Ondath
Hero
This is a thought that occurred to me after reading some of the discussions in the bonus languages for One D&D backgrounds thread here. I think the discussion points to a larger problem in D&D's philosophy, which is this: As a game, D&D doesn't really know what to do with languages.
This isn't a problem unique to One D&D or even D&D in general. I think fantasy as a genre has a very odd relationship with portraying languages in its imaginary universes and conlangs. This is mostly because one of the founding fathers of the genre created his world in order to give his languages a history. And since he did it that way, most creations in the genre feel like they have to use the concept of languages in some way. However, for almost everyone whose name isn't John Rolkien Rolkien Tolkien, I think the way they use language ends up being shallow or pointless in the end.
I think it's fair to say that languages having some mechanical weight in D&D is directly related to Tolkien to a certain extent. And I've yet to see a game where that mechanical weight has actually improved the play experience. From Alignment languages in old school games (which somehow meant that you'd know a secret language just because you liked following the rules) to One D&D's every background making you bilingual by default, the ways in which we try to make language impactful in our games usually feel very awkward.
Of course, it feels like languages have to be in our games in some way. Why wouldn't the Elves speak a different tongue than the Dwarves? And there's a point which @UngainlyTitan made, which I think is quite valid:
Trying to Portray Languages Realistically
The assumption that each race should obviously have their own language is borne out of a concern for simulationism IMO. Since the races are quite distinct, so should be their languages. This is doubly true for any Gygaxian setting, since the races are assumed to be distant to each other with little to no cross-cultural encounters.
But I think this assumption doesn't really fit modern D&D settings anymore. Most settings offer culturally varied environments where isolationism is not a thing. Communities house different races together (and have done so for a considerable amount of time), so one would expect a créole to form between those two languages (in a settlement where halflings and gnomes live together, for instance, we should get a gnomish-halfling créole forming in a few generations), but that doesn't happen. If any DM wanted to portray the way these racial languages should mix realistically, they'd get very bored players very quickly (trust me, I've tried). The truth is, D&D never portrayed mortal languages (or, if you prefer, "standard languages" in opposition to exotic languages) realistically, and they've always existed in this weird space between having some internal logic to them and just being gamist constructs for when you wanted to have a secret conversation.
Indiana Jones-vibe Languages
That still leaves the cases where languages actually play an important role in the game: When the players uncover a forgotten text in the ruins that needs to be translated, or where the language of Angels (or other outsiders) is needed to prove your holy mission. I think these (and their ilk) are the only scenarios where languages actually matter in D&D. But examining them closely reveals something: If we abandoned all standard languages and kept only the exotic ones, these would still be viable! So sure, let's keep Abyssal and Celestial and Deep Speech (i.e., languages tied to some planar force or non-mortal creatures), but we still don't really need the common ones. Which brings me to my proposal:
Let's Abandon Standard Languages
I say to hell with it. Yes, Elvish and Dwarvish and Halfling can still be distinct languages in your setting if you'd like them to be, but remove any game mechanics associated with them. It doesn't matter and trying to tie mechanics to these traits (which should not be designed on a rules basis but should be decided by the DM when they're creating their world) just creates a headache. Assume that your world runs on pre-Tower of Babel logic: There is a language which every mortal can understand. Either because your campaign world is small and it's your region's lingua franca, or because the Gods gifted all mortals with the same speech, or there's a language called Allspeak that everyone understands in their mother tongue (though you may need to pay Marvel royalties for that).
The only languages that should matter instead should be the exotic ones: Abyssal, Celestial, Deep Speech, Draconic, Giant, Infernal, Primordial, Sylvan, all that. Those, it'd make sense for someone to gain as a proficiency. We can then have our Indiana Jones-vibes and eat it too: Party discovers an Infernal portal that says "Speak friend and enter", and luckily the Warlock knows the right words to activate the door! There is a Draconic treatise which immediately grants the reader a spell if they know how to read it! You can have these pulp-y moments still.
Alternative to Standard languages: Social Affinity
So what should do with all the proficiency slots left open by the standard languages? Well, what if we replaced them with another social trait that wasn't racial languages? What if we'd like to give mechanical weight to the idea that a Noble will socially do better with others in their class, while a working-class person will understand the common person's plights better? Since 5E (and presumably One D&D) rules don't see a difference between tool and language proficiencies, let's create a new category of proficiencies that reflect the social codes you can exhibit in different strata of society (this would serve a similar function as languages in regular games without any headaches of why languages work the way they do). Call it Social Affinity or Social Capital or Code Switching (the name's a WIP): The idea is that if you're in a social encounter with someone covered by your Social Affinity, you're proficient with any roll made towards them. If you've got Social Affinity for Nobility, for instance, you'd be proficient in the Charisma check to convince the local baron to let you in. If you've got Social Affinity for the Bourgeois, you could be proficient in your Wisdom check to see if the Sage in your city is ripping you off. And what if you already had proficiency for a Skill that'd be useful for such an ability check as well? Well, One D&D's rules say that if you've got proficiency in both a skill and a tool that'd apply for a situation, you get advantage. Why don't we do that? In A5E, you could probably get an expertise die instead. If every background also gave you Social Affinity with a class that fits your backstory, that'd be far less awkward than every background automatically giving you a language!
Just to prove that this system is feasible, I'll try to quickly offer a Social Affinity alternative for each Standard Language so that we get 7 proficiency options in total: Nobility, Rurals, Urbans, Clergy, Nomads, Outcasts, Academics. I think this would cover the majority of social classes PCs would interact with, and help different characters shine when dealing with different groups.
