Except “Darmok” isn’t really about language.
D&D General Languages suck in D&D.
- Thread starter Steampunkette
- Start date
Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
Not French vs. Spanish, no. But attempting to understand the meaning of another culture's speech? Absolutely.
That's because Language by X has no bearing to gameplay.
If you want Language to be a designed gameplay element, you must decide what game language is supposed to be in.
For example, if you are designed an Old School game where Good species/monsters speak Good languages and Bad species/monster speak Evil languages in a world of black and white, then you design a way for all the Good PCs in a typical party to easily be able to all the Forces of Good and make understanding the Forces of Evil a crapshoot unless one of the "He Who fights Monsters" types.
If you want Languages to be a Region identifier and hand with each region and plane having a langua franca, then you map out the regions, sort the people, and THEN assign languages.
Eyes of Nine
Everything's Fine
There's something about language - when you are in a strange land, and all of a sudden you encounter someone who speaks the same language, there's this relief and a sense of belonging that you didn't even realize you were missing. This of course is on a spectrum, very much (for me) proportional to how fluent I am in the mainstream language of the strange land. So when I have visited Japan or France, I am more comfortable than when I am in Germany or Spain.
All of which to say, it's gameable in the sense of: Perhaps there's a lingua franca across a wide region (let's call it Forgottenglish); but perhaps as a PC you have a CORE language (Let's call it Realmanese). And when you encounter someone else speaking that Realmanese language, you each have a bonus and/or advantage when dealing with each other. Sadly, 5e (either version) eschewed reaction rolls, which personally I think was a miss. But if I was to hack in some sort of reaction rule, then languages would be a cool way to modify that AND make languages useful and interesting again.
All of which to say, it's gameable in the sense of: Perhaps there's a lingua franca across a wide region (let's call it Forgottenglish); but perhaps as a PC you have a CORE language (Let's call it Realmanese). And when you encounter someone else speaking that Realmanese language, you each have a bonus and/or advantage when dealing with each other. Sadly, 5e (either version) eschewed reaction rolls, which personally I think was a miss. But if I was to hack in some sort of reaction rule, then languages would be a cool way to modify that AND make languages useful and interesting again.
Still use reaction rolls on occasion. Was amusing and fun for all, when the NPC they needed to rent a ship from took an immediate dislike to the party as a whole.
Swarmkeeper
Hero
Yeah, this.
It's like trying to say certain traps or locks or even, gasp, prices on goods at the town equipment merchant are "Mother May I" if the PC fails to accomplish their goal of disarming/unlocking/buying. I mean, the game is based on overcoming challenges. If the party doesn't have the means, they fail. But there are plenty of creative approaches when attempting to achieve the goal of completing a challenge. I mean, in our game last night, a PC who did not speak Aquan or Giant mimed their shared goal of opening a stuck gate... and that gave the PC who did speak Aquan advantage on the contested CHA(Persuasion) roll. No petitioning of the DM necessary.
Azzy
ᚳᚣᚾᛖᚹᚢᛚᚠ (He/Him)
There actually are (some rather basic) reaction rolls in the 24 DMG on page 116, under "Initial Attitudes". It's not robust and isn't affected by Charisma (though, altering a creature/NPC's initial attitude is in the 24 PHB, under "Social Interactions, on page 16), but it is something.
jasper
Rotten DM
Back last century I was talking with one my players who spoke Russian and One of the Arabic languages. While he was at training at the military language institute, they roped a dm to having multiple languages at the table. Russian, Japanese, two Arabic, Spanish and something else. He said it was great fun practicing various languages at the table and some times humorist when someone after playing language phone tag, translated back into English. But they never really got far in the DM dungeon.
So having a various detail language system is great for those small group of tables who enjoy that.
Me I with stick with Southern as Common. Y'all hear.
rmcoen
Adventurer
In my current campaign, the "civilized" (PHB races) lands are a quarter of one continent. The rest of the continent (and possibly the world, we aren't there yet!) is loosely settled by "the Tribes": all the goblinoid races, plus pretty much all the giants. The Three Kingdoms speak a single tongue - Kingspeech, aka "Common", for lack of a better term - but each has its own "accent". Within the Kingdoms, the dwarves and elves are both part of the cosmopolitan life and have some reserved locations for themselves (Alfendark Forest for the elves; Kagh Da'ruhm and the Blackrock Cliffs for the dwarves) where only the racial languages are spoken. Other PHB races... speak Kingspeech, as they no longer have a distinct racial identity.
