I thought it would be fun for a real adventure aspect to an RPG,

Stuff like that used to come up in older modules. and it was a feature in the PC conversions of D&D to the Gold Box series by SSI. The translation wheel was the copy protection. But it could also allow you to translate runes on walls for example.

Thanks Omega, the copy protection would of been great fun

Here is the first one for Pool of Radiance.
The one for Azure Bonds just had the dwarven tunes I believe. Not sure about Silver Blades.

Wow, you don't see this in new games, good find

Very true. I can tell you from memory that starting from the "translate from Dethek it reads counterclockwise A to Z then 1-9
WX&Z use the same symbol.

The Espruar reads clockwise A-Z then 1-9

That wheel is awesome.

Main drawback was it lacked the zero symbols as that was used for the neutral setting.

A neat feature of the wheel was that it did really translate the dwarven and elven runes by moving the pointer around to the appropriate letter and reading the "to english" entry. If I recall right then if you moved the "to elven" pointer one counterclockwise that lands both pointers on their rune for 9.

It is a really ingenious design as it translates both elven and dwarven at the same time.

Quote from: Omega;1066394Main drawback was it lacked the zero symbols as that was used for the neutral setting.

A neat feature of the wheel was that it did really translate the dwarven and elven runes by moving the pointer around to the appropriate letter and reading the "to english" entry. If I recall right then if you moved the "to elven" pointer one counterclockwise that lands both pointers on their rune for 9.

It is a really ingenious design as it translates both elven and dwarven at the same time.

Unfortunately, the type of prop that most books today wouldn't have.

Could exist as a boxed starter set accessory. Or more likely a PNP image  set in the book the player can scan to print and assemble as manufacture of a translation wheel would add cost to a box.

Or you could go the same route as MSH did and the wheel is a cardstock insert you just cut out and assemble. Same for the battle wheel that was an insert in Dragon.

Thinking on it. TSR seems to be about the only company that ever made helpful gadgets like these or that cut out and assemble cube to visualize the elemental planes.

Well, TSR believed they had the money for it.

Except it cost them very little to make the battle wheel insert as they were doing cardstock inserts well before that for the board games. So probably cost was not a factor really and the translation wheel was SSI's gig not TSRs. But it is interesting that SPI who was also doing game inserts never had similar stuff for their own magazine. Nor GW via White Dwarf. Though WDs inserts were fewer till the Warhammer Quest era.

I think part of it was TSR was more into making play aids than any of the others. Everything from minis terrain to the battle wheel, to a cardstock dragon, an oriental castle, a ship and even a deck of many things.

They even had that short lived series of articles presenting PC programs to help DMing little things.

But speaking of the translation wheel. It would be easy to make a new one for the 5e elven and dwarven runes.