Literacy in Fantasy

You're dick's pretty lame but I don't go talking about it.

>It's probably because of shitty systems that care little for realism or balance or a grittier tone.
What the fuck does balance have to do with realism or grittiness.

It's almost like different games warrant different tones.

/thread

Not him, but granting full and total literacy to every tom dick and harry removes some of the reason to have any sage or learned person in the party or to seek one out if lacking such a character.

False.

Exactly. Scholarly pursuits should remain the domain of scholars, not random adventurers.

>Character is a warrior ,why wouldn't they know how to read?
>Character is a paladin, why wouldn't they know how to read?
>Character is a mage, why wouldn't they know how to read?
>Character is a thief, why wouldn't they know how to read?
There's literally no reason for a hero or adventurer who "comes from nothing" not knowing how to read, a warrior would need to read so he could read swordsmanship manuals and other things, a paladin reads those and scripture, a mage reads spells and other things in relation to magic and a freaking thief could benefit from reading a lot than one who doesn't know what it says right there on that box of gold filled trout or something.
Obviously if you wan't to make a mud covered peasant (like all cliche fantasy peasants are) then by all means go ahead, same if you want all your characters to be knuckle dragging mouth breathing shit covered peasants, go for it.

But user, in my homebrew you need at least 13 INT or come from a scholarly background to be able to read.

PCs aren't most people.
also , and OP is the cancer.

>Throughout almost all of history most people couldn't read
Wrong, most people had basic literacy.
>Why should characters that came from nothing somehow be able to read?
Why do you think people's characters came from nothing?

Just 'cause you can read doesn't mean you know what to do with what you've read.

This.

It's not just stepping on toes of properly educated individuals, it tends to bend the suspension of disbelief in the setting.

When 90% of the populace consists of farmers, herders, and fishermen, there's simply no time or place for reading.

The children of such people who might become adventurers are often out working in the fields by 7 or 8 and have no time or wherewithal to learn. Furthermore they don't possess the money or access to tutors who are capable of teaching them. Lastly, they have no reason to learn to read, because the villages don't possess books because those are valuable and rare. Even the few signs that are in the village are painted images, not words.

Of course, the occasional mage, monastic, or scholarly clerical order might provide such a setting, but this should still be the exception rather than the norm.

Let's go with the generic archetypes in D&D

>Barbarian
No reason to be able to read
>Bard
Should be able to read, skilled minstrels were literate as they needed to be able to read poems and lyrics
>Cleric
All literate, the clergy were the only consistently literate group throughout all of history
>Druid
Depends on the setting as the only description of druids were Roman propaganda
>Fighter
No need to know how to read until you get very high up in military rank. Strength of arms is the best way to get along as a fighter
>Monk
Possibly, again it depends on the setting. Many irl monks can't read, simply meditating for long stretches
>Paladin
Almost definitely can read, prayer being a central part of their life
>Ranger
No need to know how to read, possibly very little contact with the world anyway
>Rogue
Most criminals couldn't read, but the most successful ones could. There's money to be made in changing ledgers
>Sorcerer
Probably can't read. Their magical ability comes from within, and isn't taught
>Warlock
Depends on the setting and circumstances of the pact
>Wizard
Can read

However, OP is closely posting from Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, where you roll for your class and therefore have only a 20% chance or so of being literate because you rolled Pit Fighter or Dung Collector instead of Apprentice Wizard.

It’s inconvenient to remember wh9 can and cannot read, and finding a scribe to negotiate prices for reading two lines of text does not usually lend itself to exciting roleplaying opportunities.

You're right. My current character is illiterate, and I like it. He's not stupid or anything, he's actually pretty smart, he just never learned how to read and adventuring never pays enough for him to settle down and learn how.

A sick burn and trips, can OP ever recover from this?

Well said

Even today literacy doesn't reach 100%.

If only one character can read, that character becomes the bottleneck for anything the GM wants to do that involves the written word. The rest of the group is reduced to sitting around with their dicks in their hands while one guy steals the show.

If nobody can read, they have to hire an NPC to do it, which takes the problem one step further and takes the game out of the players' hands entirely.

fpbp

fuck your setting, not everyone likes to play in medieval stasis

learning to read is really fucking easy

Eh, history has various degrees of literacy. Some places (like Rome), actually had some of their shit together. It certainly wasn't universal, but basic 1st grade literacy was much more common than people probably imagine. This was also true during the renaissance, which is when most D&D campaigns technologically take place around. Further, the players are almost certainly not raised poor- after all, they got the funds to start a career of murderhoboing, and that isn't cheap.

Perhaps most importantly, there is the magic factor. A world of active deities, particularly magic and knowledge deities, may have such gods coming down and showering the peasantry with "gifts" of knowledge, much like how Prometheus gave man fire.

