Rule set Languages

[blackjack50]

So I thought about this today. Not sure if there are any rules out there like this already, but it would make an interesting mix. “Common” is no longer a “common” language. Your party would need to have a language in common, and the DM could help (maybe it is Dwarvish or Elvish). Humans speak “Human.” What this does is it adds an additional difficult in charisma and can really isolate a group in a foreign land. Tell me what you think.

[Greywander]

In my mind, "Common" is actually a lingua franca. There's probably (but not necessarily) one nation that actually speaks it as their native language, but either by conquest or trade, that language has spread to other kingdoms and is used primarily for talking to foreigners. It's kind of like how a lot of Europeans and east Asians speak English (to varying levels of competence), not to talk to their fellow countrymen, but rather when doing business with foreigners, including other non-native English speakers. A Japanese businessman talking to a Korean businessman might very well be speaking English.

I think it's a neat idea to have region-specific languages, rather than racial languages. There is no "human" or "dwarvish" or "elvish" language, but rather different cultures of humans, dwarves, and elves that each have their own languages. But to communicate with each other, they use a lingua franca, Common in this case. But there might also be regions of the world where a different lingua franca is used instead, such as Undercommon being used in the Underdark.

I think it's generally assumed that the PCs are well traveled enough that they've picked up the local lingua franca, which is why they all speak Common. Imagine it being your day job to travel around to various parts of Europe; you're going to learn a language that can at least help you find the local inn and tavern in any country. Now, they could have very broken and mangled Common, and that might be fun to RP, but they've been around the block enough to learn the essentials.

[zarionofarabel]

I have not used the "Common" language in games in a very long time. I prefer languages in my games work like they do in real life and peoples from different areas and cultures have different languages.

[Amechra]

In the last game I ran, I still used Common (since everyone was from a reasonably small region). I used Orcish as the language of the local nobility (for historical reasons), Dwarfish was a dead language (from the long-dead continent spanning empire/subway system that had died centuries earlier), and Celestial as the language of magic. This was mostly just spur of the moment decisions in the first session.

The next time I run a game, I'm kinda planning to go hard with the languages/cultures. Most of my games are improved, so it'll be interesting to see what I can do with a world that I actually prepared ahead of time.

[SiCK_Boy]

Religion is an easy way to justify the existence of a "Common" tongue. Considering most worlds have manifested gods who speak directly to their followers, it is easy to think that a god of knowledge or communication would have imbued his people with knowledge of a common tongue.

Very few fantasy worlds have a single empire who conquered all, or if they did, it is often in the far past. Like, what we call "common" may just be a remnant of the Netherese tongue (to use a Forgotten Realms) analogy adapted in some regional dialects over the ages.