D&D General Languages suck in D&D.

[GnomeWorks]

And a little more spilled ink than the current lists with maybe a bit of rules on partial fluency through adjacent language understanding would be better than what we have for verisimilitude. And not terribly expensive.

There's no good way to do this that is satisfying, reflective of how language acquisition works, and low complexity.

It's not "a little more spilled ink."

One of the things a DM has to do IMO in worldbuilding or campaign prep is rebuild the language table/list to suit that particular campaign. Thus, if you don't have Pomarj in your setting then obviously that language won't appear on your list.

Forcing another task onto new DMs who may not be as much of a linguist as Tolkien strikes me as unnecessary busywork.

The way it is now is fine. No, it's not entirely sensible, but then lots of things in core don't hit that bar, so it's a big whatever from me.

That's just it: I don't think it gets the notion across nearly well enough, mostly due to the default that all PCs (and a shocking number of NPCs) automatically and must know Common.

I don't have a problem with removing Common. I also don't have a problem with it existing. But if it were removed in favor of say a small handful of generically-named "trade languages," or whatever, I wouldn't be opposed to that.

Fair enough. Just one more thing to add to the "worldbuilding" chapter in the DMG; a chapter that really should be its own entire book.

Some kind of "advanced" DMG, perhaps. I'd be down with that.

 

[Micah Sweet]

D&D handles languages poorly, yes . . . it is one of the areas of the game that hasn't got a lot of attention as the game has evolved over the years. It comes down to the concept of "race", which D&D is moving away from, but still has legacy issues remaining.

Germans speak German, Spaniards speak Spanish, Orcs speak Orc, Elves speak Elvish . . . in the real world, we conceive of Germans as a race of people who have a distinct language, in the fantasy world we (used to) see orcs as a race of people who of course have their own distinct language.

Now that we are trying to decouple the ideas of "race" and "species" . . . Germans and Spaniards are different ethnicities of the human species, humans have multiple cultures and languages. If elves are also a species, do elves have different cultures and languages too?

And how much of that goes into the core books? And how should we model it, to give a sense of verisimilitude but also keep things simple?

I'm glad the TTRPG community is having these discussions, even if I don't particularly care for any of the solutions I've seen so far. Progress is being made.

I'm hoping that the eventual 2035 revision to the 5E rules (or something a lot sooner) will lean into re-imagining the various "subraces" from past editions as different cultural, ethnic, and linguistic groups in the core rules. There would be no elvish language, but rather the wood elves, high elves, grey elves, and dark elves would all have distinct cultures, distinct ethnicities, and distinct languages.

Level Up literally already does this, with its culture metric alongside heritage, background, and destiny.

 

[Steampunkette]

There's no good way to do this that is satisfying, reflective of how language acquisition works, and low complexity.

It's not "a little more spilled ink."

I suppose that's a question of how far it needs to go to satisfy... but I provided an example of how I'd do it, and how it would satisfy me, and how I tend to do it in my games...

So there's definitely a good way to do it that does all those things, to my very minimal standards of change.

 

[Micah Sweet]

What is the difference between proposing a number of languages based on monster or species type versus culture beyond verisimilitude?

From a game perspective, the settings in the past often did have these differences. Greyhawk had different languages with Flan, Baklunish, Nyrondese, Old Oeridian, etc. But those don't work in Forgotten Realms, so there you have Netherese, Thorass, Illuskan, and others. Each setting has set up its own languages culturally, but they are deep in the canon for a reason. My guess is they generally get thrown out anyways in favor of just...Common.

Verisimilitude is part of enjoyment for some people. Sometimes a quite important part.

 

[TiQuinn]

Verisimilitude is part of enjoyment for some people. Sometimes a quite important part.

That's why I asked beyond verisimilitude. If that's all there is, have at it. You can roll your own languages for your setting. I'm looking for another hook to hang this particular hat on.

 

[Dire Bare]

Another thing to keep in mind when comparing the real world to the fantasy world of D&D . . .

Within a local region of the real world, there are limited languages being spoken . . . at least in regions without a large degree of immigration. Barring trade languages and immigrant communities, how many languages are spoken in Spain? It's greater than just 1, Spanish, certainly.

But within a similar sized region of the fantasy world, with humans, elves, dwarves, halflings, orcs, goblins, giants, and all of the other groups with their own languages . . . that can be a lot! Of course, some of those species-communities might also be considered immigrant communities . . .

Within one fantasy kingdom of a typical D&D setting, the humans might all speak one language mostly, but in the forests are communities of elves, in the hills there are halflings, under the mountain is a dwarf-hold . . . there is greater linguistic diversity within a small region . . . but when you zoom out to the "continent" or "world", languages get simplified if there is only one elvish tongue, one dwarven tongue, etc.

 

[GnomeWorks]

So there's definitely a good way to do it that does all those things, to my very minimal standards of change.

No, your way is not good or satisfying. Because you explicitly point out at the end of your example that "they could put the Faerunian languages in," which doesn't work because the only good use of anything Greenwood has ever produced is as kindling.

You cannot have a complex/nuanced world-agnostic language system that is satisfying because realistic languages are necessarily world-specific.

 

[Richards]

Druids are no longer a "secret club". Well, in the core books anyways. They still are in my campaign!

Mine too. I had a half-elf druid in one campaign conversing with a merfolk druid in their "secret language" without any issues, despite them living in quite different environments.

Johnathan

 

[Micah Sweet]

There's no good way to do this that is satisfying, reflective of how language acquisition works, and low complexity.

It's not "a little more spilled ink."



Forcing another task onto new DMs who may not be as much of a linguist as Tolkien strikes me as unnecessary busywork.

The way it is now is fine. No, it's not entirely sensible, but then lots of things in core don't hit that bar, so it's a big whatever from me.



I don't have a problem with removing Common. I also don't have a problem with it existing. But if it were removed in favor of say a small handful of generically-named "trade languages," or whatever, I wouldn't be opposed to that.



Some kind of "advanced" DMG, perhaps. I'd be down with that.

Who forcing anyone here? We're talking about options for more granularity in this area. You want to just run Avernus without worrying about any of this? Don't use the advanced language rules.

 

[Quickleaf]

@Steampunkette But how do you say "Languages suck in D&D" in Elvish??