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<blockquote data-quote="Voadam" data-source="post: 8442841" data-attributes="member: 2209">Taking common out of the listing for a bunch of monsters gives a different flavor as they are intelligent and can talk, just not directly to people in the party most likely. Using translator NPCs can be a way of navigating this and still have communicationsI've used language as a cultural signifier a couple of times, such as an ancient kingdom being dragon run so their records are in draconic, another being aasimar ruled with their records in celestial, and the ancient fantasy Egyptians being elves so hieroglyphics are elvish, all in specific dialects so noticeably a bit different from modern versions.You can do a bunch with 10 or so existing D&amp;D common languages.Watch out for how much mechanics resources the PCs need to allocate to things though, 5e has very little options for knowing and learning languages, while 3e has tons with the option for a language a level through skill points. Also keep in mind how much you want to actually deal with people not understanding languages of those they are dealing with.Think about the skill versus magic split too, a couple D&amp;D spells allow universal translation, while skills/proficiency/languages known allow only specific ones.I really like the idea of dialects as an identification factor. I can see a bunch of uses for that.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Voadam, post: 8442841, member: 2209"] Taking common out of the listing for a bunch of monsters gives a different flavor as they are intelligent and can talk, just not directly to people in the party most likely. Using translator NPCs can be a way of navigating this and still have communications I've used language as a cultural signifier a couple of times, such as an ancient kingdom being dragon run so their records are in draconic, another being aasimar ruled with their records in celestial, and the ancient fantasy Egyptians being elves so hieroglyphics are elvish, all in specific dialects so noticeably a bit different from modern versions. You can do a bunch with 10 or so existing D&D common languages. Watch out for how much mechanics resources the PCs need to allocate to things though, 5e has very little options for knowing and learning languages, while 3e has tons with the option for a language a level through skill points. Also keep in mind how much you want to actually deal with people not understanding languages of those they are dealing with. Think about the skill versus magic split too, a couple D&D spells allow universal translation, while skills/proficiency/languages known allow only specific ones. I really like the idea of dialects as an identification factor. I can see a bunch of uses for that. [/QUOTE]

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