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TheElfLord
2007-03-09, 05:31 PM
Something that has bothered me about 3.x for a long time is that barbarians are the only illiterate PC class. In the real Middle Ages, literacy was cinfinced to a very small part of the population, namely clergy. However in DnD learning to swing a sword also entails learning to read and write. A character could spend his entire life growing up in some seculded mountian glade, hunting and exploring nature, and studying his alphabet of course.

As far as I can see it, only Wizards and clerics have an iron clad fluff reason for being literate. The other casters have a mechanical reason to be able to read (scrolls) but weaker fluff reasons. Non casters don't have a real reason at all.

So my question to the boards, is how big a deal would it be to make all classes besides wizards and clerics start illiterate? What kind of other steps would have to be taken and such?

Sardia
2007-03-09, 05:34 PM
Shouldn't be too much of a problem, I'd think-- if a society is mainly illiterate, it'll accommodate that-- inns just have pictures, simple symbols here and there, and such.
What do you really have to do in a medieval world that requires writing and reading, really?

Bears With Lasers
2007-03-09, 05:34 PM
Everyone would just blow their 2 skill points for literacy. That's about all it'd do.

Yuki Akuma
2007-03-09, 05:35 PM
The "real" middle ages and D&D have absolutely nothing in common. D&D worlds have education systems, as well as ethical and moral philosophies, much closer to those of modern-day Earth than medieval Europe.

Douglas
2007-03-09, 05:36 PM
I don't think it would be much of a problem, though I think the Aristocrat NPC class should also automatically get literacy.

For a truly bizarre D&D fact about literacy, consider that a Barbarian who takes a level in Frenzied Berzerker gains literacy. :smallconfused:

Sardia
2007-03-09, 05:38 PM
D&D worlds have education systems, as well as ethical and moral philosophies...

That's one that's always confused me-- why would they have such? Universal education (at least to the point of basic literacy) generally only occurred when there was a good reason for it-- complexity of the society, or religious instruction. What in D&D provides that push?

Aximili
2007-03-09, 05:38 PM
In the real Middle Ages, literacy was cinfinced to a very small part of the population, namely clergy.
D&D is not real middle ages =/. It doesn't have the same social structure, history, comerce, and so on. And that's why fighters learn to read :smallbiggrin:

Well, the thing is classes besides the wizard might not have a reason to be able to read. But D&D rules don't cover character background, so they generalize it.

If it stings you as wrong, just give 2 extra skill points to every class but the wizard, and make them illiterate. For the love of God, don't further decrease their skills points!

Hallavast
2007-03-09, 05:41 PM
PCs do make up a very small percentage of the population. If I'm not mistaken, most of the NPC classes are also illiterate. If by learning to "swing a sword" you mean taking fighter levels, that means training either in an academy, with a mentor, or teaching yourself through study (otherwise you're just a warrior). It is generally assumed that whoever taught you to "swing a sword" also taught you to read and write. Or you would have to learn to read and write in order study written accounts and techniques of swordsmanship (he has to study his agrippa and so forth). This idea can reasonably apply to just about any class other than Barbarian and I would argue Sorcerer. It's not that big of a deal, and a house rule saying otherwise wouldn't change balance very much if at all.

And btw, I would also consider Bards for your list of classes with Ironclad reasons for reading and writing.

Jasdoif
2007-03-09, 05:41 PM
You could handle it the way D20 Modern does, with reading/writing a language being a separate skill from speaking a language; and then make reading/writing class skills only for wizards and clerics.

Yuki Akuma
2007-03-09, 05:42 PM
That's one that's always confused me-- why would they have such? Universal education (at least to the point of basic literacy) generally only occurred when there was a good reason for it-- complexity of the society, or religious instruction. What in D&D provides that push?

The huge complexity of the society? Seriously, there's something approaching twenty sentient species on Abeir-Toril, and that's just the humanoids.

The worlds of D&D are full of magic. Societies are full of it, too. Many people would soon learn that reading and writing are powerful tools to possess, due to wizards and things like spell scrolls and magic books. So they would begin to learn to read and write.

