D&D General Languages suck in D&D.

[GnomeWorks]

Who forcing anyone here?

The phrasing was "one of the things a DM has to do," emphasis mine.

The overall agenda as presented by the OP suggests to me the goal is the replacement of the existing -- not great, granted, but functional -- language system with something more complex that puts more work on a DM's shoulders. Having watched one of my players take on the DM role for the first time recently and struggle, I'd rather not erect even more barriers to entry.

 

[Steampunkette]

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.

Yeeeeah... no. I'm not talking about a complex and nuanced world-acknowledge language system. I'm talking about a fairly simple system that is slightly more complex than "Every race speaks their own language plus common. Except humans. Who only speak common. And Common is a trade language that can't handle any kind of complex concepts."

The point of "Putting in Faerunian Languages" is that whether it's using real world examples of language structure or not, different languages can fit into different categories of the very simple system to add in partial fluency with minor downsides.

I.E. if you speak French and someone speaks Italian you can mostly communicate, but any kind of verbal threats where you're trying to be even remotely subtle are at disadvantage. And things -like- that.

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

"Languages suck in D&D in Elvish"

The phrasing was "one of the things a DM has to do," emphasis mine.

The overall agenda as presented by the OP suggests to me the goal is the replacement of the existing -- not great, granted, but functional -- language system with something more complex that puts more work on a DM's shoulders. Having watched one of my players take on the DM role for the first time recently and struggle, I'd rather not erect even more barriers to entry.

Is your brand new DM writing up a campaign setting with languages?

Then probably won't be much of an issue.

And if they -are- writing up a campaign setting, languages are just one tiny party of a boatload of work.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The phrasing was "one of the things a DM has to do," emphasis mine.

The overall agenda as presented by the OP suggests to me the goal is the replacement of the existing -- not great, granted, but functional -- language system with something more complex that puts more work on a DM's shoulders. Having watched one of my players take on the DM role for the first time recently and struggle, I'd rather not erect even more barriers to entry.

Fair enough. As much as I agree with @Lanefan , I would have liked an IMO somewhere in there.

 

[GnomeWorks]

Yeeeeah... no. I'm not talking about a complex and nuanced world-acknowledge language system. I'm talking about a fairly simple system that is slightly more complex than "Every race speaks their own language plus common. Except humans. Who only speak common. And Common is a trade language that can't handle any kind of complex concepts."

The point of "Putting in Faerunian Languages" is that whether it's using real world examples of language structure or not, different languages can fit into different categories of the very simple system to add in partial fluency with minor downsides.

You are missing the point of my argument.

To have a more realistic language system -- anything more complicated than what we have now -- requires tying those languages to probably a combination of region and people. You can't have a French language without the French people and a part of the world called France (not going to nitpick about demonyms).

Similarly, you cannot have a Pomarji language without a Pomarj people and a part of the world called the Pomarj.

This is why your approach doesn't work. It isn't generic, and almost by definition cannot be. Current D&D languages are generic. That they are bland and not-quite-sensible is not something I'd argue against.

I.E. if you speak French and someone speaks Italian you can mostly communicate, but any kind of verbal threats where you're trying to be even remotely subtle are at disadvantage. And things -like- that.

This isn't where the complexity expenditure bugs me. The excessive complexity comes from having to track all these relationships. If you're trying to model languages at all on par with real world complexity, or even say half that, it's going to be a table lookup every single time you have a social interaction.

Is your brand new DM writing up a campaign setting with languages?

Give me an example of a game being run where your take on language wouldn't come up.

It's another thing to track. And I can imagine said person saying something like "What the [bleep] is Pomarji and why do these orcs speak it and not these other orcs?" It's a fiddly detail, and those add up.

 

[GnomeWorks]

Fair enough. As much as I agree with @Lanefan , I would have liked an IMO somewhere in there.

There was.

