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A Twist on the use of NPCs for Languages

After reading the forum posts on using an NPC for each language, I found the ideas good, but I thought there was a couple of ways to make it a bit better. As most of this stuff will then be transfered to a new game when you import the Language NPCs, I don't think it's that much work. What do you all think? Currently, you do the following for each Langauge (eg. Common). Create an NPC called the language (eg. Common) Asign the "Can be edited & Controlled By" to the above NPC to everyone who can speak that language. Use "/w Common "message here" to say something. Everyone who has that language will be abvle to see the message. What I did was add a couple of things to this to make it easier to use for my players. I created an "Ability" for each language called "Speak" and then put all of the whisper commands into that ability, then provided to the players the code to add a Item to the Macro Bar for that language. This also let me have a little fun with some of the languages. Because the abilities are all called the same, it makes everything quite intuitive (I think). Here are a couple of sample Macro commands that the player puts into their macro bar entry: Name : Abyssal     Command: %{Abyssal|Speak} Name : Common     Command: %{Common|Speak} Here are some of the sample commands that I put into the individual language NPCs /w Common ?{Message in Common} /w Druidic With the help of the surrounding plants and trees, you say ?{Message in Druidic} /w Dwarvish Including many references to Ale, you say ?{Message in Dwarvish} /w Giant You shout ?{Message in Giant} /w Halfling From close to the ground, you say ?{Message in Halfling} /w Primordial You say something which, with a lot of imagination, might mean, ?{Message in Primordial} /w ThievesCant Using a set of discrete hand movements, including scratching your butt at least 4 times, you vaguely say ?{Message in Thieves Cant}
nice. 
1613487411
keithcurtis
Forum Champion
Marketplace Creator
API Scripter
You should include that in the  Stupid Tricks  thread.
I did something similar, but a little more universal: I created all the language characters (Common, Elvish, etc.) and gave control of specific ones to the controlling players of PCs who know those languages.  I have a PCMacros Character, with several macros that are available to my players through chat menus or otherwise. One of those is "Language" (using a slightly modified emas script): !emas @{selected|npc_name} speaks in ?{Language}. !was @{selected|token_name} --?{Language} --[?{What do you say?}](#" style="background: none; background-color: transparent; border: none; padding: 0px 7px; text-decoration: none; display: inline-block; outline: 2px dashed green;) On each PC Character sheet, I have an Ability called "💬". For a character that knows Common, Dwarvish, and Orcish it looks like this: !?{Language||Common|Dwarvish|Orcish} %{PCMacros|Language} That gives me a unique input for each character/token by adjusting the languages listed on the 💬 ability, but a standard output: All players see the emote "Oran speaks in Orcish" so they know something is being said, but only those players who understand Orcish see the message that is outlined in green.
1613541544
Gold
Forum Champion
Love it! Really cool with the custom Druidic & Dwarvish & Giantish introduction.