A Suggestion in the form of begging.

[Eric The Pipe]

I must start with stating my love of the AP's. I've ran two so far and played in many others. My exposure has been incredibly positive.

Now my suggestion: Something that would help me as a DM would be pronunciation guides after all the non-english words and more so after the made up words. Something as simple as (pro·nun·ci·a·tion) after the first time the word appears.

PLEASE, I'm begging you. It's disjointing for me and the players when I fumble over the imaginary (and Russian-ish in the case of Reign of Winter) words that the creative writers come up with.

[The Shining Fool]

This may just be the view of a language nerd, but really? If the pronunciation is out of your comfort zone? Change it.

Nouns - especially proper nouns - are nonce-words. They are linguistic gap fillers. Choose something you think is cool and go with it, yeah?

Not to say that sometimes fantasy fiction authors don't go a little crazy with their combinations. If the writer is really married to the idea of a (culturally relevant linguistic reference), then perhaps a glossary in the style of Dune would be in Paizo's best interest. But as a word nerd I beg you - to thine own self be true. I don't care how James of SKR or anyone else wants a word pronounced, I'm gonna go with what works for my group.

[Gorbacz]

As a non-English native speaker I demand printed pronounciation for all those weird English words. Seriously, "thorough" and "diarrhea"? ;)

[Sean K Reynolds]

Pronounce it however you like for your home game. Considering that people are STILL divided on how to pronounce "drow" (rhymes with "grow" or rhymes with "cow"), pick one that sounds good to you. :)

[Cpt_kirstov]

The campaign setting had a pronunciation guide in the back, which has been incorperated into ]the wiki

[Eric The Pipe]

The Shining Fool wrote:

This may just be the view of a language nerd, but really? If the pronunciation is out of your comfort zone? Change it.

Nouns - especially proper nouns - are nonce-words. They are linguistic gap fillers. Choose something you think is cool and go with it, yeah?

Not to say that sometimes fantasy fiction authors don't go a little crazy with their combinations. If the writer is really married to the idea of a (culturally relevant linguistic reference), then perhaps a glossary in the style of Dune would be in Paizo's best interest. But as a word nerd I beg you - to thine own self be true. I don't care how James of SKR or anyone else wants a word pronounced, I'm gonna go with what works for my group.

I know Language nerds, so I understand what you are saying. I am not a language nerd, I am sadly a math nerd. I grind to a halt as I try to pronounce out how to say some of these names. I can understand how markets work, economics is an interesting subject (I enjoy reading books on it) but give me a word to pronounce out loud, in another language and it's like throwing a stick of dynamite in front of a car, it disrupts the flow of movement, at least a little.

And the biggest problem is the "new" names. Names I have never heard before in any reading I have ever done. I pronounce them out attempted syllable at a time, then turning to the language nerd, in our group, spell it out so he can take a shot at it. It's frustrating.

[Eric The Pipe]

Sean K Reynolds wrote:

Pronounce it however you like for your home game. Considering that people are STILL divided on how to pronounce "drow" (rhymes with "grow" or rhymes with "cow"), pick one that sounds good to you. :)

Thank you anyways. :)

[Lord Snow]

Sean K Reynolds wrote:

Considering that people are STILL divided on how to pronounce "drow"

I think the answer is really easy, though. "Drow" obviously rhymes with "bow" ;)

[Andrew Phillips]

I have much the same problem, I usually try to make notes to myself ahead of time about how I plan to pronounce something and I also have a language nerd to fall back on. I can see how using page count for a pronunciation guide would excessive maybe we could the AP boards.

[Tangent101]

Odd, Lord Snow. I always thought "Drow" rhymed with "Dark Elves" ;)

(As in I don't bother with the TSR terminology and actually have them in my world as white-haired, pale-skinned elves like most underground species. The people in my worlds call them "Moon elves" in fact as they're as pale as the moon. The dark-skinned elves live above ground in jungles and in deserts, and are thus called jungle elves and desert elves. ;) It only makes sense, after all!)

[Odraude]

I wouldn't mind pronunciation, especially for made up words and names. Real words I can always look up, but try pronouncing gnomish names in the middle of a game. Yikes. I also recently had an issue with pronouncing tepoztopilli the other day. Quite a tongue twister.

[mathpro18]

Eric The Pipe wrote:

I know Language nerds, so I understand what you are saying. I am not a language nerd, I am sadly a math nerd. I grind to a halt as I try to pronounce out how to say some of these names...

Glad I'm not the only math nerd that sometimes has his brain go "...what the heck" or his tongue go "Nope not going to happen" when reading some of the words paizo puts in their adventures.

[The Shining Fool]

So a "real" suggestion:

Get a list of names fantasy names covering various cultures/races/milieus. You can find 'em cheap or free online, including several from 3PP right here on Paizo. Dig through the lists and highlight names that work for you *and* your group. When pre-reading your adventures, annotate any names that need to be swapped out with names from your edited lists.

This removes the problem pronunciations and simultaneously gives you a good resource to use whenever you need a name on the fly for random NPCs.

[Sissyl]

The german field elves are jealous of all the attention forest elves get.