What's your stance on made-up words?

[Lmns Crn]

I know we all deal with this, to varying degrees. We all have made-up words for names of people and places in our settings, but it can and often does go farther than that.

I know that the more I've written, and the more importance I placed on "linguistic continuity," the more I found myself thinking of groups in my setting and saying: "They should have a word for that concept, in their own language." This leads me to having a rather large amount of made-up words, something that surprised me a bit yesterday, when I began indexing them all.

My question is thus: how far is too far, and how many can you have before it's too much? There's definitely an issue of immersion/verisimilitude vs. player convenience/simplicity. Where do you stand on the subject?

[Elven Doritos]

Well, just because I don't speak fluent Klingon doesn't mean I don't appreciate the creative effort that went into making it.

I think it really depends on the level of immersion you want in the setting. The more effort you put in on linguistics means the more effort the players put in.

I've contemplated working on my own fictional language for Red Valor (most likely a Romantic-styled language for Kettans), but I have neither the time nor inclination to actually do so.

I stick mostly with names and places, then, but I *occasionally* use archaic real-world names and places for things, too.

[Xathan]

I think it really depends on the level of immersion you want in the setting. The more effort you put in on linguistics means the more effort the players put in.

To an extent. To much stuff on linguistics, and the players get bored.

I developed a language for Aelithia, and while I now feel the flavor is too Asian for what I was looking for, it was using a rather simple program called LangMake. I attached the file for Aelithian to this document, feel free to check it out.

I mainly feel fictional words should be used for names and an occasional term (the Aelthian word for friend, mosoken, found its way into the one game I introduced players to the language, and they used it often.) Little things like that add depth to a setting without detracting from it.

LC, if you want, you could write an article on your thoughts for the newsletter, you seem to have a good idea what you think about it. :)

[Lmns Crn]

LC, if you want, you could write an article on your thoughts for the newsletter, you seem to have a good idea what you think about it.

Careful what you wish for, Xathan; I am an opinionated, crotchety old geeze. :)

[Xathan]

LC, if you want, you could write an article on your thoughts for the newsletter, you seem to have a good idea what you think about it.

Hey, opinionated, crotchety old geeze's sell papers, and hopefully would boost the popularity of a free one. :P

[SDragon]

for the sake of immersion, all thats needed is for it to sound like its a real language; it doesnt have to be a language. you cant, for example, mimic the noises your cat makes when it hocks up a hairball, then try to pass it off as orcish.

anything more then that can be enjoyable, both for the creator of the language (you), and the listeners to the language (your party members). i dont speak klingon, but i do think its cool that so much thought went into it that if i actually wanted to, i could learn.

that said, it wouldnt affect my game one bit if the DM of a star trek RPG used real klingon or if he faked it. to put it in perspective: how many of you have gamed in a middle-earth setting? how many of you know elven?

[CYMRO]

So long as the made up words sound good to you, no worries.
I like to take the living language approach to linguistics in Altvogge.  For over 1200 years in my CS, the various cultures have been mingling and trading concepts and words.  No language retains its purity in such an environment, so it is only natural, for example,  that the Elven language(based initially on Welsh) has a few words that sound Draconic(based on Japanese).

The conjugation of the English verb "to be" gives us words that have origins in three different languages.  Trying for linguistic rigidity is illogical and can bog you down unnecessarily.
I prefer to pick a root for a race/cultural group, and then let whatever works in the moment flow from there.

[brainface]

As far as playing goes, I like made-up words for new places or concepts, but I'm no fan of new ones for existing concepts, like the seasons, months, days of the week, and especially gold. (I once payed an innkeeper 40 platinum-equivilants in Ishmayl's campaign due to term confusion :P)

I'd also say that while names like "Duarmenstor" and "Arúdor" in a well-formed pseudo-language are neat, they're also much harder to remember than simple compounds like "The Northwest Passage Monastary" or "The Opal Council". And if I don't remember it, I'm not going to use it in play. :)

[Túrin]

Yeah, I was going to make a point similar to brainface's. Introducing new terms for people and places or even other concepts is cool, but you should take careful note that your players are keeping up with you. The moment the players are going to have to take more than a second to translate what you just said you're doing something wrong. In general: stop when it becomes too much for either you or your players.
Túrin

[Ishmayl-Retired]

Yeah, I've learned the hard way over the years from playing with brainface, daggerhart, and 2 even lazier players ;)  If it's too hard to pronounce, then that fancy-named elven kingdom eventually becomes referred to as "That fancy-named elven kingdom."  Anyhoo, I still make up words, but I try to base things off of real languages.  And sometimes, I just make up words for the simple fact that I like them; it's my campaign after all ;)

[brainface]

I'd also state that you can achieve cool and evocative names by sticking to things in your native language. I mean, i think "The Opal Council" is a cool name, and i can actually remember it. There's probably a grey area where you can make up words that sound enough like real words that your players can remember them. Obviously fake words that are simple can probably slide by too (like "brakta brakta"). Complex multi-syllabic non-native words just aren't gonna work too many times, imo. That's the kinda thing you do for a novel, and not so much for a game.

[Xathan]

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Plus, some unpronouncable gibberish can't evoke the same sense of emotion certain words can in our native language. Native words have connotation, something you can only artificially give made up words.

[Jester]

It depends on what you want to do with your campaign. Personally, I love (love, love love) linguistic touches like that. As long as the rest of your setting is as immersive then it's all good. One thing to keep in mind though is that people in your fantasy world are lazy too. If a place name is too hard to pronounce make up a truncation or colloquial name. Just try not to throw too much linguistics at people at once -- Takes awhile to internalize everything.

[Túrin]

Though a new concept, or a concept with a very specific connotation in your world, that also comes up often enough to be remembered, might warrant a new word. I'm thinking of such words as Jedi and Padawan, or Hobbit even.

[SDragon]

while thats all good, i would like to point out that all three of those words are simple- the longest is only three syllables, and even then, all the vowel sounds in that are iddentical.