I had never heard of Kenku before recently. What a cool race! I hear, however, that the whole not being able to speak can slow down the game quite a bit. On one hand it seems like an interesting role playing challenge, but if it's gonna eat up too much game time then maybe it's not a good idea.
Has anybody run a Kenku before? Was it a pain? Are there any creative work arounds for the communication?
I don’t think it has to be a problem. You don’t have to come up with complex sound systems for everything. Some simple ones like, he makes the sound of clapping to say good job, can be good to have on you, but you don’t need a lot.
Also, you can answer yes or no easily by nodding, and you don’t have to explain everything you say every time.
Remember that you can copy human voices. If you are good at voices, you can say simple phrases in different voices each time. Maybe you say, “Good morning,” in the voice of an old grandma and, “The weather doesn’t look good,” in the voice of a pirate. This can be made funny by saying weird things in voices that wouldn’t be associated with what you are saying. For example, “Kill them all!” in the voice of a toddler.
If you character has spent a lot of time around a single person, then they should be able to piece together phrases from words that they have heard them say.
For fun, you can say things like, I make the sound of a moose in labor to say that I am going to sneak around the castle to see if there is another entrance, or, I make the sound of an octopus in a blender to say that I think we shouldn’t kill the bandit. Maybe even though the sounds you make don’t make sense, your party can understand you, similar to how the Guardians of the Galaxy can understand Groot.
I don’t think you should try to make your party guess what your sounds mean. That will get old quick.
I mean, kenku can speak, they're just cursed to mimic what they've heard. It can be as limiting as you and your player make it, or it can be a non-issue.
I've played with two kenku. One disregarded the mimicry entirely and just spoke normally. The other one was in a play-by-post campaign, and he used punctuation to indicate when he was using a different person's voice to say something. (E.g., "Are you. Certain this is the. Right. Temple?") I've also seen Matt Mercer play a kenku NPC, and he mostly had that character make full use of gestures, incidental sounds, and a good number of phrases that worked for most conversations, plus things the character copied from the party in the current conversation. It can work if your player doesn't go overboard and your party is cool with it.
The only question is really how old your Kenku is and perhaps how much they have travelled since all that matters is how big their vocabulary is and how many words they have heard. As an adventurer, they should know most of the basic words as well as a selection of more complex words. If they spent any time in the company of people with a bigger vocabulary they might have heard a much greater number of words.
The only Kenku that might have trouble using words would be one just initially exposed to other languages who haven't yet acquired enough words to mimic. However, it really would not take long to acquire the sounds of the basic words. This means that a kenku would sound strange combining words in many different voices but they would have no trouble expressing themselves in general.
Bottom line is that it is a role playing artifice that will actually have little or no effect in terms of the kenku communicating with others.
Have your Kenku find or buy a dictionary. Then pay someone or have a party member read the entire dictionary out loud to you. You will have a larger vocabulary than most people, the only downside is your voice will sound weird and fragmented.
I had never heard of Kenku before recently. What a cool race! I hear, however, that the whole not being able to speak can slow down the game quite a bit. On one hand it seems like an interesting role playing challenge, but if it's gonna eat up too much game time then maybe it's not a good idea.
Has anybody run a Kenku before? Was it a pain? Are there any creative work arounds for the communication?
I haven’t played a Kenku before, but I want to.
I don’t think it has to be a problem. You don’t have to come up with complex sound systems for everything. Some simple ones like, he makes the sound of clapping to say good job, can be good to have on you, but you don’t need a lot.
Also, you can answer yes or no easily by nodding, and you don’t have to explain everything you say every time.
Remember that you can copy human voices. If you are good at voices, you can say simple phrases in different voices each time. Maybe you say, “Good morning,” in the voice of an old grandma and, “The weather doesn’t look good,” in the voice of a pirate. This can be made funny by saying weird things in voices that wouldn’t be associated with what you are saying. For example, “Kill them all!” in the voice of a toddler.
If you character has spent a lot of time around a single person, then they should be able to piece together phrases from words that they have heard them say.
For fun, you can say things like, I make the sound of a moose in labor to say that I am going to sneak around the castle to see if there is another entrance, or, I make the sound of an octopus in a blender to say that I think we shouldn’t kill the bandit. Maybe even though the sounds you make don’t make sense, your party can understand you, similar to how the Guardians of the Galaxy can understand Groot.
I don’t think you should try to make your party guess what your sounds mean. That will get old quick.
You could just use the new version (MMM) of the kenku that got rid of the annoying bit.
I mean, kenku can speak, they're just cursed to mimic what they've heard. It can be as limiting as you and your player make it, or it can be a non-issue.
I've played with two kenku. One disregarded the mimicry entirely and just spoke normally. The other one was in a play-by-post campaign, and he used punctuation to indicate when he was using a different person's voice to say something. (E.g., "Are you. Certain this is the. Right. Temple?") I've also seen Matt Mercer play a kenku NPC, and he mostly had that character make full use of gestures, incidental sounds, and a good number of phrases that worked for most conversations, plus things the character copied from the party in the current conversation. It can work if your player doesn't go overboard and your party is cool with it.
The only question is really how old your Kenku is and perhaps how much they have travelled since all that matters is how big their vocabulary is and how many words they have heard. As an adventurer, they should know most of the basic words as well as a selection of more complex words. If they spent any time in the company of people with a bigger vocabulary they might have heard a much greater number of words.
The only Kenku that might have trouble using words would be one just initially exposed to other languages who haven't yet acquired enough words to mimic. However, it really would not take long to acquire the sounds of the basic words. This means that a kenku would sound strange combining words in many different voices but they would have no trouble expressing themselves in general.
Bottom line is that it is a role playing artifice that will actually have little or no effect in terms of the kenku communicating with others.
Have your Kenku find or buy a dictionary. Then pay someone or have a party member read the entire dictionary out loud to you. You will have a larger vocabulary than most people, the only downside is your voice will sound weird and fragmented.