Common: The Language

[LoopyZebra]

So, I was doing some more work on my homebrew, and realized that the language I posted as "Common" (Lurian) is spoken in a far larger area than would be logical. Major trading language or no, there's atleast half of the world that has no good reason to be speaking it on a regular basis. I was considering simply limiting it to the areas it would be logical to have it, instead of it being an "overlanguage", and simply ruling that all PC's speak it, for simplicity's sake.

This brings me to my question(s): How do the fellow posters feel about the language "Common" in general? How do you implement it in your games?

[Khantalas]

I use Common in my homebrew setting, but it's portrayed as too limited to use to have real conversations. There are several regions in the world, each has its own language that can convey more depth. These regions, while suitably large that spending skill points to learn the language isn't a waste, are only a part of the world, so it's likely that two given adventurers in the same party cannot even discuss religion.

I also play Mutants and Masterminds, so there's no Common: you wanna speak with French people, spend skill points to learn French.

[martyboy74]

I use Common in my homebrew setting, but it's portrayed as too limited to use to have real conversations. There are several regions in the world, each has its own language that can convey more depth. These regions, while suitably large that spending skill points to learn the language isn't a waste, are only a part of the world, so it's likely that two given adventurers in the same party cannot even discuss religion.

I also play Mutants and Masterminds, so there's no Common: you wanna speak with French people, spend skill points to learn French.

Unfortunately, in D&D all dead speak the same language. If they really wanted to talk to everyone, they commision a unlimited use item of Speak With Dead, and kill everyone who doesn't speak their language. At some point, they probably wouldn't even need to use it, what with evolution and all.

Yay! Communication!

[Clementx]

Daily language hassles = realistic != fun.

Common simplifies things. Occasionally it is an interesting challenge to have to break out a spell or drag a translator around. Making it a constant issue makes it boring. And no one says they speak it all the time. Elves know it, but they wouldn't use it when they could use Elven. Only humans would use it by default. And few people probably speak it well (if it can even be spoken well). Take English for example- language of the dirt-poor and uneducated on a dreary little syphilitic island. No one considered it of any use or merit until 15th century poets started to compose it it and showed it could be as beautiful as French. It took another 300 years before it became the scientific default.

If you want to downplay the universal translator feeling, make Common like 14th century English- an unsophisticated pidgin to get some things done, but there are better, more useful languages out there. All your technical texts are in Gnomish, all your magical ones in Draconic, all your architectural ones in Dwarven, etc. Would you ever hear the Queen of England speaking Ebonics? So your High King of the Elves understands enough of Common, but would never choose to express himself in it (and would probably not pronounce it properly or have poor structure- of course, to him, it is Common that is all messed up).

[Khantalas]

Oh, I also made Speak with Dead language dependent.

I considered making Speak with Animals language dependent, too, but decided it was a huge stretch.

[martyboy74]

Oh, I also made Speak with Dead language dependent.

I considered making Speak with Animals language dependent, too, but decided it was a huge stretch.

So they carry around rings of Speak With Animals and a Guinea Pig?

[Nerd-o-rama]

I DM in Eberron. Everyone in Khorvaire knows Common, because it was the Galifar Empire's official language. Everyone in Sarlona knows Riedran Common, because it's the Riedran Empire's official language. Xen'drik and Argonessen lack common languages, so Drow always speak Drow, Giants always speak Giant, Dragons speak Draconic, Seren Barbarians speak a sort of pidgin Draconic, etc.

[I_Got_This_Name]

In world-building, I generally make substitute in a national language of where-ever the PCs are adventuring for Common, or make Common a parallel for Latin in medieval Europe; the educated and travellers speak it, but the peasants speak something else. A third possibility is making there be a current dominant empire, and their language becomes Common.

Yet another is to give one area a disproportionate number of high-level mages (either at the moment or in the past), and Common is their language; it's a trade language because those mages have already been everywhere. The way I have this set up, though, was that the mages mostly came from one place, but were forced to flee to another, and settled much more densely than they were back home; they reached a critical mass of mages and started pulling more in from all over the world; Common is a pidgin used by those mages when out of Tongues spells, and by their non-magical assistants.

With established worlds, though, I use their languages.

[Turcano]

It really depends on the geographic, political, and economic makeup of the given campaign setting. If your campaigns take place on a supercontinent that is highly connected by trade that is relatively unimpeded by political or other boundaries, you can justify having a single trade language. On the other hand, a more fragmented world population would have more regional trade languages, but you'd have to have really insular societies to have no such language available. If you want, you could divide your world into, say, three regions, give each of them a different "Common," and call it a day.

[Orzel]

I always viewed Common as the Adventurer's Language. It exists to aid different races in allied combat and actions. Only military, trading, and adventure based areas speak Comon commonly. This doesn't affect PCs much but outside off the smash, buy, and sneak areas it has little use since it spoken poorly by everyone..

