Post/Author/DateTime	Post
pedr 09-05-07, 08:42 AM	(note the spelling of 'localisation' :) ) With 'Northern Europe and Russia', 'Southern Europe and Turkey', 'Latin America and the Caribbean' etc being regions, what language(s) will these regions be administered in and what languages will modules be written in? Will all modules be translated into English? Will regional administrators be authorised to translate (or have translated) other regions' adventures into their local languages? It seems disingenuous to call LFR a 'truly global campaign' if, for instance, the German and French players cannot continue to write modules and play in German and French. While I'm British and under this proposal would at the very least be able to play 10 of the 12 regions' material, it is going to cause problems for others - and potentially leave some regions with modules in multiple languages and mono-lingual players only able to play - at best - their own region's adventures. Also, the announced regions do not appear to be 'truly' global, as the Indian sub-continent, the Middle East, and Africa (except South Africa) appear to be missing.
mmockus 09-05-07, 10:21 AM	I believe the campaign will be administered in English. So my guess is all adventures will be published in english, judges can translate on the fly in necessary in their regions. I believe that is what many of the cross English/French regions do in Living Greyhawk right now. As far as some of regions missing, I would figure one of two things. a. The short descriptions are lacking or abbreviated, so we just don't know what region those will fall in. or b. based on RPGA numbers, there are zero players there. If if they were excluded, it would not keep them from participating, since out-of-region play is almost entirely open. On the same topic as localisation, are the core books even translated out of english? I would doubt it due to publishing costs, though maybe someone has translated the SRD, but that is still extremely limited.
pedr 09-05-07, 11:46 AM	ENWorld has comments from a number of overseas companies indicating that they're expecting to be able to get translated versions of the core books to press remarkably soon after the English versions are finalised. IIRC, Israeli and Spanish publishers have been confirmed. I suppose that my concern is that currently two active LG regions are administered in the local language, and the other European regions choose English because it is extremely widely spoken. Attempts to widen the appeal of LFR into other countries where English is not so commonly spoken (Russia and Turkey, for instance) is going to be hampered if a necessary qualification for an author, even for a senior GM, is fluency in English. I would be interested to read the commentary on this on the Adri and Ekbir LG lists - but of course I can't as my French and German is not good enough - which somewhat demonstrates the issue!
mmockus 09-05-07, 12:28 PM	I think there only a few regions it would effect that don't have most the players speaking English. Top 6, are US. Northeast US Southeast US North Central US Western US Southwest US Pacific US So english works here Canada Is bilingual, I do believe they are maintaining their adventures in English to ease coordination with the Circle(LG). UK/Ireland/South Africa Again English Latin America/Caribbean Mmm, there are a spattering of other languages here, English, French, Spanish, I'd be guessing at the majority. Northern Europe and Russia I wouldn't even guess on a majoral language here. Southern Europe and Turkey This is all over the board, but I would assume that some semi-common language will need to be settled on. Australia/New Zealand/Pacific Asia Australia has a large RPGA presense, so English is a natural choice but the rest of Pacific Asia is an issue. So I think that is 9 or 10 regions that english works for. I would doubt ay out-of-regions adventures are translated out of English, the judge will have to do this on the fly. The only question will be the few exceptions where English is not the primary language of most of the player. No I would say if any community grows significantly, I would not be surprised to see players doing translations for their geographic region. my 2 cents
Onslaught[IT] 09-05-07, 01:13 PM	Please, don't forget that Brazil is in Latin America... and we don't speak spanish, nor french... we have nothing to do with Buenos Aires... and we have the 3rd (4th?) major city in the world... around 190,010,647 people lives here, which is 1/3 of all Latin America... if you exclude Mexico, that's almost 1/2! We speak portuguese... Sure, I (as may others) could just download the modules in english... but what I'm saying is: don't forget us :P
Mythrasus 09-05-07, 01:41 PM	Forget who ;) :D The problem I see in splitting Europe like that is the sheer number of differemt languages almost forces them into English which will typically be there 2nd or 3rd language just so they can find a common ground. I think there will be a definate need for localisation...
Skerrit 09-05-07, 01:57 PM	I expect that it's likely to happen like things do now. The operating langauge for the RPGA is English and so mods must be in English. If someone is willing to also put them into another language, more power to them and everyone from that region should thank them profusely.
gomeztoo 09-05-07, 03:08 PM	The current german scanerios are in german, and the french scenario in french. Dutch, scandinavian, and swiss mods are in english. I personally favor to stick to english, with the possibility to translate to local languages should there be a volunteer (in fact, I would suggest these Triads get a separate position on the staff for that).
mmockus 09-05-07, 03:46 PM	;13674522']Please, don't forget that Brazil is in Latin America... and we don't speak spanish, nor french... we have nothing to do with Buenos Aires... and we have the 3rd (4th?) major city in the world... around 190,010,647 people lives here, which is 1/3 of all Latin America... if you exclude Mexico, that's almost 1/2! We speak portuguese... Sure, I (as may others) could just download the modules in english... but what I'm saying is: don't forget us :P Sorry no offense intended. I was aware that Brazil spoke Portuguese. For some reason I read Latin America and thought Central America. But as I stated there is still a variety of languages in the region.
GCOLLIOU 09-05-07, 04:04 PM	As French player and event organizer, I can say it's the biggest way to kill Living Campaign in France or countries who not use English language as primary. I play to LG from the beginning and travel a lot for play modules in US and Europe. For a success we need modules in Local language. Like you say this campaign for me be surely less 'truly global campaign' than LG if you going in a full English Campaign. I know well Latin America, it's a stupidity to hope develop Living Campaign in this region if they can't writing module in Spanish (and don't forget Brazil don't speak Spanish but Portuguese). If they don't change that it's a better way to allow more regions to US who surely find more volunteers to develop in English. And in France we surely stop to play Living Campaign and play Home Campaign. I think it's bad marketing way, because since two years now LG/RPGA is present at the main event in France at GenCon Paris (without support of nobody in HQ), if the system going for all English, RPGA disappear from this event (because volunteers are not able to support an English Campaign, and where most players play in French), and I know that: the translator and organization of this event prefer FR stuff, so it's a nonsense to me. (note the spelling of 'localisation' :) ) With 'Northern Europe and Russia', 'Southern Europe and Turkey', 'Latin America and the Caribbean' etc being regions, what language(s) will these regions be administered in and what languages will modules be written in? Will all modules be translated into English? Will regional administrators be authorised to translate (or have translated) other regions' adventures into their local languages? It seems disingenuous to call LFR a 'truly global campaign' if, for instance, the German and French players cannot continue to write modules and play in German and French. While I'm British and under this proposal would at the very least be able to play 10 of the 12 regions' material, it is going to cause problems for others - and potentially leave some regions with modules in multiple languages and mono-lingual players only able to play - at best - their own region's adventures. Also, the announced regions do not appear to be 'truly' global, as the Indian sub-continent, the Middle East, and Africa (except South Africa) appear to be missing.
GCOLLIOU 09-05-07, 04:30 PM	One Question are you already translate on the fly a module not writting in English to English, Try that and after perhaps you change your mind. If we want develop in the area Living Forgotten, we need module in Local language because most of DM and Author do that in there language. You surely know the French Triad, so he can esaily say to you that he spend near 4 more time on a VTF module than and Ekbir Module, and he speak very well english. For your information near all Forgotten stuff is already translate in French, so it's why most of the french players play to Forgotten Realms. Greyhawk is more for older players who have near all time play with english stuff it's not the same for Forgotten. It's more easier to find volonters fluent in English for Greyhawk than Forgotten Realms (and numbers of Forgotten Realms players are really bigger in France) PS : All CORE book are translate in French (and I have a copy in Portuguese buying during a trip in Brazil, and I know that we can find copy in Spanish and German) I believe the campaign will be administered in English. So my guess is all adventures will be published in english, judges can translate on the fly in necessary in their regions. I believe that is what many of the cross English/French regions do in Living Greyhawk right now. As far as some of regions missing, I would figure one of two things. a. The short descriptions are lacking or abbreviated, so we just don't know what region those will fall in. or b. based on RPGA numbers, there are zero players there. If if they were excluded, it would not keep them from participating, since out-of-region play is almost entirely open. On the same topic as localisation, are the core books even translated out of english? I would doubt it due to publishing costs, though maybe someone has translated the SRD, but that is still extremely limited.
sir_lune 09-05-07, 04:40 PM	(note the spelling of 'localisation' :) ) With 'Northern Europe and Russia', 'Southern Europe and Turkey', 'Latin America and the Caribbean' etc being regions, what language(s) will these regions be administered in and what languages will modules be written in? Will all modules be translated into English? Will regional administrators be authorised to translate (or have translated) other regions' adventures into their local languages? It seems disingenuous to call LFR a 'truly global campaign' if, for instance, the German and French players cannot continue to write modules and play in German and French. While I'm British and under this proposal would at the very least be able to play 10 of the 12 regions' material, it is going to cause problems for others - and potentially leave some regions with modules in multiple languages and mono-lingual players only able to play - at best - their own region's adventures. Also, the announced regions do not appear to be 'truly' global, as the Indian sub-continent, the Middle East, and Africa (except South Africa) appear to be missing. LG in France is mostly in french with dms and authors translating mods when necessary for foreign players, such as last spring for a bunch of english people. The major part of french rpg players play in french, they sometimes buy english product because of the huge delay to get french translation of Wizards 's products. As Gerald said in a previous post (and before on various yahoogroups dedicaced to LG and LFR) if french players must play in english, the campaign will simply die in France. I lived in Quebec during three years and most of the mods here were written in english and in french without any particular play difficulties. As far as I know Swizerland offer mods in french too, and the lack on french speaking players in belgium-luxembourg areas come principaly from english-only mods. In Conclusion, remember that there are many people who do not speak english. Today, english speaking people can play initially written in french, spanish, german,.. because volonters are here to increase play opportunities. if tomorrow the campaign become an english only campaign, it would mean less play opportunities in these areas for anybody.
GCOLLIOU 09-05-07, 04:46 PM	Why not propose some Language Region (not base on Geography but on the language), and allow people to chose in that case. And not limited Triad Members or players to one region. Like That if you prefer to play in French you chosse the French Region, if you Prefer develop as triad a land not in you region you can (better to have good author who prefer develop a region not in there geographic border) French, German, Spanish French (France, Quebec, French spoken players in Swiss, Belgium, Luxembourg, and other thru the world, French Guyane in South America, some African Coutries or Pacific Island) Spanish (Spain, Latin America minus Brazil, some US state like Florida or California, etc..) Same for German. Like that we can have local module in local language. And if we can find translator to make the module available in English that a benefit for eveybody :) And allow to other countries in Continental Europe to join one of this region or choose for the Continental Europe by default in English (I think stupid in that case to make a Northern Europe & Southern Europe, only one Continental Europe seem to be appropriate) I think there only a few regions it would effect that don't have most the players speaking English. Top 6, are US. Northeast US Southeast US North Central US Western US Southwest US Pacific US So english works here Canada Is bilingual, I do believe they are maintaining their adventures in English to ease coordination with the Circle(LG). UK/Ireland/South Africa Again English Latin America/Caribbean Mmm, there are a spattering of other languages here, English, French, Spanish, I'd be guessing at the majority. Northern Europe and Russia I wouldn't even guess on a majoral language here. Southern Europe and Turkey This is all over the board, but I would assume that some semi-common language will need to be settled on. Australia/New Zealand/Pacific Asia Australia has a large RPGA presense, so English is a natural choice but the rest of Pacific Asia is an issue. So I think that is 9 or 10 regions that english works for. I would doubt ay out-of-regions adventures are translated out of English, the judge will have to do this on the fly. The only question will be the few exceptions where English is not the primary language of most of the player. No I would say if any community grows significantly, I would not be surprised to see players doing translations for their geographic region. my 2 cents
GCOLLIOU 09-05-07, 05:06 PM	Pierre it's really easier to write a module in local language and translate in English after (but take lot of time). Don't forget other European are not good as Nordic Countries and Netherland in English. For Swiss Mods I know that the new triad going to make the module in French. Only one of them speak well English and are able to write in English because it father is from UK :) and the prior Triad Martin is from UK. If you search volunteer to translate in local language it’s like you say you never find writer in France or Germany. I'm not sure you can motivate people if they can only translate module and not writing there modules. I have doing that at he beginning of LG I have some good Adaptable/Core Module in French translate by some people (but perhaps only 2 or 3 from Year 1 to Year 4, until we have 8 Ekbir module each year, we use this translation for big event, and it's a lot of work and it's why we stop that). So the biggest question is: Do you want Living FR in other countries than English spoken countries? I can say one think if the RPGA HQ don't take care about the language, people going to play home campaign in Forgotten Realms and you never find volunteers (or they stop I think quickly) for LGFR in this countries. I know people in France ready for make LFR but if it's all in English they surely not try do develop the campaign, so in that case not useful to make a South or Northern Europe Region, better to say one Continental region or most of Triad Member be from Netherland or Nordic Countries without Latin spoken guys. And the campaign surely be most of time run in the same countries. As event organizer I can tell you it’s very hard to me to find Dm able to run module from France (Ekbir – writing in French or VTF – writing in English) for English spoken people. The current german scanerios are in german, and the french scenario in french. Dutch, scandinavian, and swiss mods are in english. I personally favor to stick to english, with the possibility to translate to local languages should there be a volunteer (in fact, I would suggest these Triads get a separate position on the staff for that).
