two, since each other player could potentially receive a different selection of random words from the initial text, it would simulate misunderstanding of the intended message, as it was not suitable for the language.

The best way as said before is to simply accept not everyone will understand these kind of things and either give them a friendly reminder or simply go along with the silliness.

I find myself often reminding people of small things that irk me even though realy speaking they dont affect my own RP at all, Such as walking in to cities with animals/summons out or orcs casually wandering past the farmlands. If they choose to ignore me i simply move along and avoid them in the future. If they get aggressive over it OOC/IC ill simply report the issue and let the officials handle it.