Wookie Syndrome

[Tanuki Tales]

"Wookie Syndrome" is the case where a race that interacts with the regional/continental/global/galactic/etc. community as a whole has no issue understanding and comprehending the multitude of languages spoken by their peers but can physically only speak their own language. Their language may also be difficult or flat out impossible for members not of their species to converse in without mechanical aid or surgical modification.

DMs/GMs/Story tellers/etc.

• Have you ever used one of these races in a game that you have run?
• Do you like using such races or do you despise that they were ever thought up in the first place?
• Do you encourage/discourage/tolerate your PCs using them?

Players

• Have you ever played (or wanted to play) a member of such a race?
• Do you enjoy the idea/challenge of playing a member of such a race or do you greatly dislike it?
• How did your DM/etc. react to you asking to play a member of such a race?
• When playing a member of such a race do you just roll with the language barrier, attempting to mesh in and work as a member of society? Or did you use some methods (magical/mechanical/etc.) to overcome the barrier and allow you to communicate somewhat normally (and how did you achieve this)?

Have fun and discuss!

[DropsonExistanc]

In my first SW:SE game, Rebellion era, I played a free force-sensitive wookiee. One member of the party translated for a while, but an early acquisition for her was a translator droid that clipped on her belt. He was sarcastic and would sometimes misrepresent what she was saying, leading to amusing half-intelligible arguments, but he was generally an okay sort.

[Yora]

Even if its completely unrelated to the issue at hand here, wasn't it put into some novel that Chewie basically had a terrible speech impediment? I remember scenes in which communcating with other wookies was a lot easier.

[tahu88810]

Even if its completely unrelated to the issue at hand here, wasn't it put into some novel that Chewie basically had a terrible speech impediment? I remember scenes in which communcating with other wookies was a lot easier.

The novels were basically fan fic that got published. It really doesn't matter, does it?

On Topic:

I don't make use of races which suffer from the "wookie syndrome" because I find it to be rather unrealistic, I guess. Even if one could find a plausible reason for it, it's generally more trouble than it's worth. They are not allowed in any games I run, but if I were to run, say, a star wars d20 game or something I'd just houserule it away for simplicity.

As a player, I would never bother with one.

[jackattack]

I once played a satyr ranger with no human language skills -- it was a lot of fun. The DM gave me a random number of words that my character "picked up" every session until the vocab list was too long to be fun, and my character was able to communicate normally.

For a Star Wars game, I played a Jawa mechanic with Wookiee Syndrome. Again, it was a lot of fun. Sometimes it's nice to role-play without all of the dialog. (I limited myself to one "Uttini!" per session.)

[Gnoman]

Even if its completely unrelated to the issue at hand here, wasn't it put into some novel that Chewie basically had a terrible speech impediment? I remember scenes in which communcating with other wookies was a lot easier.

You have it backwards. One of the Wookies featured in the Thrawn trilogy had a horrible speech impediment, which had the side effect of humans being more able to understand him when speaking his own language.

[Beleriphon]

Even if its completely unrelated to the issue at hand here, wasn't it put into some novel that Chewie basically had a terrible speech impediment? I remember scenes in which communcating with other wookies was a lot easier.

Heir of the Empire, and it was one wookie with a speech impediment that made him easier to understand.

[dsmiles]

Aww...and here I thought this would be about being covered in fur so you could legally run around naked.

But, no, I haven't used a character with a language barrier like that. I think it would be fun to play, though.

[Yora]

Lol, now imagine having a few furry guys in your party for years, and then you get to visit their people and realize you've been traveling with a bunch of nudists the whole time.

[Bogardan_Mage]

The novels were basically fan fic that got published. It really doesn't matter, does it?

On Topic:

I don't make use of races which suffer from the "wookie syndrome" because I find it to be rather unrealistic, I guess. Even if one could find a plausible reason for it, it's generally more trouble than it's worth. They are not allowed in any games I run, but if I were to run, say, a star wars d20 game or something I'd just houserule it away for simplicity.

As a player, I would never bother with one.

What's so unrealistic about it? The vast majority of real world animals are unable to speak human languages, even if you assume the intelligence to understand them. Just because humans can generate a relatively wide range of sounds doesn't mean every sentient race will.

[DropsonExistanc]

From an evolutionary point of view, it makes a lot of sense that not all sentients' vocal chords would be the same. I think the Mass Effect universe actually has the most interesting perspective on that: Hannar are good examples of this I think, having no vocal chords that I know of. Elcor also have adapted to not being able to emulate the tonal variety of most of the other races by stating their tone at the beginning of their speech.