tharlan 09-05-07, 05:11 PM	Australia/New Zealand/Pacific Asia Australia has a large RPGA presense, so English is a natural choice but the rest of Pacific Asia is an issue. ::::: checks to see if Wes Nicholson is listening... Uhm.. you mean that Australians speak English? I have been at tables with Wes and.... ::: running like heck.. Troy Daniels :: who personally thinks that Wes is possibly one of the most kick butt people in the world. :D
Nuddawan 09-05-07, 06:02 PM	My assumption will be that the "triad" for regions that are not primarily English speaking will be responsible for translating scenarios into whatever languages are necessary for their region, based on play numbers. I expect Latin America will have Spanish and Portuguese translations. I expect Northern Europe will have English, French, German, and possibly Russian translations. I expect Southern Europe will have Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and maybe Arabic. I also expect that the triads will be responsible for translating "core" scenarios into their regionally supported languages, but they will not be responsible for translating other regions scenarios. Just IMO Rob Little
GCOLLIOU 09-05-07, 06:16 PM	It's a Joke ? You know time needed for that ? First you must writing a module who is not you language, that take near 4 times as a module in you language, and after you must translate in 4 or 5 other langagues. With less volonters and less players than in US. It's a nonsense. It's actually difficult to have all the slot with module in european region (same for UK) in there local language so more difficult after to have module not in you local language and translate in 4 or 5 other languages. Good way for the campaign never work in Europe outside UK/Ireland or Nordics Countries/Netherland. A good way perhap can be RPGA who are ok to pay a translator, good way for find money, stop to send Mini or Card by FedEx or UPS in Europe (when look the price for that for only one card or a mini, I think it's so stupid to spend money like that), global Mail work well and are less expensive. My assumption will be that the "triad" for regions that are not primarily English speaking will be responsible for translating scenarios into whatever languages are necessary for their region, based on play numbers. I expect Latin America will have Spanish and Portuguese translations. I expect Northern Europe will have English, French, German, and possibly Russian translations. I expect Southern Europe will have Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and maybe Arabic. I also expect that the triads will be responsible for translating "core" scenarios into their regionally supported languages, but they will not be responsible for translating other regions scenarios. Just IMO Rob Little
Nuddawan 09-05-07, 06:59 PM	It's a Joke ? You know time needed for that ? Actually no. I'm sadly monolingual, and barely that. I would assume that a translation by someone familiar with the languages could complete it in a few hours (assuming that things like stat blocks require very little in the way of translation), but I'm completely pulling that out of my buttocks. First you must writing a module who is not you language, that take near 4 times as a module in you language, and after you must translate in 4 or 5 other langagues. With less volonters and less players than in US. I'm assuming that the authors wouldn't have to be the translators, and not necessarily residents of the region. A good way perhap can be RPGA who are ok to pay a translator, good way for find money, stop to send Mini or Card by FedEx or UPS in Europe (when look the price for that for only one card or a mini, I think it's so stupid to spend money like that), global Mail work well and are less expensive. I'll drink to that...I can't understand why they send them by FedEx and UPS in the states...and frequently in much bigger boxes than they need to. Rob
mmockus 09-05-07, 09:00 PM	No need to shout! :D One Question are you already translate on the fly a module not writting in English to English, Try that and after perhaps you change your mind. If we want develop in the area Living Forgotten, we need module in Local language because most of DM and Author do that in there language. You surely know the French Triad, so he can esaily say to you that he spend near 4 more time on a VTF module than and Ekbir Module, and he speak very well english. For your information near all Forgotten stuff is already translate in French, so it's why most of the french players play to Forgotten Realms. Greyhawk is more for older players who have near all time play with english stuff it's not the same for Forgotten. It's more easier to find volonters fluent in English for Greyhawk than Forgotten Realms (and numbers of Forgotten Realms players are really bigger in France) PS : All CORE book are translate in French (and I have a copy in Portuguese buying during a trip in Brazil, and I know that we can find copy in Spanish and German) I was never suggesting an on-the-fly translation was optimal. Far from it. It is good to know that the core books and much of the Realms stuff has been translated to French, German, etc. Internationality is good for the hobby and campaign. The biggest draw back with these large regions, Take the Southern Europe/Turkey. As you mention, VTF from the French triad take 4 times as long, and we are only dealing with translation between French and English. And I know the editting take longer as well. Something always gets lost in the translation. With the new Southern Europe/Turkey we are not dealing with 2 languages but 4 or 5, Spanish, French, Turkish, Italian, and possibly English (Greek, Portuguese, etc.). So a localisation for all would potentially be prohibitive to timely release. I curious to see how this is resolve. My guess would be each region assigned a single default language, that editting, etc. is completed in. Then post release localisation is done by campaign volunteers, with no need to go back to the Circle or whatever they will call it. But there are people who have more experience then me on how best to achieve localisation, I'd love to hear what they think. Bilingual authoring doublely muddies the water. What happens if a German author writes an adventure in German? How does it get translated to Turkish? Or must it be submitted in the default language of the region (French for example) prior to release? Assuming that the rest of the region will be able to translate from the default to their host language. How do French, German, etc language players play core adventures in Living Greyhawk now? (note the spelling of 'localisation' :) ) Stupid American English... Localization and Localisation synonymous with the exception of this context.
GCOLLIOU 09-05-07, 09:39 PM	How do French, German, etc language players play core adventures in Living Greyhawk now? They find some Dm able to do that (who represent less than 10% of the players - not a good way for make a success). So it's a nonsense to say you have a region if you can't write in French or German. If they keep what they plan I can say for sure that you don't find lot of volonters from this areas ok to write in English (and we lost most of the author). So only one continental Europe as region can be useful and most of the witter surely come from Netherlands or Nordic coutries, but I think you never see a French or Swiss player as triad. So in fact we lose if I compare to LG, and in that case for me it's not a 'truly global campaign', but a 'truly english campaign' where only some French Dm are able to run the module for players, but that not increase the numbers of players and lot of them surely not have the impression to be part of something like actually for Ekbir or having some kind of influence on the plot thru an Interactif because not able to play in English (in the last two year in France we have 2 to 3 interactifs). I sure of that because I bring some players in Uk and Netherlands and they stop coming because they not enjoy game where they only understand a little part and not able to make roleplaying like tehy wish. It's same for me I understand pretty well english but not able to do the roleplaying as I want outside Ekbir Stuff. So I prefer to play home campaign in that case.
GCOLLIOU 09-05-07, 09:49 PM	Because it's normaly a global Campaign why make Geographic Border ? I prefer the Arcanis system, if you like a region write for a region, so don't care where you are on the world you can chose to be part of a country. Like that a guy from California can choose to be a triad for Cormy because he like this land and another form the same state can choose Halruaa because he have good idea for that. If the language must be English i think it's really a better way for the campaign. It's a nonsense to make a Southern Europe with 6 or more different language. I don't see the benefit. only waste time for nothing. The biggest draw back with these large regions, Take the Southern Europe/Turkey. As you mention, VTF from the French triad take 4 times as long, and we are only dealing with translation between French and English. And I know the editting take longer as well. Something always gets lost in the translation. With the new Southern Europe/Turkey we are not dealing with 2 languages but 4 or 5, Spanish, French, Turkish, Italian, and possibly English (Greek, Portuguese, etc.). So a localisation for all would potentially be prohibitive to timely release. I curious to see how this is resolve. My guess would be each region assigned a single default language, that editting, etc. is completed in. Then post release localisation is done by campaign volunteers, with no need to go back to the Circle or whatever they will call it. But there are people who have more experience then me on how best to achieve localisation, I'd love to hear what they think. Bilingual authoring doublely muddies the water. What happens if a German author writes an adventure in German? How does it get translated to Turkish? Or must it be submitted in the default language of the region (French for example) prior to release? Assuming that the rest of the region will be able to translate from the default to their host language. How do French, German, etc language players play core adventures in Living Greyhawk now?
WotC_Tulach 09-05-07, 10:03 PM	I don't quite understand this issue. 1. The RPGA provides primary support for adventures in English. A very huge percentage of the player base can read and understand English. 2. People all over the world, right now, are playing RPGA adventures that are written in English. In Latin America specifically, all the Xen'drik adventures (which are available worldwide) are in English, and they're playing the heck out of those adventures. 3. The primary goal is to have the majority of the adventures available to everyone. If we have adventures that are playable only in French, then we lose well over 90% of our play audience for those adventures. Living Greyhawk was able to get away with making an exception due to the smaller-sized regions, and the restrictions on regional play (which is not very inclusive). 4. Right now, only about 3% of all Living Greyhawk adventures are published in French. The French are playing the game, and they're definitely playing more than just 8 adventures a year. So, something's happening with the cores, adapted adventures, and metaregionals. 5. I will be looking for localization experts to translate adventures into Spanish, Portugese, French, and German to start. Certainly, if anyone would like to volunteer, please send me an email (via PM) and let me know you're interested. We'll work to determine some sort of compensation for translated adventures.
GCOLLIOU 09-05-07, 11:18 PM	1. The RPGA provides primary support for adventures in English. A very huge percentage of the player base can read and understand English. A) Yes, but if you want gain new market you need to localize your marketing :) 2. People all over the world, right now, are playing RPGA adventures that are written in English. In Latin America specifically, all the Xen'drik adventures (which are available worldwide) are in English, and they're playing the heck out of those adventures. B) I know Brazil, I have friends close to me who play in D&D between French,German and UK in english near 20 years (Europeen community in Rio and San Paolo), but they can tell you that most part of new players with the translation of D&D in portuguese play in portuguese (Brazil people are not fluent in foreign language). I can't tell more about other Latin America country who speak spanish 3. The primary goal is to have the majority of the adventures available to everyone. If we have adventures that are playable only in French, then we lose well over 90% of our play audience for those adventures. Living Greyhawk was able to get away with making an exception due to the smaller-sized regions, and the restrictions on regional play (which is not very inclusive). C) It's why I say to propose more Global region base on some language like French and Spanish not on boundary. We can say : French language Area Region, A Spanish language Area Region. Each of this region must provide the modules in English, but have also the module writting in local language. This region are not limited by geography, like that it's more easier to find people thru the world abble to Write in both language or translate from French/Spanish in English. French can cover (France, Quebec, Swisszerland, Belgium, Luxembourg), its a better area than a mix of France, Spain, Italy, Greece or Turkey -for this two last that can be problematic-. Same for Spanish (Spain, all South America Countries minus Brazil). Because it's a global campaign why limited volunteers from a geographic region for a Forgotten land ? And we must allow them more place as triad member because, they need to provide more work because of translation. Other way, when you propose an Interactif, if we run module in France during big event like GenCon France we must run interactif in English only perhaps some players outside France coming to play the interactif. If I compare 5 english players to 50 french players comming to the event what we do during the interatif ? I know than most English people are not able to Dm French Module in French, so think it's the same think for french DM :) That take really more time for French Triad to make the stuff in English. And I sure the main focus of Wotc it's to sell more product, it's better to sell more product on new market, i'm sure if D&D begin to be a sucess in India or China, you surely quickly reconsider your position about a full English spoken people or campaign. (sorry it's surelly my experience in my worldwide compagny, who sell products all over the world, we call that localization) 4. Right now, only about 3% of all Living Greyhawk adventures are published in French. The French are playing the game, and they're definitely playing more than just 8 adventures a year. So, something's happening with the cores, adapted adventures, and metaregionals. D) Yes because we have a limited stock of Dm able to do That, it's really more easier (and some time we make mistake) to run a Module from English to French, than directly write a full module in English it's really not the same stuff. And personnaly seeing all job doing to make the increase of LG Community in France and see all this Job doing for nothing because all must be in english for LFR it's difficult to unterstand. We loose players because they don't continue on Forgotten, but Forgotten can recrut more easely new players because more stuff than Greyhawk is already translate in French. 5. I will be looking for localization experts to translate adventures into Spanish, Portugese, French, and German to start. Certainly, if anyone would like to volunteer, please send me an email (via PM) and let me know you're interested. We'll work to determine some sort of compensation for translated adventures. E) I don't know what the plan of the Wotc/RPGA with the actual tranlator of the D&D stuff in France, but because we have some contact with them du to GenCon France you can perhaps look with them if they can support, help for that ? I'm sure they can be interested because it's Forgotten Realms and they sell translation of this stuff.
tombollis 09-06-07, 12:03 AM	Why not propose some Language Region (not base on Geography but on the language), and allow people to chose in that case. I agree. Regions based on language would be better than regions based on real world geograpphy. Additional regions could be based on FR cultures, so tou pick a home region for oriental characters, arib characters, etc. I have never liked the lG region system based on real world locatiion. Tom Bollis
WotC_Tulach 09-06-07, 12:30 AM	So, just to clarify: Regional authors can come from anywhere. The admins are not required to author any adventures (although the writing director does need to review them). An author in the US can write an adventure for the Southern Europe region, and vice versa. We will accept adventures in multiple languages, as long as one of those languages is English. You don't have to run an adventure in English, as long as there is another common language between the table. A table of all Colombian players can play any adventure they like in Spanish. If, theoretically, there was an interactive that had 50 players participating in it, it was a large-scale group participating all at once, and all the players wanted the content in French, that's no problem, given the ability to translate the content. (There are a lot of assumptions in this illustration.) As was previously discussed - localization is a good thing. We would like it. It will require more work than just creating a region where only a very few adventures will be available in the local language. What Living Greyhawk had was a very basic attempt at localization - something that wasn't optimal, and certainly didn't allow for more than a few adventures to be localized. I'm thinking a little bigger than a halfway solution. I'd love to have a dedicated translation expert for each major language used in RPGA play.
