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It's perfectly acceptable that magic exists, but people being able to read is wildly unrealistic.
I mean the wizards would more often than not be the ones who could read since they'd need to be able to study the magic texts.
yeah, but maybe they're only able to read some arcane dead language.
Imagine a mini game where it looks like an ancient language and you half to play a mini game to uncover curtain words.
Once you uncover those words about 40% is missing the next time you see it and each time you see them less and less letters are obscured.
Clever typos or oblivious poster?
Boy, I'm bad at typing while walking. Auto complete has failed me again.
This is basically the entire premise of Heaven's Vault and (I think, but I haven't gotten around to playing it yet) Chants of Sennaar
I'll have to check it out sometime, sounds neat.
We know how reading works.
Suspension of disbelief is an agreement to change things - but you have to convey that they are changed, or else everyone applies the rules they already know. Healing magic is made-up and can work however you want. Getting stabbed is real. You don't get stabbed and immediately go "guess I'm fine," except through the application of something made-up.
Admittedly, reading is so commonplace now, we assume it's universal. Literacy is the rule we apply by default.
But D&D still specifies which languages your character can speak.