Foreign languages for DMing

[Jorunkun]

The campaign I currently DM uses English for Common, German for Dwarvish and Japanese for Elvish.

The setting's background is that the players (all human) emigrated from an "old world" continent, where a human (lawful) theocracy has been conquering and enslaving the local dwarves. The "new world" they wind up in is populated by elves and orcs, with a few recent settlements of human religious (good) emigrees springing up. The theme is very much exploration of a new continent, with conflicts arising from it's dark history and the clash of human/elvish cultures.

My players are all German, but we play in English. Since by design none of the characters in game knows Elvish and I'm the only one who speaks Japanese, it works really well to illustrate the different cultures and lend the "new world" an exotic flair.

 

[Fenes]

In a group I recently joined the players all speak Swiss German. Whenever they speak in character, they switch to High German. It's strange but it seems to work because it gives your mind a little jolt and officially declares things as in-game.

We speak Swiss German in character and out of character, although some English terms sneak in - comes from using so many English books to prep I think. I do think I remember a group that did the same as yours, played in the old "Neverwhere" back when it existed.

 

[B4cchus]

Being Dutch, we usually play in Dutch. Sometimes some folks switch to english for no appearant reason. We do use accents sometimes but never to designate a specific other language or race but more as a flavour accent for a certain characters.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

In my upcoming campaign while the main language is Common, ie: English. Many archaic terms, or titles, place names, etc. are Latin.

 

[Tehnai]

It reminds me of a few satirical gaming stories in French where English was used "archaic Enochian" and was the language used for magic items.

Like "I found a Runestaff of Curse and a Scroll of Stupidity!"
"What do they do?"
"I don't know, we'd need a scholar to identify them."

"Donjon de Naheulbeuk"

That brings back memories...

 

[Gez]

"Donjon de Naheulbeuk"

And the énochien archaïque comes from the Adventures of Kalon. A very stupid read.

 

[Zander]

Has anyone of you ever used foreign languages for effect in RPGs? Recently, I thought of the possibility, and I am interested if anyone has experience to share.

Twenty-something years ago, I played in a 1E mini-campaign in which English was Common and French was Elvish. As the DM was bilingual but portrayed NPCs who couldn't speak Elvish, he sometimes had to pretend he didn't understand what was being said by the players.

It would have been better if the real world languages known corresponded to the fantasy ones, i.e. that only those players who spoke French played characters who spoke Elvish but it didn't work out that way - some of the francophones had characters who couldn't understand Elvish. It was fun nonetheless.

 

[Dragonblade]

I played in a 3.0 game in Japan back in 2001 when I was living there with three Japanese players and one French player. We all played in English because it was easiest for everyone to communicate.

I was planning on using some other languages for flavor but the campaign never lasted that long. That was a fun game, though.