D&D General Languages suck in D&D.

[TiQuinn]

Common is an issue. There are a few others.

1) Race is being used as a proxy for culture (Thank you, Umbran) which supports some pretty racist assumptions.
2) New Races and thus new unique languages are added, CONSTANTLY. Practically with every release.
3) Languages thus are diluted to relative uselessness because Elves don't get Common, Elven, +1 language to choose the racial language of another party member. So everyone -has- to default to Common for every conversation to ever happen.
4) Every race speaks Common and their own language. Or just common if they're human, meaning little overlap.
5) Common is a simplistic trade language which isn't supposed to be nuanced or able to handle complex ideas like politics or magic, but it's also the de facto "Human" language.

All of which culminates in the 6th issue...

6) We now have to invent ridiculous explanations for why every elf everywhere ever speaks exactly the same form of Elven regardless of any social differences across time or space. All elf slang is exactly the same in all worlds and is utterly unchanged from the moment Elven was first spoken, and the language is perfectly preserved... And so is Orcish and Goblin and Tabaxi and...

All of which raises the question: why have other languages in the game at all?

Languages in D&D exist to create an obstacle. They are riddles, they are defacto locks from understanding and using spells or magic items, they are impediments to gaining information.

Are they necessary from a game perspective outside of this?

I kind of think the answer is no.

 

[Steampunkette]

All of which raises the question: why have other languages in the game at all?

Languages in D&D exist to create an obstacle. They are riddles, they are defacto locks from understanding and using spells or magic items, they are impediments to gaining information.

Are they necessary from a game perspective outside of this?

I kind of think the answer is no.

Why does the game need Gravity?

Travel through the Astral Plane clearly shows that you don't need Gravity to move around. And having a fully 3d space makes for a more varied and interesting tactical space.

Verisimilitude is the answer. Well. That and creating obstacles some characters can get around and other characters must barrel through. Just like Gravity.

 

[Corinnguard]

6) We now have to invent ridiculous explanations for why every elf everywhere ever speaks exactly the same form of Elven regardless of any social differences across time or space. All elf slang is exactly the same in all worlds and is utterly unchanged from the moment Elven was first spoken, and the language is perfectly preserved... And so is Orcish and Goblin and Tabaxi and...

A part of some divine plan created by the respective pantheons in D&D? Deity: "Yes, I could create a myriad of Elven dialects across time and space. But I am going to save the mortals from some linguistic troubles by making it the same across the multiverse."

There was never a Tower of Babel moment in D&D.

 

[TiQuinn]

Why does the game need Gravity?

Travel through the Astral Plane clearly shows that you don't need Gravity to move around. And having a fully 3d space makes for a more varied and interesting tactical space.

Verisimilitude is the answer. Well. That and creating obstacles some characters can get around and other characters must barrel through. Just like Gravity.

What about gravity? Has gravity in the game ever prevented you from playing the game? Not really. You have to actively think about what the ramifications of a low or no gravity environment in order to create rules for how gravity impacts the game. Common exists because presumably all the players and the DM are going to speak a common language. Adding in other languages is merely a tool to create friction in a game sense, not a verisimilitude sense.

 

[Umbran]

All of which culminates in the 6th issue...

6) We now have to invent ridiculous explanations for why every elf everywhere ever speaks exactly the same form of Elven regardless of any social differences across time or space. All elf slang is exactly the same in all worlds and is utterly unchanged from the moment Elven was first spoken, and the language is perfectly preserved... And so is Orcish and Goblin and Tabaxi and...

Maybe not?
Like, all that can be wrapped into (and spackled over by) social skill use.

"You didn't fail your Intimidate check because you aren't intimidating. You failed because your Western Archaic Orcish isn't great, and instead of telling the general that you were going to stick his head in a pig, you told him to, 'share and enjoy'..."

 

[Steampunkette]

What about gravity? Has gravity in the game ever prevented you from playing the game? Not really.

It's definitely kept my characters out of specific combats or provided a barrier that had to be overcome or circumvented for various characters. Hence the entire existence of spells like Fly and Levitate. Similarly, Comprehend Languages, Tongues, Speak with Plants, Speak with Animals... all kind of spells exist to try and circumvent the barriers of language.

