Yeah it is complex and needs some more consideration before implementation, but this whole thing is a thought experiment. So your questions are good ones, but they don't make me think the idea of more literacy is a bad one. IMO they all tease at interesting gameplay potential. 

To flesh out the idea a bit and cover some of your questions...

I'd start out just loosening the law from absolutely no writing ever to acknowledgement by Templars that GMH senior members are taught to write cavilish for business and as long as they don't do it openly or piss off a Templar while having writings on them, they're good. This means that us normals that work our way up to senior level could learn if we wanted. And blooded gmh could indulge a bit more.


From there it expands to non-gmh wealthy merchants who bribe their local Templars to overlook any papers in cavilish.

Tribes can either pick up cavilish in this new world or staff could bust out some virtual secret npcs who retained literacy in bendune and allundean.  Tribal players in lore-focused positions could either learn to read icly or work through an npc. It would definitely be kept hidden and secret from Templars, but if Templars walk into a tribe camp there is already going to be a problem with all the mages that most tribes have in some form. 

This greatly benefits tribe play by allowing for player created and recorded lore and history instead of it relying solely on staff documenting and shifts or stories the gdb which wasn't happening anyways.

This also greatly benefits city merchants and clan play by allowing offline IC communication, espionage, and again, player created lore and history.  It also gives these players a new risky goal to chase that actually expands gameplay and isn't just CCs and custom rooms.

And now that it's a bribeable offense instead of immediate death sentence, you can even have PCs teaching subordinate PCs so the subordinates can help them out, and then they can both risk betrayal by the other. Fun fun fun!

Sirihish could easily stay a death sentence. This lets nobles communicate more safely and maintains a big hurdle for 99% of the virtual city commoners who can't afford to learn a new language much less to read it.

PS
>  Why would every tribal human [or elf] understand every other tribes written language?

Because it's the same language and they frequently trade and cooperate. They all have some unique words and codes but it's not far fetched for the script to be the same for a people that interact frequently in peace. Or like I mentioned maybe it's all cavilish bleeding out from GMH. The docs already even say that bendune and allundean have a related parent and written forms, and that cavilish is direct descendent of bendune and sirihish.

PSS
I didn't mean to write a playbook for a future season of literacy, but you asked the questions

Downgrade reading/writing of non Tatlum languages as bribe worthy offenses like Spice/Theft/etc.  Still illegal, but with more potential than it has now limited to a few percentage points of the player base.

Harder as in more complex, intricate, and with greater scales of magnitude.

Not harder (more grind)

Quote from: BigWater on July 21, 2024, 09:05:15 PMDowngrade reading/writing of non Tatlum languages as bribe worthy offenses like Spice/Theft/etc.  Still illegal, but with more potential than it has now limited to a few percentage points of the player base.

I think this would be a fun thing to explore in the next Season, personally. big shift, make Literacy more available (even if it's still technically illegal).

I would love to see more IG writing, more people writing, more things to read. It sucks that in a RPI with a text-based medium, writing is gated behind documentation drawn from Dark Sun and amplified. Dark Sun IP wasn't intended (directly) for a text-based MUD -- If it were, and they were in the writing room, they would say 'Hey, isn't it a bit much to make writing/literacy illegal in a text-based medium?' without a doubt.

I'm not sure there's an analogy, but it feels like playing a TTRPG in person without speaking, only through written notes.

What if you could use the Way, but you were only able to show images to communicate. No speech?

Quote from: KakkarotYaBoi on July 25, 2024, 07:55:22 PMWhat if you could use the Way, but you were only able to show images to communicate. No speech?

That was a very cool halfling RP thing that I was sad to see decreased when they disappeared and now for people to often treat it as sus to use images in the Way. Makes me sad. I'd love to see imagery come back in a big way.

I would love to see it changed to only images to through the Way. This would also be so much more fun for role-playing language barriers. It's too easy to just Way that Desert Elf "We are no threat!" Versus actual body language, or, for just the example "You send the douchy DElf a message with the Way: The suave human appears to be holding an olive branch in your minds eye"

Quote from: KakkarotYaBoi on July 26, 2024, 12:45:10 PMI would love to see it changed to only images to through the Way. This would also be so much more fun for role-playing language barriers. It's too easy to just Way that Desert Elf "We are no threat!" Versus actual body language, or, for just the example "You send the douchy DElf a message with the Way: The suave human appears to be holding an olive branch in your minds eye"

Right. Save the fancy words for those mind witches. When normal people it's ideograms/images. #hereforthat

Add it to the poll! 

Quote from: KakkarotYaBoi on July 26, 2024, 01:57:24 PMAdd it to the poll! 

  I like it, but i think it falls under making the way harder if writing gets safer. 

Unless you just want it to be that way regardless of there being more literacy? Brutal!

It does sound like a lot would be in favor of moving literacy to spice-level illegal.  I hope staff see that idea and consider it for a plot or future seasons.

Quote from: KakkarotYaBoi on July 26, 2024, 12:45:10 PMI would love to see it changed to only images to through the Way. This would also be so much more fun for role-playing language barriers. It's too easy to just Way that Desert Elf "We are no threat!" Versus actual body language, or, for just the example "You send the douchy DElf a message with the Way: The suave human appears to be holding an olive branch in your minds eye"

"You get the image of a person who clearly needs to meet you under the span within the next hour."

"You get the image of the sender nodding agreement."

"You get the image of someone riding toward you but there are some carrus in the way."

"You get the image of someone coming from the span toward the carrus that are in the way."


So easy to bypass, and it just makes the way clunky.

Quote from: Lizzie on July 26, 2024, 02:49:01 PM

Quote from: KakkarotYaBoi on July 26, 2024, 12:45:10 PMI would love to see it changed to only images to through the Way. This would also be so much more fun for role-playing language barriers. It's too easy to just Way that Desert Elf "We are no threat!" Versus actual body language, or, for just the example "You send the douchy DElf a message with the Way: The suave human appears to be holding an olive branch in your minds eye"

"You get the image of a person who clearly needs to meet you under the span within the next hour."

"You get the image of the sender nodding agreement."

"You get the image of someone riding toward you but there are some carrus in the way."

"You get the image of someone coming from the span toward the carrus that are in the way."


So easy to bypass, and it just makes the way clunky.

It's easy to bypass if you're using really simple examples. Try explaining to someone through the way how to get to cenyr or the mul outpost.

Even if it is easy to 'bypass', it requires creativity and is actually pretty interesting.

Quote from: Agent_137 on July 26, 2024, 02:37:41 PM

Quote from: KakkarotYaBoi on July 26, 2024, 01:57:24 PMAdd it to the poll! 

  I like it, but i think it falls under making the way harder if writing gets safer. 

Unless you just want it to be that way regardless of there being more literacy? Brutal!

It does sound like a lot would be in favor of moving literacy to spice-level illegal.  I hope staff see that idea and consider it for a plot or future seasons.

straight up the Way gets harder, literacy stays as is!