Author  Message [bottom]
evileeyore
 member, 649 posts
 GURPS GM and Player
 Joined 20150819
Sat 12 Feb 2022
at 20:43
 msg #1
Feature Request; Known Word function in Language Groups
I'd like if anything put in the curly braces to engage the Known Word function of Language Groups simply render what is in the curly braces as it is entered into the text.  At current if you include Punctuation or ASCII Diacritical letter replacements the Known Word function fails to engage for that word.


Additionally I request the removal of Cast List names from the automatic Known Word function.

(N)PC names could be Red, Blue, Sword, Pike, Mountain, Five, River, Gorge, etc.  Yes, if someone is saying their names it should be their name, not gobbledygooked*, but if foreign dude is saying "Take the red sword up the blue mountain past five pike river gorge..." in his strange foreign language, the 'whole sentence' should not be coming across in English.

And this would become exacerbated if the GM has as many NPCs as a GM has in one of my games, it's possible the Known Words list for that game is several thousand words...


* And this is easily done by curly bracing the Character Name anyway, and quite often this has to be done as the Name as it appear on the Cast List page is often quite different from the name the (N)PC might use or be addressed by commonly.
Lord Psynister
 member, 182 posts
 @Psynister on socials
Sat 12 Feb 2022
at 20:59
 msg #2
Feature Request; Known Word function in Language Groups
That would be pretty cool. I literally just made a post where I wished I could do that for my NPC's opening line.
Skald
 moderator, 962 posts
 Whatever it is,
 I'm against it
Sun 13 Feb 2022
at 05:00
 msg #3
Feature Request; Known Word function in Language Groups
He sold me on it too.  ;>

The problem is that the language handler obfuscates, not translates, so when you have titles or common words as part of character names the private languages auto-known functionality effectively provides a translation of those words in all instances.

Very basic example - if your character is Kermit the Frog, then any instances of "the" will be not be obfuscated, matter not that the word is entirely different in that other language (le, la, les, el, lo, gli, der, die, das, off the top of my head in a couple of European languages).  Same for Frog, Captain, Red, Sword, etc etc where they're part of the name of any character in the game.

So ... +1 to render exactly whatever is enclosed within curly brackets and nothing else.

Bonus points (feature creep alert !) if the language group pop-up gets a checkbox (unchecked by default ?) for 'auto-render character names' that automatically sticks the curly brackets in if it recognises character names in the input text box (but only in the pop-up, if you're entering the tag manually, then you're on your own as it should be) - and since the private line that the pop-up inserts will show the curly brackets in all instances, then they can be manually removed if desired after the fact, if you note unintended consequences elsewhere in the string.
evileeyore
 member, 650 posts
 GURPS GM and Player
 Joined 20150819
Sun 13 Feb 2022
at 05:47
 msg #4
Feature Request; Known Word function in Language Groups
Skald:
Bonus points (feature creep alert !) if the language group pop-up gets a checkbox (unchecked by default ?) for 'auto-render character names' that automatically sticks the curly brackets in if it recognises character names in the input text box...

If jase wants to go the feature creep route, I'm completely behind it.  I just figure it would be easier to default back to "no automatic Known Words, curly brace it if you want it known".
evileeyore
 member, 652 posts
 GURPS GM and Player
 Joined 20150819
Tue 15 Feb 2022
at 06:00
 msg #5
Feature Request; Known Word function in Language Groups
Okay, because I noticed something odd when I went for a wild test run of how badly (as in how many words the Known Words funtion would trip) the Language Group would be skewed by a long enough Cast List...

I discovered this:
https://i.imgur.com/pvjQV4d.png

Of the 360-some-odd words that show up in that game's Cast List, those are the ones that appear multiple times.  Why did I test this, well, aside from being insane, it's because I noticed that some words weren't being tripped, notably "no", "as", "the" , and "soldier".  Now sure, maybe there's a "if a word is repeated enough in the Cast List it ceases to be considered a 'Name' function", but... why "soldier" and not "Village" which shows up more frequently or "orc" and "Orc" which show up as often (double if the function is ignoring capitalization - which it does!).

Okay, I can see you saying "But maybe orc is..." okay, but look at "Troll" and "troll".  Right?  Inconsistent it is.  So now I suspect there is a specific of "Ignore" list associated with the Known Words function and I'm doubly voting to just have Known Words ignore the Cast List entirely.
bigbadron
 moderator, 16080 posts
 He's big, he's bad,
 but mostly he's Ron.
Wed 16 Feb 2022
at 16:06
moderator post | [quote] | [reply] | msg #6
Feature Request; Known Word function in Language Groups
If it comes to a vote, I would vote against having known words ignore the Cast List.  The feature was requested by users who might be somewhat annoyed if it were removed.

Perhaps just as annoyed as evileeyore apparently is by it's existence.  :)

Skald's check box idea (msg #3) could be a good compromise though.
evileeyore
 member, 653 posts
 GURPS GM and Player
 Joined 20150819
Thu 17 Feb 2022
at 03:48
 msg #7
Feature Request; Known Word function in Language Groups
bigbadron:
Perhaps just as annoyed as evileeyore apparently is by it's existence.  :)

My problem with it is it's inconsistent (or consistent to rules I do not know) and it's "easy" to render Language Groups essentially non-functional.  I'm in a game where there are roughly 350 non-name words that are "Known Words" because they're in the Cast List.

And with that GM that list will grow, I know him, he can't be helped.

This means for any GM who wants a deep Cast List with words as names or titles, they are rendering the Language Groups "useless" for themselves.
Skald
 moderator, 963 posts
 Whatever it is,
 I'm against it
Thu 17 Feb 2022
at 04:31
 msg #8
Feature Request; Known Word function in Language Groups
A game with that many characters is an outlier, though ... while I wouldn't want to second guess jase's decision, it's unlikely that a change will get up that benefits one or only a few games to the detriment of others.

I'm sure I voted for the known words exclusions, however in practice I've found I don't use them, so the benefit to me now is in going with the curly brackets only option, but that's just my mileage - as bbr says, that won't work for him.

Checkbox compromise gives us a bet both ways ... and change of plan, maybe set the default as checked so it excludes known words by default which means it will work the same way it always has unless those of us who want to exclude known words manually uncheck it.  Win-win !

Any bugs that you identify ... that's really something I expect jase would look at regardless of whether or not a change in functionality is adopted.   :>
evileeyore
 member, 654 posts
 GURPS GM and Player
 Joined 20150819
Thu 17 Feb 2022
at 05:48
 msg #9
Feature Request; Known Word function in Language Groups
Skald:
Any bugs that you identify ... that's really something I expect jase would look at regardless of whether or not a change in functionality is adopted.   :>

Not knowing the rules means I can't identify bugs, only things that aren't working the same way.  Like "Why are 'soldier' and 'troll' excluded as Known Words but 'village' and 'orc' aren't?  Why is 'it' and 'is' excluded, but 'it's' isn't?

My suspicion is there is a hidden word list, because if it's a set of rules it's wildly inconsistent.  And I just can't be arsed to test every word to see what words are excluded and possibly figure out why.
agious
 member, 10 posts
 If there's a will
 There's a way
Tue 22 Mar 2022
at 16:34
 msg #10
Feature Request; Known Word function in Language Groups
Since I don't hear my previous post, excuse the repeat.
1. I think if languages are being used, and that function is active, then it should ignore names, because my name isn't said the same way in different languages.
I don't know what the curly brackets are, but will try and figure it out, because I usually enter everything in without using the check-boxes.
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