Languages and roleplay. Spell vocal components and sounds.

[Kazy]

How do you manage when you have to use any of the above?

Languages, specially those unknown to anyone in the party, from someone talking to them trying to communicate (Ex: A ... Water elemental taken hostage in Xoriat. Nobody speaks Aquan and i fyou wanted to deal with the kidnappers you'd have to speak whatever the aberrations that kidnapped it speak)

Spell vocal components. Magic words, curses, divine and arcane, item activations, runes, sonic spells. Spells FX.

And last but not least the FX of the regular day, dungeon, creeping sounds, tracking, animals and whatnot. Omnipotent voices and ancient doors warning the adventurers in an old dwarven ruin.

I want a hand with the subject, I've been DM'ing for quite a while and I still struggle with this kind of things; one can never have enough advice.

Aaand first post! :D

[Psyren]

Welcome to the Playground :smallsmile:

Do you just mean "how do you do sound effects at the game table?" If I'm right, most DMs I play with just get a little animated about it, particularly for critical hits or high-damage rolls. "WHOOSH!" goes the fireball while "ZAP!" goes the lightning bolt for instance. Sound effects are typically done orally, since queuing them up in a computer system on the fly is tricky, and even if the DM is prepared ahead of time it can hurt the immersion. ("Oh, so you knew we'd step on that creaky board and alert the golem? Railroad!")

Music though is easy to prepare for since the DM will typically have an idea of what the party will be doing on a given day. Exploring a dank crypt? Queue up something ominous and eerie. Heading to the tavern for clues? Find a rollicking and jovial tune. Battling waves of cultists as their leader summons an archfiend from the depths of the lower planes? Any high-tension boss music from an action game or RPG should work. And so on.

As for languages, you don't need a linguistics degree to pull that off. If someone in the party speaks the language, just talk normally or pass notes to them. If nobody does, make sounds that are similar to how you think the language would sound to an outsider. Aquan would sound burbly or bubbly for instance, while Infernal would sound faux-Latin and ominous, and Orcish/Gnollish would sound raw and gutteral (peppered with barks for the latter.)