See, usually I have the party be basically literate, but it's really 50/50 beyond that. Most common peasants can't really read. They can sign their name, maybe. Some smarter ones can maybe read something very basic if they took their time, like "takes them a day to read Cat in the Hat". If you own a shop, I make them functionally literate, because you need to write/read ledgers, etc. Government workers like secretaries obviously are. Military officers obviously are. Mages obviously are. The ladies working at the water mill for grain? probably not, or if they are (orders perhaps), it is at a very basic level that precludes anything more advanced than "wanted: 1 lb flour"

Well that's retarded too.

>read swordsmanship manuals
lol
That's like saying you can become a professional martial artist from reading a book on kung fu, or you can become a navy seal by reading a book on swimming and shooting.

Perfect explanation, that's what I tell my players.

>Wrong, most people had basic literacy.
What a fucking idiot. Only in the 1950's world literacy (i.e. reading and writing) reached 50%. In France the 50% level was reached in 1780s.

It's ironic that you lack reading comprehension in this thread about literacy.

World literacy is like 26% right now senpai

That's because of Russia, India, China and muslim countries. Shitholes with, like, 2% literacy.

Parts of the world that are not full of braindead troglodytes have higher literacy.

>>Russia
>Literacy: definition: age 15 and over can read and write
>total population: 99.7%
>male: 99.7%
>female: 99.6% (2015 est.)

Source: CIA World Factbook.

World literacy is 86%

Fuck off putinshill.

cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2103.html

>shilled study to make corrupt russian oligarchs look better

Look at any picture from Russia; they're retards living in shithovels. These people keep genocidal dictator suppressing free speech in power. They LOVE him. These people are retarded and insane and world will be much better off if they all got nuked.

>When 90% of the populace consists of farmers, herders, and fishermen, there's simply no time or place for reading.
Unless they are all functional imbeciles or have no personal rights of any kind, these people will want to be able to read legal documents to see what exactly they're signing and exactly how much taxes they owe. Not every fantasy kingdom has to be medieval England, and not every d&d game has to take place during the Renaissance, but if all your commoners tremble in fear at the sight of a book you've got a serious case of Monty Python wordbuilding.

So, like Americans?

>whataboutism

>These people are retarded and insane and world will be much better off if they all got nuked.
Talk about genocidal.

>shilled study
>cia.gov
Can Putin be stopped?

I don't keep up with your flavor-of-the-month political retardation, what's that one about?

>rightfully call out rushills
>b-but it's america who are bad!

t. mongoloid

>third world shitholes are uneducated
>HOW COULD YOU user THEY'RE PERFECT AND BEAUTIFUL
when did Veeky Forums fall to SJWs?

...

PCs are PCs. They're special. Unless you're playing OSR or Warhammer, player characters are these top of the top badasses. Them being literate is just one more example why they're better.

This

just stopping by to let you know you should really apply yourself more next time you try to bait

This is stupid. Fantasy should be rooted down in history, or else it's just adventures in Unicornfartland.

Because literacy isn’t binary you retard.

...

>you can't become a navy seal by reading books
What the fuck did you just fucking say about me, you little bitch? I’ll have you know I graduated top of my literary class in the Navy Seals, and I’ve been involved in numerous secret art raids on Al-Quaeda, and I have induce over 300 confirmed dumps. I am trained in pottery warfare and I’m the top epistolarian in the entire US writing forces. You are nothing to me but just another reader. I will shake you the fuck out with literary talents the likes of which has never been seen before on this Earth, mark my fucking words. You think you can get away with writing that shit to me over the Internet? Think again, fucker. As we speak I am contacting my secret network of publishers across the USA and your local library is being traced right now so you better prepare for the storm, maggot. The storm that wipes out the pathetic little thing you call your writing style. You’re fucking illiterate, kid. I can compose in any genre, anytime, and I can make you feel in over seven hundred ways, and that’s just with my bare words. Not only am I extensively trained in improvisation, but I have access to the entire thesaurus of the American Literature Association and I will use it to its full extent to wipe your miserable scribbles off the face of the continent, you little shit. If only you could have known what cultural revolution your little “clever” epigram was about to bring down upon you, maybe you would have held your fucking hand. But you couldn’t, you didn’t, and now you’re paying the price, you goddamn idiot. I will shit fury all over you and you will drown in it. You’re fucking dead, kiddo.

It’s was a lot harder in most Medieval times when books were few, expensive, and in Latin.

it's still pretty fucking easy if you understand Latin

I'm sure fantasy have unicorns and they do fart

Reading a couple books won't make you a SEAL but you still can't become a SEAL if you're illiterate.

That’s a pretty big if for a peasant.

and if you understand English it's pretty fucking easy to learn to read English

>all these faggots arguing every peasant should read and write

We get it. You're the sort of piece of shit that can't handle your mary sue characters having any flaw at all and fuck if they ever have to rely on anyone else for anything.