HassanSabbah 09-06-07, 02:12 AM	French/Spanish in English. French can cover (France, Quebec, Swisszerland, Belgium, Luxembourg), its a better area than a mix of France, Spain, Italy, Greece or Turkey -for this two last that can be problematic-. GColliou, there will not be any problems. There are more common points among the two people than there are differences, and one common point is that we all know how to have fun. We are adults who know where not to settle differences. Extreme rightist/nationalist groups on both sides are not the target demographic of the RPGA anyhow. There are many yearly events that are handled in cooperation between the folks on the two sides of the Aegean. The idea that such cooperation for a game would pose problems represents a shallow understanding of the Greco-Turkish relationships. What you're implying would be akin to me saying that there will be problems in the UK/Ireland/South Africa region. UK and Ireland has had a long history of differences, which (different from the Greco-Turkish relationships) continued to be very violent up until the recent past. Also, UK has many black residents/immigrants; South Africa is still cleaning the mess of racism and the job is not complete. Thus, a region encompassing the three countries would be problematic. Mind you, my personal idea of the train of thought in the above paragraph is that it's just a sack of <bleep>. I am sure that the Greek players are largely thinking the same way. So, there will not be any problems. Later, Baris, from Turkey 59650932
HassanSabbah 09-06-07, 02:18 AM	Moreover, social/cultural events are good steps towards forming a basis of mutual understanding. And finally, I suspect the player base on the northeastern quarter of The Sea at The Center of The World would simply not give a rat's tail about any of what I've written here and would just keep playing. ;) Baris
Simpi 09-06-07, 02:38 AM	Extreme rightist/nationalist groups on both sides are not the target demographic of the RPGA anyhow. I am also wondering why North Europe/Russia region includes such a cradle of democracy as Belarus. Does it have much D&D activity? Maybe it would not look good on map if there was a large grey stain in the middle of blue colour. Who knows, maybe the grey colour could symbolise disappearing journalists and politicians of Belarus. Sampo Haarlaa Naerie Triad
gomeztoo 09-06-07, 03:07 AM	What Living Greyhawk had was a very basic attempt at localization - something that wasn't optimal, and certainly didn't allow for more than a few adventures to be localized. I'm thinking a little bigger than a halfway solution. I'd love to have a dedicated translation expert for each major language used in RPGA play. That would be great. I have seen the issues with german-only mods in a world-wide campaign (I review the German mods), and they go beyond editing troubles. Seperating modules by language risks setting them apart - if you dont't watch it you'll end up with 'Living Forgotten Germany'. That may be prevented if you have a translator for originally english mods.
afbeer 09-06-07, 07:00 AM	RPGA is a part of organized play and therefore a part of marketing. I don't quite understand this issue. 1. The RPGA provides primary support for adventures in English. A very huge percentage of the player base can read and understand English. Please talk to DCI people about localisation. They do not require the vast majority of their judges to be fluent in english. They test them in various local languages, too. English as a foreign language is a difficulty! I have anecdotal evidence regarding players. 2. People all over the world, right now, are playing RPGA adventures that are written in English. In Latin America specifically, all the Xen'drik adventures (which are available worldwide) are in English, and they're playing the heck out of those adventures. Can you share active 1 or active 10 numbers (number of gamers with at least that many games (1 or 10) in a year)? Can you distinguish the role (DM, player)? Is the percentage of DMs (DM active 1, DM active 10 again) of RPGA members lower in countries with another main language? Marketing would be able to come up with queries to the play data base for internal analysis. 3. The primary goal is to have the majority of the adventures available to everyone. If we have adventures that are playable only in French, then we lose well over 90% of our play audience for those adventures. Living Greyhawk was able to get away with making an exception due to the smaller-sized regions, and the restrictions on regional play (which is not very inclusive). This was never suggested. But if the LFR modules are not localised the localisation of 4E is not supported by marketing. You can always enlist the companies doing localisation like Hasbro Germany to chip in in this marketing in order to have them profit from the wider spread of LFR. This reminds me that localisation is important for all four pillars of 4E (Physical product, Organized Play, Community and Digital Offerings). Only doing one is not going to make it. D&D is an international phenomenon. Ask Magic: the Gathering, ask the DCI about their experiences. Andy Heckt can point you to european judges. 4. Right now, only about 3% of all Living Greyhawk adventures are published in French. The French are playing the game, and they're definitely playing more than just 8 adventures a year. So, something's happening with the cores, adapted adventures, and metaregionals. But it is not optimal in a marketing sense. It can be done better by doing localisation. There is a reason why localisation is done in all businesses (books, computer games, MMORPG, Harry Potter, Magic: the Gathering Online, board games, Settlers of Catan, ...) 5. I will be looking for localization experts to translate adventures into Spanish, Portugese, French, and German to start. Certainly, if anyone would like to volunteer, please send me an email (via PM) and let me know you're interested. We'll work to determine some sort of compensation for translated adventures. This is a good start.
HassanSabbah 09-06-07, 07:01 AM	Localization is important, and it's important that qualified professionals handle the job. BTW, if you folks at the WotC ever decide to have anything related to DnD translated to Turkish, please try to choose a gamer to do that. We did have the 3rd edition core books in Turkish... They were worthwhile to buy and read for the comic quality of the translation. We had a very good laugh. Locali(s/z)ation is very hard to do. Starting from about age 10, a second language is in the programs of pretty much all of the schools here, and a basic course is mandatory. This doesn't mean that the students get farther than asking where the restroom is though. I know through experience that mods translated to Turkish would attract many players, but I also know from experience (I tried my hand at translation once) that it's not easy to do at all; especially since Turkish has a very different syntax and word formation compared to English. Why am I writing this? Well, my experience is limited to the difficulties in Turkish/English translation... But this may be relevant to other languages. And I'm sure the folks at WotC know this. Baris
GCOLLIOU 09-06-07, 10:40 AM	I can say pure sure now with this politic, RPGA don't gain more players, but only give more opportunnity to players they have already. That a big difference It's near impossible to play all the module available in LG, if a player can play 20 Core + 8 Meta + 8 Regional each year it's already a good think. Giving more opportunnities to play more module can be nice but not improved number of players and is only usefull for some little numbers of players. I can say now that LFR take a wrong way in Southern Region, because actually we have nothing in Spain & Italy, and Swiss and French players not continue if everything must be in english so we loss the pool of French Swiss players/volonters for the new campaign who represent most of the southern players in Europe. Perhaps you find one or two volonters, but with no support from the actual pool it's seem difficult to launch well the campaign and be a success in this countries. But seem Baris can develop LFR in Turkey, so funnny because I think we are more player in France/Swiss than Turkey. Good Luck. I think with my pool of players in Paris with continue on others campaigns. That would be great. I have seen the issues with german-only mods in a world-wide campaign (I review the German mods), and they go beyond editing troubles. Seperating modules by language risks setting them apart - if you dont't watch it you'll end up with 'Living Forgotten Germany'. That may be prevented if you have a translator for originally english mods.
sir_lune 09-06-07, 11:07 AM	I apologize for spelling errors and mistakes, Notepad isn't the best tool to write a mail :D So, just to clarify: Regional authors can come from anywhere. The admins are not required to author any adventures (although the writing director does need to review them). An author in the US can write an adventure for the Southern Europe region, and vice versa. So far, it makes no difference for authors with the current situation in LG for writing mods. We will accept adventures in multiple languages, as long as one of those languages is English. You don't have to run an adventure in English, as long as there is another common language between the table. A table of all Colombian players can play any adventure they like in Spanish. If, theoretically, there was an interactive that had 50 players participating in it, it was a large-scale group participating all at once, and all the players wanted the content in French, that's no problem, given the ability to translate the content. (There are a lot of assumptions in this illustration.) You describe here a typical game or Con in Quebec or in certain parts of Canada. When there is one or more english-speaking only person, we play in english. It works in Quebec because rpga players are mostly bilingual but the rpga deprives itself of a large part of potential dms and players. At the last GenCon in Paris there were dozens of people, all speaking french. Make them play in english because of one or two players and the players pool is cut in half. Does this kind of micro-management problem really need that much attention ? The meaning of the word "global" here is important : Does it mean global as "english speaking people can play LFR games all over the world " or global as " local D&D players from most countries can be part of a worldwide rpg campaign and make it worthwhile for foreign people to come and play local games" ? In the first case you will have a good transposition of the geographics of u.s (or Otan) military sites in Europe an Asia, while in the second case it will be mostly local players. In both cases, I know that i will play and try to contribute to the campaign, but that's probably not an assumption that can be made for every players. As was previously discussed - localization is a good thing. We would like it. It will require more work than just creating a region where only a very few adventures will be available in the local language. What Living Greyhawk had was a very basic attempt at localization - something that wasn't optimal, and certainly didn't allow for more than a few adventures to be localized. I'm thinking a little bigger than a halfway solution. I'd love to have a dedicated translation expert for each major language used in RPGA play. For Southern Europa and Turkey it means people with good language skills in at least 5 languages, minimal knowledge of D&D mechanisms and the FR setting. These people are needed even with an english-only campaign to accomodate local players in their respective areas, So I think that it can be done, but it means a good amount of planning before the campaign truly begin :D By the way, Chris you speak in another post of 3% of total play made in french, do you include in this total swiss mods or quebecian/canadian mods played in french ? and what does this 3% mean compared to other play areas ? I'm really interested in this kind of statistics.
HassanSabbah 09-06-07, 12:20 PM	campaign and be a success in this countries. But seem Baris can develop LFR in Turkey, so funnny because I think we are more player in France/Swiss than Turkey. Good Luck. Thanks! I'm trying, but we've got to transform the enthusiasm on the Turkish forums into action. That's taking off, but not as fast as I would like; and being a grad student, I can't devote as much time as I would like to the project. I am succeeding in getting others on the 'advertisement' action though. Baris
Lagrange, Baron de Banville 09-06-07, 02:02 PM	As a member of the German Triad for almost five years now, I can assure you, you won't lose any players if the adventures will be in english only (at least here in Germany). What you will lose are writers and GMs. We always had GMs who only wanted to master german modules. As authors of german LG modules needed to provide an english summary, before they could start writing a german adventure, we at least doubled the time in writing, having a lot of potential authors quit before finishing the summary. So as long as you find enough german GMs, who can translate adventures on the fly (like they do it now with every Core, Adaptable or Metaregional available to them), you will find enough players (and even new ones) to play, but you find less people getting involved and maybe even getting the same feeling for their "own" region... It isn't just a matter of hours to translate an adventure into another language. It usually takes days to months, depending on the complexity. If I look at the release schedule of the german translations of D&D and FR-Novels, it takes at least two or more months, to make a serious translation. You just can't use Google as a translation tool or the outcome will make everyone laugh... 'till we meet in the Adri! Frank Roters
armenfrast 09-06-07, 06:10 PM	I fully agree with Frank, even writing a summary in english was a challenge for french writers, and i do not mention writing a full adventure in english, as this requires a tremendous work and a knowledge in english far beyond the abilities of even players of university formation. Living Greyhawk could survive in France because it was promoted by a group of "old" greyhawkers - people who had started playing D&D 10 or 20 years ago when all the published materials where available only in english. We "greyhawkers" surely are not representative of the potential players of LFR - LFR should appeal to younger players who have always played in the FR and in French. An all english campaign will never appeal them. Why bother while there are other play opportunities around. In fact you must be clear and decide if you want to give a true opportunity to players all around the world to play in LFR or if you want to limit it to english speaking players ? Regards Pierre
ankhwearer 09-06-07, 07:42 PM	On the same topic as localisation, are the core books even translated out of english? I would doubt it due to publishing costs, though maybe someone has translated the SRD, but that is still extremely limited. I went out of my way to buy a German PHB while I was in Germany this spring. Yes, the core books have been localized into many languages.
HassanSabbah 09-07-07, 03:52 AM	I went out of my way to buy a German PHB while I was in Germany this spring. Yes, the core books have been localized into many languages. AS I mentioned, they were also translated to Turkish, with somewhat weird and funny results. BAris
gomeztoo 09-07-07, 04:13 AM	It isn't just a matter of hours to translate an adventure into another language. It usually takes days to months, depending on the complexity. The reverse is also true though: I review german mods, but they take much longer than an english one. And even then, I cannot edit them, as I am not fluent in it. I occasionally do not understand some elements, and it is puzzling to find references when german and english names differ. All those things make editing harder. That should not be overlooked in a region that has multiple nationalities.
Borris 09-08-07, 12:24 AM	I can see at least one good side to all this. Since characters can now play modules from any region, there should be no reason for, say, a module translated into French by Canadian admins not to be available (along with translations) as a download for DMs in France, Belgium, or anywhere else. There certainly should be a way for translators to make their work available to all DMs worldwide. And I don't if it's because I'm a francophone from Quebec, having been taught English since my earliest years and surrounded by English people to the West, East, and South, but I see no problem in translating a module from French to English or vice-versa. It shouldn't take even one tenth of the time I'd spend writing it. The only problem would be the technical terms, like feats, skills, or spells, but a French PHB and DMG should cover most of my needs.
sir_lune 09-08-07, 03:56 PM	An I suppose that you are able to translate them in german, italian, spanich or turk too... if it's not well thought and done from the beginning of the writing, it's a huge work to translate a whole mod.
