How often does language come up in your game?

[Augurian]

As a player, I've rarely had any problems with languages...

But when I DM I make it a bit harder for my players. The first thing I did was getting rid of Common, FR has too many nice languages to not use them.
My players have recently had a lot of problems with languages... they got themselves in an area where they've never been and they didn't know anything about the culture/language. After they got out of there one of the PC's (a bard) took Comprehend Language and Tongues as her new spells for going up a level.

 

[neoweasel]

The campaign I play in has a fairly detailed language system, which works well for us.

There are a group of major language familys:
Draconic
Elven
Orcish
Dwarven

Under each family there are a couple of regional dialects, the "diplomatic" version of the family (used in official documents and the like), and the "arcane" "celestial" and "infernal" versions of the family.

If you speak one dialect of a language family, it costs half as much to learn another.

Some languages are considered to be in two families.

 

[DonaldRumsfeldsTofu]

This may not be a direct answer to the question, but I'm a linguistic powergamer. My current character speaks 15 languages, and I rarely have a character that speaks less than five.

...I have a problem...

But anyway, language rarely comes up, because my character speaks them all

 

[Djeta Thernadier]

It doesn't play a huge role in the games I play in...not yet anyway. But it has come up in the past. An NPC will say something (or a message will be written in) a language only one or two PCs are familiar with. I think it makes you think a bit more about your character.

When I designed my new character, an elven druid, I gave her langauges that would make sense for a druid, like sylvan. When she says something , such as to a monster, she has to think about which language she thinks the monster (or NPC) would most likely know.

It's not a huge part of the game, but I like it

 

[takyris]

I invented a language awhile back for a story I was writing -- it's extremely limited and deliberately abstract. In our campaign, I decided to use it for the language of the BBEGs. Over three RL years, three of the players learned enough of the language to get an idea of stuff, and they gradually realized that I had named many of the cities and ancient heroes using words in that language.

Coolest scary moment was messing around with one PC's name until I got a close approximation of the sound in my language -- and then having the villains call him by that title. (His name was Tierney, and Tahil'ranev, which sounds pretty close if you say it quickly, means "Sorrowful observer of Truth" -- since Tierney was a cynical bard, this worked really well). Having the villains refer to him as the Sorrowful Observer of Truth was... creepy and good.

Funniest moment:

Sadistic Lawful Evil wizard: Now that you're geased to work with me, you will take this artifact and deliver it to this aberration-infested temple. The artifact will destroy the temple. It is called that Tasan for short.

PCs: What's it called for long?

Wizard: The Tasanbardeljuntashyrtathonpur.

(PCs who speak the language whip out their "Tacky's language Flash Cards" and start frantically translating)

Them: Transcendant... physical force... changing eternal... distant... death? Oh, that can't POSSIBLY be good.

Wizard: It's also known as a prismatic bomb.

 

[dren]

Yes, many times an encounter can have a drasticly different turn of events depending upon if a PC knows a given language. For instance, many times dwarfs or minotaurs when speaking with strangers will use the common tongue but assume that the PCs are ignorant of their own. Also, certain creatures will treat you much better if you speak their native language, especially the fey and lizardith.

Language Rules

The common tongue is known by approximately 60% of all humans know this, as do those who reside near human communities. (such as gnomes & halflings.)

Elves speak: Elven, Faerie & Celestial. Bardic music is written in Elven script.

The language that mortals call draconic is not true draconic but lizardith. Dragon is a language that only dragons can speak but a few very rare scholars can actually understand. It is not unknown if true dragon has a script.

Lizardith is the standard tongue and script of all lizard-men and all other intelligent reptiles.

Dwarven is widely used and recognized. Most mountainous regions & creatures in the spirelands speak dwarven. It is by far the most common written language, as almost 90% of all runes and etchings are in this script.

Hembrian is the language of the old magical empire that once ruled the domain. Scholars and wizards readily learn this language, but it takes two slots to learn both the verbal and written forms.

