No Common Tongue

[Cthulhudrew]

I have long been in agreement with your sentiment towards a "Common" tongue. That being the case, however, the topic came up once upon a time on the Mystara mailing list, and a certain James "Mystaros" Mishler came up with a rather convincing discussion that changed my mind somewhat. The actual point he brought up can be seen at:

http://dnd.starflung.com/language.html

It goes into some Mystara specifics later in the post, but the general gist of the piece might give you some ideas. Hope this helps.

Cthulhudrew

 

[Sabaron]

I also run a campaign with no Common tongue and eight major human languages. There haven't been any problems with this so far; there is a large empire whose language is used as a trade tongue which most merchants and travellers speak. People in border regions tend to speak the language of their neighbors. If the PC's want to talk to someone who's not a merchant, widely travelled, or lives near their border, they hire a translator or cast Tongues, which every wizard picks up as soon as it's convienient. Works fine.

 

[bardolph]

There's also no requirement that adventurers are always going to distant lands.

If the players become involved/entrenched with their local community, then they won't need all that much translating.

Also, if you assume that all of the PC's are from the same region, they will quickly come to think of that region as "home," and when PC's travel far, they will lose the comfort level of knowing they can talk to everyone they meet. That will probably enhance the "exoticness" of exotic locales.

 

[Mark Plemmons]

Perhaps you could provide a brief overview of the Kalamar language rules so that those of us not in the know can make more useful responses.

The Kingdoms of Kalamar setting uses the standard D&D rules for language, and has "Merchant's Tongue" as a common language that was largely developed by merchants. It can express fairly complex concepts, but is not truly a full language.

However, the KoK Player's Guide offers a Variant Language Skill System. The simplest explanation is that you get ranks in languages as in other skills. A rank of 0 means you have no knowledge of that language and cannot speak, read or write it. As the ranks increase, your speaking and reading/writing ability increases. At creation, a character has a number of language points equal to 1+(Int bonus x4). At each advancement, the PC receives 1+Int language skill points (and can also spend normal skill points on lanuages if desired), with a minimum of 1 language point per level.

For example, a rank of +5 means you are Competent and can converse in many everyday situations. You can read moderatly complex normal writings, letters, etc.

With a rank of +10 and +11 you're as fluent as a native speaker, and +12 and up grants you Mastery (for grand poets, writers and very unusual or ancient, dead languages).

 

[bardolph]

...another thing to consider, however, is that once you divide up human languages into regional languages, you probably should also do the same for Elvish, Dwarvish, Goblin, Giant, Draconic, Gnome, Orcish, etc, etc, etc. So the Elves of region "A" don't speak the same language as the Elves of region "B".

Realize, however, that you may end up with way more languages than is manageable (you'll have several dozen at least!), and PC skill points are going to be disproportionately spent on languages, instead of other vital skills.

D&D makes a basic assumption that each fantasy "race" is roughly equivalent to a "race" in human (earth) terms. Remember that in the "real world", Humans are the only sentient life form!!! The fact that humans, elves, dwarves, gnomes, goblins and orcs all have to learn each other's languages gives a pretty significant language barrier right from the start, without having to handicap Humans by splintering them into bunches of different, non-transferable languages.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

One possibility is instead of a 'common tongue' have a 'scholar's language', that fills the same niche that Latin did in the real world.
Most people don't speak it.Most people can't read it.
It's not the language of any extant culture.
Mages, Clerics, and a few others can start with it, most others will have to spend skill points.

Another: The most powerful nation promotes it's language for use by both the merchants and the natural philosophers, much like the lingua Franca' was.

Yet another: Common is a pidgin, you can get across simple ideas but not complex ones, mostly intended for trade. (How many chicken goat?)

I don't have Common in my own campaign world either...

The Auld Grump

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Seven Seas, in all of its various incarnations, lacks a common tongue and has a good system.

The most important concession they make in d20 is to present a few feats and class features that make picking up languages extremely easy.

There are also a few languages that are simply more likely to be known over wider areas rather than simply by more people.

Two or three of these are related to powerful trading/political coalitions and the other two or three are religious/academic in nature.

Pretty well handled itself, the players were regionally and ethnically diverse but they made certain to learn a language in common, each knew at least two languages themselves, and there were one or two characters who were especially proficient.

They also made good use of performance to get across really nasty language barriers.

 

[BrooklynKnight]

I've been thinking of removing Read/Write and Speak Language as a skill.

Maybe leaving it to RP. Ifa PC works at learning a language....i'll give it to them for free....

 

[William Ronald]

Historically, many languages have served as a "common tongue" throughout a region.

Aramaic was a "common tongue" for many in the ancient Middle East for several hundred years. It served as a language for trade, and for many of the common people in that region.

The term "lingua franca" refers to a trade-language based on French with several other elements (Spanish, Italian, Arabic, among others) that was used for a time among many people along the Mediterranean.

Swahili and pidgin English have served a similar role. On one Babylon 5 episode, English is described by Delenn as "the human language of trade and diplomacy."

So, I think that having some language that can be used for trade purposes is useful. Perhaps it is most logical to have it based on some other language in the campaign, or to be that language. (For example, the Common Tongue in the World of Greyhawk was originally the language of the Great Kingdom. This is somewhat similar to the role Latin played in the Roman Empire and the early Dark Ages.)

 

[FrankTrollman]

I like to use slightly simplified real world language for my games.

That means no Common Tongue and creatures might speak a variety of Altaic Languages - from Turkmen to Kirghiz. And then people who speak any Altaic Language could get by with vague concepts such as food and money.

And so on for other language groups, such as Baltic Languages or Finno-Ugric Languages.

-Frank