I'm a little confused about the Education advanced skill. On page 17 of the rulebook it clearly states that "education confers basic literacy." With this I have no problem; it's realistic that people aren't literate by default in the Warhammer World.

In our current campaign I'm playing an Agitator. Clearly, based on the career card picture and description, The Agitator is someone that makes it his/her business to hand out printed propaganda ("leaflets" are specifically mentioned in typical trappings) yet Education is not a career skill. So, I'd have to invest four Non-Career Advances to make my Agitator literate and able to read the leaflets he's supposed to be handing out. Does this strike anyone else as odd?

wapcaplets said:

Not in the least.

Consider your first statement: Education and literacy are not common place. In other words, literacy is a rare skill in the Old World, which would make any printed propaganda useless in arousing dissent. Most of the peasants would be unable to read the message. And all the University and Upper Class people are happy with the Status Quo! At best he could read the leaflets, but then the primary skill would be oratory and not reading.

So instead of assuming the Agitator distributes leaflets bursting with text, consider the other way of distributing ideas on a printed page: pictures, drawings, caricatures or other graphical representations. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words!

This type of propaganda is put to good use by the Priests of Morr to incite anti-undead sentiments in the Altdorf populace in the Genevieve novels. The various initiates would draw pictures of victims to incite the wrath of the locals. And remember that even if you're illiterate you might still be able to associate certain symbols (be they words or letters) with an idea. So a little text can still convey ideas, especially if that text is an iconic representation of something.

Thanks for the thoughtful reply.

Not to split hairs but the career card description mentions that "enterprising agitators produce scurrilous pamphlets that interested parties can purchase for a small amount." This seems to imply something with more meaningful content than iconography or symbols and a few words. Also, the art on the career card shows an agitator holding a scroll and leaflets with lines of text.

Not a deal-breaker, I still like the career... the art & flavour text are just a little inconsistent with the system-based elements.

It seems to me that it wouldn't be a particularly far stretch to assume that there are some Agitators who are literate, such as the aforementioned "enterprising" ones, but that it isn't necessary. It would be possible that they know the general message, but cannot read it themselves.

The only real hole comes when you consider that the majority of the population can't read what is written on the pamphlet, but Agitators aren't only limited to fighting against the social class disparities. They could very well be targetting those of the upper class for one reason or another on behalf of an employer, or any other of a number of reasons.

Honestly, I'm mostly going from what I've seen depicted in the Warhammer books that I've read. So I'm not completely pulling this stuff out of thin air.

Besides, what's more scurrilous than explicit drawings? Imagine the mob of peasants clamoring to purchase pamphlets depicting the Count Elector's sexual escapades with mutants! Or the lecherous parties at the local Palace!

"Come one, come all! See the monstrous deformity hidden under the Arch-Lecter's robes! The man is a beast of Chaos out to corrupt your soul!"

And people throng to purchase the pamphlet showing the drawings of the Arch-Lecter along with some second rate copy.

I just imagine the medieval equivalent of all the celebrity gossip magazines and the paparazzi. People go crazy for that kind of thing and it seems to me that's just the target audience for an Agitator.

What level of Literacy is appropriate in the Empire? What is the best guess at the nearest equivalent real world date for the socio-economic development of the Empire? Sixteenth-century?

In 'A History of Western Education' by James Bowen, he estimates early sixteenth-century literacy rates in England to be less than 1 percent; yet by the end of the century he suggests it was getting close to 50 percent. At this time there was a drive by individuals, parishes and guilds to found schools with fees that most people could afford. Sometimes a family would only afford to send one child to school, but he would teach his siblings when he returned.

In the Empire we can assume the priests of Verena would be active in the drive to mass literacy too. So if you view the Empire as late sixteenth then you might consider making Education a basic skill.

Er. That's one of the problems of the Warhammer setting: smooshing together concepts from a few different eras of medieval european history to look cool, without some of the actual reasons WHY those things were. Hardly any context, I feel.

