(12-17-2015, 12:28 PM)Aera Wrote: I've actually been thinking about this myself for the backstory of my own character that I'm working on. She would have grown up away from the major cities, so I considered that maybe literacy isn't that useful a skill as opposed to hunting or farming.Â
I think having an illiterate character could create some interesting RP opportunities.Â
Admittedly, most of my experience with the subject has been from D&D games where it was usually the "dumb barbarian" stereotype which is mostly played up for comedic value, acting like books are some sort of poison/voodoo. I've gotten to find that annoying just because of how overdone it is.
Yes - This is why, to me, illiteracy made sense for my main. Reading and writing just isn't useful to people living out in the desert, who aren't merchants or otherwise. Unless it is VERY basic symbols to just designate certain items - However, it can also be argued such things could simply be told in pictographs and the spoken word.
Yes - Again! Tamm being illiterate has already sparked some cool character development and relationships she otherwise might not have had.
Yes - That too! The 'dumb barbarian' steroptype doesn't apply here - Just as it wouldn't in real life. It isn't like some modern day, far flung colonies of humanity would be able to read. In fact, it is only in the last 50+ years that global literacy was even a thing. We have whole charities devoted to it in the US, for our own countrymen... and we have compulsory education. That doesn't make any one a dumb barbarian, though!
(12-17-2015, 01:19 PM)allgivenover Wrote: According to lore literacy is the exception, not the rule. Barring the wealthy, scholars, and adventurers the vast majority cannot read.
It's just that most RPers don't know this or can't get out of a modern privileged mindset that is surprised to run into illiteracy, so most characters are literate as a result. Even near feral wild backwood miqo'te often learned to read and write miraculously well at some point in their backstory.
I noticed this, too. Which is why I posted here, asking. I thought it was odd everyone could read and speak eloquently, when... even NPCs spoke with perhaps an accent, sometimes speaking like what we might imagine 'countryfolk' might talk like.Â
[[Meow meow, motherfuckers.]]Â - MediumRP, Heavily Foulmouthed.