HassanSabbah 09-09-07, 03:35 PM	An I suppose that you are able to translate them in german, italian, spanich or turk too... if it's not well thought and done from the beginning of the writing, it's a huge work to translate a whole mod. One pro and one con to the above reply... Just because I could speak English rather well for someone whose first language isn't English, I was offered a part-time translation job when I was in college. I used to translate our textbooks in English (albeit orally) for my friends all the time, so I said, what the heck... There is a reason for the exinstence of the 4 year college program for translators. Translation is not easy at all. Not one bit. OTOH, every mod probably won't be translated to every language, but every (quality) translation helps. It might be a bit unfair for a mod to be translated to, for example, French, but not to, say, German, but it still helps. Baris
mmockus 09-10-07, 12:58 AM	An all english campaign will never appeal them. Why bother while there are other play opportunities around. I don't disagree with you that a language barrier will present issue. But the belief that other play opportunities exist is not a universal truth. Unless there is some french language, country spanning campaign running I am not aware of. One of the reason, I found LG, was even in a univerity town, I had trouble finding a group, and my play schedule had issues making it to a regular Sunday night game or something similar. LG filled that gap for me. In most cased a home campaign will be of higher quality, since it is taylored to the play group. You mention trouble with a french author translating an adventure from french to english. With english as a secondary language. I'd say that is a the weaker way to translate. you don't wan't someone writing in their secondary language, it will never be as strong. I'd suggest translating the opposite direction. Since the campaign will be administered in English, English will have to be the base adventure language. With only 3 "Circle" members, they'd never be able to admin in the variety of languages presented globally. What I'd suggest is the French community, whether it be Canada, France or Haiti, take the English adventures, not necessarily just the regional adventures, and translate those to French. Being able to understand the English should be sufficient to translating it to French, and then the quality of the French translation is based on the writing abilities of the French author. So the writing all around should be more solid. A similar methodology could be taken from many languages, Spanish, Portugese, etc. My 2 cents.
mmockus 09-10-07, 01:10 AM	I can see at least one good side to all this. Since characters can now play modules from any region, there should be no reason for, say, a module translated into French by Canadian admins not to be available (along with translations) as a download for DMs in France, Belgium, or anywhere else. There certainly should be a way for translators to make their work available to all DMs worldwide. That sounds very similar to what they do with the MtG testing. Mind you it is a bit more difficult to translate a 50 page document compared to a 2 sentence magic cards or a 50 question multiple choice test. With a little edit to the DB, they could carry a language flag, and allow DL to be filtered by language, so a Portugese player could see how many adventures are currently available in their language. (For that matter bilingual players could even see what needs translation and donate their skills.) It might take a bit of time to ramp something up like this. I think we all need to be aware, there is NO reason for WotC to not want localisation, it is just a matter of resources, so if they see 50,000 in French PHBs (just throwing out numbers), maybe Hasbro will come to RPGA and say, "We have this guy.. he is yours, get these things put out in French." In reality again, I think any localisation is going to have to start with the volunteer community. This has always been the strength of LG.
Borris 09-12-07, 07:43 PM	An I suppose that you are able to translate them in german, italian, spanich or turk too... if it's not well thought and done from the beginning of the writing, it's a huge work to translate a whole mod. Unfortunately, I'm only fluent in English and French. But maybe someone else out there will have the skill and time to translate modules to some other language. All I'm saying is that instead of having every non-English speaking DM translate his modules on the fly before running his game, there should be a way for those who can do professional translations to send to the RPGA so that any other DM can download a version in their prefered language, if available. It makes even more sense now that access isn't as limited as it used to be. A module translated by a Mexican Dm for his gaming day might save a lot of trouble for another DM in Spain. And I totally agree with having people translate to, and not from, their native language. Sure, I could take a French text and translate it to English, but it would never be as good as the same work done by a native English speaker with the same level of French that I have in English.
Madfox11 09-13-07, 07:54 AM	In my opinion you are doing the RPGA HQ a rather big disservice in thinking that they are not aware of the language problems. They have had 7 years of experience with Living Greyhawk in the world and are fully aware of many of the mistakes and problems that arose for example in Europe (from Greek players having 20th level characters 6 months after the start of the campaign without ever having written a regional adventure to regions evolving in a Living local nation to a lack of vollunteers to adventures completely breaking D&D and LG rules because the main reviewers did not understand each other properly). Three of the Circle members and the big boss of the RPGA are from outside of the States and I know that I have talked about the language and cultural problems within Europe. The fact is that there are so many different languages in the world, that sticking to a "core" language is the only option. Or do you really want to get into a discussion about what language is represented by enough players to get a region of their own? I know the Swiss triad only decided to switch to French out of desperation - they would otherwise have stuck to English because they are fully aware that now German speaking Swiss players could rightfully demand German adventures. Besides, one of the reasons why the amount of regions has been reduced is simply because LG was too big a drain on the available vollunteers. It simply is not an option to have one region per RL country. In the end the best the RPGA can do is try to find vollunteers with adventure editing skills and allow them to translate adventures and come up with a mechanism to deliver the different versions to the players. These translators should be publically available so that potential authors can write events in their own language and get those translated to English. The RPGA should also make sure the contracts between the author and WotC are according to international law, and if even remotely possible in a couple of different languages. Side-note to the French and German triad: why are you forcing your local authors to write the summaries directly in English? You are fluent in English (at least the German triad is), and it is not as if a summary requires all that much skill. You do not need to translate a novel. All I need to know is what kind of adventure is being written, how it relates to (Living) Greyhawk*. Sure it is extra work, but it should not be more difficult than to write a completely new summary. If it is the summaries you complain about: the English speaking regions also write those summaries. *Translating an actual adventure of course does require more attention and is a lot of work. It is the summary part I am referring to here. And yes, I personally have translated English adventures into Dutch, mostly boxed texts, since when I started this hobby I was playing with several persons whose English skill was virtually non-existent and mine was not yet good enough for an on-the-fly translation.
Nolwelen 09-22-07, 12:39 AM	(note the spelling of 'localisation' :) ) With 'Northern Europe and Russia', 'Southern Europe and Turkey', 'Latin America and the Caribbean' etc being regions, what language(s) will these regions be administered in and what languages will modules be written in? Will all modules be translated into English? Will regional administrators be authorised to translate (or have translated) other regions' adventures into their local languages? It seems disingenuous to call LFR a 'truly global campaign' if, for instance, the German and French players cannot continue to write modules and play in German and French. While I'm British and under this proposal would at the very least be able to play 10 of the 12 regions' material, it is going to cause problems for others - and potentially leave some regions with modules in multiple languages and mono-lingual players only able to play - at best - their own region's adventures. Also, the announced regions do not appear to be 'truly' global, as the Indian sub-continent, the Middle East, and Africa (except South Africa) appear to be missing. Actually, I mentioned before in another thread here that the german and french speaking people got split up into different regions. Belgium and Luxembourg find themselfs in the same region as germany. While the swiss and the austrians are in the same region with france. It doesnt seem logical to me.
Nolwelen 09-22-07, 12:55 AM	Northern Europe and Russia I wouldn't even guess on a majoral language here. Most definitely german, even if there are some russians playing, the germans outnumber the rest easily. Southern Europe and Turkey This is all over the board, but I would assume that some semi-common language will need to be settled on. Hard thing, the trouble is even though some could speak another language they wont "elevate" that language voluntarily to be the common language. Just taking Switzerland, and thats an extremely same space in comparison to the entire region. german, french and italian are "major" native languages. The italian speaking will settle on german no doubt! But the french speaking wont! In fact the italian speaking swiss associate themselfs more with the german speaking part of the country. Well taking the LG meta-region for Switzerland, that wont be a big issue since the region is nearly inexistent. ;P But thats just an example for the same problem on a larger scale. Therefore english will have to suffice, since its not the native language for anyone, thus none will fill by-passed. As French player and event organizer, I can say it's the biggest way to kill Living Campaign in France or countries who not use English language as primary. I play to LG from the beginning and travel a lot for play modules in US and Europe. For a success we need modules in Local language. Like you say this campaign for me be surely less 'truly global campaign' than LG if you going in a full English Campaign. I know well Latin America, it's a stupidity to hope develop Living Campaign in this region if they can't writing module in Spanish (and don't forget Brazil don't speak Spanish but Portuguese). If they don't change that it's a better way to allow more regions to US who surely find more volunteers to develop in English. And in France we surely stop to play Living Campaign and play Home Campaign. I think it's bad marketing way, because since two years now LG/RPGA is present at the main event in France at GenCon Paris (without support of nobody in HQ), if the system going for all English, RPGA disappear from this event (because volunteers are not able to support an English Campaign, and where most players play in French), and I know that: the translator and organization of this event prefer FR stuff, so it's a nonsense to me. C'est ça! Perhaps, global language regions would have been better. My assumption will be that the "triad" for regions that are not primarily English speaking will be responsible for translating scenarios into whatever languages are necessary for their region, based on play numbers. I expect Latin America will have Spanish and Portuguese translations. I expect Northern Europe will have English, French, German, and possibly Russian translations. I expect Southern Europe will have Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and maybe Arabic. I also expect that the triads will be responsible for translating "core" scenarios into their regionally supported languages, but they will not be responsible for translating other regions scenarios. Just IMO Rob Little Assumtion completely wrong. The trouble is you will face redundancy. German and french will be common in north and south europe, at least if the regional borders stay the way they are now. The german speaking swiss, the austrians and the german speaking italians will make more than 10 million people in southern europe speaking german, and many of them only german. Well I forgot the german speaking french by the way, strasbourg for instance. ;) Go figure. Belgium just droped on the wrong side of the regional border, again 10 million people in the wrong region. None will be speaking arabic, what nonsense. Turkish isnt a semitic language dude, its an altaic language not related to any other language in the region. The hungarian wont speak either, german, french, russian or english for that matter. Good luck. ;) Go and make translations for all of them may be you should ask the UN if they might lend you their translators. Actually no. I'm sadly monolingual, and barely that. I would assume that a translation by someone familiar with the languages could complete it in a few hours (assuming that things like stat blocks require very little in the way of translation), but I'm completely pulling that out of my buttocks. Rob Well your suggestion actually is assuming that its no big deal to translate something written in engish into French, spanish, italian, portuguese, greek and turkish and retain a common essential meaning in any language version. Ok well you do have no idea.
Nolwelen 09-22-07, 02:31 AM	I agree. Regions based on language would be better than regions based on real world geograpphy. Additional regions could be based on FR cultures, so tou pick a home region for oriental characters, arib characters, etc. I have never liked the lG region system based on real world locatiion. Tom Bollis You know the realy hard thing about geography is languages dont care where either border is drawn, the one of a country or that one of a meta-region. Language regions would solve that problem entirely.
Keith53 09-22-07, 07:28 AM	You know the realy hard thing about geography is languages dont care where either border is drawn, the one of a country or that one of a meta-region. Language regions would solve that problem entirely. I think a language-based region approach only works well if the numbers of gamers is more even across the languages. Perhaps an effect of the primary delivery of the game content in English (or perhaps a cultural thing), but much more play is currently occuring with English speaking gamers. I think you would still see the USA, Canada, UK and Australia geographic regions separated to help spread the numbers. If you don't want a whole bunch of language regions with relatively few players, which languages do you choose for the few remaining ROW language regions. Assume very little play in Chinese or the various languages in India. Are you European centric with French, German,...? Creating regions where you have no basis to project strong play seems counterproductive. Keith
gomeztoo 09-22-07, 09:01 AM	Most definitely german, even if there are some russians playing, the germans outnumber the rest easily. Going by the number of scenarios written in LG, it's the scandinavians, or maybe the dutch, who write... in english. Anyway, designating NE as 'german' - bad mistake. We have polish, dutch, german, french, norish, danish, swedish, finnish, and russian, and probably several other languagues I forgot. Also, some people just don't like certain languages. If Nothern Europe would go 'german', you have dutch people drop out of LFR faster than you can say 'Living Germany'.
Nolwelen 09-22-07, 10:36 AM	I think a language-based region approach only works well if the numbers of gamers is more even across the languages. Perhaps an effect of the primary delivery of the game content in English (or perhaps a cultural thing), but much more play is currently occuring with English speaking gamers. I think you would still see the USA, Canada, UK and Australia geographic regions separated to help spread the numbers. If you don't want a whole bunch of language regions with relatively few players, which languages do you choose for the few remaining ROW language regions. Assume very little play in Chinese or the various languages in India. Are you European centric with French, German,...? Creating regions where you have no basis to project strong play seems counterproductive. Keith OK well let me say it this way. If you were european you would know where the language borderline is running through. And you would know how this geographical space would look like. A french or german based language region is a geographical region, but it looks very different from this arbitrarily drawn line. The problem now is that you may have big spaces to draw upon for players, but since the border between this spaces is running the wrong way across europe you split up language based communities into different regions. You loose a fair portion of these players due to this failure, because you send them into an outland. The french speaking want to be able to speak french while gaming and german speaking want to speak german while playing. The players from belgium wont play in the north european region I can tell you. Why should they? And it doesnt matter how many can speak english or not. End thus theoretically larger numbers wont solve the problem. It makes everything worse in a space in which easily 10 languages are spoken, if not more. Its just english speaking perspective which screwed this up. You just think about numbers because you never have to think about interaction across linguistical limits. If you were living here you would understand why this is doomed to failure. You can bridge the gap between two languages, but if you simulataneously have to bridge many , VERY MANY you have no chance to keep it up. Perhaps a lot of people speak english, but they can only speak thus well as they do and they who cant are excluded from the beginning. There wont be discussions like here on the boards because the biggest part of the opinions fall victim while struggling getting it into english and then retranslated back into a native language. Totally lost in translation. Expacting all europeans to deal with business entirely in english means not one translation step, but at least 2. And I can tell you more reinterpretations dont make a single sentence better. Its just the easiest way for the RPGA Staff to say the campaign language is english. The reason for that is they dont speak any other language themselfs. Thus, they would loose overview if we started using our languages and hop agross single language borders, which possibly wont include english. Thats the bare, naked truth. ;) Let me give you an example. The last company I worked for isnt a global business company. It operates only within Switzerland. Its a food retailer with approximately 40'000 employees. These employees speak 4 different native languages. German, french, italian, reto-roman. The vast majority doesnt speak english at all. Therefore I was forced to communicate with french speaking co-workers in a different way. The way it turned out to work is the following one. Whenever I had to talk to a particular western swiss woman, which could only speak french, but understood german when someone was speaking to her, I approached her in german. She understood what I was saying and answered me in french. And even though my french is terrible I could understand what she was telling me and I again answered in german. No english involved. We behaved a kinda like "Wookies" understanding different tongues but only able to talk in the native language "Shyriiwook". ;) Another example would be a guy I worked together with. He lived in france, where he had ever lived. Actually he is an "alsatian", german speaking part of france. When you were talking with him you would never have recognized that he wasnt swiss. He just spoke a german dialect very similar to mine, but when it came to reading or writting german text he had difficulties. Just because in france he never received education in german language in school. He was bilingual, but whenever I received an E-Mail from him I had to decipher its actual meaning. He did better calling me by phone or write a french E-Mail. The co-workers from Ticino, italian speaking part of Switzerland, they mostly spoke german but no french or they spoke french but no german. In Any case there was always a means for communication despite the fact that the entire collective didnt share a common ground all together. If we had had to communicate in english we would never have had a chance to accomplish that. P.S.: This common assumption among the english speakers that english is world language nr 1 and because of that everybody else has to be speaking english as well makes me laugh sometimes. It just does not reflect the state of what deserves to be called "reality". In the region where I live, the europe I know, reality makes other dictates. Im not speaking english because everyone is. Im speaking english because I made an apprenticeship as an IT-Professional. The vast majority of the people I know dont speak english at all and if they speak it they speak another foreign language as well. Thus english predominance isnt as strong as some of you would like to assume.