Hundreds of years later, you get everyone except completely uncivilised people (barbarians) knowing how to read.

And yes, I just made that up. So what?


If I'm not mistaken, most of the NPC classes are also illiterate.

You're mistaken. Barbarian is the only core class with illiteracy.

Hallavast
2007-03-09, 05:45 PM
You're mistaken. Barbarian is the only core class with illiteracy.
Well commoners should be illiterate.

Sardia
2007-03-09, 05:49 PM
The worlds of D&D are full of magic. Societies are full of it, too. Many people would soon learn that reading and writing are powerful tools to possess, due to wizards and things like spell scrolls and magic books. So they would begin to learn to read and write.

Actually, that suggests something-- in a world where literacy literally can be power, wouldn't there be a certain degree of control over it?
Someone writing might be seen as up to witchcraft or some other sneaky deeds unless he had a good reason.

Fax Celestis
2007-03-09, 05:56 PM
Actually, that suggests something-- in a world where literacy literally can be power, wouldn't there be a certain degree of control over it?
Someone writing might be seen as up to witchcraft or some other sneaky deeds unless he had a good reason.

Only if magic is seen as evil.

Yuki Akuma
2007-03-09, 05:59 PM
Actually, that suggests something-- in a world where literacy literally can be power, wouldn't there be a certain degree of control over it?
Someone writing might be seen as up to witchcraft or some other sneaky deeds unless he had a good reason.

This is a mistake many DMs seem to make. The common person living in a D&D world won't instantly consider all magic to be evil and dangerous. It's all around them; many benevolent creatures are innately magical, and that nice druid who comes by every spring to help with the lambing uses magic as well. And everyone knows Tom's lad, the one who went off to that school for wizards, is a good boy, don't they? He'd never hurt a fly.

Sardia
2007-03-09, 06:10 PM
This is a mistake many DMs seem to make. The common person living in a D&D world won't instantly consider all magic to be evil and dangerous. It's all around them; many benevolent creatures are innately magical, and that nice druid who comes by every spring to help with the lambing uses magic as well. And everyone knows Tom's lad, the one who went off to that school for wizards, is a good boy, don't they? He'd never hurt a fly.

It needn't have anything to do with magic seen as evil. Even if you're a big fan of nuclear power, if your neighbor starts building a reactor in his backyard, you'll worry.
The control angle stands to reason-- if words are power, someone's going to want to see it regulated.

Fax Celestis
2007-03-09, 06:25 PM
It needn't have anything to do with magic seen as evil. Even if you're a big fan of nuclear power, if your neighbor starts building a reactor in his backyard, you'll worry.
The control angle stands to reason-- if words are power, someone's going to want to see it regulated.

Again, not necessarily. How do you regulate the use of innate talent? It's like telling an artist, "No, sorry, you can't paint any more. You've used up your creativity quota for the month."

Sardia
2007-03-09, 06:32 PM
Again, not necessarily. How do you regulate the use of innate talent? It's like telling an artist, "No, sorry, you can't paint any more. You've used up your creativity quota for the month."

In places where art is considered potentially politically troublesome, it is indeed regulated.

Fax Celestis
2007-03-09, 06:40 PM
In places where art is considered potentially politically troublesome, it is indeed regulated.

...except that the people who make the art--in this case, spellcasters--are the ones in power, and are not going to squash their own talents for the purposes of making everyone suffer.

Quincunx
2007-03-09, 06:48 PM
Why not just bump that aspect of the population forward a few hundred years, to the idea that some goodness in the world has released literacy to a wider proportion of the population, and that each family which has the knowledge passes it down to its children? "Literacy" could just be knowing your hornbook (alphabet, numbers, basic religious/moral instruction), not fluency with the written word.

Sardia
2007-03-09, 06:51 PM
...except that the people who make the art--in this case, spellcasters--are the ones in power, and are not going to squash their own talents for the purposes of making everyone suffer.

Of course not. But they'll squash someone else's- in evil societies that'll be outright squelching of potential competition, in lawful ones it'll be to ensure the public wellbeing by protecting everyone from potentially rogue magic users...
Could explain why wizardry is popular among the generally chaotic and good elves-- no one attempts to stop them.

