D&D General Languages suck in D&D.

[GnomeWorks]

Okay, so what regions should be in the Core Rulebooks so as to reflect the regional languages used therein?

Nevermind that one could argue that racial languages are effectively a standin for "regional" languages.

Though honestly calling them "regional" is ... somewhat silly. In reality, who mostly speaks German? Could it be -- the Germans? Certainly seems to make sense, then, that goblins would speak Goblin.

 

[MGibster]

Languages are what they are for purely gameplay reasons. They are not a treatise on culture or worldbuilding or how things "are" or "should be".

I'm with you on this one. Though as @Micah Sweet says, for him the languages being someone realistic are part of playing the game.

 

[Sorinth]

People really have to stop imaging D&D as some sort of reality simulator.

Languages are what they are for purely gameplay reasons. They are not a treatise on culture or worldbuilding or how things "are" or "should be".

Which is perfectly fair, but one of the few gameplay mechanics that uses language is spells that require the target to understand you such as Command or Suggestion. But that becomes totally irrelevant when everybody speaks common, and is a sort of indirect power boost for those spells which kind of sucks, because I like Suggestion being able to do powerful things that is then balanced by not being able to target everything.

Now I will note one of the few times I used languages was as part of a puzzle, there were six statuettes that had to be placed in the correct order to unlock a door. Each statuette was a species and had a phrase written in that species language about where in the order it should be placed, ie the Elf one would say I'm 2 spots in front of the Dwarf, etc... So not knowing or being able to figure out what each said meant the PCs would have to make some guesses, a wrong guess triggered a trap that did some damage.

 

[Reynard]

I'm with you on this one. Though as @Micah Sweet says, for him the languages being someone realistic are part of playing the game.

I think that folks that really enjoy that sort of detail should absolutely lean into in their world building. But I don't think D&D as a product meant for mass appeal benefits from that sort of thing. I mean, we don't talk about different Klingon languages, even though the Earth languages are apparently all still active in the Star Trek future.

 

[Alzrius]

I'm with you on this one. Though as @Micah Sweet says, for him the languages being someone realistic are part of playing the game.

I'm sympathetic to the idea of wanting a game world with internal consistency and attention to detail. I just think that this is a case of verisimilitude not being the same thing as realism (where the latter means "works how it does in the real world").

To my thinking, having the various racial deities imbue the mortal races they're the patron of with an inherent ability to speak/understand (and possibly read and write) their racial tongue is entirely in keeping with the nature of the game world. I know that the idea of "the gods make mortals in their own image" isn't to some people's taste, but for the level of fantasy that bog-standard D&D seems to presume (with pantheons of active, interventionist deities) it makes perfect sense in the context of the setting.

 

[Reynard]

I'm sympathetic to the idea of wanting a game world with internal consistency and attention to detail. I just think that this is a case of verisimilitude not being the same thing as realism (where the latter means "works how it does in the real world").

To my thinking, having the various racial deities imbue the mortal races they're the patron of with an inherent ability to speak/understand (and possibly read and write) their racial tongue is entirely in keeping with the nature of the game world. I know that the idea of "the gods make mortals in their own image" isn't to some people's taste, but for the level of fantasy that bog-standard D&D seems to presume (with pantheons of active, interventionist deities) it makes perfect sense in the context of the setting.

That's an interesting idea: what if instead of racial languages, they are godtongues? Like Moradin isn't just the God of dwarves,he made (just pulling stuff out here) the Azers too and imbued some elf and human tribes with words. What if language is about the patron deity, not the region or culture?

 

[Richards]

I'd think the druidic tongue - being a sort of "secret club language" - is something it would be in the druids' best interests to keep from having variants - you want all druids to be able to speak with other druids from all over the world, right?

Johnathan

 

[Kobold Avenger]

The funny thing about Sigil being the source of Common as a language, as that it's even more like London now because of that. If "Common" is something like English (despite being language #3 on our planet) and it having it's own dialect of Common that is very much like the Cockney rhyming slang from the 1800s.

 

[Necropolitan]

Infernal at the very least makes sense, because Devils (being the epitome of Lawful Evil) would 100% create their own language to get a leg up on everyone else.

Anyone trying to figure out a Devil's contract will not only have to untangle the myriad obtuse laws of Hell, they'll have to do it in an entirely different language specifically designed to favor the Devils.

 

[bedir than]

People really have to stop imaging D&D as some sort of reality simulator.

Languages are what they are for purely gameplay reasons. They are not a treatise on culture or worldbuilding or how things "are" or "should be".

For sure, which is why they should be approximates similar to how there are a handful of swords rather than nearly infinite different swords