D&D General Languages in D&D Are Weird, Let's Get Rid of Them.

[the Jester]

This is one of those things that really further dilutes any sense that different races and cultures are, well, different right in the face. It's not for me. My game has more different languages than the standard D&D rules assume.

As for creoles or pidgins, that is what Common is. And as for Common, in my campaign, there are different "Commons" in different places. The Common Tongue in the most frequent starting areas is actually Imperial, in other places it's Peshan or Strog, in planar metropolises, it is Planar Common (a pidgin made from different planar languages). I have rules for learning languages more quickly based on its similarity to other languages you know, as well as for how much you can communicate if you are only partially proficient in a language, as well as for learning faster if you are fully immersed in a language, all based on the starting assumption of 250 days of training to gain proficiency.

I really don't want anything that makes the game easier at the cost of making the game world less believable. It would be one thing if my campaign was the size of, say, western Europe or northern China, but it's much bigger than that. I am a setting-first DM. While many others might prefer a simpler and easier system where you just handwave linguistic issues, that's why you have spells like comprehend languages and tongues (and know culture, for that matter) in my game. The trend toward erasing culture and differences between various peoples in D&D is not one I think I will ever adopt.


EDIT: A couple of words.

 

[bedir than]

My world has a powerful guild-religion that trades in the only regular source of healing available. So the common is the language of their region - most know enough to go to the Church of Quar to purchase healing, or listen to the prayers, etc. But they don't know the peoples and cultures of Telse and the West (the origin region of the church)

 

[Scott Christian]

Languages are an opportunity, not a hinderance.

 

[Sanguinarious]

In EABA one way to handle languages was based on how many skill dice you had in a language. EABA used dice for skil levels, like 2d in a skill usually was good enough for rotlutine stuff.

For every dice you had you could use words with that many syllables. So with one dice you night ask 'where is place to pray to gods near big stream? ' to ask where the temple by the river was.

I never played it but I understand a rpg, tekumel, was pretty much language based. I do know they guy who wrote it is now a bad guy you can't say anything good about and you can't even mention him or tekumel on some sites anymore.

 

[Lanefan]

Tongues is not an adequate replacement for languages.

Indeed.

Some of the most sought-after magic items in my game are those that provide always-on speech translation; even more so are those that work for translation of writing as well.

 

[CreamCloud0]

People mentioned upthread they don’t like how common Common is and I think i agree, I think it could be interesting if Common was less universal and there was more significance on languages and if they had categories, in the same way that languages like Spanish and Portuguese are similar but different, speaking the same language allows for perfect communication but similarly rooted/categorised languages can communicate with potential for mistranslations, like maybe elvish, celestial and sylvan were categorised as ‘fey’ languages, or draconic, infernal and primordial are all ‘ancient’ ones.

 

[Maxperson]

People mentioned upthread they don’t like how common Common is and I think i agree, I think it could be interesting if Common was less universal and there was more significance on languages and if they had categories, in the same way that languages like Spanish and Portuguese are similar but different, speaking the same language allows for perfect communication but similarly rooted/categorised languages can communicate with potential for mistranslations, like maybe elvish, celestial and sylvan were categorised as ‘fey’ languages, or draconic, infernal and primordial are all ‘ancient’ ones.

If new languages were easier to learn, I'd be okay with that. Otherwise you're unnecessarily limiting how far the party can range without having a ton of communication problems.

 

[bedir than]

If new languages were easier to learn, I'd be okay with that. Otherwise you're unnecessarily limiting how far the party can range without having a ton of communication problems.

A four PC party at first level should start with at least 9 languages and maybe around 15.

They aren't really a limitation

 

[Blue]

I don't see too many mechanical effects of languages.

But I love them from a world building perspective. They can create an in-game sense of otherness to help explain why these elves don't like those elves.

They also give minor spotlight to various character. "Anyone speak goblin? You do? Ember, they are yelling tactics, about how they are all going to rush around to the left go after the cleric."

But I'm back to not liking them if they lock away information. "There's an inscription in draconic along the ancient wall. Anyone read it? No? Okay." Sure, it gives mechanical hooks for abilities, invocations, or spells to allow languages, but meh - I started with not getting much value from specific mechanics about them.

Depending on your group, you could hit all of those with "hey, who speaks X" and let the players decided for their characters on the spot (and mark it). As long as they are good at sharing the spotlight (or perhaps a linguist who needs spotlight otherwise) that can work out.

 

[Dire Bare]

A four PC party at first level should start with at least 9 languages and maybe around 15.

They aren't really a limitation

If everyone "min-maxes" their languages choices, sure. But languages SHOULD be a limitation. Not an insurmountable one, of course.