D&D 5E Mechanics you don't want to see, ever

[Monayuris]

In any case i love the idea of aligned languages. Really interesting and plausible. I think it really adds interesting flavor and function to the structure of the multiverse.

Agree. To me alignment languages are those languages that evoke pure elements of the alignment.

I liken them to the scene in LoTR where Gandalf speaks the words of Black Speech at the Council of Elrond. The whole council shuttered in shock and the shadows grew. Gandalf, in D&D alignment terms, was speaking Chaotic and it had power to unnerve.

 

[Son of the Serpent]

Agree. To me alignment languages are those languages that evoke pure elements of the alignment.

I liken them to the scene in LoTR where Gandalf speaks the words of Black Speech at the Council of Elrond. The whole council shuttered in shock and the shadows grew. Gandalf, in D&D alignment terms, was speaking Chaotic and it had power to unnerve.

YES!!! YOU GET A GOLD STAR! THATS WHAT IM TALKING 'BOUT!

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Agree. To me alignment languages are those languages that evoke pure elements of the alignment.

I liken them to the scene in LoTR where Gandalf speaks the words of Black Speech at the Council of Elrond. The whole council shuttered in shock and the shadows grew. Gandalf, in D&D alignment terms, was speaking Chaotic and it had power to unnerve.

What always raised my eyebrows was that 1E characters got their alignment languages automatically. Like if Grima Wormtongue turned to evil and the Black Speech just downloaded itself into his head. That might be an interesting property of the language in a specific universe, but as the default rules for an adventure game it's kind of weird.

 

[Son of the Serpent]

What always raised my eyebrows was that 1E characters got their alignment languages automatically. Like if Grima Wormtongue turned to evil and the Black Speech just downloaded itself into his head. That might be an interesting property of the language in a specific universe, but as the default rules for an adventure game it's kind of weird.

THAT i do find strange

 

[Lanefan]

For some reason we never really used the alignment languages, and dropped them completely quite early on.

Class languages - most notably Thieves' and Assassins' Cants - hung around a while longer but we ended up dropping those too, as they were simply never used in play. That said, there's far more in-fiction justification for class-based languages like that (or smaller-scale guild-based languages or codes) than for the alignment tongues. One of these days I might try bringing 'em back, and see if they gain any more traction than before.

 

[Hussar]

Chaotic Neutral is self interest. There is absolutely no way they develop a language.

Thing is, in 1e, alignment languages weren't really "complete" languages. They were the languages that people of that alignment would discuss issues relating to that alignment. More analogous to a "religious" language, which, is certainly plausible. Catholicism was done in Latin for a very, very long time after no one actually spoke Latin anymore. Even here in Japan, when I go to a Buddhist temple for various ceremonies, my Japanese friends are openly honest that they don't really speak or read what the priest is saying. Too old and idiosyncratic.

That's what alignment languages were meant to emulate.

 

[Lanefan]

What always raised my eyebrows was that 1E characters got their alignment languages automatically. Like if Grima Wormtongue turned to evil and the Black Speech just downloaded itself into his head. That might be an interesting property of the language in a specific universe, but as the default rules for an adventure game it's kind of weird.

Weirder yet if you consider what happens on a change of alignment: you'd suddenly forget one language and learn another just like that - >poof!<. Makes no sense.

Also problematic if a player has alignment X written on the character sheet but plays to alignment Y - what alignment tongue does it speak?

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

That's what alignment languages were meant to emulate.

That's more or less how I always viewed them, as well.
Personally, I don't think that "alignment tongues" really went away. They just got renamed to things like Celestial, Infernal, or Primordial. There's not a perfect mapping between those and alignment, of course, but it fits the "this is the language of our religious texts" notion nicely.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I do find it odd that people can deal with wizards, fairies, demons, magic potions, mystic wells, gods and pantheons, but alignment as a language is just too much. Especially when lawful good is a place and lawful evil is a place in the game. Literal places in the game.

Everyone has their lines in the sand.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

"Retard Strength"

For the benefit of those who reported this post, were silently offended, etc., der_kluge was referencing one of the worst RPGs ever made, F.A.T.A.L., which actually included such a rule.

From the infamous RPGNet review:

Then there's the charts - pages and pages and pages of charts. I should mention that the Bodily Attractiveness stat affects your breast cup size, although, of course, only for women. Oh, and you can get "retard strength". Check the formula out for determining this:



(71 - retard Intelligence) x 3 = (% chance of Retard Strength).