No Common Tongue

[Plane Sailing]

I don't have a common tongue - I have a small range of modern, ancient and secret languages. One of the modern languages is particularly widespread, and a very wide range of people will tend to know a smattering of it (it is the "missionary" cultures language).

I don't know whether many people follow links off-site, but you can read my details here http://www.starguild.freeserve.co.uk/frp/kyri_lang.htm

It has worked very well for us.

One idea that I've heard of that might prove fun is to allow people who don't share a common language to communicate but they are not allowed to use words which contain a certain common letter (e.g. the letter 'e'). That might prove more frustrating than anything else if your PC's are more into hitting things, and would go down better with dedicated role players.

Cheers

 

[s/LaSH]

My approach: I game in Medieval Europe, so I just say, "Everyone speaks Latin, OK?". That's the equivalent of Common. There are organisations keeping it alive - mostly religious ones - in all reaches of the continent. However, there are other languages. Because I've replaced whole ethnicities with fantasy races, Northern Europe is inhabited primarily by elves. Who all speak Elven. I figure I can get away with this because they live so darn long (there're fun moments when you get elves reminiscing about that time they sacked Rome, or colonised France, or whatever). Their population is mobile enough, in lifespan terms, to have retained or spread one language between themselves.

On the other hand, there are probably hundreds of Central Asian languages, because that area's Orcish and they don't live very long compared to elves. Then there's the Mer civilisation, who are probably the oldest and stablest civ on the planet, and so share a common language. And then there's Arabic, which is spoken in Arabia and Africa. Latin and Elven will only get you so far.



There's another approach. Anyone got the Stargate RPG? You have a Languages skill, ranks of which can be directed towards individual languages (eg. English +3), but it's still a full skill, which you can check to get by in languages you don't officially speak. You can make a Linguistics Check to gain a free virtual rank in a language you don't speak, which is enough to get by (the rules state you learned this language in the past, the info just hasn't come up before). You also have a Xenolanguages skill, which applies to tongues not native to your homeworld. Could be worth looking at.

 

[frankthedm]

I think disposing of the common tounge is a good idea. It will really help add value to what languages you pick for your characters rather than the 'it doesn't matter what languages you pick, everything speaks common' problem. but this can also be solved also by having fewer individuals speak the common tounge.

Also penalties to reaction and Cha checks can be implimented to represent the common tounge being a 'low speach" fit for the riff-raff, but simply ill suited for thoughtfull discusions and such.

 

[GruTheWanderer]

One of the players admitted he was a little worried that the game will focus too much on communication.

However, certain players in the group are more interested in action, not role-playing getting a translator.

Get a specific response from all the players. If the majority are interested, give it a try. If not, give it a pass.

I wouldn't do it with my current group. They hardly want to speak Common before killing things.

I would like to do it in the future. Having lived overseas, I appreciate the frustrations and joys of foreign languages.

 

[shadow]

Okay. I'm dropping common, however my campaign world still has a "common" tongue, a dead language called "sarynth" which is spoken as the lingua-franca of the educated and the church. (Pretty much like Latin) While most peasants won't speak it, the nobility and clerics will speak it to some extent. Although I've designed a plethora of languages and dialects, most of the initial campaign will take place around trade centers (the logical starting point for an adventuring party) where some of the major languages will be spoken. When and if the party moves across the continent, hopefully they have spent some points in speak language to learn other languages. There should be some interesting moments, but hopefully it won't be a major burden. This is my solution. If the players miss the common tongue, I'm sure that I'll hear about it.

By the way, just out of curiosity, I'm wondering how the KoK language rules handle dialects. The boundary between a dialect and a language isn't always clear. If I were to design different dialects for each major orc tribe (fairly mutually intelligible, but resulting in some communication problems), would players have to point on each seperate dialect?

 

[nopantsyet]

I haven't played a game without a common tongue since my MERP/Rolemaster days. At the time I was an avid student of languages and I loved that languages were treated on par with all other skills. But it does place a tremendous emphasis on the simple act of communicating, and that's not going to work for all groups. I guess in the end I like it in theory better than I like it in practice. Still, just thinking about it makes me want to try it again. (Embarrassingly I recently found myself contemplating replacing Spot/Listen with a skill system for all 5 senses! That's just sad.)

 

[Kahuna Burger]

There's another approach. Anyone got the Stargate RPG? You have a Languages skill, ranks of which can be directed towards individual languages (eg. English +3), but it's still a full skill, which you can check to get by in languages you don't officially speak. You can make a Linguistics Check to gain a free virtual rank in a language you don't speak, which is enough to get by (the rules state you learned this language in the past, the info just hasn't come up before). You also have a Xenolanguages skill, which applies to tongues not native to your homeworld. Could be worth looking at.