Matthew
2007-03-09, 07:36 PM
Something that has bothered me about 3.x for a long time is that barbarians are the only illiterate PC class. In the real Middle Ages, literacy was cinfinced to a very small part of the population, namely clergy.

Aside from the points made by the other posters that D&D is not an accurate reflection of Medieval Society and not intended to be (a view that depends on what campaign you happen to be playing in anyway), in the 'real' Middle Ages the clergy were not the only literate portion of society and in any case they made up quite a large portion of society. They were the most likely to be literate in Latin, but that isn't the same thing as being the only literate class.
Now, to be clear, I'm not saying literacy was the norm and I take your point, but it's not exactly a difficult part of the game to rectify. You just decide who is and who is not literate. I have to admit the fact that the Barbarian is singled out as being illiterate has always struck me as an odd mechanical decision and can only really be down to fluff.

lordmarcoos
2007-03-09, 08:00 PM
As a quick fix, I'd say bump the skill points at first level up by something like 2+int bonus and then make people spend points to be literate in each language separately. That means someone like the wizard or the rogue would likely use his extra points to buy up all the literacy he can, while someone like the fighter could if they wanted to, or could use the skill points he just gained towards something more practical. After all, the party tank doesn't really need to read at all, when there's other literate people in the group. And he could blow 2 points on common if he really wanted to, or you could rule that literacy in a language you can speak is always a class skill, and literacy in a language you can't speak is always cross-class. Just throwing out ideas.

JadedDM
2007-03-09, 08:15 PM
Back in 2E, practically nobody was literate. All characters had to take the Reading/Writing proficiency or would be illiterate. Any character could take the proficiency, but it was pretty expensive for warriors and rogues, so few would. As a result, most of the literate characters were either wizards or priests, which made more sense to me.

I have no idea why they changed it in 3E. To make the game easier, maybe?

Gryndle
2007-03-09, 10:48 PM
That's one that's always confused me-- why would they have such? Universal education (at least to the point of basic literacy) generally only occurred when there was a good reason for it-- complexity of the society, or religious instruction. What in D&D provides that push?


Because its a game and not a sociology assignment. Seriously, if you try to put too much reality into it, the whole game breaks down.

Stevenson
2007-03-09, 11:00 PM
Well, I dislike attempting to apply actual history to DnD. If people wanted realistic portrayals of that time, there wouldn't BE wizards. Maybe, MAYBE, clerics.

I think that if society as a whole didn't use writing, it'd be fine I suppose. BWL is also right, though I'd assume that you removed that feature.

But, at that point, all of society using an alternate form of communication really makes removing literacy in the first place kinda pointless, since it's point is to make barbarians not fit in to regular society as well.

Matthew
2007-03-10, 09:15 AM
There is a world of difference between seeking to accurately portray Medieval Society and seeking to suspend disbelief in pseudo medieval flavoured game environment that is supposed to be consistant. The point is that there is little to no rationale as to why mechanically, everybody can read and write the languages they know.

Obviously, the mechanic is for simplicity, much like the 'Common' Language. There's nothing particularly wrong with questioning the rationale with regards to versimillitude.

GolemsVoice
2007-03-10, 09:29 AM
Every campaign world has at least one or two gods concerned with secrets, knowlegde and wisdom. Those gods, and their devoted followers, would really see to it that litteracy is spread amongst the local community.
And you must also consider that the Common Tongue is usually not the language used for spells, so a person who could write Common would not automaticaly be able to read and write a spellbook.

Matthew
2007-03-10, 09:40 AM
I don't think that necessarily follows at all. A Deity concerned with secrets may actively discourage literacy.

darkzucchini
2007-03-10, 11:38 AM
Personally, I would stay away from the idea of making everyone pay their 2 skill points for literacy. As someone else said, this just makes everyone spend their 2 skill points and grumble about how they can't afford some other skill. Instead, tell your PCs to write up character histories and whoever doesn't have a good reason to be able to read and write is illiterate. You would probably want to tell your PCs this in advance or you may still get grumbling out of them.