Nolwelen 09-22-07, 12:26 PM	Going by the number of scenarios written in LG, it's the scandinavians, or maybe the dutch, who write... in english. Anyway, designating NE as 'german' - bad mistake. We have polish, dutch, german, french, norish, danish, swedish, finnish, and russian, and probably several other languagues I forgot. Also, some people just don't like certain languages. If Nothern Europe would go 'german', you have dutch people drop out of LFR faster than you can say 'Living Germany'. Thats true, sorry I forgot about that.
GCOLLIOU 09-22-07, 04:00 PM	Thats true, sorry I forgot about that. It's why i said Language Region 1 Spanish Region 1 French Region 1 German Region 1 English Region for people not in Country Region And each region like that can find more volonteers, who write modules in native language and the only other obligation it's to translate module in English to be available for all other. But the main impact for me it's we lose all Regional Con, because we can play everything without moving. (The best part of LG)
Nolwelen 09-22-07, 04:53 PM	It's why i said Language Region 1 Spanish Region 1 French Region 1 German Region 1 English Region for people not in Country Region And each region like that can find more volonteers, who write modules in native language and the only other obligation it's to translate module in English to be available for all other. But the main impact for me it's we lose all Regional Con, because we can play everything without moving. (The best part of LG) Do you think its possible they dont want us to do it that way, since they would have reason to suspect that we could always distribute our adventures to the english speaking regions, but they couldnt penetrate regions with other native languages that way? What I mean is if it stays the way it is now, we need to have everything in english just to play within our own region and thus there wouldnt be a difference between one of our modules and an american module for instance. But if all players in a region would speak german or french we had our own german or french modules, and besides them american ones. Wouldnt we stick to our modules and forget about the american stuff? Because nobody can say you have to translate everything into the regional language to make sure none gets a disadvantage. Americans who want to write modules for our region could do that, but they would have to translate it into the language spoken in the target region to make sure its not left behind due to not showing the same appealing lingual convenience. If they can force us to speak english they dont have to worry about that issue anyways. On the other hand , since the RPGA wants to have everything in english we would certainly translate our stuff into english and therefore the americans couldnt necessarily tell what module is from where. We had better chance to write modules that get played around the globe than they could hope for.
tombollis 09-22-07, 06:07 PM	What I mean is if it stays the way it is now, we need to have everything in english just to play within our own region and thus there wouldnt be a difference between one of our modules and an american module for instance. But if all players in a region would speak german or french we had our own german or french modules, and besides them american ones. Wouldnt we stick to our modules and forget about the american stuff? People will want to play more. There will be incentive to translate out-of-region modules. And to play in other languages if you are fluent. The European languages aren't exclusive to Europe. Canada, for example, has not just English and French as official languages (with few fluent in both), but has many citizens whose primary language is something else - German, Italian, Swedish, Spanish, Portugese, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Arabic, Greek, Russian, Jewish, etc. Toronto is one of the largest Italian speaking communities in the world. There are potential translators in North America as well as in countries where a language is dominent. Having language-based regions would probably increase inroads of D&D and LFR into new geographical areas. Tom Bollis
Nolwelen 09-22-07, 08:21 PM	People will want to play more. There will be incentive to translate out-of-region modules. And to play in other languages if you are fluent. The European languages aren't exclusive to Europe. Canada, for example, has not just English and French as official languages (with few fluent in both), but has many citizens whose primary language is something else - German, Italian, Swedish, Spanish, Portugese, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Arabic, Greek, Russian, Jewish, etc. Toronto is one of the largest Italian speaking communities in the world. There are potential translators in North America as well as in countries where a language is dominent. Having language-based regions would probably increase inroads of D&D and LFR into new geographical areas. Tom Bollis If it is all that easy, why dont we have language related regions? Btw, with jewish, you mean Hebrew. ;) Somehow I just got the feeling that they want all english to make it easier for those who have that language as their native tongue. Listing all languages spoken in the USA or Canada doesnt solve the problem we discuss here and it has nothing to do with it. Actually your explanation only makes it appear more arbitrary. There is no support for other languages from thr RPGA. The LG meta-region Tusmit , Quebec, could do the most in french because they had their own region. In LFR they wont be able to have it all done in french anymore since the majority of the region in which they are doesnt speak french or prefers to speak english. Tell me would you be willing to participate in your local LFR meta-region if you were forced to speak french? Would you even be able? Wouldnt you feel screwed for having endet up in just the wrong pool of players? Wouldnt you petition for changing in which region you belong? The statement of the RPGA at the moment is that the people from Quebec must speak english, because not all in their region do speak french. But why did they end up in this region then? Thats really what I call arbitrariness.
tombollis 09-22-07, 10:04 PM	If it is all that easy, why dont we have language related regions? Btw, with jewish, you mean Hebrew. ;) Because they haven't tried it yet? I don't speak Hebrew, Yidish, or whatever, nor do I have any interest in languages other than English. But that doesn't stop me from supporting others being able to play in their own languages. The LG meta-region Tusmit , Quebec, could do the most in french because they had their own region. In LFR they wont be able to have it all done in french anymore since the majority of the region in which they are doesnt speak french or prefers to speak english. Tell me would you be willing to participate in your local LFR meta-region if you were forced to speak french? Would you even be able? Wouldnt you feel screwed for having endet up in just the wrong pool of players? Wouldnt you petition for changing in which region you belong? I have already said I don't like geographically assigned regions, mainly from language issues. If a local convention were in French only, I wouldn't attend, nor would I expect a francophone to attend an English only convention. I would have no problem with a multilingual convention with only some tables in Englidh, as long as there is something for me to play. Translate a French adventure to English and I would be interested in playing locally (within a couple of hours travel) at game day or con, but I won't travel to Europe to play, even in English. The statement of the RPGA at the moment is that the people from Quebec must speak english, because not all in their region do speak french. But why did they end up in this region then? Thats really what I call arbitrariness. Because the officially proposed real world regions are based on geography and numbers of RPGA members, not on reasonable criteria like language. Let anyone in the world play in one or more French regions and it should encourage francophones to join. Let gamers pick a home region based on the game world culture, playable freely in other regions and it should encourage membership. Have regional administration based on language and game world region, regardless of real world residence, with internet communication regardless of distance, and it should work more smoothly and globally than the proposed regions all in English. Tom Bollis
Nolwelen 09-22-07, 10:23 PM	Completely agreed.
HassanSabbah 09-23-07, 05:08 PM	Localization is great, and it will be a great asset to a worldwide campaign. Even if the mods can't be translated to all of the 190+ actively spoken languages of the world, every translation (if it's done well) helps. However... Today's English is the 'common' of the DnD world. This is not to say everybody speaks it... Nor does it mean all who do speak it fluently... But it's bound to be the most widely spoken language in the geographical sense. If you're playing on a campaign where anyone can play any mod, English ought to be its default language, even if you don't factor in where WotC is located. Anything on top is extra. Perhaps very worthwhile extras, but... I suspect it's a matter of resource management. And perhaps a matter of lifting our lazy rear ends to step up to the job. But translation is not a layman's job. It should be done by people who know what they are doing. Baris
Madfox11 09-23-07, 05:09 PM	Last I heard English is the most often spoken 2nd language in the world. There are many reasons why the RPGA sticks to English. Geography and play numbers are not irrelevant btw not to an organization that depends on play numbers. Others are that language is a sensitive subject as Gomeztoo already pointed out - even picking a Spanish, French and German region is going to make people angry who speak another language than English and are much more active in the gaming community (Brasil is certainly very active in the gaming community). Finally, FR is a active published setting and RPGA/WotC needs active control on what is published. They want LR to have an impact on the FR and vica versa. They simply need to understand what is going on.
GCOLLIOU 09-23-07, 07:18 PM	Last I heard English is the most often spoken 2nd language in the world. There are many reasons why the RPGA sticks to English. Geography and play numbers are not irrelevant btw not to an organization that depends on play numbers. Others are that language is a sensitive subject as Gomeztoo already pointed out - even picking a Spanish, French and German region is going to make people angry who speak another language than English and are much more active in the gaming community (Brasil is certainly very active in the gaming community). Finally, FR is a active published setting and RPGA/WotC needs active control on what is published. They want LR to have an impact on the FR and vica versa. They simply need to understand what is going on. Yes and it's why I say we must translate all the Mod in English :) The problem it's not to translate, it's to write in English. It's more easier to write in native language and give available the module in his native language for people who don't speak or understand english (better to a bad understanding of a module in english who can have bad consequence for everybody who play the module and for campaign consequence), and with the combination off Langague Region you can find more author in his language and more good translators fluent in both languages. And don't say more opportunity to play, I think it's near impossible to play all modules so giving more opportunity to play it's a non sense (I play and travel a lot and I have surely play only 10% of module possible in LG). We need more and new player not to give more module to play to customer that we have already Best think it's to give more possibility for new player or customer to play in there native language. And if they want make an effort or find a dm able to do that, possibility to play all other module available in English. And with some feeback I have from actual pool of Player/Triad/DM in France, Swiss or Quebec, lot of people going to stop to play or make stuff for Living Campaign (and some of them know well FR, better than Greyhawk, but because of the system prefer play HomeCampaign), and focus on other Campaign. I think for that area you make a mistake.
Madfox11 09-24-07, 03:49 AM	As far as I can see Chris never said texts could only be translated from English into another language. So I don't see why you could not start in the local language, find somebody to translate it and then put it through the reviewing process. Mind you, I see some hurdles with contracts, but that works both ways and I hope the RPGA HQ does take a look at it.
GCOLLIOU 09-24-07, 07:12 AM	As far as I can see Chris never said texts could only be translated from English into another language. So I don't see why you could not start in the local language, find somebody to translate it and then put it through the reviewing process. Mind you, I see some hurdles with contracts, but that works both ways and I hope the RPGA HQ does take a look at it. Yes but for that you need more volonteers, so it's why have langague region is more usefull, this kind process can work in multiple language Region.
Madfox11 09-25-07, 07:45 AM	Considering you can easily write for other regions, it really doesn't matter in this regards whether there are language based regions or not. You could easily ask for aid in Quebec if you want a French suggestion translated into English for a southern European adventure. Obviously, administrators keeping a list of reliable translators and making sure the administrators in other regions have that list as well would be a good idea.
Nolwelen 09-27-07, 10:01 PM	Considering you can easily write for other regions, it really doesn't matter in this regards whether there are language based regions or not. You could easily ask for aid in Quebec if you want a French suggestion translated into English for a southern European adventure. Obviously, administrators keeping a list of reliable translators and making sure the administrators in other regions have that list as well would be a good idea. In this and your last reply you just were assuming quiet a lot. And even though you think your suggestions are reasonable, reality doesnt necessarily bow to your point of view. To me you just sound like the very typical guy who never has had to worry about language issues, but thinks he could tell, those who experience it every day, "where the bearded gets his must."
Nolwelen 09-27-07, 10:31 PM	Last I heard English is the most often spoken 2nd language in the world. There are many reasons why the RPGA sticks to English. Geography and play numbers are not irrelevant btw not to an organization that depends on play numbers. Others are that language is a sensitive subject as Gomeztoo already pointed out - even picking a Spanish, French and German region is going to make people angry who speak another language than English and are much more active in the gaming community (Brasil is certainly very active in the gaming community). Finally, FR is a active published setting and RPGA/WotC needs active control on what is published. They want LR to have an impact on the FR and vica versa. They simply need to understand what is going on. You know, this is just an outrage. You, and when I say "you" in this context I am talking of the american RPGA staff, put us into a situation in which you would struggle without end, of which you have no idea from my point of view and you still have the audaciousness to tell us how we have to deal with this. You make it easy for yourself, the US regions do not extend beyond the national borders. The sole reason for that is you know how much more difficult it would be if you had another language region included in one of your pure english speaking regions. And telling me about the diversity in your demography doesnt help. Everyone living in the USA is forced to speak english or live at the fringe of sociaty. Thats the bare and naked truth, but you expect us to be willing and able to deal with a dozen language regions with extremely different education systems and very different aims in education. Its just an outrage sorry. It doesnt matter how many players are in each of the two european regions if they cant play together its doomed to failure. When I saw that the britains have been given their own region I just got suspicious about the whole thing I must confess now. Its so damn plain obvious that they were spared the "Babylon"-Scenario, because they are english speakers. My recommendation: Get some people to work in the RPGA Staff who take care of localisation and if you arent able to take care of all necessary languages just speak not of a "global campaign".