*sniff* no I don't have it, but this is one more reason to get it... The scenes in early stargate episodes where Danial is extrapolating what people are saying based on his knowlege of so many living and dead languages are some of my favorites, and though I understand the plot need, I was disapointed at the all english everywhere later plots.

The all or nothing nature of D&D languages has always bugged the hell out of me. "No skill checks, you either know a language or you don't." yeah, right. So, do I know german or don't I? Actually its in a skill check sort of zone, including taking 10 or 20 if the person speaking german is being helpful.

My gladiator character in LEW is no linguist, but if languages were more reasonably designed, she would have minimum ranks in a half a dozen of them to represent her mingling with various races and cultures. (admitedly roleplayed as knowing how to order a beer, start a fight or proposition someone in a wide variety of languages. ) A decent language skill system would also lead to bonus ranks for rangers in their favored enemy language, which would make for great flavor...

Could be very cool to have languages as a slightly seperate skill system (say one skill point gave you either 4 or 10 ranks in language use depending on your class) and a seperate skill that reflects how good you are at learning the basics of a language on the fly and/or teaching your language to set up the basics of communication. Then you get to make the language chart to reflect that having 5 or more ranks in elven gives you a +2 bonus to sylvan... mmmm.... language chart.....

Kahuna Burger

 

[Davelozzi]

I have no common tongue in my campaign and it has caused zero problems, and zero complaints. Everyone speaks Tuornilian, the language in the kingdom where the campaign is based. A few also speak Draconic or Melendotian (the language of the major human empire bordering Tuornil), and a couple of people speak a racial tongue or some other random language that no one else does.

The party has plans to head to Melendos when they finish wrapping up a few things locally, so a few more people are devoting points to Melendotian in preparation for that. The rest plan to make it by on using their friends to translate.

Also, we use a skill based language system similar to the Kalamar variant, but more generous. Everyone gets one native tongue at rank 3 at no cost. They also get Int bonus (x2) in language points at character creation and can spend skill points when those run out.

Costs are as follows:
1 rank - "please, thank you, where's the bathroom?"
2 ranks - speak slowly with heavy accent
3 ranks - fluent (although still accented if not a native speaker)
4 + increased eloquence, loss of accent if non-native

plus literacy costs 1 point to acquire per language, and is otherwise assumed to be at the same level of proficiency as speaking. Sometimes I'll waive the literacy cost for a language which is closely related to one already spoken and which shares the same alphabet.

 

[Deadguy]

Like you, I've broadly kept the D&D3 system and dropped the idea of a Common tongue. Instead I've got three lingua francas, depending on where you are. Each is based on the expansion of a power, whether militarily, commercially or as colonists. A character can normally find, in a large town, someone who speaks any one of the three main tongues. if it becomes necessary, they can even hire an interpreter for specific situations, or pay a commercial wizard to cast appropriate spells, if they lack the ability themselves.

On top of that, I had the Clerics use a debased version of the draconic language as the language of their magic, so two clerics can often discuss matters with each other for a while (I say that because the language is still demanding on the throats and palates of anyone who doesn't have a draconic physionomy!). Likewise the Wizards have, over the centuries, developed a Pidgin version of the language of the Cacodaemons, both as a negotiating tool, and as a useful language to write spells in. So again, there are world-derived shared languages, albeit no true 'common' tongue.

Used properly, languages can even be a useful story-telling tool. For example, the root language of the Orcs is surprisingly subtle and sophisticated. It hints that the Orcs of today are not like their brethren of the past, and old Orcish ruins too can provide hints to a different age. Things like that are handy adventure seeds in setting up the world. I am still hoping that at some point one party will be curious enough to investigate why there's an isolated human community, all of whom are deaf-mutes, and have a really advanced sign language that thieves in certain quarters have borrowed!

 

[mythago]

What you really want is something that achieves the effect of having Common--i.e. the players can more or less easily communicate with most people, and do not spend game time parsing odd dialects, hunting for translators, or pondering why *this* village speaks Os Padain rather than Os Palak like the surrounding villages. That may turn YOUR crank as a linguist, as somebody else said, but you're not running the game for yourself.

It's pretty simple to make this background. Most people in the area speak [popular language] and translation spells/potions/cloakpins are easy to come by. The only exceptions are very rare, very dead languages, so that you have an excuse for your players not to be able to read that Ancient Magick Scroll they found in the dragon's hoard.