The Tribes all use Goblin as their primary tongue - essentially "Tribal Common". Like the Three Kingdoms, Tribefolk from different areas have different accents, but can still generally make themselves understood with minimal confusion. (The Giants still maintain their own tongue, and each subtype of Giant has its own dialect and accent that is clearly distinct.)
For Story reasons, there is only one other language, that of the "Ancients" that came before both the Tribes and the Kingdoms.
I thought long and hard about giving each Kingdom its own language - and thus giving PCs a reason to learn something other than Common, Goblin, Elven, Dwarven, or Giant. (Ancient can't be learned by a starting character.) But I decided it would a layer of complication that wasn't required for the game. Likewise, Goblins on the west side of the Terrorspine Mountains are mostly separated from those on the east side (where 90% of the campaign takes place)... but emphasizing those differences wouldn't bring enough to the game. [Should the campaign end up on another continent though... I'll make that as a key distinction making the place feel even more foreign.]
In a past campaign, I tried to make cultures and regions very distinct, even down to different coinage. Elven coins doubled as jewelry, dwarven coins as weapons and tools, modern coins were different sizes and metals from recovered coins from lost ruins. Moneychangers took a cut of conversion, but PCs could also seek out collectors who would pay more than certain coins' worth to complete their collections... It was interesting initially, then fell by the wayside, just like tracking arrows and days of food often does in most campaigns.
Nowadays, I emphasize visible cultural differences - styles of dress, customs of eating, what is considered "good manners" - and local specialties. Alfendark bows are comparable to the enchanted works from the Ruby Tower... but the juffawood from the pirate islands hit harder. Marihan polearms are the best in the world, but if you can get an Alfendark wordsmith to craft you a spear, it will be much lighter. Klathos is known for its sapphires and copper, while the Jendaran Empire to the south produces the best alchemical goods and leather. And only the dwarves of the Blackrock Cliffs can make "boomsticks"...
But they all speak a variation of Kingspeech a.k.a. Common!
The Tribes all use Goblin as their primary tongue - essentially "Tribal Common". Like the Three Kingdoms, Tribefolk from different areas have different accents, but can still generally make themselves understood with minimal confusion. (The Giants still maintain their own tongue, and each subtype of Giant has its own dialect and accent that is clearly distinct.)
For Story reasons, there is only one other language, that of the "Ancients" that came before both the Tribes and the Kingdoms.
I thought long and hard about giving each Kingdom its own language - and thus giving PCs a reason to learn something other than Common, Goblin, Elven, Dwarven, or Giant. (Ancient can't be learned by a starting character.) But I decided it would a layer of complication that wasn't required for the game. Likewise, Goblins on the west side of the Terrorspine Mountains are mostly separated from those on the east side (where 90% of the campaign takes place)... but emphasizing those differences wouldn't bring enough to the game. [Should the campaign end up on another continent though... I'll make that as a key distinction making the place feel even more foreign.]
In a past campaign, I tried to make cultures and regions very distinct, even down to different coinage. Elven coins doubled as jewelry, dwarven coins as weapons and tools, modern coins were different sizes and metals from recovered coins from lost ruins. Moneychangers took a cut of conversion, but PCs could also seek out collectors who would pay more than certain coins' worth to complete their collections... It was interesting initially, then fell by the wayside, just like tracking arrows and days of food often does in most campaigns.
Nowadays, I emphasize visible cultural differences - styles of dress, customs of eating, what is considered "good manners" - and local specialties. Alfendark bows are comparable to the enchanted works from the Ruby Tower... but the juffawood from the pirate islands hit harder. Marihan polearms are the best in the world, but if you can get an Alfendark wordsmith to craft you a spear, it will be much lighter. Klathos is known for its sapphires and copper, while the Jendaran Empire to the south produces the best alchemical goods and leather. And only the dwarves of the Blackrock Cliffs can make "boomsticks"...
But they all speak a variation of Kingspeech a.k.a. Common!