RedKnightofKet 09-27-07, 10:59 PM	I think that's part of the reason that Madfox, aka Pieter Sleijpen, has been the one member from the LG Circle speaking on this matter. He is, after all, the Circle member from continental Europe, and likely has the first-hand experience in this matter. It may just be me, but all seems very complicated, so I think past experience from LG in this matter is very helpful. And just to be clear - I'm nobody...
tharlan 09-27-07, 11:14 PM	Hey there everyone... I don't think that I am alone here in thinking that Chris and Ian (especially Ian) understand the complexities involved with the Non-Americas Global Administrator regions. I also don't think that I am alone here in thinking that they are going to take all of that into consideration when they are picking the GA for this area. The person is going to have to deal with multiple languages, multiple cultures, and multiple problems. I doubt that they will find a person that speaks all of the languages in this region. However I bet you that the person that does get this area will put together a staff that does. :-) Have faith friends. The RPGA IS a global community. Sometimes it is difficult for us Americans to see it. But when it comes down to it... languages don't matter. What matters is the game.. :-) Take care, and good gaming! Troy Nobody special either.. :-)
Nolwelen 09-27-07, 11:30 PM	Well, I am just frustrated somehow, since I dont believe that this could be working. GAs and the RAs for europe have my sincerely most grateful best luck wishes, but it wont help them. May god have mercy on their tortured souls. This is a task where others with much bigger funds failed desperately.
tharlan 09-27-07, 11:44 PM	Well, I am just frustrated somehow, Friend, although I cannot truly understand your frustration, I can share in your wishes that they somehow find a way to do it. Remember that a region, and a GA's area are only going to be as good as the volunteers that he or she pulls in to it. One thing that I have found out about the RPGA in my years is that people pull together, make the community, and somehow make things work. Chris and Ian have their work cut out for them in finding a leader that can bring this zone together. But, I have faith. Lets give them a chance to do their jobs before we start putting up crosses to hang them on .. :-) Take care, and good gaming! Troy Absolutely No-one special.
Nolwelen 09-27-07, 11:54 PM	The reason why Im frustrated is just because I feel left behind. If you were living here, where I grew up, in Switzerland and had worked here for a while, you would be able to understand why that is. This is such an extremely narrow space, compared to europe as a whole or especially compared to america, but I told before about my experiences in this thread, however its complicated here. If you wanna have a national success your company must manage everything in at least 3 languages. And I mean everything your products , your services, your employees, just everything. And there is no middle, common ground. You cant just tell them speak english with each other. National languages are first and thus the vast majority doesnt speak english, but two of the 4 national languages. Its just a constant struggle in communication. And its like that with only 4 languages, I cant imagine the struggle to get this to work with a dozen languages.
GCOLLIOU 09-28-07, 03:25 AM	Friend, although I cannot truly understand your frustration, I can share in your wishes that they somehow find a way to do it. Remember that a region, and a GA's area are only going to be as good as the volunteers that he or she pulls in to it. One thing that I have found out about the RPGA in my years is that people pull together, make the community, and somehow make things work. Chris and Ian have their work cut out for them in finding a leader that can bring this zone together. But, I have faith. Lets give them a chance to do their jobs before we start putting up crosses to hang them on .. :-) Take care, and good gaming! Troy Absolutely No-one special. When you lose near all your pool of RPGA players in France & Swizerland (most of them play in French unless those who travel), who represent the majority off players in South Europe. I think we can say it's bad start. Particulary when you lose Triad/Event Organisator/Writter who play in the LG Campaign since the beginning and have a good experience with the RPGA. After lot of discussion between all this guys most of them have decide to play other campaign and when you know that 25% of them know very well FR and have home campaign in FR I think the HQ must have some interrogation. PS : You say english his the most important language, i'm not sure you can say that particulary in some US State, better some time to speak Spanish. I think the HQ have a very short view in marketing way, than a longuer who take care of new market and social evolution and localisation.
Madfox11 09-28-07, 04:38 AM	First of all Nolwelen, I am from the Netherlands and I certainly am aware of the problems with language. I understand why people worry about it, but I also understand why the RPGA has to stick to using English as the official language both for bussiness and political reasons. Language is a sensitive subject. People can get really aggrivated if an official organization is supporting one language, but not another. When I talked with the Swiss Triad about languages, they were the ones who noted that they would have prefered to stick to English, because they fear that if they use French, they also have to use German and perhaps even Italian, trippling their workload, not to mention finding the vollunteers to do so. It were Swiss who told me that, although it is the same main argument for why we use English in the Netherlands or in Scandinavia, because it is also hurting us. It is one thing to be able to speak English well enough to read it, but it is a whole other ball to be able to write adventures in another language. When I saw that the britains have been given their own region I just got suspicious about the whole thing I must confess now. Its so damn plain obvious that they were spared the "Babylon"-Scenario, because they are english speakers. Actually, there are bussiness reasons for this. If I remember correctly even on the level of Hasbro. Language has little to do with it. I just hope the region has enough players/vollunteers to keep going, because right now LG is not particular active on the adventure writing level. My recommendation: Get some people to work in the RPGA Staff who take care of localisation and if you arent able to take care of all necessary languages just speak not of a "global campaign". Well, even if they would just stick to English it still would be a global campaign. I mean, the UK, South-Africa, Australia, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, Canada and the USA are hardly local. As for finding people to take care of localisation, that is the job of the POC and Event Manager in each region. Finding those vollunteers is going to be hard in certain areas, but I agree that it is going to be important. The real problem though is not only the language, but finding people who want to spend time on this and who stick around.
tombollis 09-28-07, 07:02 AM	The RPGA IS a global community. Sometimes it is difficult for us Americans to see it. But when it comes down to it... languages don't matter. What matters is the game.. :-) Wrong. There is no game without communication. Language is fudamental. It limits global participation. An English only campaign could be played all over the globe by Emglish speakers, but it would not be global. Expressions like "us Americans" above are indicative of the problem - too many decission-makers view the world as divided between the USA and everywhere else, with the USA primary. Not a global mind set. The global administrators should be picked first, with an understanding of global issues as one major consideration, then the real-world regions should be reconsidered by them with language a primary concern, before regional administrators are chosen. English does have a special status re D&D, as the language of origin from which rules must be translated, and the language used at WotC, but LFR isn't being presented as an English language campain but as a "truly global campaign", so should be founded firmly on globalism. Tom Bollis (a Canadian fluent only in English)
Nolwelen 09-28-07, 10:05 AM	Language is a sensitive subject. People can get really aggrivated if an official organization is supporting one language, but not another. When I talked with the Swiss Triad about languages, they were the ones who noted that they would have prefered to stick to English, because they fear that if they use French, they also have to use German and perhaps even Italian, trippling their workload, not to mention finding the vollunteers to do so. It were Swiss who told me that, although it is the same main argument for why we use English in the Netherlands or in Scandinavia, because it is also hurting us. It is one thing to be able to speak English well enough to read it, but it is a whole other ball to be able to write adventures in another language. You know, its just how I said, using the 3 major national languages is just the way everyone is doing business in Switzerland. An enterprise trying to get customers with only utilizing english is doomed to failure. Thats the way it is. Well, even if they would just stick to English it still would be a global campaign. I mean, the UK, South-Africa, Australia, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, Canada and the USA are hardly local. I dont call a campaign, which includes only an area in which 5% of the world population live, a global campaign. Btw, I wonder how you are going to do business in the pacific region. The average japanese doesnt speak any foreign language at all. Just like the average american. ;) That will create an interessting situation, since the japanese will have it easy to outnumber the other parties in this LFR region with active players. Hehe may be the australians should prepare themselfs and start to learn japanese. :P You wont be able to force the japanese to learn english and thus you will have to find a way to accommodate to their point of view. Or you will lose a market. As for finding people to take care of localisation, that is the job of the POC and Event Manager in each region. Finding those vollunteers is going to be hard in certain areas, but I agree that it is going to be important. The real problem though is not only the language, but finding people who want to spend time on this and who stick around. I offered help for translation to Mr. Tulach for english to german and vice versa and stated that I can try french to german, vice versa and french to english, vice versa. But I didnt receive any respond from him yet. We will see. Wrong. There is no game without communication. Language is fudamental. It limits global participation. An English only campaign could be played all over the globe by Emglish speakers, but it would not be global. Expressions like "us Americans" above are indicative of the problem - too many decission-makers view the world as divided between the USA and everywhere else, with the USA primary. Not a global mind set. The global administrators should be picked first, with an understanding of global issues as one major consideration, then the real-world regions should be reconsidered by them with language a primary concern, before regional administrators are chosen. English does have a special status re D&D, as the language of origin from which rules must be translated, and the language used at WotC, but LFR isn't being presented as an English language campain but as a "truly global campaign", so should be founded firmly on globalism. Tom Bollis (a Canadian fluent only in English) Signed
smerwin29 09-28-07, 10:42 AM	You know, its just how I said, using the 3 major national languages is just the way everyone is doing business in Switzerland. An enterprise trying to get customers with only utilizing english is doomed to failure. Thats the way it is. First of all, let me say I completely understand your point and your concerns. Dealing with language issues in a global business environment is problematic even in simple situations. That said, I think your quote above highlights the problem. You are equating the RPGA offerings with "a business" when it is not that in the truest sense. The RPGA campaigns are secondary organized-play offerings to the main product. The RPGA is limited in what it can do. If the RPGA was a business unto itself, charging people money for their products, then I would agree with you 100%. However, the RPGA is limited in what it can do in all directions: limited in its offerings by budget and manpower, but limited by WotC in that everything must be approved through WotC. Here's the central issue, as I understand it. The RPGA has to get everything approved through WotC. WotC certainly takes the time and resources to offer their main products in other languages, mostly because they are gaining increased revenue based on the sale of those translated products to paying consumers. However, being an American company, WotC's employees (the ones who need to approve all RPGA material for publication) work in English. The RPGA does not have the resources to do "official" translations (either from a final product from English into other languages, or from other languages into English to present to WotC reviewers), especially for a free secondary offering that earns no revenue directly. Is it limiting for those who do not speak English? Absolutely. Does it make the campaigns of the RPGA less global? By certain definitions of the term "global," yes it does. Will it mean that some people will not choose to, or even be able to, participate? Yes, not without someone doing translations for them. I do not expect all people in the world to speak English, and I do not think English is inherently superior to any other language. I know that WotC/Hasbro are global organizations that translate their products into other languages when and where they feel it is appropriate and viable. But the RPGA does not have the full resources of WotC/Hasbro behind them, although they have to answer to them in terms of quality, content, and standards. So that necessarily leaves English as the language that must be used when the RPGA "talks to" WotC and vice versa. Hopefully the RPGA community can create a network where people can translate documents and adventures to allow non-English-speaking players a chance to participate fully.
Skerrit 09-28-07, 12:08 PM	You know, this is just an outrage. You, and when I say "you" in this context I am talking of the american RPGA staff, Whenever I want to get Pieter's goat now, I'm gonna point to this thread and call him an American!
Skerrit 09-28-07, 12:14 PM	I offered help for translation to Mr. Tulach for english to german and vice versa and stated that I can try french to german, vice versa and french to english, vice versa. But I didnt receive any respond from him yet. We will see. I imagine it's not because he's ignoring you, but more likley because his is waiting to actually pick campaign staff so they can offer their opinions before anything definitive is decided.
Nolwelen 09-28-07, 01:17 PM	Whenever I want to get Pieter's goat now, I'm gonna point to this thread and call him an American! I wasnt addressing him with this. I quoted his reply to express the context in which I was speaking. Yes, it seems to be the way you have explained it. But that doesnt make me happy, you know.
GCOLLIOU 09-29-07, 03:22 PM	Language is a sensitive subject. People can get really aggrivated if an official organization is supporting one language, but not another. When I talked with the Swiss Triad about languages, they were the ones who noted that they would have prefered to stick to English, because they fear that if they use French, they also have to use German and perhaps even Italian, trippling their workload, not to mention finding the vollunteers to do so. It were Swiss who told me that, although it is the same main argument for why we use English in the Netherlands or in Scandinavia, because it is also hurting us. It is one thing to be able to speak English well enough to read it, but it is a whole other ball to be able to write adventures in another language. . Pieter you know the fact why they really chose English it's because the guy (Martin) who organize the first Swiss triad is an English Guy who live in Geneva, and speak better English than French. So easier for him to write module in English or review module writing by US guys for Dullstrand. The two others Triad not make lot of stuff (One is a speaking French guy, friend of Martin who only make some maps, and the other is a German speaking guy who act as the poc and who never write a single module or stuff about MetaOrg, because he prefer play most of time). The launch of LG be a success only really in Geneva (only a little group in the German area who don’t play a lot) and all modules are run in French, because Geneva players are more crap than French in English, so imagine when you know French are so bad in English (as Italian or Spanish) and not like North European who usually are really better in English than the south (Latin) part of Europe. And the new Swiss triad plays all time in French and if you find three new volunteers it's because they play (and have this possibility) all French/Ekbir Module, VTF and CORE in France. Hopefully for you one of them have en English father, so fluent in English. And if I don't make a mistake they chose to write module for the coming year in French (And two of their new authors only speak French, and this time it's swiss writters and not writters outside from swizerland). For a Campaign keep going you need volunteers, if your restrict volunteers in their area off the use of a foreign language it cannot be a success. And where his the problem? The actual Ekbir/French or Adri/German modules are in local language, French modules are review by an American who never speaks a word of French, but discussions exist between French Triad/Writers and this Circle member. It’s not because a module is writing in another language that he don’t take care of the world campaign stuff (and I can say for having playing a lot off module in US, that some time the European modules are more canon in the Greyhawk world event if it’s write in French) With Language area you can find more volunteers fluent in both language, local and English. Other point for me : limited numbers of local administrators for a bigger area it's really a mistake, we need more volunteers, so need to increase the number of administrator, particulary in europe because of the language problem. But why having this discussion the decision is already taken without dialogue with the local pool of RPGA members. My point of view if its less Global than LG. And secondary if you want only English writing module, better to give an FR Area to an US State than an European country/region, because you surely find more capable volunteers who develop an FR area, so more modules, and because we can play everything everywhere (and with that we kill all local convention who make a lot for the LG success and relationship between players thru the world). It's not a big problem because locally we just need to download module to play at home if you have a Dm fluent in English (so limited anyway development of the campaign). Better to give to people able to write and develop FR Area than other not able to do nothing (like actually fo Spain or Italy).
