Improving Languages
There was a scene in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation that left in indelible mark on my soul. The good guys were FaceTiming with the bad guys and the two were conversing through their universal translators. At one point, the bad guy in charge turns and tells a minion something, in their language; somehow forgetting and ignoring that there is supposed to be a universal translator active during the Zoom call.
Since then, I’ve been annoyed that the common trope of Sci-Fi and Fantasy of everybody speaking English. Or whatever language the film or series was made in. Why the Hell? How the Hell? Easily half of the reason why I love Arrival (2016) is that the film is about a linguist attempting to learn and translate a language. When I run my games, I axe Common as the lazy, generic and deritive garbage that it is.
I do have the party have access to either a lingua franca and/or a common language between them. For example, if the party decided to be a bunch of Halflings within a Dwarven kingdom, then it would make sense that they would use Halfling and Dwarven. I’ve even had interesting encounters when the players are trying to pass information back and forth, so they decided to use a language they happened to share and hoped that the guys they were trying to dupe weren’t fluent.
Kill Common, Not the Rapper
Common kills interesting role play, as languages aren’t a facet of social hurdles. Tales of speaking the language when people assume you don’t are so satisfying to read and here you can give your players the fun of experiencing that. Another interesting application is using a truly foreign language as a form of argot. The players had their characters discuss plans in a common language, such as Elven, and their enemies foiled them when I described the foes as adapting to the shouted commands. The players had, for whatever reason, chosen to make sure they all learned Aquan - I think it was mostly for to make dolphin sounds at each other. I had their opponents intentionally blunder into their plans now, as they had one hell of a cypher, like how the Navajo language was used during World War II as something the Nazis couldn’t decipher.
I don’t fracture racial languages, though I do waffle back and forth on whether Primordial and its four dialects should be considered different languages. Elves speak Elven, Dwarvens speak Dwarven, et cetera. It is only Humans and an attempt to create the Tower of Babel to make the superior language that their work was struck down for their hubris and their ability to understand each other was scattered amongst their peoples.
One of the side effects of a West Marches game is the level disparity between players. When I start a session, I determine the difficulty level the party will be facing. I found that the lower level characters tended to just miss when it came to Skill Challenges and the like. I tried to think of a way to make it more likely that they would pass when I was reminded of the trope of how languages can change you. I have a great friend who switches personality when it comes to speaking English or Chinese, as he learned to be one way in English but another way when he was learning Chinese. This can be applied to languages as well, you can even do something interesting with them.
Easy Way to Telegraph Culture
What I did to balance the game back in the favour of the lesser leveled characters was to have languages give bonuses to Skills. A +1 goes a long way when a character is in its infancy, making it more likely they will survive the session and grow into something interesting. Here is a list of languages are their respective bonuses:
Abyssal. +1 Intimidation
Celestial. +1 Religion
Deep Speech. +1 Perception
Draconic. +1 Arcana
Druidic. +1 Arcana, History and Nature
Dwarven. +1 Tool Usage
Elvish. +1 Performance
Giant. +1 Survival
Gnomic. +1 Investigation
Goblin. +1 Stealth
Halfling. +1 Animal Handling
Infernal. +1 Deception
Orcish. +1 Athletics
Primordial. +1 Nature
Sylvan. +1 Nature
Thieves’ Cant. +1 Deception
Undercommon. +1 Sleight of Hand
With this minute change, not only do I add flavour for picking a particular language but I also indicate what those peoples find important. If you decide to go with a campaign setting that has multiple countries with different languages, you can shorthand indicators by selecting what bonus to give. For example, the Theros campaign setting is based off of Greek mythology and a trope of Greeks are their love for debate in a public forum. I easily gave Theran a +1 Persuasion.
