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<blockquote data-quote="ichabod" data-source="post: 699541" data-attributes="member: 1257">In my world, different regions have different common tongues, and there are national languages as well as racial languages. Frex, the common tongue in the main area of the campaign is Peng, which is a nation with a large fleet and an emphasis on diplomacy. But when the PCs went to a nearby undergound area, the common tongue was Dwarvish. Since dwarves are rare above ground IMC, only one of the PCs was able to talk with most people. The group spokesman role shifted, and produced an interesting dynamic.Also, my world has civilized areas seperated by large wilderness areas, and no teleportation. If the PCs ever move beyond their current area, I may do something to take into account language drift over time, but I really haven't decided on that yet. But if there is teleportation in a world, that is going to work to impede language drift to some degree. Language will still change over time, but the language change will be more uniform across areas. How much the drift is impeded will depend on how accessible teleport is, as well as other magic that allows exchange of information across great distances.Now I probably have enough linguistics coursework to have a degree in it. With a bit of review, I could make some house rules for linguistics that are more 'realistic.' But I haven't. Why? Because 'realism' isn't the be all end all of RPGs. I don't see that adding in rules that will complicate interaction is going to add fun to my game, and could likely interfere with such fun. So I confine my linguistic putterings to the design of languages and writing systems.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="ichabod, post: 699541, member: 1257"] In my world, different regions have different common tongues, and there are national languages as well as racial languages. Frex, the common tongue in the main area of the campaign is Peng, which is a nation with a large fleet and an emphasis on diplomacy. But when the PCs went to a nearby undergound area, the common tongue was Dwarvish. Since dwarves are rare above ground IMC, only one of the PCs was able to talk with most people. The group spokesman role shifted, and produced an interesting dynamic. Also, my world has civilized areas seperated by large wilderness areas, and no teleportation. If the PCs ever move beyond their current area, I may do something to take into account language drift over time, but I really haven't decided on that yet. But if there is teleportation in a world, that is going to work to impede language drift to some degree. Language will still change over time, but the language change will be more uniform across areas. How much the drift is impeded will depend on how accessible teleport is, as well as other magic that allows exchange of information across great distances. Now I probably have enough linguistics coursework to have a degree in it. With a bit of review, I could make some house rules for linguistics that are more 'realistic.' But I haven't. Why? Because 'realism' isn't the be all end all of RPGs. I don't see that adding in rules that will complicate interaction is going to add fun to my game, and could likely interfere with such fun. So I confine my linguistic putterings to the design of languages and writing systems. [/QUOTE]

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