Nolwelen 09-29-07, 06:12 PM	Pieter you know the fact why they really chose English it's because the guy (Martin) who organize the first Swiss triad is an English Guy who live in Geneva, and speak better English than French. So easier for him to write module in English or review module writing by US guys for Dullstrand. The two others Triad not make lot of stuff (One is a speaking French guy, friend of Martin who only make some maps, and the other is a German speaking guy who act as the poc and who never write a single module or stuff about MetaOrg, because he prefer play most of time). Tu dis ce, quoi est ça. Merci. ;)
gomeztoo 09-30-07, 10:56 AM	To be honest, it would be easier to make an entirely separate campaign for other languages than english than try to incorporate them in an ongoing english campaign. But I do not expect there are resources for that.
tombollis 09-30-07, 11:56 AM	To be honest, it would be easier to make an entirely separate campaign for other languages than english than try to incorporate them in an ongoing english campaign. But I do not expect there are resources for that. I don't want to see other languages incorporated into an engliah campaign. I want LFR to start from the beginning as what has been claimed - a global campaign, which implies a multilingual campaign (even though that is inherently harder to organize and maintain than an english campaign). Tom Bollis
HassanSabbah 09-30-07, 12:38 PM	I don't want to see other languages incorporated into an engliah campaign. I want LFR to start from the beginning as what has been claimed - a global campaign, which implies a multilingual campaign (even though that is inherently harder to organize and maintain than an english campaign). Tom Bollis I'd like to see that, too... But... If every mod is going to be playable everywhere, and we are going to have a truly global campaign in the sense that's discussed here, that means every mod will have to be written in many languages from the get-go. Those languages would have to include, at the least, English, French anf German. I suspect Spanish could be added to the above list. But what about, say, Italian? Greek? Japanese? Turkish, which is my primary language? Swahili, which, according to Wikipedia, is the most widely spoken language in Sub-Saharan Africa? (They may not have regions, but they sure can play the mods...) Clearly, a line must be drawn somewhere. The earliest place you can draw that line is at English, with possible volunteer work locally organized by other places. I do wish we get more than that, though. I know that we'll lose a lot of potential players in Turkey if we don't somehow get a Turkish version of the mods, whether that's done by professional or semi-professional translators or by on-the-spot translation by GMs that are somewhat fluent in the language. In Turkey, a second language is a required course through grades 6 to 12, with one of those grades dedicated mostly to learning the language. The most common foreign language thus offered is English. Even with that, not many people can pick up a novel in English and read it. We also have a weaker version of the language sensitivity issue; it is widely felt here that foreign words are 'invading' Turkish without even proper localization. I would, however, be very surprised to see someone(s) volunteer to translate every mod/document that comes out to Turkish without fail. An incentive must be provided if we want that to happen, and I would also be very surprised if WotC came out and hired translators to do that. So, my point is... If wishes were fishes... But we can still cast our nets, nonetheless. Baris
Keith53 09-30-07, 01:12 PM	While I understand the angst over the language difficulties, barring totally independent campaigns, I don't see an easy solution. With the current approach, if you are non-English speaking gamers, you will need to find someone to translate English language adventures into your primary language. If the RPGA adopted a multiple language region approach, the problem is compounded. I don't know what the actual demographics of current RPGA gamer primary language are (other than being confident that English is the most frequent), so for the sake of illustration, let me hypothesize Spanish, French and German are the next three most frequent primary languages of current RPGA gamers. If the RGPA created three language regions (Spanish, French and German) in which the adventure was written in that language, then everyone outside of that specific language region must add two or three additional translation requirements to their process. The RPGA cannot afford to pay for professional translation with the number of adventures involved. While volunteers might translate the adventures, the translation would need to be vetted before posting for sharing that the translation was faithful and accurate to the approved content. The more language combinations involved, the worse the headache. Worthy goal but difficult obstacles. Keith
Nolwelen 09-30-07, 05:00 PM	The RPGA cannot afford to pay for professional translation with the number of adventures involved. While volunteers might translate the adventures, the translation would need to be vetted before posting for sharing that the translation was faithful and accurate to the approved content. The more language combinations involved, the worse the headache. This argumentation boils down to one message. "We are going to pay for the incapability of the RPGA staff." Thats it. We cant have other languages because the RPGA staff is unable to verify/validate and approve translations from us and thats why we have to face constraints. No matter how much effort we put into this we are the punished. I guess every chain is only as strong as its weakest link. And in this case the RPGA staff seems to be the weakest link.
RedKnightofKet 09-30-07, 05:46 PM	This argumentation boils down to one message. "We are going to pay for the incapability of the RPGA staff." Thats it. We cant have other languages because the RPGA staff is unable to verify/validate and approve translations from us and thats why we have to face constraints. No matter how much effort we put into this we are the punished. I guess every chain is only as strong as its weakest link. And in this case the RPGA staff seems to be the weakest link. How much work to you expect two paid staffers to do? The "weakness" is that this is volunteer organization. While we can understand your frustration in this situation, all that's been said at this point is that translating all these modules would be a lot of work, and there's no guarantee that there will be enough volunteer resources to accomplish that. Oh, and calling the staff a "weak link" isn't likely to get help either...
Nolwelen 09-30-07, 05:53 PM	How much work to you expect two paid staffers to do? The "weakness" is that this is volunteer organization. While we can understand your frustration in this situation, all that's been said at this point is that translating all these modules would be a lot of work, and there's no guarantee that there will be enough volunteer resources to accomplish that. Oh, and calling the staff a "weak link" isn't likely to get help either... Which help? I help them, but vice versa? Do I need them to run a D&D campaign? The answer is "no". Let me tell you a little bit about status quo. At the moment if I wanna run any D&D game I have to do that in german. There is neither an "If" nor a "Why". I must introduce every friend I know into D&D in german or I fail to convince them, period. Why should I conform my game to the LG - Living Dullstrand Triad? They do nothing for me, they only restrict me. Thus where is my gain if I support them? I do better if I run my own campaign, because then Im completely free to do whatever I feel like doing is fun. bottom line - I do not play in RPGA myself either, even though Im a member. The reason is simply that the support I receive from it is below zero. I do harder with a RPGA sanctioned event than with a private only event. And you know the play rewards cant convince me, sorry. The truth is I was hoping for a new dawn, a silverlining at the horizon when I heard of the LFR for first time, but I might have been mistaken. Actually I am the one to blame for that exaggerated expectation.
The Ubbergeek 09-30-07, 06:19 PM	Languages-based grouping could work as an alternative OR an adjointed system. Sounds good... Myself, my spoken english is rusty. It could help it, or maybe it would just bring problems. And i'd like to see other languages than english used, also. Incidently, the LGH Ebkir website was well-done... and in french. It was good. Sadly, the one for the nation used for Quebec was in english only, sigh... It could have been bilingual?
Nolwelen 09-30-07, 06:41 PM	Languages-based grouping could work as an alternative OR an adjointed system. Sounds good... Myself, my spoken english is rusty. It could help it, or maybe it would just bring problems. And i'd like to see other languages than english used, also. Incidently, the LGH Ebkir website was well-done... and in french. It was good. Sadly, the one for the nation used for Quebec was in english only, sigh... It could have been bilingual? Sure, but I guess the person who made the page was sticking to the official language of the campaign.^^
The Ubbergeek 09-30-07, 06:46 PM	Sure, but I guess the person who made the page was sticking to the official language of the campaign.^^ Don't forget that Quebec BTW is 8X% french-speakers, with even more at least bilinguals....
Nolwelen 09-30-07, 06:59 PM	Don't forget that Quebec BTW is 8X% french-speakers, with even more at least bilinguals.... Qui, je connais. Thats why I have a hard time buying into this "english is best for all"-premise. Mon francaise, c'est terrible, mais je essaie.
pedr 10-01-07, 03:55 AM	The problem is, of course, that the new campaign advertises that everyone will be able to play every module. With the old "you must be in-region to play regionals" rule, having mono-lingual regions was sensible: Ekbir wrote modules in French because the overwhelming majority of play in France was in French, and you could only play Ekbir modules in France. Similarly for Adri in Germany and Austria. With larger regions and the implication that all modules are available to everyone, this is more problematic. The split between Austria and Germany, if that is accurate (I've not studied the map) is particularly silly! There only seem to be three solutions: 1) Require every module to be in English, and provide no translation support. This will, I would have thought, decimate play in the Southern Europe region and reduce it in the Northern Europe region. 2) Require all modules to be available in English, but provide assistance to translate some or all of them into local languages. This helps the overall campaign, as the majority will want access to English-language modules but makes it easier for players, although not for authors, in the non-anglophone regions. 3) Allow regional administrators to accept modules written in any language, so long as they or someone they trust can review/edit/sanction it, without requiring it to be translated into English or sent to HQ for review. This reduces the availability of modules to English-speakers, but allows regions to develop their own writing talent. Which of these is optimal is unclear, and I think that regions with multiple languages is going to be a serious problem for this campaign in mainland Europe (and north-Asia)
tombollis 10-01-07, 07:30 AM	The problem is, of course, that the new campaign advertises that everyone will be able to play every module. I only take that to me that you don't have to be in or from a ewgion to plkay it's modules. It does not imply that they will all be in a language you understand. They don't all need to be in Enflish. An American who understands Spanish could play a Spanish adventure in that languge at a table in :os Angeles. If a Japanese translation existed, it could be played in Japanese at a trable in Tokyo. That would conform with everyone being anle to play all adventures. Having all adventures iun English so that English speakers can play them qithout translation does not men others can play them in a language in which they are fluent. Language has no effect on global availability for play, but it does affect whether there is a truly global comunity of gamers. We need some modules in a locally understood language for there to be local tables to play at, whether it be Turkish in Turkey, French in Quebec, Portugese in Brasil, or English in South Africa. Having some regions based on major languages in which the rules are available, producing content in that language primarily for speakers of that language anywhere in the world, and translating as much as possible to or from that language, would aid globalization, increasing the available player base, unlike geographic regions all in English in spote of local languages, which just add more modules for the English speakers and those who can get translationd from English. A French region could draw on volunteers from all over who spoke French to create and administer in that language and to translate between that language and others. A Souther Eurpope region is responsible for speakers of several internal languages, with major multiple translation issues. Britain/Ireland/South Africa is escentially a language-based region. Multiple US regions are separate English language regions. The single language (English) regions are much easier to administer than multilanguage regions. Language is a major concern that must be addressed early. Making things easy by doing everything in English exludes too many potential players and volunteers from the global campaign. Tom Bollis
Skerrit 10-01-07, 09:32 AM	I think once we have the campaign staff in place, maybe we could have some folks volunteer (Nolwelen, Tom Bollis, etc..) to translate all the mods into their native language. They would prolly have to eat all the mods in the campaign, but if we could get enough volunteers willing to do it for no compensation, it would make the mods more widely available for others and help us fix the language barriers for some areas.
gomeztoo 10-01-07, 11:20 AM	A language region won't work. It means that you will have one region with scenarios that nobody else but the ones that speak that language can play, while giving everyone else an excuse to not bother translating their own scenarios to that language (since there is a separate region for them). This means that the region basically becomes a separate entity, with a separate campaign. And that is a far cry from a global campaign. You also have the problem that every other language feels discriminated against (for not having their own region), and that WotC control over these regionals is lacking (at least to the level they desire). I feel the best way is to try and find volunteers to translate - either from or to english. In the latter case, I see a potential problem with validation by WotC - as there'll be the question as to which scenario would be considered the 'original (in case there is a conflict between version due to translation). At any rate, we eill likely need one common language in which all scenarios are available, so that a manner of consistency of the campaign can be guaranteed.
