Foreign Languages

Burning Wheel Subsystem Advice and Guidance
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Hi!

Multiple combatants aside (my other threads) and now also revising my systemic option when it comes to languages. The setting of my next campaign will be circa 1000 in England, at the end of the Viking Age. There’s a nice mix of older languages present (Old English, Old Norse, Cornish, Cumbric, etc).

I’ve got a list of all the languages present, and I’ve grouped them by family or linguistic proximity.

I’ve read the Foreign Languages skill and how it works. It seems functional. But my understanding of it leads me to believe it might not yield me exactly what I want.

From my simple understanding, Foreign Language assumes basic linguistic skills in foreign languages, and the obstacle is set by the closeness of the language to yours, or how alien it is. The advantages and disadvantages seem relatively contextual.

I’m thinking of splashing it into a new subsystem of my design.

The idea is the following:

  • Instead of just having a single Foreign Languages skill, I would break it into several skills, one for each of the languages listed.
  • The Exponent in each skill would indicate the character’s proficiency in that language.
  • I would also FoRK of one language into another if the two languages are closely related.
  • The Obstacle would be the complexity of the conversation (a simple greeting, trying to trade, translating a literary work, etc).
  • So I’m basically swapping what determines the obstacle and the advantages.

I feel confident in this. However, where I feel less confident is through the burning of characters:

  • Characters may get the Read or Write skills through burning. I don’t want to get into similar or different alphabets. My idea is that if you know how to read, you know how to read, what’s left is your knowledge of languages. I’m actually not sure how Read, Write and Foreign Languages intersect in RAW.
  • I feel like characters should be proficient in their native tongue, which I would allow the player to choose at Character Burning. Whether they read or write is it’s own business through the Burning.
  • I would consider their lifepaths, and if in their interpretation of it it makes sense that they would develop skills in another language, I’d give them something linked to it.
  • I think beyond Burning, they could improve their language through use or study just like any other skill.

I don’t have a huge experience with Burning Wheel, so maybe I’m not seeing all the warts. Or maybe I’m misunderstanding the rules and the system already allows for that.

Anyway, always happy to get your insight!

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One thought that I have is, “How much of a part do you want language differences to play in your game?” Is it enough to justify an array of different skills that players may or may not have, or is it a smaller role that one skill might fit better for.

Another thought is that these rules look like they model relatively isolated language groups. So, for instance, a person in London would have had to make a dedicated study of Old Norse and a dedicated study of Cornish, etc. The base Foreign Languages rules seem to me to better model for picking up other languages in a linguistically diverse area. So a person in London could have picked up the tongues of the local people and had been better or worse based on the familiarity of those langauges to their native one.

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I feel like the time period and the setting leads to interesting situations with language. It may not be shared by everyone, but I always though language is an interesting component that’s always moved to the backseat.

I think you’re right in your example. But realistically, you’d have to study or spend time with these languages individually to really get a grasp of them. I don’t seem how one single skill can represent something knowing some Old Irish but not knowing Old Norse. I don’t think you necessarily become familiar with all languages surrounding you.

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Fair enough.

As written, it’d look something like this: You are a native Old Welsh speaker. You are talking to an Irishman. Old Irish is related ro Old Welsh, being Gaelic and all, so it’s Ob 2. Then you speak to an Icelandic raider. Old Norse is a complex language, not related to your own, so it’s Ob 3. The single skill approach can also be augmentes by FoRKed wises, situational advantage dice, and disadvantages.

It’s true that it more models familiarity with local languages than academic studies. It doesn’t do a great job modeling a native Mandarin speaker who studied some Old Irish and no Old Norse, for instance.

Right. You might not have the skill or have enough of it to hit the more unfamiliarity obstacles. On the other hand, folks who live in linguistically diverse areas tend to pick up the languages around them through sheer immersion.

But! Like you say, you want more depth to languages in this game rather than having them fall by the wayside.

So, let me give you some thoughts on breaking language up into multiple skills:

I kind of like the idea of setting the Obstacle based on the complexity of the interaction/language required. I do wonder, though, if that might be unwieldy in play: It sounds like we’d have to know the complexity of the interaction ahead of time, set the obstacle, test, then play the conversation. I think that should work, but you’d want to keep the mode of interaction in mind. I’d also want only one or two Obstacle entries for “have a conversation” that way you don’t have to worry about playing a naturalistic interaction across a spectrum of Ob levels.

Another thought is that I imagine your background is going to play a heavy role in this stuff. If you’re from a big city, you’re probably able to get by on routine stuff with a habdful of languages; if you’ve lived your whole life on an isolated estate, you’re probably utterly hopeless outside of your native language. The Wises and Beginner’s Luck heading on page 215 of the Codex work really well for this. If your background doesn’t put you in contact with a language, you can’t test at all. If it does, you can get by on easy stuff wirh some care, some gestures, and some Beginner’s Luck.

Speaking of Wises, here’s another thought, instead of independent language skills, you might add the language Obstacles to Wises relating to cultural groups. That helps mitigate the skill points being stretched across multiple skills and models the integration between language and culture that is almost inevitable outside of an academic context. It also would likely feel good as a player to take a cultural Wise and know that it’s coming with language skill. It excites me.

I might do Obstacles like: Exchanging greetings, asking for the bathroom or the location of the library, Ob 1; Simple conversational language or haggling, Ob 2; Delicate, nuanced, or complex conversational language, Ob 3; Extended idiomatic writing, Ob 4; Passing as a local, Ob 5.

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