[Tallis]

In my world common is a trade language used on 2 continents which are relatively close to each other. Most peasants and lower class people do not speak it, using regional languages instead. People on other continents are also unlikely to speak it as they are farther away and don't have much contact with the 2 main continents.

[adanedhel9]

Daily language hassles = realistic != fun.

QFT.

The very first game I ever DM'ed, I said flat out that there was no Common. Then, once the game started, I realized that none of the three 1st-level characters could speak to each other. I ended up just hand-waving the language issue away almost entirely.

I'm still enamored with the idea of removing Common from my games, but I have yet to find a way to make it feasible to do so. Probably the best way that I've come up with would be to 'zoom' the campaign in, so that events are happening on a very local scale. However, I'm very much of a 'tour guide' DM: I want my players to see my campaign world, not spend their whole adventuring lives in one little corner.

[Dhavaer]

I'd use it in D&D because it simplifies things. In Urban Arcana, however, the Gift of Lethe replaces Common with the major language spoken in the area.

[Krellen]

Actually, since D&D society is more like modern society than medieval society - magic takes the place of technology, and things like transportation and communication are (or at least can be) close to instantaneous, as they are in the modern world - Common has never seemed much out of place to me. It serves the same role in most D&D worlds as English does in ours. Sure, not everyone speaks it - but a large enough portion do that you can generally get by with it.

Of course, if your campaign world has significantly less magic than "standard" D&D, the comparison is no longer so valid.

[JadedDM]

In my world, I got rid of Common. Instead, each nation has its own language that is primarily spoken. So, in essence, I didn't get rid of Common so much as break it up into five pieces. This was a nice little half-way point, I felt, between having people on different continents and little contact with each other speaking the same language and peppering the land with 100s of regional dialects.

[Orzel]

I remember 1 DM made ranks for lanquages to determeine fluency. You could know none of a language, a couple of words (1), a little(2), be fluent (3), or have a large vocabulary in the langauge (4). He made each PC be at least at rank 1 for Common which was enough to comunicate in battle and at trading towns but you sound like a new immigrant.

Rank 1 Common speakers call wizards "sparky hands". "Arrow the sparky hands nao.". We had to make Miscommunication checks all the time.

[ocato]

Well, if you're pretty keen on making your world a deep, real place, you could/should plot larger areas that are cultural zones that are somewhat different than political boundries. Think of Europe as an example. Sure, most of the German speaking people live in Germany, but some of the outlaying areas, Belgium, the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia (not anymore, most of the germans and german culture/language were forced out in 1946, but that's neither here nor there) and so forth exist outside the political boundries of the country. If you step into France, people will speak at least some German, I'm sure. Now, I am all for a trade language, much like the phoenician language koine back in the greeks and geeks period, but it should probably be limited to trade cities and major capitals. Johnny Peasant and his family of dirt farmers won't speak your trade languages, but they might speak some dwarvish if the dwarven kingdom is only four or five clicks up the road. Since humans are so diverse in relation to elves, dwarves, etc, I tend to make up common variants. So the people of the kingdom of Dude speak Common (Dudish) and the people of the kingdom of Guy speak Common (Guyanese). If Dude and Guy are next door neighbors, the people on the border with Dude can probably speak at least some Dudish as well as Guyanese at no major penalty. They'd use up their skill points or bonus languages, however, if they took the time to learn Brohemian, when Bro is on the other side of the continent.

[TheThan]

I’ve always imagined common to basically be American English. No wait here me out. America is a melting pot of a society. It has influences in virtually every major language, and bits and pieces of different languages still filter into it and become part of the language. With that being said I imagine common to be like this. It probably started with whatever humans are supposed to speak and began integrating words from elvish, dwarvish, gnomeish, orcish, halfingish (?) and so on. So after centuries of usage and exposure to other cultures, it’s no longer a “pure” language it’s a mish mash of different languages smashed together.

I’m using this method in my homebrewed campaign setting. I’m thinking of making my homebrewed gods speak “old common” or some such, just to help emphasize this growing, changing language.

[Sardia]

There's always the possibility Common is simply a primordial "Adamic language" which all creatures who have it as an option speak by default as part of the very nature of how their brains develop. Take a human kid, raise him in a box, and after twenty years he comes out speaking fluent common. Same with the elves or dwarves-- even with no input, poof, common and elven or common and dwarven.

[ajkkjjk52]

There's always the possibility Common is simply a primordial "Adamic language" which all creatures who have it as an option speak by default as part of the very nature of how their brains develop. Take a human kid, raise him in a box, and after twenty years he comes out speaking fluent common. Same with the elves or dwarves-- even with no input, poof, common and elven or common and dwarven.