This isn't a problem unique to One D&D or even D&D in general. I think fantasy as a genre has a very odd relationship with portraying languages in its imaginary universes and conlangs. This is mostly because one of the founding fathers of the genre created his world in order to give his languages a history. And since he did it that way, most creations in the genre feel like they have to use the concept of languages in some way. However, for almost everyone whose name isn't John Rolkien Rolkien Tolkien, I think the way they use language ends up being shallow or pointless in the end.
I think it's fair to say that languages having some mechanical weight in D&D is directly related to Tolkien to a certain extent. And I've yet to see a game where that mechanical weight has actually improved the play experience. From Alignment languages in old school games (which somehow meant that you'd know a secret language just because you liked following the rules) to One D&D's every background making you bilingual by default, the ways in which we try to make language impactful in our games usually feel very awkward.
Of course, it feels like languages have to be in our games in some way. Why wouldn't the Elves speak a different tongue than the Dwarves? And there's a point which @UngainlyTitan made, which I think is quite valid:
I'll try and address these separately:
Trying to Portray Languages Realistically
The assumption that each race should obviously have their own language is borne out of a concern for simulationism IMO. Since the races are quite distinct, so should be their languages. This is doubly true for any Gygaxian setting, since the races are assumed to be distant to each other with little to no cross-cultural encounters.
But I think this assumption doesn't really fit modern D&D settings anymore. Most settings offer culturally varied environments where isolationism is not a thing. Communities house different races together (and have done so for a considerable amount of time), so one would expect a créole to form between those two languages (in a settlement where halflings and gnomes live together, for instance, we should get a gnomish-halfling créole forming in a few generations), but that doesn't happen. If any DM wanted to portray the way these racial languages should mix realistically, they'd get very bored players very quickly (trust me, I've tried). The truth is, D&D never portrayed mortal languages (or, if you prefer, "standard languages" in opposition to exotic languages) realistically, and they've always existed in this weird space between having some internal logic to them and just being gamist constructs for when you wanted to have a secret conversation.
Indiana Jones-vibe Languages
That still leaves the cases where languages actually play an important role in the game: When the players uncover a forgotten text in the ruins that needs to be translated, or where the language of Angels (or other outsiders) is needed to prove your holy mission. I think these (and their ilk) are the only scenarios where languages actually matter in D&D. But examining them closely reveals something: If we abandoned all standard languages and kept only the exotic ones, these would still be viable! So sure, let's keep Abyssal and Celestial and Deep Speech (i.e., languages tied to some planar force or non-mortal creatures), but we still don't really need the common ones. Which brings me to my proposal:
Let's Abandon Standard Languages
I say to hell with it. Yes, Elvish and Dwarvish and Halfling can still be distinct languages in your setting if you'd like them to be, but remove any game mechanics associated with them. It doesn't matter and trying to tie mechanics to these traits (which should not be designed on a rules basis but should be decided by the DM when they're creating their world) just creates a headache. Assume that your world runs on pre-Tower of Babel logic: There is a language which every mortal can understand. Either because your campaign world is small and it's your region's lingua franca, or because the Gods gifted all mortals with the same speech, or there's a language called Allspeak that everyone understands in their mother tongue (though you may need to pay Marvel royalties for that).
The only languages that should matter instead should be the exotic ones: Abyssal, Celestial, Deep Speech, Draconic, Giant, Infernal, Primordial, Sylvan, all that. Those, it'd make sense for someone to gain as a proficiency. We can then have our Indiana Jones-vibes and eat it too: Party discovers an Infernal portal that says "Speak friend and enter", and luckily the Warlock knows the right words to activate the door! There is a Draconic treatise which immediately grants the reader a spell if they know how to read it! You can have these pulp-y moments still.
Alternative to Standard languages: Social Affinity
So what should do with all the proficiency slots left open by the standard languages? Well, what if we replaced them with another social trait that wasn't racial languages? What if we'd like to give mechanical weight to the idea that a Noble will socially do better with others in their class, while a working-class person will understand the common person's plights better? Since 5E (and presumably One D&D) rules don't see a difference between tool and language proficiencies, let's create a new category of proficiencies that reflect the social codes you can exhibit in different strata of society (this would serve a similar function as languages in regular games without any headaches of why languages work the way they do). Call it Social Affinity or Social Capital or Code Switching (the name's a WIP): The idea is that if you're in a social encounter with someone covered by your Social Affinity, you're proficient with any roll made towards them. If you've got Social Affinity for Nobility, for instance, you'd be proficient in the Charisma check to convince the local baron to let you in. If you've got Social Affinity for the Bourgeois, you could be proficient in your Wisdom check to see if the Sage in your city is ripping you off. And what if you already had proficiency for a Skill that'd be useful for such an ability check as well? Well, One D&D's rules say that if you've got proficiency in both a skill and a tool that'd apply for a situation, you get advantage. Why don't we do that? In A5E, you could probably get an expertise die instead. If every background also gave you Social Affinity with a class that fits your backstory, that'd be far less awkward than every background automatically giving you a language!
Just to prove that this system is feasible, I'll try to quickly offer a Social Affinity alternative for each Standard Language so that we get 7 proficiency options in total: Nobility, Rurals, Urbans, Clergy, Nomads, Outcasts, Academics. I think this would cover the majority of social classes PCs would interact with, and help different characters shine when dealing with different groups.
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