That does bring up the point though: how fast would a race with such a communication barrier take to adapt, if at all? And what is the fate of a race that doesn't?

In a campaign I'm playing, kobolds are tricksy, intelligent pests, that barely seem to be considered sentient, if at all. The Discworld book Snuff also deals with the goblins, whom a majority don't even believe are sentient but turn out to have a rather complex culture when they're not being exterminated like rats or sold into slavery.

[Tanuki Tales]

The Discworld book Snuff also deals with the goblins, whom a majority don't even believe are sentient but turn out to have a rather complex culture when they're not being exterminated like rats or sold into slavery.

I loved that book.

I mean, I love all of the Discworld novels (except Equal Rites), but that one is definitely one of my favorites now.

[Pokonic]

Lol, now imagine having a few furry guys in your party for years, and then you get to visit their people and realize you've been traveling with a bunch of nudists the whole time.

"But... I thought the Shifter Barbarian was just kidding when he said that he was naked when he went to see the king!?"

[Xuc Xac]

People keep saying "language barrier", but wookiees don't have a language barrier. They speak a different language, but it's not a barrier. Other races can understand the wookiee language and wookiees can understand the languages of the other races. This isn't just a wookiee thing, but it's more noticeable to us because wookiee is the only "language" that doesn't have words recognizable to the audience. A lot of characters in the Star Wars movies speak in their own language but understand and are understood by others. Many conversations on Tattooine involve a Basic speaker on one side and a Huttese speaker on the other; Lando used Basic with his Sullustan co-pilot who spoke Sullustan; Han and Chewie have the same arrangement; C-3PO is perfectly capable of beeping and whistling back at R2-D2 but he doesn't because R2 understands Basic.

If you have a D&D party where every PC knows Elvish and Common, is it a problem if the elf only speaks Elvish and everyone else always speaks Common? Only if you insist that the elf's player actually learn Quenya to speak all his dialogue.

[huttj509]

Even if its completely unrelated to the issue at hand here, wasn't it put into some novel that Chewie basically had a terrible speech impediment? I remember scenes in which communcating with other wookies was a lot easier.

Star Wars Christmas Special.

It's considered anti-canon for a number of reasons.

[RandomLunatic]

OK, anecdote time:

We were playing a 3.5 Forgotten Realms campaign, where there is no "Common" language. And the party went to another country, where only two out of three PCs spoke the local tongue.

At first, we had a lot of fun with this, mostly because the translators had a lot of fun at the other character's expense from "errors in translation" (RandomLunatic's Faerun travel tips-it is worth it to see if the local translator pings on Detect Chaos.).

However, funny as it was, after about a session and a half, the novelty wore off, and we got so sick of "And I translate" that the DM fiated everybody an extra +2 INT so they could pick up an extra language.

So basically, at least IME, the issue gets quickly glossed over and forgotten.

[DaMullet]

It's general practice in the group I play with to make sure some people have languages in common and others don't; typically this never comes to anything, but it's been used to plot behind another character's back before.

It's all in how you handle it; generally I just write notes and tag them with "This is in Elvish" and pass them to the players who speak it, who can read out the translation if they choose. If you force them to roleplay in the language, then it's a burden to everyone.

the DM fiated everybody an extra +2 INT so they could pick up an extra language.

This seems like a really powerful fiat, considering he could have just fiated you the language instead.

[RandomLunatic]

This seems like a really powerful fiat, considering he could have just fiated you the language instead.

Yeah, but it was a low-op, low-power group with no casters, and he wanted us to have extra skill points too.

[Coidzor]

Players

• Have you ever played (or wanted to play) a member of such a race?
• Do you enjoy the idea/challenge of playing a member of such a race or do you greatly dislike it?
• How did your DM/etc. react to you asking to play a member of such a race?
• When playing a member of such a race do you just roll with the language barrier, attempting to mesh in and work as a member of society? Or did you use some methods (magical/mechanical/etc.) to overcome the barrier and allow you to communicate somewhat normally (and how did you achieve this)?

1. I joined in a group of friends and their star wars game for one session as an observer and then they were like, "Well, heck, you can control one of our NPC minions that used to be a PC. ...Oh crap, he's a wookie. Oh well, give us your best wookie [Coidzor]!"

And I totally did. And there was much amusement. And then we all had a wookie-noise contest. Fortunately this didn't really delay the game too much as we were still waiting on someone or something before it could start. I think someone had realized they needed to adjust something from their character and there was some book referencing that had to be done.

2. I'm not particularly fond of having additional barriers to PC to PC communication, I must admit, but I've enjoyed the idea of some of the races that did it.