Pretending like Language as a barrier is some uniquely difficult or terrible thing won't get far. That's why I chose something so ubiquitous as gravity as a counterexample. So long as there are flying dangers and players able to meet those dangers, the challenge and ways to overcome it exist.

You have to actively think about what the ramifications of a low or no gravity environment in order to create rules for how gravity impacts the game.

I helped, even!

But also... The Astral Plane exists without gravity, and there's Low Gravity planes and the aforementioned assumption your character can't fly at all times and...

Common exists because presumably all the players and the DM are going to speak a common language. Adding in other languages is merely a tool to create friction in a game sense, not a verisimilitude sense.

This boggles my mind. Clearly, we're talking at such cross-purposes or with such vastly different gulfs of experience that even speaking the same language we're not communicating.

 

[TiQuinn]

This boggles my mind. Clearly, we're talking at such cross-purposes or with such vastly different gulfs of experience that even speaking the same language we're not communicating.

Okay, what exactly is mind boggling about that statement?

If I’m at a table with 4 players, we are speaking English. Someone is highly unlikely to come to the table and purposefully speak a different language to simulate their character’s different language, and if they did, it would grow tiresome quickly. So people say everyone is speaking Common. Why? Because the act of simulating actual different languages across cultures is burdensome. It’s a wholly different hurdle and purpose than “This gateway is sealed by runes in a strange language you don’t understand.” That is done because the runes are actually a puzzle for the players to overcome.

 

[Celebrim]

Core D&D has 16 languages. And they all suck except MAYBE one....

TLDR
Racial languages, which D&D runs on as a foundational principle, suck. Regional Languages are way better.

Try running a campaign based on your theories and get back to me.

 

[Steampunkette]

Okay, what exactly is mind boggling about that statement?

If I’m at a table with 4 players, we are speaking English. Someone is highly unlikely to come to the table and purposefully speak a different language to simulate their character’s different language, and if they did, it would grow tiresome quickly. So people say everyone is speaking Common. Why? Because the act of simulating actual different languages across cultures is burdensome. It’s a wholly different hurdle and purpose than “This gateway is sealed by runes in a strange language you don’t understand.” That is done because the runes are actually a puzzle for the players to overcome.

1) No one ever suggested doing that. At any point. This is a strawman to knock over, not a position I've argued.
2) I've seen that done in a way that was super fun for all the Spanish speakers speaking "Elven"

This is what I mean by us being SO cross-purposes that we're not communicating. You have invented a caricature of my position that you are arguing against rather than the actual position I'm holding.

Hell. My position is that languages in game, as written, are more of a burdensome barrier than they SHOULD be, in favor of making language proficiency more fluid and less binary.

That's why it's so mind boggling. Add in the "This isn't versimilitude!" and it's like you're talking to someone else about something else.

Try running a campaign based on your theories and get back to me.

I have. Many times. I don't write settings where the languages are racial, but are instead cultural and have enough similarities to allow for partial communication based on root languages if you don't have the 'right' language.

It's been fun.

 

[Umbran]

It's definitely kept my characters out of specific combats or provided a barrier that had to be overcome or circumvented for various characters. Hence the entire existence of spells like Fly and Levitate. Similarly, Comprehend Languages, Tongues, Speak with Plants, Speak with Animals... all kind of spells exist to try and circumvent the barriers of language.

Pretending like Language as a barrier is some uniquely difficult or terrible thing won't get far.

It isn't uniquely difficult or terrible thing.
It also isn't a particularly interesting thing to deal with. Languages are the ammo-tacking of the social pillar, so to speak. The overwhelming majority of us are not Tolkien-esque linguists to find this a cool thing to have to manage.

I know this from experience - I'm a son of immigrants who did not pick up my parents' language to any real degree. Family gatherings were not an interesting challenge - they were just boring, leaving a boy to go off in a corner and read his aunt's hardcover collection of early Buck Rogers comics while the adults continuously made mouth noises only vaguely understood..