D&D General Languages suck in D&D.

[Misanthrope Prime]

i'd like something like this if we're trying to get languages to matter, consolidate most languages down into say, six-seven 'core language groups' plus common, and then common doesn't get bonuses to social interactions, it's this weird hodgepodge language that near everyone knows but if they have a choice don't communicate in,

alternately, i'd be interested in exploring languages as based more as representing social group dialects, 'thieves', 'noble' or 'merchant' aren't really different languages from common but the word pool, terminology, sentence structure and mannerisms+etiquette of speaking all add up and it more represents a familiarity with the norms of the social group so if your character doesn't know how to speak one then there's a very large amount of subtext happening under the surface and they're missing as much as the dwarven speaker in a crowd all speaking elvish.

I think what would make sense, ironically going back to the days of OD&D with its "alignment" languages, is to have "planar language families"; we already have that with Primordial, where the various elemental languages are mutually intelligible to anyone who speaks Primordial.

What I'd do is take the languages of some powerful beings- celestial, sylvan, infernal, etc- and pull them up and make them the "proto-indo-european" of the various mortal races. Elven and gnomish are part of the Slyvan family, dwarven and giant are related to primordial, etc. These languages being planar also explains why an elf from two different worlds can understand eachother.

We know common is a linguistic isolate unique to Sigil, though perhaps one could consider undercommon a creole language of common and drow-elven.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

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.

"Languages suck in D&D in Elvish"

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.

Yeah, I really don't get it, people thinking making up gods and religions for their setting is not "too much work", but languages are?

(You can actually run D&D without defining any gods - I also think D&D's focus on "gods" rather than religion is wrongheaded)

 

[Lanefan]

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.

This brings out a-whole-nother can o' worms to open up: language proficiency.

As in, sure you in theory know the language but how good at it are you really. Are you able to scrape by and that's it, or are you that language's version of Shakespeare, or is it a language you learned in school and then 98% forgot (guilty as charged on three languages!), or what? Is it a language you learned in order to actually speak on a daily basis, or just to be able to read some ancient writings while never having met a native speaker?

We (highly) abstact this by having players roll an open-ended d10 for each language known (with some modifiers e.g. advantage on the roll if rolling for your native tongue) and then letting the player determine how-why the roll's result was achieved in the fiction. For example, if one of your languages is Drow but you only rolled 1/10 on it you might say you only learned it to read something archaic in Wizard school and then mostly forgot it; while if another language is Dwarvish and you came up 14/10 as a Human character then you might say you've spent a lot of time not only living among Dwarves but specifically studying their language.

 

[ColinChapman]

In my own RPG, I ditched languages entirely because they are rather pointless in 99% of cases; a list that exists to provide the illusion of verisimilitude. For an RPG as streamlined as Against Darkness Triumphant, going all-in on languages would also not fit anyway.

Because everyone speaks Common, or people who do know X language translate for everyone else (at which point, skip the tedious middle man rubbish and just have folks directly communicate), it only really becomes important when dealing with a language no one in the party would be likely to know. Such as an obscure, long dead language or other language I decided to place there as GM knowing no one could speak or read it, in which case the languages they do know actually do not matter again.

So, how do I deal with those rare instances they come across languages no one in the group would know? I have them make appropriate rolls to see if they can discern or communicate meaning, if it matters. And if someone is translating for the group and lying, have the PCs make an appropriate roll to see if they can notice that something's amiss even if they don't know what exactly was deliberately mistranslated.

Throw in the point that no one should ever use language accessibility in a game in a way which essentially prevents play continuing (such as a clue necessary to a continuing investigation being in a language no one knows and cannot find a means to translate), and it just seemed to me that languages served little real purpose in-game. Certainly no benefit that a few related rolls couldn't better convey.

 

[occam]

There was a Rohirrim language?

So overall it still sounds like less languages than in the PH.

Yeah, and there isn't a single scene I can recall in one of Tolkien's Middle-earth stories where intelligibility was an issue. In First Age Beleriand, everyone ended up speaking Sindarin; even Men and Dwarves learned it. And in the Third Age stories most people are familiar with, everyone speaks Westron, even some Ents, and most Orcs!

Despite the development of Middle-earth being deeply entwined with Tolkien's fantastical language development, as an example for D&D, the stories are very much in line with the "Everyone speaks Common, don't worry about it" model. Other languages are just there for flavor.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

Yeah, and there isn't a single scene I can recall in one of Tolkien's Middle-earth stories where intelligibility was an issue. In First Age Beleriand, everyone ended up speaking Sindarin; even Men and Dwarves learned it. And in the Third Age stories most people are familiar with, everyone speaks Westron, even some Ents, and most Orcs!

Despite the development of Middle-earth being deeply entwined with Tolkien's fantastical language development, as an example for D&D, the stories are very much in line with the "Everyone speaks Common, don't worry about it" model. Other languages are just there for flavor.

The vast majority of Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit takes place in what was once the kingdoms of Gondor/Arnor so that makes sense though.

 

[MGibster]

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

That's easy because it's species language now.

Yeah, I really don't get it, people thinking making up gods and religions for their setting is not "too much work", but languages are?

I don't know if it's too much work rather than it's not really worth the effort. I mean I might have some languages in my own setting, but I keep the simplistic tradition alive and even include Common. Aside from deciphering ancient texts, I don't know if I've ever participated in a D&D game where language was of anything more than a very minor concern. "Does anyone speak Infernal?"

 

[Dire Bare]

The vast majority of Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit takes place in what was once the kingdoms of Gondor/Arnor so that makes sense though.

Yeah . . . that's the beginning of the epic fantasy trope of the ancient empire that settled the "continent", then fell into points of light . . .

EDIT: Well, after the IRL Roman Empire I suppose . . .

But really, there would be more language drift in Gondor and especially in Eriador (ancient Arnor), for the humans at least. And the human cultural groups to the east of the Misty Mountains don't get that pass, although I think they are largely descended from a singular ethnic group of "northmen".

If my LotR 5E campaign ends up traveling east of the Misty Mountains, I'm going to try and model that to some degree, play up the Rohirrim having their own language, similar to but different from the tribes between the mountains and Mirkwood, and the Dalefolk near the Lonely Mountain . . .

 

[ColinChapman]

I think the biggest differences in approach will be down to one single factor:

How much simulationism the GM and table actually want and how much said simulation has a meaningful and most importantly fun (however you define it) impact on play.

For me and my groups, for example, we're in it purely to have fun adventures and don't sweat too many details, taking an approach much like popular media. To us, worrying whether X speaks Y to Z degree is the opposite of fun, rarely comes up, and is therefore pretty much a waste of time. For other people, that sort of detail-focused simulationism is fun and so therefore is worth the effort. Regardless, I think we can all agree that you should only put the effort into those aspects of a game you find fun; otherwise it's work for no good reason.

Of course, we can argue over whether or not Languages in D&D as currently presented support either outlook (I would argue that they don't), but that's a very specific discussion.

 

[Corinnguard]

My other 7 were in Michigan. In a small town near Coldwater/Battle Creek.

Cool. My immediate family is scattered about lower Michigan. My parents live up near Traverse City and an older sister in Kalamazoo/Grand Rapids. I live with my twin brother 30 minutes outside of Detroit.

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?

In Level Up, there are four Elven cultures- Eladrin, High, Shadow and Wood.

If Language was a skill, dialects would be a skill specialty. A skill specialty in Level Up is a specialized subskill that your character can learn. So, if your character was good learning elvish, then you could specify which elven dialects you are good at via an Expertise die (d4).