I've seen artwork of a character wearing Elizabethan attire (prominent codpiece and all), wielding an 18th century FLINTLOCK pistol and wearing an early 19th century bicorne or tricorne hat. ...WHUT?

ANYWAYS

So yeah, the majority of the population can't read, but, much to the chagrin of the religious leaders, the emerging middle class becoming educated and literate while gaining more and more power within society.

An interesting time, for sure.

I think it's worth adding that Literacy in this period (16/17th century) varied vastly with location, gender and social class. The urban bourgeois had literacy levels of maybe 90%. The rural poor <10%, poor rural women even less.

The Old World setting with people publishing political tracts for mass readership does strongly imply that literacy is not the preserve of elites any more.

I'm not buying the less than 1% illiteracy rate in England in the 16th century ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illiterate ). For example, 33-44% of english persons were unable to write their name in the 19th century. Hardly seems like that 1% illiteracy rate is accurate.

The only example of such proficient literacy seems to be Sweden and its adjoining territories, and from the looks of it by the 19th century most women had reverted back to illiteracy. And that drastic literacy improvement was only possible thanks to government mandated literacy programs, the likes of which The Empire has none.

Even current advanced countries with public school programs, pervasive access to written content and a strong discrimination against illiteracy still only manage to keep their illiteracy percentages below the teens. Current third-world countries, which are a more accurate representation of the Old World have even higher percentages of illiteracy.

So basically, in order to reach such high literacy levels you're looking at government mandated literacy programs, and a desire from the ruling class to have the lower classes educated. Dedicated priests of Verena would not have such a drastic impact.

At any rate Education becoming a basic skill is total bunk. A basic skill is one in which a person requires no training whatsoever. Reading and writing hardly fall into that category. You might want to make acquiring Education free for all races (similar to the High Elves racial attribute), but converting it to a basic skill seems going overboard.

Lexicanum said:

It was a 1% literacy rate... l2r lol.

But yes, I would agree that advance(s) need to be spent. However, amongst the male urban middle classes literacy (maybe limited to transactional) may be the norm in the Old World. Imo this seems likely in the setting.

Oh man... lol. I had that coming.

The irony of most characters being illiterate but many of the published adventures (E4E is one) requiring them having to read a notice/flier for the plot hook makes me smile.

keltheos said:

That's just a GM not taking advantage of the situation and requiring the players to find someone being able to read and pay them for the job. But I don't think the majority of people in the odl world is illiterate. Many scenarios describe different mass produced texts aimed at the general population.

Gallows said:

If the Old World follows real world population patterns, up to 95% of people in the Empire are still rural. People living in towns are already exceptional. In a town there is likely to be a school or even schools. Within a town, people will find more need to read, whereas in a rural situation it would be mostly unnecessary. So in towns you have opportunity and motivation you don't find outside.

So it is not contradictory to say that literacy in the Empire is rare, but that literacy (to a degree) in urban areas is common.

wapcaplets said:

A lot of Agitators don't start out as such. For example a student may become an agitator after picking up some funny ideas in university. A character who starts out as an agitator is probably one of the hangers-on of the movement, or a lone crackpot. They pass on the leaflets, not necessarily produce them.

EDIT: and of course, you don't need to be able to read and write to be able to produce a pamphlet. Its not like the agitator is likely to have his own printing press. He can simply dictate what he wants on it, then pass it out.

It probably wouldn't strain game balance at all to let the Agitator (or any career with the Urban or Academic keyword, or just any PC at all for that matter) to buy literacy for a single advancement, without the attached benefits of a full Education. I'd charge them an XP or a Character Creation point, or even let them trade in a starting Skill or Specialization. Any of those would probably work, without many ripples elsewhere in the rules.

Or, you could rule all PCs without Education are at least semi-literate, and can figure out any written document on an easy Intuition (Int) roll. If they get some banes or a chaos star, they still read it, but do so slowly and with their lips moving, so everyone knows they're uneducated.