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Related but not exactly what I'm asking: Can Thieves' Cant be understood without a level in Rogue?

Also related: Would other PCs eventually notice two rogues talking in Thieves' Cant?

Thieves' cant is a spoken coded language only shared and comprehended by thieves; as far as my understanding goes that means this language shouldn't sound like a different language, but would likely use Common with hidden messages to hide its true intention.

The situation: A rogue PC is talking to a vendor NPC who is a member of the local thieves' guild, but other PCs are in the room. While the rogue PC is able to talk in thieves' cant to the NPC, what does the remainder of the party hear during this conversation?

SevenSidedDie
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onewho
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  • @Dronz If you're confused by any particular rules we have, please feel free to ask about them or request clarification about them on [meta]. – doppelgreener Jun 24 '17 at 15:58
  • This seems to be completely answered in the first question you link, https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/71765/would-other-pcs-eventually-notice-two-rogues-talking-in-thieves-cant, which contains the same DMG quote as lucidbrot's answer below. – mxyzplk Jun 24 '17 at 16:41
  • If you are looking for canonical published examples, then maybe model this Q on https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/8367/what-does-deep-speech-look-sound-like or https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/8946/what-does-drow-speech-sound-like, asking for canon published examples in game media. – mxyzplk Jun 25 '17 at 03:29
  • Thieves' cant or Latin or Peddlers' French is a real-world British phenomenon. It's basically a mix between set keywords ('We're unloading the iron at Hammerfall' discussing smuggled weapons), incomprehensible slang ('E got dafiya, faam. Gwoninaxim.'), and word salad ('Ran up th'apples on th'dog to m'trouble'). – lly Jul 22 '18 at 11:26

2 Answers2

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During your rogue training you learned thieves’ cant, a secret mix of dialect, jargon, and code that allows you to hide messages in seemingly normal conversation. Only another creature that knows thieves’ cant understands such messages. It takes four times longer to convey such a message than it does to speak the same idea plainly.

(PHB p. 96, for DnD 5e)

According to the above quote, it sounds like normal conversation. The differences are probably in subtle things like whether you use one pronounciation or the other, which are both valid in different dialects.

This is at least what 5th edition DnD has to say about this. Other systems might of course have different intentions.

lucidbrot
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The idea behind Thieves' Cant is, that you encode your language by giving certain words other meanings etc. another language used in that way is Polari, which was used by gay men in Britain prior to the decriminalization of homosexuality.

Here is as short film entirely in Polari. Thieves' Cant works similarly. Another example would be this scene from Ocean's Twelve.

If you would listen to the whole conversation without knowing the code, you would not understand anything. If you would just pass by and pick up snippets, it would sound like a normal conversation to you.

Thyzer
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