D&D (2024) The changes to languages are a good start

[Tales and Chronicles]

Just out of curiosity, does language actually come up in everyone's game? I've used it but only written languages, like trying to translate a dead language no longer used.

I use them mostly like tools' proficiencies: if a PC tries a skill test and also use their proficiency with X language, I grant them advantage if it makes sense (History check to decipher old elvish stuff, persuading a goblinoid, spotting the lies of a gnome etc).

 

[QuentinGeorge]

I use languages all the time in my games, but it’s part and parcel of my homebrew setting and it’s myriad of nations and culture. The core games approach to language is hampered by the default settings aversion to by sort of implied culture, leaving it to wallow in the mire of racial essentialism as a poor substitute.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

I thInk it's beyond time for Mixed languages.

Northcommon for the mix of Dwarven, Giant, and Common spoke in areas with heavy integration with the Dwarves and Giant.

On the other side, Hobgoblin could be a mix language of Elven, Slyvan Common, and Goblin that nations close to the Fey wild but still worldly use rooted from the hobgoblin exodus from the Feywild.

High Speak would be the parent language where Common and Halfling. It would have none of the loanwords ground in Common and Halfling..

That’s great, for a setting that has the cultural mixes that would produce that. Wouldn’t work in my setting.

 

[Bagpuss]

For starters, we're still perpetuating the idea that every member of a species is the member of a culture with a single language

Yeah but if you are going to have everyone speaking common, it's not like you are trying for realism. I'm not sure why they just don't say for languages, check with the particular campaign setting.

 

[Pauln6]

It has always seemed incongruous to me that they still don't have a distinction between basic, written, or fluent understanding. Basic requires an intelligence check to understand, written means you can read and write the language but not necessarily speak it etc.

I'm not sure why literacy isn't something that is treated like a skill. The only class ever stated to be illiterate previously was the barbarian. Given that many D&D settings have been quasi-medieval where huge swathes of the population were uneducated or that many developing cultures had no written language this seems a curious oversight. End of term parties at orc night school must be a riot.

It was obviously a conscious design choice that has endured but I wonder what was behind it? Our barbarian player said he would like his character to learn some reading and writing skills but it seemed unrealistic that he would just become fluent.

Understanding complex writing or different dialects can easily be handled by an intelligence check though. Understanding Glasweigan is not as easy as you might think.

 

[Bagpuss]

It was obviously a conscious design choice that has endured but I wonder what was behind it?

It's a simplification so that DM's can give out cool handouts like, letters, decrees, wanted posters and have riddles that rely on language without the players going "Erm no of this makes any sense to be I haven't put any skill points/feats in literacy as Acrobatics and Weapon Focus seemed more useful."

 

[aco175]

One nice thing: thieves cant is just a language now.

The problem with this being its own language and not just slang of another language is that everyone will recognize you as a thief if you use it. Kind of like knowing infernal, everyone will think you are a devil-worshiper. Both will likely get you arrested or killed.

The whole language thing likely will not be a big impact on my games since most of it gets hand-waved most of the time.

 

[Pauln6]

It's a simplification so that DM's can give out cool handouts like, letters, decrees, wanted posters and have riddles that rely on language without the players going "Erm no of this makes any sense to be I haven't put any skill points/feats in literacy as Acrobatics and Weapon Focus seemed more useful."

Well, I was thinking more along the lines that players could choose as the language options of their heritage/species/background/class. The main difference would be you would get your native language e.g. Spoken Common (fluent) plus double the language slots you get now and you would choose how to populate them e.g: Written Common (basic), Spoken Goblin (basic); Written Goblin (basic), Spoken Elven (basic).

You can become fluent by taking the same language twice, like expertise. Some people would focus on knowing a little about a lot of languages e.g. how to bluff past goblin, orc, or giant guards. Some people on the written word only for deciphering as you suggest. Plus bards, scholars, and linguists would get additional benefits over and above what they get now.

 

[Krachek]

As a DM I use languages issue and challenge as I need.
languages can be a useful tool to add flavor and role play hook.
But they can be a pain and burden to manage too.
i never feel compelled to follow languages definition.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Obviously everyone is different and how they run their games is different... but I would venture a guess that the reason why we have just the languages we have is NOT due to so-called "World-building"... but instead is because D&D defaults to language basically being PUZZLES IN GAMEPLAY.

Every PC speaks Common so that every player at the table can talk to one another without having to jump through hoops in real communication. It's a gameplay reason-- to make the game easier to play in a certain way (and those who wish to play it different by not having everyone speak Common is free to do so, it's just not made baseline.)

Any other language that then gets introduced or used by the DM is there to be a challenge for the players to overcome. The "foreign" language is not known by the players, and so as part of the gameplay... they have to "solve the puzzle" of figuring out what it being said.

The first and easiest step in "solving that puzzle" of course is to just check what languages each PC can speak. That might "solve" the gameplay issue right there. And in that regard... the fewer languages the game makes available, the more likely a PC does in fact have the requisite language needed to understand the hidden puzzle meaning. The second step in the process of "solving the puzzle" is having the right Spells at hand to translate the writing. This is still relatively easy if the party has the right Class available to it, but could still prove a stumbling block to the solution if it doesn't. And if it doesn't... the third step of "solving the puzzle" is to try and suss it out perhaps by using Investigation rolls and decypher checks, or going off to find a Sage or a library in hopes that they can translate it, or any other gameplay solution the players can come up with to turn the unknown information into usable known information.

Which really means that how many languages a DM wants to make available in the campaign will oftentimes just come down to the odds they want to have in that any player's PC can translate the "code" of the foreign language just by having it written on their character sheet and not having to think about some other solution. The more languages, the more likely no one will know the answer to the "code" without having to put in any work.

But what those languages are doesn't really matter. Whether it's other monster languages, alignment languages, sign languages, outer plane languages, weird dialects... a DM can just choose whatever they want. Because at the end of the day their one and only use is to make the players have to solve the problem of not knowing what something/someone says, and then figuring it out.