I feel a great disturbance in the force, as though thousands of cognative psychologists and linguists cried out in unison and were suddenly silenced.

But hey,with magic and gods all that, whatever.

[Assassinfox]

There's always the possibility Common is simply a primordial "Adamic language" which all creatures who have it as an option speak by default as part of the very nature of how their brains develop. Take a human kid, raise him in a box, and after twenty years he comes out speaking fluent common. Same with the elves or dwarves-- even with no input, poof, common and elven or common and dwarven.

Don't forget the old 1E alignment languages!

[Matthew]

I don't use Common in my Homebrew. I do use Common in 3.x prefabricated games. Both work, but I generally prefer the former for lengthy and detailed campaign games.

[Winterking]

In my homebrew, Common is only widespread on one continent, and is basically an evolution/devolution (depending who you ask) from the ancient/traditional language of a Rome-like human Empire. This empire once covered most of the continent, but inevitably fell. So, the continent's languages are somewhat like this:
Nations A, B, C, and D: remnants of the Empire; Common is actually the common tongue, because it is an evolution of the original Imperial language.--Nations A is the Empire's direct successor, and the elites (scholars/nobles/priests/rich) also use a dialect of the original, parent language.
Nation E: outside of the Empire, yet a close neighbor which adopted most of the Empire's customs, including language. Particularly in the cities and medium-to-large towns, a great many people speak Common.
Nation F: Further outside the former Empire, yet founded/populated by refugees from that Empire's collapse. Further, a large portion of society is mercantile, traveling/trading with the above. Common is spoken near-universally in towns and cities, and in many smaller communities as well.
Nations G, H, I: Their language, though it owes much to the pre-Common parent language, is quite different (very like the relationship of French and Latin). In cities, many people speak Common. Elsewhere, it is primarily merchants and specialists; the rest speak their native language.
Other parts of the world: you might find some people who speak Common, particularly those who are merchants or have dealings with merchants--its use as a trading language is akin to that of English today.


Generally, I think the idea of a "Common" language is fairly silly, unless there's a historical reason for it (what I've tried to do in my world); however, if a group of PCs is going to be traveling around the world a lot, having a widespread language keeps the game from being dragged down by language difficulties--it hardly seems fair for only one or two PCs to ever have a chance at communicating with the locals.

[JadedDM]

The concept of Common is stretched even further in Planescape and Spelljammer. Imagine two humans from different worlds who could communicate with each other. Wonky. Or how a Qualinesti, Valley Elf, and Moon Elf could all talk to each other without difficulty because they all 'speak Elvish.'

[LoopyZebra]

Heh. When you said Valley Elf, I thought of Clueless.

"Well, like, you know that Bag of Holding is so five minutes ago."

Well, in case you all are wondering, I decided to go with what I had originally planned. I now have 5 or so 'major' languages, but I'm going to rule that the party has to all share atleast one language, most likely the one dominant in whatever land I set the game in. The earlier "Common" happens to dominate the areas where I tend to run my games, so it works out in the end.

[Sardia]

Don't forget the old 1E alignment languages!

I think all memory of that was immediately and mystically wiped from my mind when I switched to 2nd edition.

[Eikre]

I think we've taken the idea of Classical languages and underlined plenty enough, 'ere. Personally, I have 3 main ones stretched across the known world in my setting that everyone who plans to spend time abroad speaks, within their respective regions. There are also floating languages, deep-root language, the Glossolalia, and slangs, of course, but it's not like the PCs are walking through the entire known world.

However, I also like to use Illumians. They're rare, but they're around, and anyone that knows about Illumians know that their language is part of their essence. If you can speak Illumian- which is difficult to do, unless you happen to actually have the sigils floating around your head- you can basically get anywhere in the world you want to, by finding a local cabal.

[TheThan]

Heh. When you said Valley Elf, I thought of Clueless.

"Well, like, you know that Bag of Holding is so five minutes ago."

I would like totally play one of those. Like totally!

*Pops bubble gum.*

[Jayabalard]

If you're going to have common be that widespread, make it a limited use trading language. A trade pidgin, enough to buy and sell with, maybe even order food with, but not to hold a conversation or discuss anything meaningful in. it doesn't matter how skillful you are with languages, there just aren't enough words to have those sort of conversations in it.

Hard to implement in D&D because pretty much you either know a language at full fluency or you don't know it at all.

Then give a few common languages in smaller geographic areas; some areas might have multiple, especially on the border.

[Edo]

"Common" does not exist. It never did exist, and it never will. I can suspend my disbelief in magic; I can suspend my open questions regarding the economy; I can even suspend my disbelief in the worship of gods without religions.

But I can't suspend my disbelief in politically-neutral languages that are spoken everywhere. The anthropologist in me doesn't buy it.

Now politically-privileged languages that are spoken everywhere, that's another story entirely.