LANGUAGE CODE Some notes: I use skill slots to hold language ability, this coincides very nicely with my learn_by_use code (stripped out of this example). If you try to use this, you'll need to make the appropriate entries in spells.h (I use 190+ for langs), also, you'll need to change one of the spares in the player structure to be "speaking". Oh, you'll also need some way to toggle what language you're speaking, you could use a simple do_speak command or something, I'm not finished putting this all in yet, so I just made an entry in do_set to toggle the person's current lang like: SPEAKING(vict) = value Take note that it might also be a good idea to set the characters' native language to 100% when they begin. spells.h #define LANG_COMMON 190 #define LANG_ELVEN 191 #define LANG_DWARVEN 192 #define LANG_TROLLISH 193 #define LANG_HALFLING 194 utils.h #define SPEAKING(ch) ((ch)->player_specials->saved.speaking) constants.c const char *languages[] = { "common", "elven", "dwarven", "trollish", "halfling", "\n" }; act.comm.c void garble_text(char *string, int percent) { char letters[] = "aeiousthpwxyz"; int i; for (i = 0; i < strlen(string); ++i) if (isalpha(string[i]) && number(0, 1) && number(0, 100) > percent) string[i] = letters[number(0, 12)]; } ACMD(do_lang_say) { extern char *languages[]; char ibuf[MAX_INPUT_LENGTH]; char obuf[MAX_INPUT_LENGTH]; int ofs = 190; /* offset - should be first language */ struct char_data *tch; skip_spaces(&argument); if(!*argument) { send_to_char("Say what?\r\n", ch); return; } strcpy(ibuf, argument); /* preserve original text */ garble_text(ibuf, GET_SKILL(ch, SPEAKING(ch))); for (tch = world[ch->in_room].people; tch; tch = tch->next_in_room) { if (tch != ch && AWAKE(tch) && tch->desc) { strcpy(obuf, ibuf); /* preserve the first garble */ garble_text(obuf, GET_SKILL(tch, SPEAKING(ch))); if (GET_SKILL(tch, SPEAKING(ch)) < 1) sprintf(buf, "$n says, in an unfamiliar tongue,\r\n '%s'", obuf); else sprintf(buf, "$n says, in the %s tongue,\r\n '%s'", languages[(SPEA KING(ch) - ofs)], obuf); act(buf, TRUE, ch, 0, tch, TO_VICT); } } sprintf(buf, "You say, in the %s tongue,\r\n '%s'", languages[(SPEAKING(c h)- ofs)], argument); act(buf, TRUE, ch, 0, 0, TO_CHAR); } One funky thing I see here, is that it appears that the garbled text changes each time. For example, if I say the words "Hello there Sparky, you're a dead man!" six times, anyone not speaking my language should see the same string six times, not 6 different ones. I got around this by assigning each language an index (Say like 5 10 15 20), and in the garble text routine, I adjust the ascii value of the character by the index. If I overrun the range of printable characters, I just wrap around. The result is that the exact same string appears each time the speaker says the same phrase. One major benefit of this is that it allows a player to "learn" and recognize certain phrases in foreign tongues, just as in real life. Therefore players of different races can have at least minimal verbal interaction. Of course you can also do an: > emote says: Hi There! ... But that's not my problem to solve.