Sending Whispers to Players in different D&D languages

[Dax Doomslayer]

Hi Folks,
I must be missing something with this. I was wondering if there is a way to send a whisper to a player in one of the drop down menu languages (i.e. orc, goblin, giant etc). I can't seem to find a way to do this. Is it my general incompetence or is there no way to do so. Any help is appreciated! Thanks!

[Andraax]

You can't. It seems kinda pointless?

[JohnD]

A whisper meant for a particular player would be either understood by them, in which case you could say something along the lines of "In Elven the guard says to you...", whereas if the PC doesn't understand your message would be "The guard says something to you, but you don't understand his words.".

[Dax Doomslayer]

Right JohnD. I was wondering if there was a way to do it so I didn't need to look at the languages or ask. Not a big deal but I was just a little surprised it didn't work that way. Thanks for the input Andraax and JohnD.

[Bidmaron]

Dax, what exactly were you expecting it to do? You send the guy a whisper, and he gets it. Are you saying you wanted to send the whisper in elvish and let the system decide whether he understands it or not? So, stepping back from meta gaming, what is going on in game? Does the guy physically walk over to him and whisper in his ear? We are just trying to understand your use case here.

Usually, whispers are metagame messages from player-to-player or dm-to-player or vice vsersa conveying information that other players' characters should not know.

[Dax Doomslayer]

Hi Bidmaron,
Actually it is a party member scouting ahead and overhearing a group of bugbears at a door. He can't see in the room but hears them talking in goblin. It's just a way to keep the rest of the players from knowing what this person hears. Not a big deal - I was just surprised that this couldn't be done. Thanks.

[Bidmaron]

I don't recall anyone ever asking this question before (but I forget what I had for lunch yesterday, so maybe that isn't saying much). An extension could probably do what you are wanting (the chat language was once an extension itself, but it was so popular that it got incorporated into CoreRPG), but I am just not sure how many folks would ever use it. You have a valid use case, though. As others have said, there are workarounds that are easy to do.

[Dax Doomslayer]

Lol - yeah I'm always the one "off the reservation" with these corner cases. No worries as it's not really a big deal. I was just wondering if I was missing something but I guess I'm not! I really appreciate the response and confirmation.

[JohnD]

Are using voice communication or is this a chat game? If voice, just open up a private room and jump over with the player in question.

[Nickademus]

I see nothing unusual about the question. If text can go into chat that is filtered by languages known, whispers should as well. It makes sense. As for why whisper in a language? When you drag a story frame entry to the portrait of a character to send the text to just them, it appears on their end as a whisper. This means that any language-based text that is sent to a player would lose its language: not what is expected.

[Bidmaron]

Great point, Nickademus. Guess we need an extension to make it happen....

[Andraax]

The point of the languages in chat is to allow the GM to send a message, but only those players who know the language see (understand) it. Therefore, I see no need to use it in whispers since whispers only go to one person - if the player knows the language, then the GM just tells them the message, if the player does not, then the GM just says something like "X says something to you but you don't understand it..."

[Bidmaron]

But NIckademus brings up a good point. If you go to the trouble of putting dialog in your story entries in the language of the speaker and you want to drag it to a character who is the only one who can hear, then the DM will have to translate it for him. I was with you until I saw Nickademus' post.

[LordEntrails]

I think it would be cool if whispers had the language capabilities. Would make things easier for me as a lazy DM :) Also having the fantasy fonts for the language would be cool too. but, as has been said, not a big deal.

[Bidmaron]

Put it on the wish list!

[LordEntrails]

Suggestion added;
https://fg2app.idea.informer.com/proj/fg2app?ia=115540

[Dax Doomslayer]

Cool!! (Obviously I'm with Nickademus on this one). Thanks LordEntrails!

[Bidmaron]

Cool!! (Obviously I'm with Nickademus on this one). Thanks LordEntrails!
Well, if you are, go there and vote for it!

[damned]

But NIckademus brings up a good point. If you go to the trouble of putting dialog in your story entries in the language of the speaker and you want to drag it to a character who is the only one who can hear, then the DM will have to translate it for him. I was with you until I saw Nickademus' post.

Can you actually put dialog in story in alternate languages?

[Andraax]

Can you actually put dialog in story in alternate languages?

No, you can't (at least, not in CoreRPG derived rulesets). You can add a speaker, and if the entry has a speaker assigned, then it will use the selected language in the chat box.

[Andraax]

I still don't get the point. If the character can understand, then they will see the translation anyway (so having the "original" font is useless), and if they *can't* understand then they won't see the text, at which point it's useless for the GM to even share it with them...

I mean, all you're doing is adding the ability to post gibberish into a whisper, which seems pretty pointless...

[LordEntrails]

The point is, if I'm the GM, I may not know if their character knows a given language. Rather than have to figure out if Bob knows Undercommon, I can just whisper to him in Undercommon and let FG determine if Bob knows what I said or not.

[Trenloe]

The point is, if I'm the GM, I may not know if their character knows a given language. Rather than have to figure out if Bob knows Undercommon, I can just whisper to him in Undercommon and let FG determine if Bob knows what I said or not.
So you'd also want the GM to get a response saying whether the PC whispered to understood or not?

Note: The current language functionality gives no feedback to the GM as to which PC understood the language text.

[Zacchaeus]

So you'd also want the GM to get a response saying whether the PC whispered to understood or not?

Note: The current language functionality gives no feedback to the GM as to which PC understood the language text.

It does in 5e. I get ‘Understood by’ in chat and then the names of any characters who understood the text.

[Andraax]

Note: The current language functionality gives no feedback to the GM as to which PC understood the language text.

All of the CoreRPG derived rulesets denote which characters understood.

[Dax Doomslayer]

Well, if you are, go there and vote for it!

Voted for!!! I'm with LordEntrails in that it is one less thing I need to look up for the characters etc. Feedback is received as to who understands the language in the 5E ruleset. That actually was the reason I was surprised one couldn't whisper in a different language...

[Trenloe]

Cool. My mistake. I haven’t used it in a while.

[Bidmaron]

Trenloe, I don't believe I can ever recall you making a mistake. Your knowledge of both FG and several rulesets is really nothing short of amazing.

Plus, you have to make a mistake now and then so you can deny the claims that you are an AI.

[Trenloe]

Hahaha - yes, I need to err occasionally...

[Bidmaron]

You are usually the one correcting the mistakes of the rest of us.