Faerie: standard language of fey and intelligent forest creatures
Oromian: human language of the high and low reaches.
Dral: speech-less hand code. Only elves may learn this.
Shaerlian: human oriental language of the far east
Phastian: human language for the southern desert lands
Druidic: uses the same script as Faerie
Sylvan: non-existent; replaced by Faerie
Tallene: language of psionic humans; do not use a written script but a telepathic one
All other languages as noted

Iliteracy is assumed unless noted in character background or have knowledge skill points.

Most used tongues: "Common", Dwarven, Elven, Minotaur, Draconic, Faerie

 

[3catcircus]

Do you find the languages a PC speaks to be superficial? Or does language play a role in your game occasionally?

Languages play a large role in how well my players' characters can interact with the people and locales of my campaign, set in FR.

I use Tom Costa's Speaking in Tongues as the basis for my language system (3e FRCS basically dumbed this down.)

I use the Thorass, Dethek and Espruar fonts (easily found on the 'net), as well as substitutes for Infernal (Aradia font), Celestial (a Hebrew font), Druidic (Beth-Luis Nion font) and Draconic (Cthulhu Runes font) when providing handouts.

I also use real-world languages as substitutes (e.g. I use Danish for Illuskan and Persian for Alzhedo) - with all of the available resources on the 'net, an (imperfect) translation is possible.

I have rules for speaking and reading/writing languages within a group (e.g. Thorass and Chondathan), outside of a group (e.g. Thorass and Aglarondan), and outside of a language family (e.g. Chondathan and Illuskan) - based on the complexity of the communication.

I've modified the Speak Language skill as follows:

Clerics, Paladins, Bards, Wizards and Sorcerors are literate (gain the Read/Write Language (Int, Trained [special]) skill for free to start.) All others must spend a 1/2 skill point, except for Barbarians who must spend 1 skill point.

All of the classes are capable of Speak Language (Int, Untrained [special]) as a class skill. Buying a new language costs 1/2 skill point. Spending more than 1/2 skill point (up to 1.5 total) will reduce the complexity of a message one step (i.e. buying one whole skill point in a language will reduce an "intricate" message to "standard" while buying 1.5 skill points will reduce the same message to "simple.") The DC to read/write or speak a language depends upon its complexity (Simple, Standard, Intricate), whether the person is trained or untrained, and whether the language is within the same group, outside of the same group, or outside of the same family as any languages the character speaks. (makes sense - someone who speaks Dutch can figure out some German. Someone who speaks English may be able to figure out *some* German. Someone who speaks English has a really hard time trying to figure out Chinese. If the person actually knows the languages, the difficulty greatly decreases for each case.)

Bards, certain Clerics, and Wizards can gain Knowledge (Ancient Languages) (Int, Trained) as a class skill. It allows understanding of dead or ancient languages (such as Truskan, Netherese, etc.

Speaking all or 5+ languages within a group gives a +2 synergy bonus on other languages in the group.

 

[Salad Shooter]

Language is huge in our games. Right now, I'm playing an elf that doesn't speak common beyond a smattering of words and the ability to understand a bit. He does speak Dwarven, though, oddly enough, it fits in the gaming world. One of the other PCs doesn't speak Dwarven OR Elven. Which was pretty funny when he got seperated from the rest of the group in a dwarven city...He's planning on picking up Elven at next level, which means I might have to grab another language just so I can continue the spiting of him. Its interesting character interaction. Got the classic elven haughtiness of sort of dissing him since he can't communicate right. The third PC is a druidic language guru...so I'm fairly certain we can continue to communicate. But beyond in party interaction, language is still huge. Seems like everything speaks a different language these days.

 

[SSquirrel]

I didn't intend for language to be a big issue in my game, but one of the players is obsessed with being able to speak every language they encounter. It's becoming more useful than I expected, since they're able to communicate with (and thus bluff) more and more of the creatures in the dungeon.

I had a 14th lvl wizard I made up and played after using the original (well v1.2) chargen from the PHB. He had EVERY language in there and it was kinda silly but very cool same time *grin*

Hagen