But if it's my opinion that the DM has a moral imperative to do $THING, you can still disagree with that take. Opinions can be argued with, and can be wrong (not to say that Lanefan was wrong, necessarily, just pointing that out).

 

[Yaarel]

The specific languages in play are highly setting-dependent.

With regard to core, avoiding 'race' languages is worthwhile.

Also, explaining what skill checks to make (and how) when trying to figure out a less familiar language is worthwhile.

 

[Horwath]

TLDR
Racial languages, which D&D runs on as a foundational principle, suck. Regional Languages are way better.

I agree on regional languages.
I believe FR did that in 3E, you got bonus regional language known, depending on your geographical origin.

On racial languages?
Gods will it so.

I.E:
every cleric or paladin of elven gods speak elven language, maybe add druids, zealot barbarians, divine soul sorcerers and any divine adjacent subclass to this list.

humans with no official "racial" language can follow strictly their regions language or can follow other "racial" language out of ideals.

maybe some regions have veneration for dragons and Draconic is "official" language.


and Common is just crude trade language that everyone knows to a degree out of need, but someone that is not traveled or schooled might just know 100 or so words of common and barely can communicate anything more than asking for direction and getting some food.

 

[Steampunkette]

You are missing the point of my argument.

To have a more realistic language system -- anything more complicated than what we have now -- requires tying those languages to probably a combination of region and people. You can't have a French language without the French people and a part of the world called France (not going to nitpick about demonyms).

Similarly, you cannot have a Pomarji language without a Pomarj people and a part of the world called the Pomarj.

This is why your approach doesn't work. It isn't generic, and almost by definition cannot be. Current D&D languages are generic. That they are bland and not-quite-sensible is not something I'd argue against.

Yes. The languages will not be generic. The SYSTEM is generic. The LANGUAGES are setting-specific.

Not sure how to make that more clear. And it's a thing I've been saying the entire time.

This isn't where the complexity expenditure bugs me. The excessive complexity comes from having to track all these relationships. If you're trying to model languages at all on par with real world complexity, or even say half that, it's going to be a table lookup every single time you have a social interaction.

Again, you're trying to say "Like real world complexity" and as you can see in the example: IT DOESN'T.

Not only does it not reflect real world complexity in the slightest, it invents the "Romance" language as an intermediate regional proto-language somehow separated from Latin. I did that -specifically- to avoid getting into the actual complexities of West versus Southern Germanic and the whole structure of Proto-Indo-European.

Is it more complex than "Each race has their own language?" Yes. Is it "Real World Complexity?" Not remotely. Not -remotely-. Like. I'm suggesting people speaking French and Italian, which are -very- different languages for their similar linguistic origins, would be able to mostly understand each other without taking the time to learn the other language. But things like subtle threats or unique turns of phrase require insight checks to figure out.

That's not remotely trying to model languages to real world understanding.

Essentially I'm looking at something like what Pathfinder has for their human languages. 2-3 ancient languages and writing systems, and then the languages that came from them use those writing systems and are kinda similar but not exactly the same.

Give me an example of a game being run where your take on language wouldn't come up.

Curse of Strahd. Everyone speaks Barovian.

Unless you decide to have some NPCs speak other languages, like the Vistani speaking Vistana. But they already do that in Curse of Strahd so it's not much different.

It's another thing to track. And I can imagine said person saying something like "What the [bleep] is Pomarji and why do these orcs speak it and not these other orcs?" It's a fiddly detail, and those add up.

And like people do with Language for the most part and Encumbrance almost universally you can just ignore it if you don't like it, too.

Shocker.

 

[Hriston]

At the risk of things going off topic, the idea of the Black Speech being a mockery of Quenya is speculative.

Ah, okay. It looks like I might have picked that up from Robert Foster.

 

[Lanefan]

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.

Indeed, and providing a world-specific example (e.g. the Faerunian languages) in the DMG to help show how to build your own world's language system would be a very useful thing.