D&D General Languages suck in D&D.

[Belen]

Why? In a world were in theory anybody can learn magic by reading/studying it would make complete sense for literacy rates to be much higher then they were in the real world.

It depends on the campaign world.

If you're a rural farmer and there are no decent towns or cities close by, then it makes perfect sense that reading is not on the table.

 

[Sorinth]

It depends on the campaign world.

If you're a rural farmer and there are no decent towns or cities close by, then it makes perfect sense that reading is not on the table.

Of course it depends on the campaign world which is precisely why treating real life Earth as prime example is wrong, most campaign worlds are so vastly different then what happened in real life that it's a bad basis. A rural farmer in a fantasy world has a much bigger incentive to give their kids an education then a real world medieval peasant had.

 

[Clint_L]

The title of this thread is "languages suck in D&D." But is there a TTRPG that has implemented languages more effectively? Basically, I am wondering if this is really a design flaw or more of a contextual hurdle.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

In the modern world English is only the 3rd most spoken language, but it's more of a "common" language because for the 2 more spoken languages: one of them is mostly exclusive to just one country, and the other while spoken in many countries is mostly confined to one continent and the one country it originated from.

So I could see in some settings some other language being spoken more than "Common", but it's just not spread as far as "Common".

 

[Azzy]

The title of this thread is "languages suck in D&D." But is there a TTRPG that has implemented languages more effectively? Basically, I am wondering if this is really a design flaw or more of a contextual hurdle.

Hero System did.

 

[SkidAce]

Hero System did.

I forgot that. Let me go look.

 

[SkidAce]

@Azzy

Fascinatingly similar to how I am trying to do dialects in my world (granted I only have 3 levels of fluency).

Maybe I was subconsciously channeling my 80s gamer.

A D&D chart like this would be fascinating, if for no other reason then the fun of developing it, and "could" be usefull!

 

[Lanefan]

Why? In a world were in theory anybody can learn magic by reading/studying it would make complete sense for literacy rates to be much higher then they were in the real world.

High literacy rates presume a mass education system that even in a magic-based setting likely wouldn't exist. Education, including literacy, would still be largely restricted to the elite societal class and by no means do all adventurers have that in their background.

 

[Minigiant]

In my setting, the languages are chosen and their mechanics changed to feel real in the world and provide mechanical gameplay

The most common languages on the Material plane are Common, Draconic, and Elfish.

Common or Common Imperial is the official language of the Gryphon Empire, its colonies, it's tributes, and the states and kingdoms which rebel against the Empire. Refined Imperial is used by nobility in court and Middle Imperial by merchants and Sailors. Common is the language you will use in the Central Continent and the Elven one.

Elves live for centuries and before they are freed by their parents or caretakers, most Elves speak Elfish, Sylvan, and Common.

Same with Dwarves. Most Dwarves speak Dwarfish and Common to speak to Human neighbors. Some dwarves hate-learn the language of whoever their King declared war on like Giant. And Giants usually know Giant, Commoner, Draconic, and Dwarfish due to their age and wars.

On the other side of the world, everyone speaks Draconic on the Dragon continent. All the nations are ruled or dominated by dragons, dragonborn, dragoniods, or dragon loving kobold or human cults. So everyone there speaks Draconic as their first or second language.

The only wildcard is the outer planes where everyone speaks their alignment language. There knowledge of other languages is spotty.

So a party really only needs 3 languages to speak with most until level 10.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I'll quote myself from the previous thread on the topic:

When starting my current campaign I came to similar conclusion. This is how I handled it:

Instead of languages existing as rules elements there is just a 'Linguistics' skill. Then when you go to an unfamiliar area you'll roll it to communicate with the locals. Longer you stay in the area, the easier the DCs get until eventually it can be assumed that you just know the language. If you're trained you might be able to instantly communicate with nearby cultures without a roll. And of course you would use this skill to decipher ancient stone tablets etc. Then realistic linguistic complexity can exist in the lore without being rigidly codified in the rules, and as the language proficiency is no longer a simple binary you can have potentially interesting/amusing miscommunication situations. Also, as literacy is rather rare in this particular setting (stone age/early bronze age) reading is trained only thing.

It has worked well enough for me.