3. Only time it happened he was one of the people who suggested it and convinced me to do it, I imagine it would've gotten old if it had gone on for longer than a session.

4. I think I just gronked with it until I realized that apparently I had some kind of pocket translator droid. Didn't do much talking that session anyway though, as I helped co-pilot a bit and then watched a jedi vs. sith fight that turned into an anticlimax when the sith NPC botched severely. Ended up having force-enchanted gear for everyone in the party and was left with only his underwear. So I stole that and fashioned a hat out of it, since there wasn't any convenient way for any of us to deal with him without eating his sin/dark side stuff due to where the fight took place, so he was mostly just unconscious.

In other situations I have actually done this for relatively short periods of time IRL when I was a child or felt like making 100% Coidzor on Coidzor remixes of songs using only my name.

It's really fun when you get someone who will do it back and can actually manage to communicate a thought between the two of you.

[Mystify]

I did play in a group with a wookie once. We just added wookie to our languages known and rolled with it. You can also gloss over any translating that is being done, and as long as there is somebody capable of the translation, assume that they translate whatever is needed. You can still have problems where you can't speak to some random person while you are by yourself, but I think such occurrence are rare enough that their role playing value is worth it. If it was an everyday occurrence, it would get annoying, but instead it just offers an additional challenge.

[dsmiles]

Also, when I allow things like Wookies or Thri-Kreen in my campaigns, it's usually, "They can learn to understand other languages; you can learn to understand theirs; but due to vocal cord development/mouth shape/whatever neither of you can actually speak the other language." Cuts down on misunderstandings.

[jackattack]

If everyone more or less understands a character, or they have an independent means of translation (language droid, magic amulet, minion, whatever), then the player can just speak normally. Depending on circumstance, they might also be able to role-play the translator.

If you go this route, the DM can select particular circumstances when translation is unavailable as plot points.

If the player actually role-plays the language (grunts and howls for Wookiee, for example), then the player has to put a fair amount of trust in the other players (and the DM). "Oh, hey, the minotaur barbarian just said he doesn't want his share of the treasure. Again."

For that matter, the rest of the group has to put a fair amount of trust in the Wookiee-syndrome character. Not being able to communicate with the group can easily be used as a do-whatever-I-want card.

[DaMullet]

If the player actually role-plays the language (grunts and howls for Wookiee, for example), then the player has to put a fair amount of trust in the other players (and the DM). "Oh, hey, the minotaur barbarian just said he doesn't want his share of the treasure. Again."

For that matter, the rest of the group has to put a fair amount of trust in the Wookiee-syndrome character. Not being able to communicate with the group can easily be used as a do-whatever-I-want card.

http://darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0053.html This is a pretty good illustration of that, incidentally.

[valadil]

Roleplaying a language barrier can be fun, but it gets old quick IMO. Once I've solved a problem in game, I'm not really interested in acting out the solution over and over. It just gets tedious.

While I haven't tried a wookie-style language like you suggest, I expect it would play out about the same.

[Jerthanis]

Language barriers are one of my least favorite problems in RPGs, because the entire experience of interacting with someone in a tabletop setting is through talking. Being unable to communicate through talking is like being unable to interact with them at all. I've found that whenever a GM runs a game with no "Common" language, and specifies that language barriers are going to come up, they really quickly fall by the wayside as everyone just happens to start speaking whatever language the whole party happens to share in common. I've seen it happen multiple times and I think it happens because it's just a boring and frustrating problem.

I wouldn't allow Wookies in a game I ran, and neither do I allow Mute characters, and for the same reason. Being unable to communicate is just not a "fun" problem.

I would probably allow or even play a mute/Wookie character in a LARP though, since that's a different environment and RPing the difficulty involves seriously acting out exactly what your character is doing. There's no hard transition between intelligible speech, "I stand up and wave my arms frantically, trying to get your attention" "What is it?" and, "...*growling noises*..."

[boomwolf]

That does bring up the point though: how fast would a race with such a communication barrier take to adapt, if at all? And what is the fate of a race that doesn't?
.

Never. biological evolution pretty much stops once a race reaches civilized times, as everyone who mutates is "fixed" to what the race sees as the norm, and due to social life that based on appearance more then physical prowess anyone who is different is unlikely to have descendents, and if so only a few.

Now, if that race is willing to artificially engineer itself...that would be fixed in a single generation of the point they understand how.


As for language barriers, I tend to keep it a an "awkward" level at most, never delving all the way to "cants talk", just sounding silly and having a chance of misunderstanding is enough.