HassanSabbah 10-01-07, 04:53 PM	I think once we have the campaign staff in place, maybe we could have some folks volunteer (Nolwelen, Tom Bollis, etc..) to translate all the mods into their native language. <snip> Tom Bollis mentioned the time to act on this issue is now, and I think he's right. Your solution is not as good an idea as it looks on paper, IMO. As far as being able to read/write/speak a second language goes, I consider myself very fluent in English. (Not that it's a good metric, but my recent TOEFL was 117 out of 120. I've lived in the US for 7 years, and had my middle education mostly in English.) I would not dream of translating a mod though. For an amateur like me, it would eat way too much of my time, and even with my best efforts, the end product would not be satisfying. It would probably serve its purpose, but it would probably involve the GMs trying to wade through my translation to figure out what the original author wanted to say. There is a college degree, just like engineering or psychology, called translation. It's a 4-year degree. That degree is there for a reason. So... how can we act? 1) Get as many volunteers to commit as possible, and keep up the commitment high throughout the life span of the campaign. This would probably involve incentives. But the quality of the translation would still be questionable. 2) Try to make sure that some of the volunteers are actually translators. How to do that... More incentives? The social skills of the regional staff? 3) Open the translation to some sort of peer review. It would force a lot of those 'peers' to eat the mod. 4) Hire a real, honest-to-goodness translator. While this would seem to produce the best quality in theory, the result may be far from satisfying. The Turkish translation of the core 3.5 books were worth buying for the comedic content. I assume one would actually need to hire someone who knows the game well. I suspect we have talked enough of the pros and cons. Let's try to put out some feasible solutions. Baris
gomeztoo 10-02-07, 07:09 AM	The Turkish translation of the core 3.5 books were worth buying for the comedic content. I assume one would actually need to hire someone who knows the game well. Heh. I remember an english-to dutch game translation (was it Baldur's Gate?) where a clerics ability to 'turn undead' was explained as that he was able to 'turn INTO an undead'. Yes, well... I guess that IS a way to deal with your foes... :P
mmockus 10-03-07, 04:39 PM	Heh. I remember an english-to dutch game translation (was it Baldur's Gate?) where a clerics ability to 'turn undead' was explained as that he was able to 'turn INTO an undead'. Yes, well... I guess that IS a way to deal with your foes... :P As the saying goes, If you can't beat them, join them.
mmockus 10-03-07, 04:46 PM	As the saying goes, If you can't beat them, join them. Als u hen niet kunt slaan, sluit me aan bij hen. Si vous ne pouvez pas les battre, joignez-les. Wenn Sie nicht sie schlagen können, verbinden Sie sie. (:P yes something does get lost in translation)
Madfox11 10-04-07, 02:16 PM	Als u hen niet kunt slaan, sluit me aan bij hen. Si vous ne pouvez pas les battre, joignez-les. Wenn Sie nicht sie schlagen können, verbinden Sie sie. (:P yes something does get lost in translation) I have a feeling you used an internet program since the Dutch sentence is a litteral translation, and hence incorrect ;)
Madfox11 10-04-07, 02:24 PM	Let me tell you a little bit about status quo. At the moment if I wanna run any D&D game I have to do that in german. There is neither an "If" nor a "Why". I must introduce every friend I know into D&D in german or I fail to convince them, period. Why should I conform my game to the LG - Living Dullstrand Triad? They do nothing for me, they only restrict me. Thus where is my gain if I support them? I do better if I run my own campaign, because then Im completely free to do whatever I feel like doing is fun. Have you actually tried to talk with them (LG Dullstrand Triad)? I can hardly see why they would do nothing for you. They actually had a German speaking member for some time before time issues forced him to leave. bottom line - I do not play in RPGA myself either, even though Im a member. The reason is simply that the support I receive from it is below zero. I do harder with a RPGA sanctioned event than with a private only event. And you know the play rewards cant convince me, sorry. Again, have you honestly tried asking them for support? I know I have helped Italians with organizing game days, getting RPGA membership cards and even adventure advice in name of the RPGA. The Italian contacted me for such advice, and while I could not give him Italian adventures, I could help him in other regards. The truth is I was hoping for a new dawn, a silverlining at the horizon when I heard of the LFR for first time, but I might have been mistaken. Actually I am the one to blame for that exaggerated expectation. What exactly where you expecting? It is a vollunteer organization. Professional translations are expensive and there is no guarantee they actually do the job well, especially when it comes down to games.
Lagrange, Baron de Banville 10-05-07, 01:47 AM	I have a feeling you used an internet program since the Dutch sentence is a litteral translation, and hence incorrect ;) My french isn't good enough, so I don't know, if it makes any sense in french, but in german it certainly doesn't. And this shows quite painfully, that translating is something better left to people who know their jobs... (and definitly not someone like me!) Btw. in german it would read: Wenn du sie nicht besiegen kannst, verbünde dich mit ihnen. :D
tombollis 10-05-07, 06:43 AM	My french isn't good enough, so I don't know, if it makes any sense in french, but in german it certainly doesn't. And this shows quite painfully, that translating is something better left to people who know their jobs... (and definitly not someone like me!) Btw. in german it would read: Wenn du sie nicht besiegen kannst, verbünde dich mit ihnen. :D Which illustrates why DMs and players whose primary language isn't English should not be required to play all adventures in English, where they must personally translate them on the fly. They should at least have local aventures written in their primary language - thus language-based regions for languages supported by WotC with rule books in the language. Translations need to be made by someone who understands the rules AND is fluent in both languages - particularyly the language translated into. The important thiing is that the translated adventure makes sense and is fun to play in the new language, even if it necessarily varies from the original- we have table variation as it is, even in the original language. An amateur who understands the game is more likely to produce a playable (if inaccurate) translation than a typical professional translator, or a typical DM or player presented with the adventure to play in the original language if he isn't fluent enough to translate it in advance. It's enough work for a local administration to need to provide playable adventures in one lamguage and to comunicate with the global administration and RPGA headquarters in English; it's too much to expect some to administer regions with multiple primary languages in English. A truly global campaign can't have content in only one language. Tom Bollis
gomeztoo 10-05-07, 07:17 AM	I just fear that language-based regions will create separate campaigns (for each language) with little or no connection to the rest of the campaign (the part in english). Hence I would advise against it.
tombollis 10-05-07, 01:06 PM	I just fear that language-based regions will create separate campaigns (for each language) with little or no connection to the rest of the campaign (the part in english). Hence I would advise against it. I don't think that would happen, but I would not mind if it did. People playing a separate campaign in their own language, open to anyone in the world who can understand the language, is more global and open access than an English only campaign. It is MUCH fairer and enviting to those who don't speak English flently than the alternative. Tom Bollis
The Ubbergeek 10-05-07, 10:11 PM	I just fear that language-based regions will create separate campaigns (for each language) with little or no connection to the rest of the campaign (the part in english). Hence I would advise against it. The problem with the Living concept is this fact, geography and others. You HAVE to comput this aspect as the distances. Maybe the Living campaigns should have some decentralisation... with like, constant reports who are recaps of regional events. (Mind you, an english-only campaign could send troubling signals to many, like in my people...)
GCOLLIOU 10-06-07, 07:45 AM	I just fear that language-based regions will create separate campaigns (for each language) with little or no connection to the rest of the campaign (the part in english). Hence I would advise against it. I don't agree with you Pierre, actually Ekbir is very link to "English" Country like Tusmit, Ket & Zeif (an actual VTF Cycle, and some cross Module), and we make a huge VTF Cycle during year 3,4,5 with some states in US like Veluna, Verbobonc, Dyvers. We surely make more link stuff than European Country between them or some US States (if I look link between Furyondy, Dyvers and Shield Lands who are normaly link, it's near nothing, and I have play module from all this area) So the problem is not the language, we just need to find a plot that we can share. And we play the same campaign but not necessary in the same part of the background it's why people have different Character from Ekbir, Pale, Nyrond, Sunndi, to have characters more involved with the local background. I prefer play my paladin of Pholtus or my Cleric of Pelor when I play in California than my Sunndi Elf Wizard that I only play in Netherland. And I never play my Ekbir Character in this countries. The problem to find link it's not the language, but the stories, plot and background, and if the Triad don't want share stories or find hook between them.
gomeztoo 10-06-07, 08:55 AM	I don't think that would happen, but I would not mind if it did. People playing a separate campaign in their own language, open to anyone in the world who can understand the language, is more global and open access than an English oly campaign. It is MUCH fairer and enviting to those who don't speak English flently than the alternative. Unfortunately, it is not likely to happen, as the RPGA can't support more campaigns, and it is not an option to split up Forgotten Realms that way unless you choose regions like Kara-Tur, Zakara or Maztica, and keep them separate of the rest. At any rate, I expect it is too late now to make language regions.
Madfox11 10-08-07, 07:13 AM	Which illustrates why DMs and players whose primary language isn't English should not be required to play all adventures in English, where they must personally translate them on the fly. They should at least have local aventures written in their primary language - thus language-based regions for languages supported by WotC with rule books in the language. I get a feeling people think that a translation of an adventure should be a litterary piece of art. Boxed texts are primarily suggestions which a good DM does not even use as a read-aloud text, but as a guideline when preparing the adventure. The translation does not need to be perfect. It should allow the DM to run the adventure. Mind you, in a perfect world things would go as you suggest, but the fact of life is that the benefits are outweighted by the downsides (costs, control, quality and number of vollunteers, number of available adventures). All the RPGA can do is find vollunteers who are willing to translate adventures and make those adventures available (and hope those people take the task seriously and don't try to be funny). Note to Gerard: whether or not it lead to a local isolated campaign in France is besides the point, your region might be very well the exception to the rule. We have seen regions drift away from LG, so it is a potential downside. In any event, even with the use of local languages Greece, Italy and Spain are dead (or were never alive). The campaign is run by vollunteers, and finding the vollunteers to even be able to run the language based regions *and* organize local events is the real challenge and would likely be nearly impossible for some of the major languages.
tombollis 10-08-07, 09:46 AM	The campaign is run by vollunteers, and finding the vollunteers to even be able to run the language based regions *and* organize local events is the real challenge and would likely be nearly impossible for some of the major languages. No volunteers -> no region for the language. Sufficient qualified volunteers -> the language should have one or more regions. (English would have several regions.) Call for volunteers; add regions later as demand arrises. Tom Bollis
Madfox11 10-09-07, 02:52 AM	Well, you do get the chicken and egg question. Many LG regions in Europe (and perhaps beyond) are carried by only two or three people. They have a lot more players, but if those active vollunteers would step down (or have stepped down) the whole region collapses. So how do you generate interest without vollunteers and how many players do you need to assign a region? Besides, it wouldn't solve the other more important issues around language based regions.
tombollis 10-09-07, 07:38 AM	Well, you do get the chicken and egg question. Many LG regions in Europe (and perhaps beyond) are carried by only two or three people. They have a lot more players, but if those active vollunteers would step down (or have stepped down) the whole region collapses. So how do you generate interest without vollunteers and how many players do you need to assign a region? Besides, it wouldn't solve the other more important issues around language based regions. Have you thought that there aren't many volunteers for geography-based regions in LG because of lanuage issues, rather than lack of interest or awareness? Numbers of players won't matter if they have nothing they can understand and play. Making potential players aware of the campaign in a language they understand should be more effective than relying on Eglish for everything. The other issues about language-ased regions won't be solved without an attempt at language-based regions. The issues with geographical regions in non-english parts of the world having only English content don't seem solvable. Tom Bollis
Madfox11 10-13-07, 06:51 AM	Have you thought that there aren't many volunteers for geography-based regions in LG because of lanuage issues, rather than lack of interest or awareness? Likely both... remember LG allows people to publish adventures in their own language. It is just that there needs to be one person to be good enough in English to communicate with the campaign management. Even if you would allow language regions that is still a minimum requirement for it to work. Otherwise they could just organize their own local living campaign.
GCOLLIOU 10-26-07, 12:26 PM	Likely both... remember LG allows people to publish adventures in their own language. It is just that there needs to be one person to be good enough in English to communicate with the campaign management. Even if you would allow language regions that is still a minimum requirement for it to work. Otherwise they could just organize their own local living campaign. It's why Base Language Region are better thant a full English Campaign. Because in that case you can write module in local language and you only need some people at the staff fluent in English. Like that we can find more Author, DM, Event Organisator for local convention or game who only need to speak local language. And Base Language Region are bigger thant a specific country and more logical to a mix of countries with different language so you can find more volonteers capable in both language (local and English) for the staff. I'm ok to play local campaign but allow me to play in Greyhawk (or only Ekbir) or FR and use non srd book. That's the problem. I can say praticly sure now that because of that they kill local convention and LG LFR campaign in non english spoken coutries and by the way kill D&D, because no support egal no sales. For me it's a marketing fault. Actually DD not work well in such countries and need support for devellopement, without local campaign or campaign avalaible in local language, that surely not working, people prefer to play other local campaign supported by local Games and Rules in their language.
Madfox11 10-29-07, 04:11 AM	It's why Base Language Region are better thant a full English Campaign. Because in that case you can write module in local language and you only need some people at the staff fluent in English. Like that we can find more Author, DM, Event Organisator for local convention or game who only need to speak local language. And Base Language Region are bigger thant a specific country and more logical to a mix of countries with different language so you can find more volonteers capable in both language (local and English) for the staff. I take it you vollunteered than to make sure there will be ample of opportunities for the French speaking communities to get adventures in French? I'm ok to play local campaign but allow me to play in Greyhawk (or only Ekbir) or FR and use non srd book. That's the problem. I can say praticly sure now that because of that they kill local convention and LG LFR campaign in non english spoken coutries and by the way kill D&D, because no support egal no sales. That is a rather bold statement. We had no conventions in the Netherlands until HomeCon and in the late nineties no gamedays either. AD&D was alive and kicking without them. Conventions are fun, and probably do help sale, but they are not the only drive behind the game. Most gamers never visit a convention or gameday. There was no big RPGA support in South America, but I know that the D&D community is really alive in that area as well and that the RPGA got many requests to make it a LG region. For me it's a marketing fault. Actually DD not work well in such countries and need support for devellopement, without local campaign or campaign avalaible in local language, that surely not working, people prefer to play other local campaign supported by local Games and Rules in their language. You are probably right that marketing has a major influence on it, but I would not blame the RPGA management for it. Marketing is expensive and the RPGA does not have the resources to do a proper marketing in English, let alone in French, German, Spanish and the myriad of other languages spoken in this world.