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<blockquote data-quote="Painfully" data-source="post: 1191693" data-attributes="member: 601">I eliminated the spells Comprehend Languages, and Tongues in one of my campaigns, and forced wizards to take a higher age category to represent their many years of study.&nbsp; My reasoning was that the study and practice of languages was necessary in order to understand the secrets of magic.&nbsp;For the most part, I made common tongue the language of the humans, and the language known to most races that deal with humans in the area where my PCs began their campaign.&nbsp; Eventually, they chose to take a trip to another continent.&nbsp; When they left the only large trade town in the area, they found their Common to be almost non-existent except for the rare traveling merchant.&nbsp;The solution for my PCs was to simply spend a few days trying to learn the language.&nbsp; Based on what they did in town with the locals, each PC becomes competent at communicating their ideas.&nbsp; After a few weeks, I simply let them all communicate as they wish, although complex ideas or plans still require intelligence checks (and a failure can mean SO many interesting things).&nbsp; A few days drinking and trading stories with the locals tends to help ease things along quite well.&nbsp; Note that speech doesn't imply literacy.&nbsp;I use a similar system for writing, but the timescale is much longer.&nbsp; It requres a skill point and a year of study with a native speaker.&nbsp; Also, if the party spends time with a local native (preferably a smart one) they can also teach him their own tongue.&nbsp; This helps greatly to speed up gameplay, and allows all simple communication while slowing down gameplay whenever cryptic writings, or long documents are encountered by the party.&nbsp;In some cases the locals might not be enough to understand ancient writings, and a local scholar will have to be found.&nbsp; This is as it should be IMO.&nbsp; &nbsp;Whatever system you use, try not to let the game bog down over a single translation.&nbsp; If your players are having too difficult a time with it, give them a translator who has an interest in helping the party succeed.&nbsp; Or if you want to have some real fun, ask your players to roleplay their in-character speech to the DM without using any English.&nbsp; I'm sure there are a lot of things the players can communicate even without understanding the local language.&nbsp; <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

[QUOTE="Painfully, post: 1191693, member: 601"] I eliminated the spells Comprehend Languages, and Tongues in one of my campaigns, and forced wizards to take a higher age category to represent their many years of study. My reasoning was that the study and practice of languages was necessary in order to understand the secrets of magic. For the most part, I made common tongue the language of the humans, and the language known to most races that deal with humans in the area where my PCs began their campaign. Eventually, they chose to take a trip to another continent. When they left the only large trade town in the area, they found their Common to be almost non-existent except for the rare traveling merchant. The solution for my PCs was to simply spend a few days trying to learn the language. Based on what they did in town with the locals, each PC becomes competent at communicating their ideas. After a few weeks, I simply let them all communicate as they wish, although complex ideas or plans still require intelligence checks (and a failure can mean SO many interesting things). A few days drinking and trading stories with the locals tends to help ease things along quite well. Note that speech doesn't imply literacy. I use a similar system for writing, but the timescale is much longer. It requres a skill point and a year of study with a native speaker. Also, if the party spends time with a local native (preferably a smart one) they can also teach him their own tongue. This helps greatly to speed up gameplay, and allows all simple communication while slowing down gameplay whenever cryptic writings, or long documents are encountered by the party. In some cases the locals might not be enough to understand ancient writings, and a local scholar will have to be found. This is as it should be IMO. Whatever system you use, try not to let the game bog down over a single translation. If your players are having too difficult a time with it, give them a translator who has an interest in helping the party succeed. Or if you want to have some real fun, ask your players to roleplay their in-character speech to the DM without using any English. I'm sure there are a lot of things the players can communicate even without understanding the local language. :) [/QUOTE]

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