Do You Use Different Languages In Your Campaign?

[Rystil Arden]

In my Neospelljamming setting, there is no 'Common' tongue, but I explain to everyone before the game starts that the Dolathi like to consider their language of Eldish to be a common tongue and suggest that everyone learn it (much like Americans with English). Still, oftentimes they won't, as some characters make more sense picking up languages from their own world first. In that case, if I'm in a Play by Post, I have people post language things in [SBLOCK=SBLOCKs]Like this![/SBLOCK].

Of course, when the basic available languages for PC races (not counting secret languages) are Eldish, Rowaini (this has several dialects and a few other completely separate languages in the family tree), Byblan, Altanian (and several related languages spoken by the groundlings), Larakese (also has several dialects and separate languages in the family tree), High Praetorian, Vulgar Praetorian (and various other languages spoken by conquered peoples of the Empire), Valsian, Mojiin, Seelie, Valeysh, Conacian, Tralg, Narlse (several dialects), Nibelan, Rhapsodian, Sacra, Vildri (illegal on its homeworld by penalty of death), and others, plus the monster races, it can be a bit overwhelming for the PCs

 

[talinthas]

I've banned common from my dragonlance games. I hate the idea that everyone of every race from all parts of the continent, after a global apocalypse, can speak the same language. You know your regional languages and maybe a few neighboring ones. The rest is up to translations, misheard conversations, and lots of bad pantomime and hand waving.

 

[Kaodi]

I can't really get behind increasing the cost of speak language under the current skill system. Skill points are just too few to be able to use a good chunk of them on a single language.

At the heart of it, I kind of like your system, DiamondB, but under that, Pope John Paul II would of had to have 40 ranks in speak/knowledge (language), at that is just for the languages he was fluent in.

 

[Imp]

Yeah, it's more realistic to have multiple ranks denoting language fluency – it's at least as hard as any other skill in the game – but if characters are going to be travelling a lot and you don't have a common language and Speak Language is, as in the SRD, a cross-class skill for most, then the requirements become pretty onerous.

...I do not have a Common language. There are a number of human languages in the setting. Ten or twelve or so (of areas that have been developed, or at least conceived of, plus a dead language or two). But, I've kicked a lot of the non-human classes offplane, so there aren't as many racial languages going around, and many monster-types don't have their own languages, so they just use the dominant language of their area. Another thing I do is have related languages: if a character knows one such language, he can (badly) understand and communicate in the other. Also a denotation of scripts used: most of the prominent languages in the setting use the same script, but a few are different.

I don't have characters start out with languages known according to their Int bonus.

My goblin language is a sign language. It's not really fair, though – humans can learn to read it, but can't ever really speak it, barring shapechanging – goblins have six fingers.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

American Sign Language doesn't have a lot of signs that would be unrecognizable if one or two fingers were off, for what it's worth. Obviously, humans made that one, though, and not alien beings.

 

[Desdichado]

I do, yeah. The idea of a single Common tongue that's used all throughout the multiverse stretches credulity for me. Because I like linguistics.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I'd like to see a system more granular than the current all or nothing one, but not one that adds a whole new complex system. Ideally, I'd like something that works identically to the rest of D20, which a lot of proposed language systems don't seem to do, for some reason.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I do, yeah. The idea of a single Common tongue that's used all throughout the multiverse stretches credulity for me. Because I like linguistics.

The planar society posited in the Planescape line suggests there should be several common languages, though. (More than Infernal, Abyssal and Celestial, though.) If ever there was a place where the alignment languages make sense, it'd be the planes.

But there should also be a planar trade language or something, and multiplanar societies should have their own languages, I should think. Is there a Gith language?

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

My wife's relatives are sort of, well, rural..and they tell me they speak "American." Are there rednecks in other parts of the world that butcher not only the words, but the actual TERM???

jh

Well, once you've butchered the language enough, it hardly counts as English anymore, so they can call it "Chocolate Cake" if they like.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

The more I think about it, the more I like raising the level of comprehend languages and other spells that duplicate or invalidate skills. This would be a good idea for a thread, listing all of those out, so they could be nerfed en masse.

Looking forward to it.