[Sith_Happens]

Elcor also have adapted to not being able to emulate the tonal variety of most of the other races by stating their tone at the beginning of their speech.

Sarcastic question: Doesn't that sound oddly familiar? Meatbag.

Never. biological evolution pretty much stops once a race reaches civilized times, as everyone who mutates is "fixed" to what the race sees as the norm, and due to social life that based on appearance more then physical prowess anyone who is different is unlikely to have descendents, and if so only a few.

Tell that to anyone who's lactose tolerant.

[DropsonExistanc]

Never. biological evolution pretty much stops once a race reaches civilized times, as everyone who mutates is "fixed" to what the race sees as the norm, and due to social life that based on appearance more then physical prowess anyone who is different is unlikely to have descendents, and if so only a few.

I think that biological evolution only seems to stop because of the awareness of the passage of time. For instance, I haven't grown wisdom teeth. The superfluous trait is, after a massive amount of time from our civilization perspective, finally being evolved out. My dentist doesn't seem to like me any more though...

In the context of the language discussion, the is irrelevant though, as we're working at the speed of civilization, not evolution.

Now, if that race is willing to artificially engineer itself...that would be fixed in a single generation of the point they understand how.

Any civilization clash that didn't end in outright continuing hostilities would eventually become an adaptive relationship, through whatever technology is available and effort is reasonable. The period of interest, that I think is most relevant here, is the initial clash.

From a game perspective, I think it works far better as a plot problem or a temporary problem than an ongoing thing. Any kind of emotional barrier, like an inability to understand the subjects, lessens the characters' investment imo.

[Mystify]

We are already working on star trek style translators that translate your spoken word, transferring inflection and stuff. Just by having a language barrier on our own planet we are adapting technology to deal with it. If we meet an alien race that communicated via color shifts, I'm sure technology will step up to adapt to it.

[Strormer]

Have you ever used one of these races in a game that you have run?

Several in SWSE and a few in 3.5.

Do you like using such races or do you despise that they were ever thought up in the first place?

They can be entirely useful when done well, but they should not be overused unless you're trying to convey to the PCs just how foreign the location they're in now really is. A good example of this would be playing a game set in Tamriel (TES) and travelling to Akavir. The language should be an issue because you'd be one of maybe a dozen people from your people on the continent. You'd make sense of their language eventually from pure emersion, but there's no reason for them to understand yours.

Do you encourage/discourage/tolerate your PCs using them?

In SWSE, yes, they're quite open to the public, though I do houserule in that all PCs double their number of languages gained at 1st level on account of how everyone in SW seems to speak a dozen languages off hand. You know, unless they're a farmer, and even then its a half dozen. Now what I really need is someone who understands the binary language of moisture vaperators.
Outside SW, depends on the game, but they could.

Have you ever played (or wanted to play) a member of such a race?

Yes, and it was a blast, though admittedly it quickly got fixed by a translator unit.

Do you enjoy the idea/challenge of playing a member of such a race or do you greatly dislike it?

I see it as an opportunity to play something in a different way. We once had a Jawa Jedi in an old republic game that was named Untaedi. He was a terrible jedi and his name eventually became a curse for his entire species.

How did your DM/etc. react to you asking to play a member of such a race?

In SW it's pretty easy to deal with since its so common. In DND we had a minotaur who eventually learned to speak common, but he sounded like he had downs syndrome just because a cow's mouth was trying to form human words. He was actually highly intelligent, but everyone was so condescending except the one player that could speak giant who knew better because he was using his native language. That's just one example. I also know a DM that would let you pick up understanding of a language if someone spoke it around you constantly for an extended period of time. This is how one player learned to understand druidic being the only non-druid in a party.

When playing a member of such a race do you just roll with the language barrier, attempting to mesh in and work as a member of society? Or did you use some methods (magical/mechanical/etc.) to overcome the barrier and allow you to communicate somewhat normally (and how did you achieve this)?

It really depends on the character and setting, but oftentimes I will bypass the language concern just because I don't have a reason to RP it. If my character relies on being different and having his own language then sometimes I will RP the hell out of it and never correct the issue.

In the hypothetical, if I was playing a wookie in a SWSE game, I would RP the issue until the party learned shyriiwook and then I would just talk normally with them as long as I knew the language they were using. If it really became an issue I suppose I would get a translator, but it seems unnecessary in such a cosmopolitan society as SW. Most people are going to speak a lot of languages and that would be an acceptable skill requirement for a DM to push onto a group. In a world where most people are familiar with at least a good six or seven core languages why would you only play a character that speaks basic unless he's either dumb or a sort of space redneck, "why don't no one speak my language, idjit?"