Why would anyone rely on someone for what they could do themselves trivially?

This.

Throughout all of history, no one has been able to shoot fireballs from their hands or slay a giant with sling. As long as the setting explains /why/ literacy rates are high, I don't have a problem with it.

I am trying to play power fantasy in my dnd game, why would you want to take that away from me?
This is all I have

>slay a giant with sling
King david is no joke kiddo

False.

Pants are overrated anyway.

So you're ok with the peasants all being able to shoot fireballs from their hands too?

> Player make his power fantasy character
> Discover that the setting have every peasants casually use magic

>can't handle your mary sue characters having any flaw at all and fuck if they ever have to rely on anyone else for anything.

Congrats, you've described 80% of gamers.

My character isn't a mary sue! He's too good for that!
And of course he got flaws, the best ones.

I know Russians have been doing that since the dawn of time, I didn't realize it had a name.

To be fair, there are few differences between detroit and random siberian towns except for the weather and melanin content.

>paladin needs to read to pray

talking to god with your eyes closed doesnt require reading skills

>So you're ok with the peasants all being able to shoot fireballs from their hands too?
Yes, as long as it's explained and makes sense for the setting. Ubiquitous magic and ubiquitous literacy are both things that can work and can not work depending on the context.

Because I don't want to have illiterate characters in the party?

Because to your average modern day player, despite realistic historical literacy rates, the idea of not being able to read is so incredibly foreign that having an illiterate character breaks immersion much more than having a literate character?

Because since it's a fantasy world, there may well be magical versions of printing presses leading to earlier mass literacy?

Or just, y'know, it's fantasy?

The same reason that almost everybody in the multiverse speaks Common (or some other English equivalent). It is just plain inconvenient to deal with language barriers, and illiteracy is like that. If the PCs cannot read and encounter some clue in written form, then they have to walk back into town and find someone to read it for them just so they can progress in the adventure, wasting everybody's time on a scene with no excitement or thought.

>Unless they are all functional imbeciles or have no personal rights of any kind,
Literacy has almost nothing to do with learning ability or personal rights. It has everything to do with time, access, motivation, and reason. My earlier post already outlined it well enough.

>people will want to be able
People want whatever it is they don't have, mostly to be rich, famous, and pretty. What they want is mostly irrelevant.

>to be able to read legal documents
Most people even today have trouble reading legal documents, which is why there's a whole profession around the writing, reading, interpretation, and so on of legal documents. Legalese was not much simpler in the dark ages or the feudal ages or the late medieval. Fortunately they could do then what people do today, hire a professional, or simply accept the reputation of the opposing party. Reputation was important. Oral contracts are a thing for a reason as well.

>Not every fantasy kingdom has to be medieval England
>Renaissance
Roughly 12% of the people in the world could read and write in 1820. Chances are your medieval fantasy setting (being medieval and all) does not match that.

Like I said before, there's nothing wrong with having literate and learned mage, sage, monastic, clerical orders, or learned nobles. It's all about degrees, and about contrasts. Those all make for a more interesting setting.

>your commoners tremble in fear at the sight of a book
Nice hyperbole. My commoners have seen the occasional holy book in a temple. What they tremble in fear of are presumably the same things commoners fear in all games; monsters, plague, brigands, a poor harvest, war, natural disasters, and a rise in taxes.

My character doesn't know how to swim, does that count?

Depends, if the setting is pirates on the high seas, or arabian deserts hundreds of miles from the nearest large source of water.

Nice strawman, Dorothy.

best post

I do have my characters be illiterate for the most part, as does the rest of my group. For some reason it's much more interesting and immersive to have the priest be the only guy in the party that can read.

One session we broke into a local judge's house to find evidence that he was working alongside a cult. However, since neither me or the other player's character could read, it created a sort of frantic "grab everything and run" scenario, because we had no idea what might be useful or not. Then we brought it to our priest after church let out and had him sort through everything.

>anyone in his setting is literate

What sort of barbarian learns latin?

Idiots and primitives are boring. That's why they're literate.

He can't read, he's a pirate

Ogryns in Only War are illiterate

one who doesn't want to be a barbarian anymore

>Romans
>Not barbaric

Ha

Honestly unless you work it into the setting it's something that seems like a hassle to keep track of

>you need to be an expert in order to fight
Yeah, never said the warrior is going to become an expert on anything, he is however going to learn about new weapons, new fighting styles, new fighting techniques and all that. As I said if you just want to be a troglodyte who bathes where the horses pee and cakes his clothes with mud and dung the go for it, continue being the stereotypical fantasy peasant who has more dirt than hippie volkswagen.

>It's all about degrees, and about contrasts. Those all make for a more interesting setting.

>created a sort of frantic "grab everything and run" scenario

Alright, I suppose I can accept your points.