Unpopular opinions go here

[Hussar]

Yeah, but how many times per day is a DM going to throw giants at you--especially giants so weak that a fighter can kill one in one round?

You realize a 1e hill giant has 40(ish) hp right? And that’s one of the more powerful monsters. Ogres can be dropped by a fighter in one round without even a strength bonus.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

So I'm bouncing off an acronym that's been used a bit up-thread.

RTFM.

Roll To Find Monkeys?
Read the FXXXXXXXX Manual?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Read the f'in' manual.

 

[humble minion]

Oh I would be much happier with the world building if instead of Common it was called "Local (insert area)" Pidgin, or something. And everybody can get by with it just fine usually. It is really just the blank wall that is the word Common that bugs me.

Common is like the Universal Translator from Star Trek. It makes things easier, and that is fine, I would just rather have someone having done some world building around it so we can have a word that describes the local language so it feels like a place that could exist, you know given magic and monsters and such.

I haven't thought too much about it, but I'd probably just assume 'Common' was a trade language, and maybe apply disadvantage to persuasion/insight/whatever checks pertaining to non-mercantile matters if Common is the language spoken. It's probably perfectly functional for bartering for imported fabrics with foreign traders, but might not have the vocabulary for stirring political speeches or love poetry.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Read the f'in' manual.

Oh. My joking interpretation was, in fact, correct. Weird.

 

[Jd Smith1]

More important than language, IMO (although I use regional languages in ever campaign I run) is social class and race.

Interacting with someone of greater or lesser social class should carry with it a substantial penalty to social skills, to reflect the gulf between classes that exists in most RPG settings. Throw in racial biases as well (People like Elves, dislike Half-Orcs, etc).

 

[Hussar]

More important than language, IMO (although I use regional languages in ever campaign I run) is social class and race.

Interacting with someone of greater or lesser social class should carry with it a substantial penalty to social skills, to reflect the gulf between classes that exists in most RPG settings. Throw in racial biases as well (People like Elves, dislike Half-Orcs, etc).

While I 100% agree with you, I also understand why so few people actually do it.

If player characters actually faced real consequences for what they say, the players would probably quit playing.

 

[Micah Sweet]

this dude made an account for an entire website just to trash on civ6. what a hero.

Well, Civ 6 does seem like a real step back to be fair.

 

[Micah Sweet]

i think that having a common shared tongue is too much of a convenience factor for smoothing play experience to remove it as a standard feature, however i think that it could be given certain drawbacks so that it's not fundamentally better than using the actual languges, halving or negating proficiency bonus on charisma checks and suchlike made in common would mean you've still got universal communication pretty much but gives actual value and reason to using the more niche languages.

I'm not a big fan of convenience features in general, but you've got some good ideas here.

 

[Micah Sweet]

As a language teacher, it pains me to see the rules in D&D for languages.

But, it's one of those things that looks fantastic on paper but, really sucks in play. Doing charades and whatnot is fun for a session or two. After the third session, it's a drag. After the fifteenth session where you yet again have to mime everything out to try to get things from the NPC, and most people are ready to throttle the DM.

Yes, every group should have a language. Those languages should take years to master. Hell, ask anyone who's tried to learn to read Japanese or Chinese and watch their eyes roll up into their heads. Never minding every species has a language as well. How many dwarven, elven, orcish, goblinish, giant, etc. langauges should the setting have?

At some point, it stops being much fun.

I don't know. Plenty of fantasy and science fiction settings have a lot of languages and seem to make it work.